jakit

The Kids - This Is Rock 'n' Roll

The older I get, the more I love punk rock.

Go figure.

As an added bonus, since the original movement spawned so many freakin' bands, I'm still constantly discovering new songs. For instance, I'd never heard of The Kids before. Apparently, they came out of Belgium, where they released this brilliant little gem.

	The Kids - This Is Rock 'n Roll .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

That, my friends, is how it's done.

Democracy of Dunces

Actual words spoken by an actual person:

I am convinced that if we do not decisively win the struggle over the nature of America, by the time [my grandchildren are] my age they will be in a secular atheist country, potentially one dominated by radical Islamists and with no understanding of what it once meant to be an American.
- Newt Gingrich

How the hell can there be a secular atheist country dominated by radical Islamists? The very fact that these words can be uttered by a legitimate Presidential candidate shows just how uneducated the American people really are.

Which would be fine, except that we choose our leaders via democracy. Since we don't appear to be on the verge of handing the reigns over to philosopher kings, it appears that we're stuck with this dilemma.

I'm tempted to write a paragraph showing just how nonsensical Gingrich's statement is, but to even address it pulls me unwittingly into the farce. Which I guess I've already done by writing this blog entry.

Damn you, Fox News. Damn you!

Crossing Messages

I just watched a news video of an Occupy protest that took over a Bank of America in San Francisco. Before the video began, I had to watch an ad for Chase bank.

Where the hell are we right now?

Ayn Rand Quote

"When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need permission from men who produce nothing — when you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don't protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that our society is doomed."

 - Ayn Rand

For Which We Stand

Back in 1980, the average ratio in the U.S. between the CEO and the lowest paid worker of a company was 42:1.

By the year 2000, it had become 531:1.

Whoa.

Let me repeat that, so that you don't have to move your eyes up and read it again.

531:1.

Yes.

At 42:1, our ratio was still higher than the 10:1 and 11:1 ratios that currently exist in the wealthy, industrialized nations of Japan and Germany. But, at least, it was within reason. Today, our ratio dwarfs even the second place country on the list; Brazil at 57:1.

It is hard to argue in favor of this type of disparity.

Unless, of course, you think that CEO's in America today are that much more talented than every other CEO, past or present.

They're not, of course. Germany and Japan have corporations that are at least as successful as ours, as should be obvious to anyone who buys cars or televisions.

Or, I suppose, one could argue that America is an example of a free market and that this type of inequality is the reflection of a free market in action. Except, how do we know that? How do we know that Japan and Germany aren't better examples of the natural reactions of a free market and our system is, instead, reflective of a rigged and corrupted system.

Ultimately, though, it doesn't matter.

The goal should not be a free market or an efficient market or anything to do with the market. The goal should be a moral civilization and the market should be simply be a device to obtain that. The enormous gaps between the rich and the poor that we see today are closer to pre-revolutionary France than they are to the ideal of the Republic for which we all stand.

So, the question becomes; how does a person who benefits from such gross inequality (or a person who doesn't yet, but aspires to) argue their case?

Quite simply, they don't.

Instead, they do what all people who have no legitimate argument do; they engage in one of the many logical fallacies. We can see all of this in the attacks against the Occupy Movement.

The corrupt and the corruptible, for instance, use guilt by association. A small minority of protestors behave badly and that is then used to discredit the entire movement.

Or, they use the straw man. They argue against something that is related, like Socialism, but ultimately irrelevant to the discussion.

By far, though, the most common logical fallacy currently being employed is to attack the character of the protestors themsevles. The infamous argumentum ad hominem.

Since the beginning, the occupiers have been labeled by their foes as bums, lazy, anti-American, looking for hand-outs, homeless rubble, trust-fund Marxists, even a "minority" (as if having an unpopular opinion was somehow a negative.)

Even the argument that the occupiers don't have a clear message is an ad hominem attack; an attempt to portray the protestors as an aimless, shiftless group.

The media help make this happen. Being almost entirely owned by large corporations, nearly all news agencies depict the Occupation Movement in a negative light. This is not immediately obvious because they will talk objectively about the protest but then they will always finding the scummiest guy to interview or photograph for the front page of the paper.

