:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 4.22.2005 ::

Thirty-five Years and Still Going Strong or: How to Save the Planet in a Single Day

When I was a little kid, I really wanted to be in the Army. Or be a cop. Or a state trooper, like my step-cousin. So very typical, yet so ironic. Doubly ironic because of their achievability. I could quit my job tomorrow, sign up for whatever training was necessary, and by the end of the year be any one of those three characters. But now I don’t want to be any of those. When I was a little kid, I was so damn pragmatic. Now, if anyone asked me what I want to be when I grow up, I’d tell them: the guy who saves the world.

Nice. Obviously that’s not wisdom I’m gaining as I age.

But in all reality, I know better. I’m not going to save the world. How could I - I’ve though about it for five years now and all I’ve gotten is more confused. Not only am I convinced that everything isn’t black and white, I’m now sure that nothing is either and most of it is all about the same shade of grey. So we’re fucked, right? Yeah, probably.

But that doesn’t change the fact that tomorrow is the often celebrated and always revered Earth Day. And with Earth Day comes that little nagging voice in my head - “Yeah, but what have you accomplished.” Oh, I’ve preached and I’ve bitched and I’ve soapboxed until I’m blue in the face, but in all actuality, what have I accomplished. Truth is: probably not much. That’s where reflection gets you - bummed and feeling slightly foolish. So there you go.

And here I go. Tomorrow’s a new day, could be a pretty significant day, but a new day none-the-less. Tomorrow I will face myself in the mirror and be able to tell myself that from now on I have changed for the better. It will be small and sublte; it probably won’t change the outcome of anyone’s life, nor will it save the world or our society. In fact, except for those of you who I am telling right now, no one will probably be any the wiser.

Except me. I’ll know what I’ve done. And that’s going to be good enough.

Everyday at work I buy my lunch from a local eating establishment. Where I go and what I get vary from day to day based on any number of factors. Most days I grab something to go and eat it back at my desk. And a good 75%+ of those days, my food comes in a styrofome or plastic container of some sort. And on all those days, I throw that container away, as there is no good way to recycle it. Not to mention the two-three nights a week I get takeout for dinner. Suffice to say, I’m not much one for making an easy meal for just myself - if only one serving is going to be made, let someone else do it.

So my soul bears the scars of all these styrofome containers being used once and wasted. And that’s what I’m giving up. I have purchased a tupperware container, roughly the size of your typical 8”x8” takeout carton. From now on, I will take this with me when I get takeout food, and I will ask them to put the food in there for me, thus not wasting a container. At night, I will take it home and wash it - the next day it will be available for use.

This is a minute change. It cost less than five dollars and will likely last as long as I choose to keep eating out. It fits in my bag for easy carrying, it washes clean because it isn’t being cooked in, it never gets used up or thrown out. No, this tupperware container won’t save the world, adn probably neither will I. But it’s something. It’s a step. And if we all take a step, well, that’s a movement.

Wanna dance?

“I don’t feel urgency in explaining, my conscience opaquely clear...”
:: Freddy F. at 12:27 AM [+] ::
:: (11) comments ::

A Shift in Paradigm at 7am CST on a Saturday. or: A Prayer for Raven Jackson

For being a smart kid, it seems like there are some lessons I have not, and will never, learn. Maybe the best way to handle the situation is to figure out what you will never learn and spend the rest of your life playing damage control.

I will never learn the lesson of brevity. When I have something to say, it’s going to take a while. I’ve tried to shorten stories. I usually end up shortening sentences and then just using more of them. Here’s a hint: I think I have a lot to say today - you might want to pace yourself. Read for a while, then take a break, grab a snack or a soda, maybe check some emails or do some work, then come back and read some more. Don’t be intimidated by the volumes of text - maybe copy it into some sort of word processing program and print it out. Then you can take it to your couch or your favorite coffee shop and read it while you enjoy some delightful ambiance and a cinnamon raisin bagel.

