Hate Mail

I remember when I used to work on Psycho-ward.org that one of my favorite things was getting hate mail from ignorant people. That was always fun.

Well, I finally got my first piece of hate mail for Chalkboard Manifesto:

feck said:

I hate you. so badly

Haha. My goodness, I’m just a random person who puts a comic on the internets. I don’t understand why this person would take the time to hate me. Just ignore the comic, geeze. It’s not like I’m a Head-On commercial during your favorite show.

Note: I have gotten mail from people who were disappointed/angry with me not updating, but that is obviously not hate mail because they like the comic.

Retreat

Over summer, I think I need to spend more time disconnected from the world. I’ll keep the TV and internet off for the most part. I’ll do a lot of thinking. And writing.

Quote of the Day

Cute:

“In like manner we are told, that when [Julius Caesar] was in Spain, he bestowed some leisure hours on reading part of the history of Alexander, and was so much affected with it, that he sat pensive a long time, and at last burst into tears. As his friends were wondering what might be the reason, he said, “Do you think I have not sufficient cause for concern, when Alexander, at my age, reigned over so many conquered countries, and I have not one glorious achievement to boast?” — Plutarch’s Lives

these kids are morons

Sometimes I see things on facebook, especially the political, and I think, “Wow, these kids are morons.” And then I quickly realize that shit, these kids are my age. Hopefully, the moronic ones are limited to the facebook vocal.

Hitchens

The genius contrarian strikes again. Christopher Hitchens with an absolutely brilliant piece on the VTech tragedy.

While I devour many opinion pieces a day (usually in the form of blog entry or op-ed), there is no other author who makes my eyes light up when I see his name next to a piece. I don’t know any other opinion-mongerer who writes with such verve and spirit. He is an excellent, ferocious writer.

I absolutely need to set aside some time to study his writing style.

What We Learned; rambling in the midst of sorrow

Why?

Whenever we stare into an unfathomable abyss, the human mind instantly flicks to speculation. A void is intolerable. In the face of unspeakable tragedy, we try to impose reason.

Inevitably, we fail. Some problems are intractable not only because of human nature, but because of the way the world is.

Every time you step outside your home, you put your life at risk. In fact, even if you don’t leave the house, there’s still risk. It’s inevitable.

I remember many, many months ago, in the Bay Area, an unstable man used his car as a weapon, going on a rampage to run over people.

Why? I just can’t fathom how anyone could do this.

What we’ve learned is nothing about gun control or mental illness, or even our own culture.

I’ve read it all and none of it makes sense. They’re trying to impose order when there is none.

Someone will fall between the cracks. Always.

There’s a level of autonomy that all people maintain. You can’t control them. You drive your car as carefully as you can, but odds are, you’ll probably be in at least one accident. We can’t fix everyone; not all killers are psychopaths.

I don’t blame the pundits for their inane ramblings. It’s just human to ask why, and then provide reasons.

But why this happened has nothing to do with the incompetence of anybody or anything, except the killer himself.

People like this exist in the world. It is inevitable. And some of them will be successful in killing other people, even large amounts of others. It is inevitable. We can’t control everyone at all times. Someone will fall between the cracks. Always. No matter what you do, certain human minds will find creative ways to kill others. Bombs. Gas. Guns. Cars. We can’t confiscate everything that will harm people.

Perhaps we could learn something if this were a regular occurence. With repeated experience, we can find patterns and extrapolate. But here, there is no pattern.

If anything, we’ve learned that this is extremely rare. That humans like this are rare people. That the nearly universal response to this tragedy is that it is not only sorrow, but that this is almost unfathomable to most people. We’ve learned that 99.999% of people are not like this.

We always try to draw lessons because we are enraged, but sometimes there are no real lessons to learn. We want to find someone to blame. We want to find something — anything! — that will prevent this tragedy from occurring again. We try to find something that isn’t there.

This is the human condition. There will always be a certain amount of risk inherent in living as a human being among other human beings.

There’s nothing satisfying or comforting about this fact. I’m sorry, but I can’t just sugar coat the truth.