In my own experience, as I decided to join the Occupation Movement for the day of the general strike, I got a direct dose of the ad hominem. Initially, I was presented with all the usual negative descriptions of those whom I would dare to join. When I refused to back down, it became my own character that was attacked.

I am certain that this type of dynamic is occurring nationwide. The message is clear to all those who might be on the fence about the movement; if you join their side, we will label you as we label them.

Which gives me even more respect for those camped down at Frank Ogawa Plaza and Liberty Square and Constitution Square. As the weather changes and winter comes, those brave patriots will need to tolerate not only the wet and the cold, but they will also have to endure the verbal attacks of their fellow countrymen.

I hope that, in doing so, they can take strength in the words from a poster that I saw down at the Plaza last Wednesday.

First they ignore you,
then they ridicule you,
then they fight you,
then you win.
 - Mohandas Gandhi

The Sleeping Giant

Message to the powers-that-be:

You do not want to mess with Oakland.

I don't mean this in the gangster-rap, we're hard, hyphy kind of way. I simply mean that you better take us seriously.

No one criticizes Oakland more than me. We're a city that constantly under-achieves. Any chance we get, we shoot ourselves in the foot. It's always about potential, never achievement.

Nevertheless, there is still an enormous amount of potential here. Potential to rebel.

Oakland is the home of the Black Panthers. This is the town where the Hells Angels became the famous outlaw biker gang. The Raiders are the bad-boys of professional football, constantly penalized by the NFL but refusing to change their ways.

Our neighbor, Berkeley, is where the freedom of speech movement began. We basically create only three styles of music; punk, metal and hardcore rap. We invented a new language based upon slang.

Clint Eastwood is one of our native sons. Our favorite athlete is famous for stealing things.

Basically, we love rebels.

What this all means is that every kid raised in Oakland is taught from a very early age to challenge authority. This attitude pervades every aspect of our culture. It is in our blood to stand-up and fight the power. It is both a curse and a blessing, but it is there.

Just as Los Angeles is consumed with the entertainment industry, New York is a city where you can go rags-to-riches, Portland thinks green, Boston is Irish, Salt Lake City is Mormon, Philadelphia is rude (c'mon, they booed Santa Claus) and Dallas makes everything bigger, Oakland is a city of rebellion.

If there is any place in America where the occupy protests will transcend to the next level, it is most assuredly the sunny side of the Bay.

Not all Oaklanders will agree with the protestors. But when they see the heavy-hand of the police cracking down, certain genes in their DNA will be activated. They will be called to duty and they will hit the streets.

The sleeping giant will have woken.

Not All of Us Want to Be Rich

I take offense at the barage of insults being hurled in Herman Cain's direction. It's high-time such prejudice was erased from our society. I, for one, would be proud to see the first President to come from the pizza community.

Except that I think Mr. Cain is rather dense.

His statement that the Wall Street protestors should blame themselves if they're not rich is, for lack of a better term, retarded.

First of all, the Occupy Wall Street people aren't protesting because they're not rich. They're protesting because they believe that too many people don't have access to the basic necessities. They blame this on a failure of democracy.

Second, they're not protesting because they want hand-outs. They're protesting because they merely want the opportunity to provide for themselves and, unfortunatley, the Capitalist system isn't the free-market fair-competition that it's advertised as.

Lastly, and most importantly, not everyone even wants to be rich.

Many people find that the excess labor required in pursuing extreme wealth is not worth the sacrifice in lifestyle, such as the loss of time spent with family or friends.

Beware the barrenness of a busy life.
- Socrates

Other people might choose not to go for the big money because they feel that most of the work that brings one riches, such as working on Wall Street, is not the type of work that contributes beneficially to society. They would rather do something more righteous, but less profitable, like teaching or nursing.

A generous heart, kind speech, and a life of service and compassion are the things which renew humanity.
 - Gautama Siddharta (the Buddha)

Still, other folks might feel that being rich is inherently immoral, no matter how one comes about their wealth. They feel that to have too much while others have too little is morally wrong. These people believe that we should all live simply so that others may simply live.