I will never learn the lesson of patience. I get my mind wrapped around something and it’s like an addiction, internal, gnawing at my psyche and driving me. Bouts with extremism shadow many periods in my life - impassioned thought compelling me to action based on blind judgment. Repeatedly the end result is self-destruction.

And I wonder: is the best way to keep yourself from destroying the best things you’ve ever had in life, to stop having things? Like when my mom decided it was just a bad idea to have nice dishes because I have a habit of tossing things to myself while I’m walking.

I have, however, learned that when you plant trees, it’s always better to plant an odd number in a massing. Asthetics. And that when you render a plan graphic, always shade to the nature of the sun, not the orientation of the drawing. Also aesthetics. And that Time is only linear because of the laws of Thermodynamics. That one’s physics. He can be taught!

[Metablogging: I hate the fact that whenever I get in the mood to go on hiatus from this creation, I retro-actively leave it with some short stupid and inane ‘final post’ that is so trite and superficial that one can’t help but read it and wonder if this truly is the work of a couple monkeys pounding on a couple keyboards for a couple hours. But to my defense, I have been thinking for the past four weeks that I need something to replace that, something significant, thoughtful, and possibly summarizing everything this blog has stood for for the last three years. I’ve had bus station inspiration end in a blank screen and blank mind at home, and I’ve had hours of pounding the walls, waiting for the inspiration to come, all to no avail. This is a final stab at it: Enough has transpired in the last to weeks to warrant an update; I’m listening to ‘Whatever and Ever, Amen’ (quite possibly the most unbalanced album ever) knowing that ‘Brick’ is going to cut me in two, but I’m anxiously awaiting ‘Selfless, Cold, & Composed’; and for some reasons my dreams are starting to get to me - no longer short clips with people I am familiar with, they have turned into epics with fully recognizable characters and roles to play - for some reason this seems to be an appropriate driving force that something needs to be written. Odds are, this will not be the last post, because I forget how much I enjoy writing when it is flowing, but when the flow ain’t there, it’s torture. You never know.]

You have times in your life when you realize that someone has taught you something. I used to not know how to spell tomorrow. Seriously. (For the record: I still can’t spell restaurant or guarantee without a dictionary). Then one day in seventh grade, Team C, Kiewit Middle School, in Mr. McGuire’s 4th hour Science class, a beautiful young lady taught me how to spell it - Tom, or, row. So I promptly fell in love with her. This relationship of learning a lesson and falling in love would become something of a habit for me in the coming years - so much so, I think I’ve mastered the art of fucking up the lives of people whose intentions are only the purest in helping me.

***

The sun doesn’t rise directly in the east or set directly in the west. You’d think it would be in the southeast/southwest, but it’s really in the northeast/northwest. Also, consider an entire time zone - a thousand miles wide. The sun won’t rise on the whole thing at once - the east side will get sunlight almost an hour earlier than the west. Suffice to say, when you’re used to the west side of the timezone and suddenly you’re sleeping on the east, you’re going to get woken up by the sun a lot earlier, and the sun doesn’t care if it’s Saturday or your day off.

***

I’ve never considered myself a religious person. Even when I went through my ‘Yes, I’m a good Christian’ phase (it lasted about three months, when I was 11), I was mostly just stoked by that shirt that said ‘Jesus knows Life is tough as Nails.’ What can I say: I’m a sucker for a good catch phrase. I’m not religious, but I think I have (and do) put a good bit of thought into it. I’m comfortable with my relationship with a higher being(s). I see glory and wonder all around me and cannot imagine how other people don’t. I wonder how people can believe in a God whose glory surpasses all, whose benevolence encompasses everything, whose power heeds no bounds... I wonder how those people can start wars, can hate, and burn, and devastate. And I wonder how can things ever change. Is this truly the ideal of human nature? Did we ever really leave the state of nature - or did we just made life nasty, brutish, and a bit longer? Civilization is nothing more than a means of creating bigger, fatter, and crueler means of killing more people from further away.