The solace one can find is in the rarety of these people. The solace one can find is the deeper rarety of these events. The solace one can find is that because this is so rare, we need not change our entire ways of life.

What lessons did we learn? Nothing.

At least, in terms of policy, there is nothing to be gleaned.

In this ever increasingly linked world, isolated tragedies become national events. Yet we’ve also reaffirmed the lesson that the interconnected world allows us to share our strength, as well.

So while the pundit-class and the news media are as crass as ever, I find the trade-off worth it, if the victims of a tragedy know that others stand in solidarity with them. Just as I find the trade-offs of the modern world worth it, despite the risks.

We’ll never know why. But at least when we are confronted by the unfathomable void, we stand together in the sorrow and mystery of it all.

What are they teaching us?

What the hell are they teaching us? Apparently, Americans are more educated but getting stupider: (from this article)

The survey found that education was the best predictor of who would do well on the questions. “However,” it said, “despite the fact that education levels have risen dramatically over the past 20 years, public knowledge has not increased accordingly.” About 27 percent of Americans are college graduates.

Look at what people couldn’t answer:

Only 69 percent of people in the latest survey could come up with Dick Cheney when asked to name the vice president; in 1989, 74 percent could name Dan Quayle. Fewer could name the governor of their state (66 percent now compared with 74 percent in 1989) and fewer could name the president of Russia (36 percent now compared with 47 percent before).

And you wonder why so many people don’t even believe in evolution! C’mon, the man shot someone in the face. The least you can do is remember his name.

A Thick Skin

If I really want to go into politics some day, one of the hardest things to do will be to develop a thick skin. I’m just going to have to deal with people who will hate my guts, for no good reason. Or maybe even for good reason. That’s just the nature of the beast. There will be tons of people who know essentially nothing about me, only what they’ve heard second-hand from their self-selected filters, but they’ll still find time to hate me. They’ll write nasty things about me and my family. In the public eye, one is subject to intense scrutiny and will be the constant target of satire.

Lincoln was hated so much that the other side went to war when he was elected president. Talk about his bipartisan war-time leadership doesn’t change that.

Thomas Paine, a hero during the Revolution:

“Thomas Paine had passed the legendary limit of life. One by one most of his old friends and acquaintances had deserted him. Maligned on every side, execrated, shunned and abhorred — his virtues denounced as vices — his services forgotten — his character blackened, he preserved the poise and balance of his soul. He was a victim of the people, but his convictions remained unshaken. He was still a soldier in the army of freedom, and still tried to enlighten and civilize those who were impatiently waiting for his death, Even those who loved their enemies hated him, their friend — the friend of the whole world — with all their hearts. On the 8th of June, 1809, death came — Death, almost his only friend. At his funeral no pomp, no pageantry, no civic procession, no military display. In a carriage, a woman and her son who had lived on the bounty of the dead — on horseback, a Quaker, the humanity of whose heart dominated the creed of his head — and, following on foot, two negroes filled with gratitude — constituted the funeral cortege of Thomas Paine.” — Ingersoll (found link via Wikipedia).

… alright, I don’t think I’ll have to worry about being Thomas Paine…

Anyway, I’ll just have to learn to take certain criticisms in stride while also not being completely immune to all criticism.

Also, I fucking hate high-minded, self-righteous opponents. If I can’t disarm them with an initial charm attack, I’ll forceably knock them off that high horse. Okay, or I’ll just take it all in stride.

Perhaps that’s where my absurdist views come in handy. If everything is meaningless, then surely I can realize that little events are essentially meaningless, and I can take them in stride.

All I can do is live my life with as much integrity and civility as possible. In fact, the greatest victory would be for the general opinion of my detractors to be: “I hate him, but I don’t hate him. Do you know what I mean?”

Hm. Race.

Thought: The pivotal divide in race relations is actually not between any races. It’s between young and old people.

I wrote this down just so I can chew on it. I don’t think it’s right, but I do think younger people are much more enlightened about race issues — young people of all races.