What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul.
 - Jesus Christ

Unfortunately, when a rich person assumes that everyone else wants to be wealthy like them, they see themselves as the winners of a universal competition. This justifies, in their eyes, both their monopolizing of common resources and their undue political influence.

Again, however, this is all predicated on the incorrect assumption that everyone wants to be rich.

Considering that the people who wilfully choose to reject conspicuous consumption also, by definition, are the ones most likely to exhibit the four Cardinal Virtues, such as temperance and justice, it is sad that they are not also the ones who preside over our society.

Instead, our political leaders are those who believe, like Herman Cain, that great wealth makes great people.

We Are the Other 53%

What was it that triggered the Wall Street Protests?

Was it the bailout of the banks?

Many people point to that event as the one grievance that all the protestors share, but I don't think it is what actually sent folks out into the streets. After all, the bailout happened over three years ago. Why would it take so long?

I believe that, instead, the actual trigger of the protests was the failure of the Obama presidency.

Obama was elected with a clear mandate. He achieved a landslide victory and the people who voted for him expected him to do certain things. Among these were:

• End the Iraq War
• Close Guantanamo
• Use government money to build a new infrastructure
• Create universal healthcare
• Regulate the power of Wall Street

He advocated each one of these ideas in his election campaign. It could not be clearer that this is what the public wanted when they elected him.

Yet, when he attempted, for instance, to create a universal health care system, there was an enormous uproar. Certain loud voices argued that universal health care was not what the public wanted and that Obama, therefore, was going against democracy.

These voices didn't just come from the 1%. They were only able to gain influence with support from the masses. In the end, these voices, however irrational, won out. For whatever reason, Obama caved-in to them.

Now the public feels that the democratic system has failed. They elected a President to do specific things and he has not done them.

When democracy fails, people take to the streets. Nearly hopeless, they feel that protesting is the only way that their voices can be heard.

A riot is the language of the unheard.
 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Wall Street protestors do not represent the 99%, as they so often claim, because many of the 99% are willing to support the corporate and financial interests that have gained an unfair influence over our government. It is better to see the protestors as representing the 53%.

That's the percentage of people who voted for Obama.

Handwork

Something that most of us are missing in our modern existence:

A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his mind is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands and his brain and his heart is an artist.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

#occupygolfcourses

One complaint that I often hear about the Wall Street protestors is that they don’t have a specific message; there is no unifying theme or demand.

The theme, though, is right there in the name; occupy. They're occupying space.

Specifically, the space that they're occupying is an urban park in downtown Manhattan. The point is that it's space that does not belong to them but, they feel, it should belong to them. The space is metaphorical, of course. They don't really feel that this ugly park should be theirs. They feel that Wall Street, or, more importantly, the power that Wall Street possesses, should be theirs. Should be ours.

Which is absolutely true. We're a democracy, after all.

Contrary to the way the occupation is portrayed by the corporate media, this is not an attempt at Socialism or Communism or Marxism. This is an attempt to end corruption. The inevitable corruption that happens when too much power is concentrated in the hands of too few people.

Power, however, is inexorably attached to wealth. He who has the wealth has the power. So, in order to fix the problem, there will need to be a solution that keeps too much wealth from accruing in the hands of too few people.

Those that will argue against such measures will insist that the people who have wealth have gained it through their own hard work, creativity and contribution to society.

If only.

That someone should reap the rewards of their labor is a moral truism. But those rewards should be limited to the actual output of their labor or, at least, an equitable trade. Where things go awry is when one acquires not the products of labor, but the means to produce the labor in the first place.

Let's remember just exactly what wealth consists of. It is not merely the money that businessmen gain from their work. According to Wikipedia, wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. Since material possessions must be made out of natural resources, it is safe to say that all wealth comes from resources and resources are finite.

So, he who controls the resources controls the wealth and, therefore, holds the power.

You see, my friends, you begin to ask the questions, 'Who owns the oil?' You begin to ask the question, 'Who owns the iron ore?' You begin to ask the question, 'Why is it that people have to pay water bills in a world that is two-thirds water?
 - Martin Luther King, Jr.

The land is here for everyone. Not for everyone to share, like a national park, but for everyone to use; to own a piece of. Yet very few people today actually own the land that they live on.