***

In all reality, the energy sources we are dependent upon as a global society are not sustainable. I don’t care if you think they will last fifty more years or seventy-five or a hundred or whatever, eventually it will run out. Avoiding Kyoto now for economic reasons will likely seal the United States’ fate as a second-rate nation in technological innovation in the realm of energy production. Even the possible benefits we can gain from re-applying nuclear power lag behind the better half of European nations. And nuclear isn’t much of a solution. Sustainability may be greater than the fossil fuels, but safety (in terms of meltdown and enriched uranium regulation) is certainly lacking, and the amount of waste (uber-dangerous, not-going-anywhere waste) is monumental. In addition, there will be no avoiding NIMBY-mentality when it comes time to construct plants and dispose of wastes, and the centralized control structure that leads to stagnation and price-gouging by major utility suppliers remains unchanged. It stands to reason that evolving our society and culture around wind and solar power will lead to sustainable usage, diminished environmental impacts, and greater local control over utility prices and outputs. Nuclear may be an adequate compromise (replete with enormous risks if the regulations are not heeded), but it will be a costly and lumbering fix, like replacing your Commodore with a IIGS.

***

When I was a junior in high school, two friends taught me a lesson. I have to say two, because I can’t remember which instigated it - I think one said something to me about a movie and the other gave me the book to read. [And I wonder if those two friends would be pissed if I give them shared credit, knowing that I loved each of them thoroughly, devotedly, and independently]. When I met these friends I was so angry - I was so anti-everything, it’s amazing I bothered to show up for classes. I fought cliques, rules, regulations, laws, standards, castes, and everyone who I thought swallowed it all. I was stupid, arrogant, and naive. To some degree maybe we all were, but I probably was more than my fair share of being an asshole.

A Prayer for Owen Meany made me a fatalist. I became convinced not only of my own significance in the greater scheme of things, but also that I could accept who I was for what I was. No, I didn’t think like everyone else. Why not? I don’t know, but there’s a reason - just because I’m not big enough to see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there. No, things were never going to work out with my first heartbreak. Why not? Well, probably for a lot of reasons, but that was just the way it was. Nothing personal buddy, just two puzzle pieces that weren’t meant to be adjacent. And there’s a reason you weren’t supposed to switch to going to school in Lincoln. No, you’re never going to get those four years of your life back, spent in reckless pursuit of a girl that could never see you for who you were (are). Were they wasted years? Absolutely not. To give credit where credit is due, both of my friends gave me the gift of Owen Meany, but it was the one who was afraid to be on State Street in the dark who taught me that I could live my life without regrets or embarrassment. So of course I fell in love.

***

There is a certain morbid streak that must run through every fatalist, especially those who tend toward Unitarianism/Atheism. It’s kind of a prerequisite - like being a socialist and being having compassion for your fellow man - if you’re lacking one trait, it’s doubtful you could have the other. To put myself in the company of great men, I’d say I share this trait with Kurt Vonnegut and Johnny Cash. But in all actuality I put myself in the company of a great many realists - I can recognize idealism, but instead of seeing a sweeping change tear through the society like a reform-minded tornado, I see ideas gradually replace other ideas as time painstakingly marches forward. I see an era of reformation that began with 94 Theses being nailed to an oak door, being about halfway over in the present time. I also see scientific revolutions being cut short by the waning attentions of “revolutionaries” less interested in results than in being known as revolutionaries. Thus, I’ve accepted the fact that I will not likely be known as a revolutionary, but would like to think that at the end of my days, I’ll be able to look back and say, ‘Yes, I did not make things worse than I found them.’