We’ll be able to move forward regarding race when a new guard takes over. For now, we’ll have to deal with the essential silence on the question of race because of fear of the stigma of being a racist.

I don’t mean “move forward” in the way that liberals think of “progress,” just that we’ll reach the next stage when we realize that the next stage isn’t the old stage.

Wake Up

How the British prisoners were treated via Washington Post:

The 26-year-old Royal Navy lieutenant said that when the 15 were brought to the Iranian shore, they were subjected to repeated interrogations. “The questions were aggressive and the handling rough, but it was no worse than that,” he said.

But after they were moved to a prison in Tehran the next day, “the atmosphere changed completely,” Carman said.

“We were blindfolded, our hands were bound, we were forced up against a wall,” he said. “Throughout our ordeal we faced constant psychological pressure.”

He said they were later stripped and given pajamas. “The next few nights were spent in stone cells approximately eight feet by six, sleeping on piles of blankets,” he said.

“All of us were kept in isolation,” Carman said. “We were interrogated most nights and presented with two options. If we admitted that we’d strayed, we’d be back on a plane to the U.K. pretty soon. If we didn’t, we faced up to seven years in prison. We all, at one time or another, made a conscious decision to make a controlled release of nonoperational information.”

[…]

Air said in response to a question that the worst moment for the group was probably the incident when they were lined up against a wall at the prison in Tehran. But he said it was not an actual mock execution.

“I think some of us feared the worst when we were in that situation, hearing weapons being cocked and not having any awareness, being blindfolded and our hands bound,” the 25-year-old Royal Marine captain said.

After reading this, I don’t think Iran has really done anything wrong. Let’s take the incident the soldier calls the “worst moment.” They were lined up against the wall, blindfolded, and the Iranians cocked their weapons. But this was only a threat. The Iranians only induced panic — and that’s all it was, there was no actual physical harm done.

Having shown that the worst moment isn’t that bad, it’s easy to debunk the notion that the British soldiers were tortured in any way. The Post notes that they faced “constant psychological pressure.” So the Iranians played some mind games. It’s not like they pulled out anyone’s fingernails.

Even though the handling was rough, I’m pretty sure Iran is still on solid legal ground. They did not engage in outright torture. Coercive interrogation was only used to get information. Torture is a pretty reliable way of getting information, judging from how well the War on Terror is going (no attacks in 5 years). Thus, I think although the British have recanted their stories, they are actually lying now. Their confessions were right and they were illegally in Iranian waters.

Besides, even if they were subjected to worse treatment, it’s not like Iran and Britain were at war. The British were not prisoners of war and hence are not subject to the Geneva Conventions. They were only detainees.

So I really don’t understand why the Washington Post is giving space to quotes from a bunch of dhimmis who simply surrendered. Nothing wrong went on here. And even if they did, the Iranians were justified in using more coercive techniques in order to get the proper information. It just goes to show that you can’t avoid liberal bias.

[Alright, time to shift from satire mode.]

Quote worthy of remembering:

Roper: “So now you’d give the devil the benefit of law?”

More: “Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the devil?”

Roper: “I’d cut down every law in England to do that.”

More: “Oh, and when the last law was down, and the devil turned on you, where would you hide, Roper, all the laws being flat? This country is planted thick with laws from coast to coast, man’s laws not God’s, and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — do you really think that you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?

“Yes, I’d give the devil the benefit of the law, for my own safety’s sake.”

Neoconservatives, the devil has turned on you. Where are you going to hide?

YouTube will transform debates

I just wanted to get this prediction on the table before events happened. We will revisit this after primary debates and the presidential debates.

I predict that YouTube will radically transform the way we view the debates.

I am extremely confident about this.

Note: I plan on utilizing YouTube to its fullest extent when any debates roll around. With any luck, I will be one of the persons helping along that transformational process.

Death to Iran?

Well, at least we don’t do this:

In Iran tens of thousands of football fans reportedly chanted “Death to England” while tourists burnt an effigy of Mr Blair dressed as a pirate.