Therefore, it is time that the people started taking back their common property. It is time that the people started taking back the nation's natural resources.

To occupy an ugly urban park, though symbolically strong, is weak in practical terms. The best move would be to occupy usable land. And the best usable land to occupy first are the golf courses.

It would be both symbolic and practical.

The protestors who occupy these golf courses should not simply sit around and bang drums on the fairway, they should actually use the land. Bring some sheep and cows and graze them. Grow some vegetables. Plant a fruit tree.

There seem to be but three ways for a nation to acquire wealth. The first is by war... This is robbery. The second by commerce, which is generally cheating. The third by agriculture, the only honest way, wherein man receives a real increase of the seed thrown into the ground, in a kind of continual miracle, wrought by the hand of God in his favour, as a reward for his innocent life and his virtuous industry.
 - Benjamin Franklin

These country clubs take up important centrally-located real estate. And for what? So a few rich men can play a game?

When the price of food is on the rise, when it's harder for Americans to feed their families, when the food put out by agribusiness makes people sick, when transportation of the food damages the environment, when people are out of not only work, but meaningful work, then what better use for this land than to allow people to produce their own food.

After all, how can you pull yourself up by your bootstraps if you don't have any boots?

No handouts. No charity. No Socialism.

Just returning to the people their God-given right to take care of themselves.

The Beginning...

Message for Protestors on Wall St.

Spring Priorities

It's Saturday night and I'm sitting in my leather chair with a glass of wine getting prepped for the upcoming Catos Roto League draft.

My laptop is, appropriately, on my lap and my brand new fantasy baseball book is sitting next to me, on the end table. Not a magazine, mind you. A book. A $25 book.

I'm busy entering projections, structuring lists, crafting strategy. That's me being happy.

Then, I spill my wine.

Five seconds later, I'm in the kitchen and I realize that I'm frantically trying to wipe Two-Buck Chuck from the pages of my fantasy baseball book. Never mind the end table, the wood floor, the sisal rug or the leather chair.

When danger struck, I, apparently, attended to what was most important to me.

I can't wait for the draft.

Follow Your Bliss

No one ever said it better than Joseph Campbell:

The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
What you have to do, you do with play.
Life is without meaning. You bring the meaning to it.
The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe it to be.

Being alive is the meaning.

The warrior’s approach is to say “yes” to life: “Yea” to it all.

Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.
When we talk about settling the world’s problems, we’re barking up the wrong tree.
The world is perfect. It’s a mess. It has always been a mess.

We are not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives.
We must be willing to get rid of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

The old skin has to be shed before the new one can come.

If we fix on the old, we get stuck. when we hang onto any form, we are in danger of putrefaction.
Hell is life drying up. The Hoarder, the one in us that wants to keep, to hold on, must be killed.
If we are hanging onto the form now, we’re not going to have the form next.
You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.

Destruction before creation.

Out of perfection nothing can be made. Every process involves breaking something up. The earth must be broken to bring forth new life. If the seed does not die, there is no plant.
Bread results from the death of wheat. Life lives on lives. Our own life lives on the acts of other people.
If you are lifeworthy, you can take it. What we are really living for is the experience of life, both the pain and the pleasure.
The world is a match for us. We are a match for the world. Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging. Negativism to the pain and ferocity of life is negativism to life.

We are not there until we can say “Yea” to it all.

To take a righteous attitude toward anything is to denigrate it. Awe is what moves us forward. As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. don’t bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you. Eternity is a dimension of here and now.

The divine lives within you. Live from your own center.

Your real duty is to go away from the community to find your bliss. The society is the enemy when it imposes its structures on the individual.
On the dragon there are many scales. Every one of them says “Thou Shalt.” Kill the dragon “Thou Shalt.” When one has killed that dragon, one has become The Child.
Breaking out is following your bliss pattern, quitting the old place, starting your hero journey, following your bliss. You throw off yesterday as the snake sheds its skin.

Follow your bliss.

- The Hero’s Journey (On Living in the World) by Joseph Campbell

Triumph (sort-of)

Last February, I decided that the San Francisco Giants had a pretty great chance of winning it all this year.