***

Sometimes when you’re a realist, it’s like watching the whole world in shades of gray. Or to make the metaphor more philosophical and less cinematic, it’s like you’re in the cave and watching the whole world as the shadows on the cave wall. A year and a half ago I was dealing with some pretty serious depression. Of course, I didn’t call it depression, I called it realism. I didn’t know... anything. Everything I had hoped and believed in and knew, changed. Suddenly left in the dark, my life became a study in minimalism. I was in the cave. Everything appeared two dimensional to me. It was a good feeling to be so planar - I grasped everything. I saw edges and definition on every issue. It was all clear. It was like being solid again.

Being complacent is a very dangerous situation. Someone once told me [in response to the idea of being green behind the ears]: “Think like a plant: if you’re not green, you’re dying.” A phrase like that can strike you deep, especially in my line of work. And it’s a good mantra - to have something that simple and powerful to live by. It’s like you have a reason to keep moving. Eighteen months ago, I didn’t really have a mantra. I wasn’t really green anymore. I had come to accept my lot, with where I was, what I had done, where I was going. And I never knew how bad it was until I met this muse. I met her when she stole my money and told me to buy her a drink. We lost a game of pool and I’d never seen anyone so happy. In the next month I became energetic, inspired, and most of all, alive. It was she who inspired me to take on the greatest model I ever built, quite possibly the greatest (and most successful) two week undertaking in my entire life. It was she who drove me, she who kept me smiling, she who lectured me at 2 in the morning in a closet on the third floor of Seaton, not about why I could finish it, but about all the reasons I couldn’t. She taught me to be green again, taught me to love the thrill of building something with my hands, or creation.

I here had the opportunity to break what was becoming a dangerous trend. The realist said to walk away. The realist said that I’ve been down this path so many times I own real estate on it, but I couldn’t get the idealism out of my mind. I was captivated and entranced. I had a minute, a second, a blink of an eye to make the decision, and the decision was made before we even ever spoke. Once again, I crashed blindly ahead, and crushed what I most treasured.

***

Planners are a group of people divided between being idealists and being realists. The ones you hear about, the Duanys and the L’Enfantes are the revolutionaries, chock full of half-baked solutions and snake oil. The realists will never be on TV or make circuit speeches promoting their latest books - they tend to stay in their hometowns, study hard at school possibly even teach, work on local planning boards or work with communities that have none, and quietly keep walmart from gulping down communities like a fat kid eats skittles. The realist planners aren’t concerned about current trends, they know that they’ll come to pass. So they make mantras like: ‘You can’t count on people to change - you can count on them to die.’ And they do. So it goes.

***

There’s a certain aspect of my extremism that occasionally demands I clean myself up. [As a footnote: I believe that I’m a fascinating study in irony - I can be at once the most anal-retentive bastard you’ve ever known, and the most sloppily dress bum you’ve ever seen; I extol the virtues of nature, but fear spiders and especially centipedes; At once I want to be the pinnacle of rigid asceticism and the epitome of debauched living.] There is also a reciprocal force that in the past has led me back to chemical supplementation, if not reliance (but never dependency, I promise myself).

Since I do make an honest effort to reform myself and my misguided ways, I will come to clear the slate here and now: Alcohol is primarily consumed in moderation. I can think of three instances in the last year I drank myself sick. This is down 40% from the year prior (five instances), but whole worlds better than when I turned 21 and really hit the bottle hard for a while. I have recurring issues with cigarettes, but haven’t smoked one in the last three weeks. These two will be the hardest challenges in the near future. I haven’t smoked marijuana in more than a month. I haven’t used adderall, ritalin, or amphetamines in over a year and coke even longer than that. I drank my last caffeine four weeks ago. I have started eating better, fixing full dinners and making sure I eat them, making a note to eat both breakfast and lunch everyday. I drink almost no soda and drink water all day at work. I make sure I’m in bed before one and up at six (both will be earlier when the sun starts rising earlier). This is my regimen. I will maintain myself.