If I ever were to take up prayer, I would pray for peace more than anything else, but I fear we may be on a collision course, and it is more than just the fevered dreams of the neocons. We must never start a war, but if Ahmedinejad or the mullahs force us into one, we must make it explicit to the Iranian people, from the start, what are goals are. We must not occupy Iran.

If the hammer must fall, we must make sure the American people are united. The only way the American people will be united is if there is proper justification for the war.

If the hammer must fall, the world must be united. We simply cannot risk turning this into a clash of civilizations. We can’t unite the Middle East.

I don’t think war is by any means inevitable, though, and it may require us to swallow some pride to avoid war, but in the long-run, it is not in our interests to go to war. Besides, pride doesn’t win battles.

If indeed certain elements in Iran are hoping to provoke conflict, we must look at what’s in our long-term interest before we take any bait. If these same elements fear diplomatic engagement, then we must continue to pursue diplomatic engagement.

Aggressiveness isn’t the proper response to everything, as anyone with a younger sibling can tell you.

The Awakening

The banality of everyday life is suffocating. Even events of seeming significance shrink into nothing. I’ve been have a lot of trouble caring, lately. My work, the 24-hour news cycle, all the little pictures that facebook’s news-feed serves me, they seem irrelevant. I have bigger things to worry about.

Has corruption entered the American character? I know, I know, Americans have never had pure hearts. What I mean to ask, “Is America on the decline?” Has the war on terror caused us to accept a bunker mentality? America is in the vicelike grip of fear. Our backgrounds have been turned into potential terrorist battlefields. Let me tell you something, the idea of the bureaucratic agency called the Department of Homeland security frightens me. Do we really want the tentacles of the federal government reaching into every crevice of our lives?

Face it, we can’t protect our malls from suicide bombers. And that prospect scares me. What happens to America when they hit the heartland? Will the people clamor for the government to take their civil liberties? The sad thing is that I am certain that this will be the response. I am beleaguered on both sides: The ever-present specter of tyranny is equally as destructive as a terrorist’s bomb.

Something deep within our souls changed that day, when the barbarians sacked Rome. The American Empire suddenly felt vulnerable. Our collective psyche is still wounded. Like fools, we turned to our strong leader George Bush, who turned out to be the biggest fool of them all. His Manichaean paranoia1 is dangerous. Disparate bands of Islamic terrorists and disparate totalitarian Islamist movements have been linked together into the monolith that is Islamo-fascism. We’ve raised our children under the dark cloud of terror. This is all they’ve known. This is almost all I’ve known. I was just aware enough to know that 9/11 changed everything, but I didn’t know anything about that everything that had been changed.

I have glimpses. I remember a time when you felt a slight twinge when the airplane landed and could give your loved ones a hug right before they boarded the airplane. These kids will have grown up in America under siege. As long as they can remember, you’re supposed to submit. You’re supposed to take off your shoes. Your luggage occasionally has a paper in it saying that TSA conducted a search. You’re supposed to smile and thank them for protecting our country. For us, security is a hassle. For them, it’s natural to leave the hair gel at home, or put it in a plastic baggie.

They’re growing up in a world where the phrase “The American Way” is foreign. Truth is trashed for expedience. The institutions of justice are tossed aside for the prerogative of the executive. They may read in the history books about a different America, not hated by the international community, full of dreams and full of the entrepreneurial, the frontier spirit. Alas, they hear, that time is over. We are a different America who faces a different threat, unlike any other.

Not I, you say. But maybe you’re like me, under another level of the cloud cover. Worried about the internal threat, I run the trouble of ignoring the fact that I’ve allowed them to frame the debate. The fear still envelopes me. We need to beyond the fear and quantify the threat in a realistic manner.

I also chastise the scoffers who think there’s no threat at all. I won’t take the time to address them, but I will say that the threat of terror is very real and will continue to remain real no matter what happens in Iraq. The question becomes: How do we address terror without fighting a war on terror? How do we fight without fear? How do we keep ourselves safe without security consuming our lives? How do we undo so many mistakes? How do we reframe the debate?