I figured that their pitching would be so good in 2010 that, if they made the play-offs, they could run away with it. Good pitching, after all, always wins in the post-season.

I predicted that the pitching would be so good, in fact, that the ownership would be forced to take advantage of their golden opportunity and acquire the requisite bats that have been sorely lacking the last few years.

So, when a buddy headed to Vegas, I asked him to place $100 wager on the Giants to win the World Series.

Truth be told, the only reason that I was open to betting on the Giants in the first place was that my own team, the A's, had betrayed me. Ever since the current ownership declared their intent to move the team out of Oakland, I've ceased to be a fan. And, although I didn't become a Giants fan, I no longer had to consider the team acros the Bay as the enemy.

Therefore, I granted myself permission to bet on them.

During the course of the season, although I wasn't paying attention (I was more concerned with my fantasy team,) things unfolded as expected. The pitching was spectacular and the front office brought in some big bats to help the team make the final push to the post-season.

Then, once the play-offs began, I was glued.

From the very beginning of the Divisional Series with Atlanta, I realized that this Giants team was very different than the A's teams from the early 2000's. When the clutch moment was required, the Giants were able to pull it off. Unlike Jeremy Giambi's non-slide, or Miguel Tejada's argument with the umpire halfway to home, or Eric Byrnes ignoring home plate in order to get in a scuffle with the catcher, the Giants made few mistakes.

When the final out came against Texas and the Giants won the World Series, I was hit with a sense of profound elation. I didn't think a moment like this would ever come. During my lifetime, my teams had always come oh-so-close to the finish but they had never actually managed to cross the line.

In my high school years, Bishop O'Dowd lost two state basketball championships by a single point. One loss was a direct result of a bad (and probably corrupt) penalty call.

The A's lost two World Series during their late 80's/early 90's dynasty. They did manage to win one but it didn't really count since we weren't able to celebrate due to the earthquake.

A decade later, the A's, again, had a dominant team and made the playoffs five out of six years. Yet, each time, even though they took commanding leads, they always managed to fall to the lesser talent.

The Raiders in the Super Bowl? Yeesh.

It was all about potential. Never the ultimate achievement. Always the potential. Which just so happens to be an apt, and oft heard, description of Oakland.

I, as a fan, had never gotten to celebrate the big one.

This time, however, I had bet on the City across the Bay. Things were going to be different from now on.

That night, after the victory, my pal Chris Ferreira and I headed to the City to party. I wanted to enjoy this rare moment and to be a part of the celebration. We took BART and Muni out to Church Street where the block had been closed off and we met up with some other friends.

Music was blaring. People were dancing. Beer and champagne were everywhere. The mood was ecstatic. It was fun and festive.

These people had won something. They felt like champions themselves. Their city was the toast of the nation.

And then, as I stood in the middle of the street and watched a procession of drunk revelers climb onto a white van and chant to the crowd, as I watched them dance in their Freak t-shirts and shake their big fake beards and wave their orange and black flags, it struck me...

I hate the Giants.

Even more so, I hate Giants fans.

Who the hell are these people? Where are they from? Are any of them from San Francisco?

Of course not.

They're all from the Mid-West or Spain or wherever the hell people who decide to move to The City come from.

And they don't know anything about baseball. I'm sure of that. They're celebrating their championship but they can't describe a suicide squeeze to save their lives.

A's fans, on the other hand, know their sport and are far more likely to have grown up rooting for the green and gold.

Win or lose, the A's are my team. That's just the way it is. Except that, in this case, it isn't and they're not, because they could leave at any time. So, I guess, I'm ultimately just a guy without a team.

Who's $2500 richer.

Medieval Craft

"Because craftsmen took pleasure in their work, the Middle Ages was a period of greatness in the art of the common people. ... The treasures in our museums now are only the common utensils used in households of that age, when hundreds of medieval churches - each one a masterpiece - were built by unsophisticated peasants."

- William Morris, medievalist and founder of the Arts & Crafts movement.

The End of Civilization Countdown: 100/100

I'm curious as to when, exactly, art lost its primary association with beauty.