***

When I was a little kid we took trips across the western half of the state of Iowa several times each year. My favorite time to go was in the late summer and early fall. See, Iowa’s the corn state, and called such for a very good reason. And when you’re flying by on the highway, past the cornfields with their rows and rows of corn stalks, about half the time, the rows run perpendicular to the road. If you stare at the field while you are driving by, in rapid succession, each of the spaces between the rows lines up with your eye for just a split second, creating a very animated and fascinating optical illusion. It’s probably nothing too major or earth-shattering for most people... if they notice at all. But if you see me driving across central Iowa and I keep sliding outside my lane, just remember some people are drawn to brightly colored flashing lights, others of us just like corn.

***

Sometimes in life, my brain works like this, too. Sometimes I’m just flying by everything, thinking, and reading, and writing, and smelling the roses, and just doing my best to somehow maximize existence, all the sudden everything just lines up. An instant where you feel like everything is equidistant from you because you are everywhere at once. You love everything, every alcoholic, every leaf, every broken promise, every single friend, classmate, roommate, every time she thought about fucking that guy while you were on a camping trip together, every baby, every homeless guy, every square foot of concrete, of ocean, of savannah, of lunar surface, every murderer and every welfare worker and every little kid who believes in God because he doesn’t want his grandparents to die. You start smiling at everyone because it isn’t even you any more - you’re someplace that won’t ever exist, looking back on things from the eleventh dimension and wondering how everything got so glowy. I feel this and I know that whatever I think at that exact moment will be the truth and will be the right answer and will become part of my soul. I’m a whale, opening up my existence to the ocean of water, straining millions of gallons of being through my neuro-baleen. What I pull from that experience will sustain me. Every row is aligned as I’m speeding by.

Sometimes what I find is that I haven’t pulled anything new from existence at all. Sometimes I find something that’s been stuck in my teeth for a couple of weeks. There’s information, a lesson that flashes in front of my eyes, plain as day and yet forever invisible: you can’t set expectations, you can only set goals - and somehow, right here, right now, in this enlightened state, for the first time, that makes sense. And as I come down I realize that I am going to make the same mistake that I’ve made countless times before. It’s the lesson I’ll never really learn. And I wonder if it’s that big of a deal.

***

I think Adam Smith must have been a fatalist. He was famous for referencing an Invisible Hand that was going to work wonders on the global economic situation. That’s a pretty slick creation for a fatalist - he didn’t even give it a brain or eyes or ears to hear people screaming for justice. It was just a hand that was going to move things where they needed to be, right place, right time. Kroger Parking lot. Last Thursday night. I think some people name this Hand, Karma, but I have no desire for retributive justice, so I think of it as fate.

:

Raven Jackson is 6, she’s in second grade, she likes science and chocolate. Her favorite candy bar is Snickers - mine is Three Musketeers. Raven is standing on the curb and can’t find her mom. I am rushing home because I am dying of the plague and I need to make cookies to take to work on Friday. Raven has been wandering in the parking lot for ten minutes now - I know because I’ve been watching her, waiting for someone to ask her if she has any idea where she’s going. [To maintain my level of honesty and integrity, if someone had asked me where I was going at that moment, my answer probably wouldn’t have been any better than Raven’s.] Raven didn’t know. She thought her mom had probably gone home, but Raven couldn’t get home because she couldn’t cross the street. I took Raven back to Kroger’s. They paged for her mom, but no one came. We looked around the store and didn’t see anyone fitting the bill. They paged again. No response. We got some candy bars - a Snickers and a Three Musketeers. Raven really likes chocolate, so she took the Three Musketeers, that particular bar being composed entirely of chocolate. I ate the second snickers of my life. They still put lots of peanuts in those things: it tasted about as bad as the first. After a few minutes, a guy stocking the shelves said there was someone checking out her groceries who he’d seen with Raven earlier. A quick scan of the checkout lanes yielded no recognition. We returned to the desk as a woman came in the front door carrying a half gallon of milk. She looked at Raven and said “I told you to sit still and not move.” She grabbed Raven’s arm and pulled her over against the wall. “Now stay there” and walked back to the checkout aisles. I asked Raven if that was her mom. She nodded. For the first, and probably last time, I told Raven Jackson goodbye. But who knows: the Hand can be a very fickle friend to believe in. Me, I only have the power to set goals.