One answer is that we cling tenaciously to our traditions.2 I mean various things by tradition. Most especially, I’m referring to our institutions of justice and government. If we give those up, then all is for naught. We must also preserve our moral traditions. This has nothing to do with gay marriage. This has everything to do with our belief that every human being has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Of course, this isn’t enough. It’s not enough just to believe that we need traditions. In order to reaffirm tradition, we need to defeat the bunker mentality, the Manichaean mentality. We need to end the war on terror. We need to work with the international community to make terrorism unacceptable and a crime against humanity. We need to work with the international community to create an acceptable mechanism for punishing states that sponsor terror.

Americans need to be prepared for the next attack. We need to not become panicked animals who need to be herded by the government when that next attack hits. The Department of Homeland Security is just a bastion of pork-barrel spending. The real effect of terrorism is psychological. They can do nothing if we dust ourselves off. They can do nothing if every attack is met with swift emergency response. The casualties are reduced and quickly we return to our everyday lives. They can’t break us if we don’t submit.

Yet even all that’s not enough. It’s not a question of what we need to do, but implementation. Brzezinski asks, “Where is the U.S. leader ready to say, ‘Enough of this hysteria, stop this paranoia’? Even in the face of future terrorist attacks, the likelihood of which cannot be denied, let us show some sense. Let us be true to our traditions.” This is why I’m so worried about 2008. I see no one.

This is the problem I struggle with now: How to save America from the decline. I see many things that need to be done, but no will to do them. I can’t do this alone. You can’t do this alone. Unfortunately, I don’t know what can be done as long as our current crop of candidates remains mediocre and politically un-courageous. I thought letting this all out would provide with the clarity to provide solutions, but I see nothing at this point. At least, nothing that will solve everything all at once.

For now, let me be courageous. Let yourselves be courageous. And maybe I can get some other young people to be courageous. Spread the word that the “war on terror” is counterproductive. Tout America’s traditions as the best way to protect the “homeland.” Wherever you see false security, speak up.3 Don’t let anyone get away with anything anymore. Don’t let security be determined by politics. America deserves real solutions, not this madness. Tell all the politicians, when it comes to keeping America safe: No more bullshit.

If they tar you as unpatriotic, shout even louder. They want nothing but theater. We want real security. We want the security of civil liberties. We want the security of emergency response. We want the security of international institutions and international law. We want the security of justice, not some vague forever-war. Most of all, we want the security of not being afraid.

I think that if this happens, if America awakens and demands a return to her traditions, the so-called leaders may finally do something.

This is Phase 1: The Awakening.

1Brzezinski used this phrase when he was being interviewed on the Daily Show.

2I was surprised at Brzezinski’s line at the end of his article, mentioning that we should be true to our traditions. It spoke to me very much. I find it strange that now it is the conservatives who want to throw away tradition.

3This is the difficulty with the bureaucracy. The people no longer control how the nation keeps itself safe. Bureaucrats do. These people think they’re experts, but they’re just fucking things up.

3rd Place in Poker

There was a tournament today at school, and I got 3rd place. I guess there were around 50 people playing at the beginning, but I could be way off because I am horrible at estimating numbers of people (or distances). I didn’t play particularly well, so I’m surprised I got that far. I started at the final table as the short stack, so I guess it’s good, but I did have the chip lead at one point and I just bluffed it all away. I think I just didn’t pick good spots to bluff. I was probably showing too much weakness, and I didn’t particularly sniff weakness in my opponent. The hand where I went out, I think I just decided to go all in without really thinking. In retrospect, I didn’t even know what I thought my opponent had. That’s not a good sign. One other thing is that I’m not that good at estimating how much chips are worth to people. I don’t have a particularly good example off the top of my head from this tournament, but last time I played poker, I put the short stack all in, but I was bluffing. The short stack was pretty much pot-committed, so I think it was bone-headed to put him all in. When I’m real quiet, I think I’m harder to read, but sometimes I like to talk, and then I think I might be giving away too much information, especially perhaps from the way I sit in my chair. I need to more consciously think of my body language, etc, or find a way to make myself more consistent. I think a good thing would be to take a good time to think regardless of how good my hand is, unless I’m going to fold right a way. I should also look at my cards the same way every time. I’m considering just staring down my opponent every time I make an all-in bet. I also might need to mix up my play some more; I feel like I’m really predictable. One last thing: When there are two or three people left in a game, I tend to get careless. It’s good not to be so tense and to relax, but I shouldn’t let that translate into carelessness.