Raven is going to have a lot tougher life than I had. It will be a lot easier for her to get angry at things and she’ll probably have more of a right to be mad than I did. I hope that when she’s 17, she isn’t as much of an asshole as I was.

“Have faith that there’s a soul somewhere that’s leading me around. I wonder if she knows which way is down...”
:: Freddy F. at 11:12 PM [+] ::
:: (5) comments ::

Worst Date Movies Ever Or: My Movie List is Trying to Sabotage My Heterosexuality

1. Chuck and Buck
2. My Own Private Idaho
3. Happiness
4. Sleepers
5. American History X

"Happiness I'll find you, I'm looking everyday..."
:: Freddy F. at 10:38 PM [+] ::
:: (7) comments ::

Some Thoughts on Downtown Buffering and Interface Zones. Or: What I Think About in My Free Time.

Incremental Transition

Implies that there is some sort of transect - a progression of density or form as one moves through the urban area.

The buffer can be based on set geographic boundaries - allow streets to divide areas of density / height / form.

The buffer can be based on the proportions of adjacent building properties - at any point within the buffer, density / height / form limits are based on the existing or proposed buildings surrounding the site.

No matter what boundaries are formed - urban core, buffer edges, single family development, etc - there must be ways to shift the boundaries to accommodate growth.


Purpose of the Interface Zone

Provide amenities that would not be found (due to height / density / form restrictions) in the urban core or in residential development.

Provide a transition from one area to another. Avoid uncomfortable and abrupt changes in character and texture of urban space.

Create paths that link spaces of different use. Draw the visitor from one area to the next with a seamless progression of form and use.


Aspects of Interface Zone

Approach - If we regard the downtown area as a destination, then the surrounding area is the approach. Is it a straight shot into downtown? Will the path curve? Can the both destination and path be clearly visible? Just the destination? Just the path? Will there be hidden approaches and path options?

Entrance - If the destination is the downtown area and the buffer zone is the approach, then at some point there will be an entrance. Will it be subtle or pronouncing? Will it mark a departure from the surrounding character or blend seamlessly?

Visual Hierarchy - Architectural dominance, way-finding, increased character of the urban setting, and increase density potential and commercial opportunity.

Transect - How the character of the urban spaces gradually change as one moves closer to the urban core. Every aspect of development has the potential to speak toward the level of urban-ness in a space. The gradual and progressive nature of the transect will allow for seamless development. Characteristics - streetscape, frontage, entry and access, facade, etc.

Open space - as the buffer becomes more urban, the placement and character of green sapce will also change to be more fitting of the urban setting.

Vehicular Circulation - the given character of the urban core is of greater density - more people in less space. Less space means that vehicles become more cumbersome to use and store in this area. The primary circulation routes will progress with the urban transition to become more pedestrian oriented and of a smaller scale. Street width and scale of buildings to street width. A possible ideal use for the interface zone transition is a place to leave the car when entering the downtown and pick it up on the way out - it’s like a coat check for your Volvo.


Key Points

Growth will occur. How can it be handled by the urban core and surrounding buffer area? One of two ways:

1. Establish a geographically set urban core and buffer area. Essentially, the Boulder approach were they have frozen the city limits. Thus, the only way to grow is up. As growth needs to occur, increase maximum building heights / forms / FAR’s / density in each region. With horizontal limits frozen, vertical limits must be allowed to grow.

2. Establish an optimum density / height in the urban core. Allow the core area to spread as growth demands, gradually expanding the urban core area into areas previously reserved for the interface zone. Also allow the interface area to expand outward in order to maintain the buffer between the urban core and areas of less density.

:: Freddy F. at 1:01 AM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Or: Time is Neither Absolute nor Linear. Or: Did I just flip a coin enough times to get the result I wanted?



Fuck.


Ing.


Awesome.

“Sleep on... dream on...”

:: Freddy F. at 11:37 PM [+] ::
:: (2) comments ::

Strangling the American Dream or: Kickin’ Life, Willy Lohman Style

The Man does not owe you a happy life. Nothing guarantees that when it’s all said and done, you won’t look back and think that your whole life was just about as much fun as shoving a swarm of angry bees up your ass. The best we can do is try to guarantee the pursuit of happiness, the opportunity to take chances that may result in feelings of goodness. And as a matter of fact, unless you’re really rich, really crooked, or willing to get your ass cheeks pierced together, that’s not even a guarantee anymore.

I won’t pretend that I’m an advocate for small government. I think laissez faire is about as good a deal as a hearty case of crabs. But there is a libertarian streak in me that is sometimes just screaming to tear loose and exploit all sorts of minorities, dock workers, and screen actors. So I can certainly empathize with those who see all their hard work and meticulous stock profiting being torn asunder by the current state of the American welfare program, especially Social Security. I mean, who is Ken Lay to support hundreds and thousands of retiring workers? What do people like Michael Eisner and Bill Gates owe the thousands of auto workers and average day-laborers who will be retiring in the near future? And Dick Cheney? Kick back to the erstwhile public educator? Fuck that shit, the man’s got bills to pay!

The way I see it, it all boils down like this: We live in a capitalist society. People are going to make money. Some will make a lot (undoubtedly because they are honest, scrupulous, and dedicated); others will make less (also undoubtedly because they are lazy, shiftless, or addicted to heroin and painkillers). There is an extent to which the government ought to regulate business (for general prosperity and to save our beloved airlines), but the government is not there for the protection of business. The government is there to protect people. And in our capitalist society, the people who need protecting are the ones who are in a weakened state, due to disability, age, or whatever. So we begin with this idea that the government isn’t there to be a proactive guidance system for all of society, but rather to act as the safety net under every citizen, ideally able to promise that no matter how bad things get, they will at least have a warm meal and a roof over their head.

So as the Two-Bit-Piece-of-Shit-from-Texas... excuse me... the President, begins his crusade to privatize Social Security and send millions of retirement plans into the grinder of the global stock market, I feel that it is important to remember a few things. First, the idea behind social security is that it acts as a catch-all for those who, for whatever reason, cannot afford a livable income after retirement. Maybe it’s because they didn’t save money, or didn’t have a career with a retirement plan, or maybe they just worked their heart out for forty-five years and someone who needed two more bigger mansions stole their pensions right out from under them. Whatever - I shall not cast the first stone. In any case, some people can’t afford jack shit, and these are the people who need social security the most. Soon, it may be gone.

Secondly, there is nothing stopping anyone from setting up their own investment account. I’ve got one. Hell, I’ve got two, and I don’t make beans compared to some people. Granted, there is an overall lesson of ‘learn to live with less’ that can be applied here, but a promise to ensure the basic needs for millions in their latter (remember when we called them ‘golden’) years ought to take some precedence over a couple percent f my income, especially if it returned that promise to me in my post-seventy years. So thirdly would be the idea that no one trusts the government any further than they can toss it, which rings especially true for people in the Beltway, so everyone was just waiting for this golden rug to get ripped out from under us, so of course no one is willing to put any actual thought into how we can make a socialized system work, rather we’re all to anxious to close down shop as quick as we can just so forty years from now it’s not us that’s left holding the bag.