In any case, I got $25 worth of free Chipotle.

Sold

From today’s Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Thompson has also been criticized for failing to back some comprehensive tort reform bills because of his background as a trial lawyer. Here he insists his stance was based on grounds of federalism. “I’m consistent. I address Federalist Society meetings,” he says, noting that more issues should be left to the states. For example, he cast the lonely “nay” in 99-1 votes against a national 0.8% blood alcohol level for drivers, a federal law banning guns in schools, and a measure limiting the tort liability of Good Samaritans. “Washington overreaches, and by doing so ends up not doing well the basics people really care about.” Think Katrina and Walter Reed.

I’m sold. Run, Fred Thompson, run.

Not an Islamofascist

Interesting reading on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Selected quotes:

“In contrast to most of al-Qa’eda’s senior leaders, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed liked to indulge in the sins of the Western civilisation that his movement is devoted to wiping out.”

“Peter Bergen, the author and leading expert on al-Qa’eda, said: ‘I think he really was in it for the fun. To use a horrible metaphor in this context, he was having a blast.'”

For some reason, this reminded me of The Dread Pirate Bin Laden. I momentarily thought of KSM as some sort of swashbuckler.

Captain’s Quarters adds this:

“Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not the only jihadi who indulged the sins of the flesh while on assignment as a terrorist. The 9/11 attackers also enjoyed so-called Western decadence during their short stay in the United States. As the 9/11 Commission report noted in its excellent recounting of the plot, a half-dozen of them made test flights to Las Vegas in the three months preceding the attack — and while in Sin City, they indulged in alcohol, gambling, and strip clubs. KSM apparently lived the dissolute lifestyle as a rule, though, and not an exception.”

Anyway, if this is true, KSM is no Islamofascist, no jihadist — he’s just a plain criminal. But what to make of the 9/11 foot soldiers?

On a semi-related note, here’s my quote of the day for August 28, 2006: “There are criminals and killers — we know the scum who wear the mask of the Jihad and religion… They used to kill people as criminals and now they kill them under the cover of jihad.” — Abdul Qader Mohammed Jasim, the Iraqi minister of defense

I don’t think the actors in 9/11 were mere criminals, but I do think criminals are trying to legitimize themselves with the cover of jihad. I also think that it may be helpful to take control of the narrative and not call the terrorists jihadists, but to call them common criminals. Food for thought, especially for the Manichaeans out there.

A Flashback

There’s no especially good reason for putting this flashback up, but I found it interesting…

Entry from June 8, 2006, A Good Day in Iraq:

The big news today is the death of Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. It’s a good day.

Something that piqued my interest… When Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki announced the death of Zarqawi, the press broke out in applause. Just wondering what the reaction of the American press will be if bin Laden is captured.

Another interesting thing… The Washington Times, in Democrats call Zarqawi killing a stunt, reported this: “‘This is just to cover Bush’s [rear] so he doesn’t have to answer’ for Iraqi civilians being killed by the U.S. military and his own sagging poll numbers, said Rep. Pete Stark, California Democrat. ‘Iraq is still a mess — get out.'”

That’s my Congressman, the one who represents my district. I wish I could get the full text, but if he’s dismissing this as a stunt, that’s disgusting.

Perhaps the bigger news today is the appointment of an interior minister, defense minister, and national security advisor in Iraq. This just might be a turning point in Iraq’s struggle for stability.

On one hand, the digital age has given us collective ADD where no story lasts for any appreciable amount of time. On the other hand, I have this amazing ability to publicly archive my past thoughts and reference them in a simple manner.