And finally, the whole thing reeks of partisan rhetoric. Phrases like “seeking to establish a conservative agenda over the next half-century” and “long standing Republican goal to dismantle the vestiges of the New Deal” does not sound like a man or group trying to unite a nation. Nope, not so much. Sound like a lot of Washington ratshit, and of course we’d expect no less. I wish I could say that it’s too radical and won’t pass, but as quick as a man can send soldiers to die, he can forever change the face of nationwide household economics.

Someday we will begin to understand the meaning of the word “society” and understand that it isn’t just about people listed in a phone book, but more about our family, neighbors, and coworkers, without which we would quickly die of homelessness, malnutrition, and absolute and utter loneliness. When we understand how to act ‘humanely’ and not just as humans, then we can finally start bridging these ridiculous gaps that quarter us in a culture of fear and anger.

“Will I do myself proud, or only what’s allowed? What will it be like when I get old...”

:: Freddy F. at 9:59 PM [+] ::
:: (1) comments ::

3M or: How Can I Ease Myself Back Into Writing Without Losing the Audience or Blowing a Gasket?

Since the dawn of the new year my life has been one huge, non-stop thrill ride. I haven’t even had time to sit down and write anything or think of anything or talk to anyone since everything has been happening in a very exciting, crazy, haphazard, fun fashion. Okay, I don’t even feel like I’m writing that with a straight face. I’m lying. I haven’t done much of anything thus far in 2005. For one thing, it has been aces cold outside, like freeze the ears right off my head cold, so that is limiting the amount of time that I’m spending out there. And work isn’t too exciting because I’m just putting together this set of documents for construction, which is a good learning process and hard work, but nothing to write home about. Three times, by three different people, in the past two weeks I have been petitioned for advice on being single and all its glorious benefits. In all these situations I attempted to explain why I found a wonderful amount of peace in my current solitary condition and I think I only ended up sounding a) boring; b) depressing; and c) hopeless. Which is not the case, as I feel none of the three, but how do you explain having crafted a List for the last five years and only now finally having opportunity to start whittling it down? You can’t, it’s personal, so I’ll just tell everyone here how I’m doing, so you can come to peace in your own (solitary or collective) way.

I started Netflix. So my queue of 127 movies shall rapidly diminish at a rate of more than eight movies per month. If I just do eight a month, that’s 96 per year - I figure the list should be pretty pared down by aught-six. So far I’ve seen: The Exorcist, Seven Samurai, North by Northwest, Far From Heaven, XMen 2, and about 85% of American Splendor. [I won’t mention how utterly ironic it is that American Splendor came highly recommended by a certain someone who also touts technology as the solution for all things problematic, yet the reason I don’t know where Joyce went or how Harvey came to have cancer is because the fucking DVD player skipped over all that shit and wouldn’t let me go back and see any of it, thus leaving a huge (critical) gap in the viewing experience.]

I’ve lost touch with my music collection. As I was making mix CD’s this holiday season, I realize there is probably a lot of stuff in there that I haven’t listened to ever (the true problem with pirating music isn’t cheating record industry out of their fatcat checks, it’s the fact that you can have a CD like The Cure’s A Head in the Door for six months without hardly listening to it). So I’ve put a freeze on acquiring music until I get a better feeling for Ottmar Liebert & Luna Negra, and what roll they will be playing in my future music consumption.

I am addicted to magazines. And just like crack cocaine, they are dirt cheap. Eight bucks for a year of Esquire? Sign me up! Architectural Digest for a mere twenty bones? I’m in! And if Metropolis isn’t the most pretentious mainstream design magazine since Adam, I don’t know what is, but I’m sure loving reading it and seeing that pile on my bookshelf grow. Besides, I can only spend so much time reading books before I get tired of that particular topic - magazines are like cartoons to a six-year-old for my literary mind.

And by the way: You can say all you want about Sublime and their post-mortal suckiness, but goddammit, Date Rape is one of the best songs ever.

“Now baby, don’t be sad. In my opinion, you weren’t half bad...”
:: Freddy F. at 10:53 PM [+] ::
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