Once upon a time, the two words were nearly synonymous. Back in the day, art's main duty was to bring something beautiful into the world. Everything else was secondary. First, and foremost, create beauty.

By that measure, we, as a people, have never really matched the efforts of Michelangelo.

Even so, one might hope that we would still make an attempt. Yet, sometime around the appearance of Duchamp's toilet, artists apparently decided to do otherwise.

This desire to create ugly probably came along with industrialization and our separation from nature and it fits right along with all the other paradoxes of our time.

Still, as much as it might make sense, it's still rather disturbing that we decorate our public spaces with pieces such as this and it makes a strong statement as to the hollowness of our current culture.

Therefore, it is a fitting start to my new countdown series on the imminent collapse of industrial civilization.

• Photo taken from the site of James Howard Kunstler.

The Real Medieval

One of the theories that I've been kicking around my skull for the last decade, or so, is the notion that Medieval Europe may have been a preferable culture to our current Modern one.

I first began considering this idea around the time of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy. It struck me then that most of our fantasy literature happened to take place in that era.

This belief was strengthened further after I had children and I came to realize that, even more so than for adults, the overwhelming preponderance of children's stories, tales, poems and paintings deal exclusively with this time period.

It almost seems as if the Medieval era were a type of lost Golden Age and that we have kept the memory of it alive through our romantic tales of kings and princesses, knights and dragons, castles and magic. A collective unconscious, if you will, that is most clearly expressed in the chosen teachings which we impart to our children.

This belief, however, runs absolutely contrary to conventional wisdom.

The official consensus suggests that the Medieval era- which came after the Classical era and before the Modern one- was a lapsing, of sorts, from the high cultures that bookmarked it. Even the term that is more commonly given to the historical time period- the Middle Ages- is derogatory in that it suggests that the era does not warrant its own definition and should, instead, only be defined based upon its relation to the other two eras.

Which, of course, begs the question as to why our fantasy stories so strikingly diverge from our academic ones. Why would we choose to spend so much of our imaginary time, as well as engulf our children, in a world that we, supposedly, believe to have been an utterly horrible place?

Every once in awhile, a news story will come along to partially illuminate this mystery. A recent report from a British think tank, in particular, I found fascinating:

Health care and a terrifyingly low life expectancy were some of the downsides to 12th century life, but medieval Britons could at least claim to have a "healthy scepticism about money."

The harshness of life in the 1100s was mitigated by endless holidays and parties and a healthy attitude towards work and debt, an audience at the Guardian Hay festival was told.

David Boyle, of the New Economics Foundation think tank, said: "No one wants to live with medieval dental arrangements, or on a diet of mead and wheat husks.

"We do know that the medieval period was full of terrible things like rape, pillage, torture and droit du seigneur. We wouldn't want to live there. But they did have a very healthy scepticism about money and money values."

Asked what the 12th century lifestyle could teach modern Britain, he said: "Debt-free living; a lot of holidays and parties and a lack of work ethic; the idea of a 'just price' for goods; some aspects of the medieval guilds and the importance of craftsmanship; and a more spiritual response to money."

A small farmer in the 1100s would be able to make enough money to live off while taking up to 170 days off a year, but since then work has gradually become more dominant in our lives, he said.

He estimated that a similar person in 1495 would need to work for 15 weeks of the year to earn a sufficient amount to live, while in 1564 the figure was 40 weeks and today most British households need two people on full-time incomes to maintain a home and family.

I am already familiar with the idle Medieval lifestyle, so this was not news to me. What I did find fascinating about this article, however, was the tone with which it was written.

It is curious that the author found himself incapable of mentioning anything positive about the Medieval era without first characterizing it in a negative light. Prior to saying something good, he apparently felt obligated to set up the situation as fundamentally bad.

Furthermore, the negative descriptions that he does give are not particularly convincing. The author informs us, without a hint of irony, that back in the Middle Ages there existed "rape, pillage" and "torture." With apologies to Captain Louis Renault, I am shocked, shocked, to find that torture was going on back then.

How comforting that we live in the 21st Century.

This raping and pillaging information was backed up with counsel about the bad dental hygiene. The author then concludes, almost as if in warning, that no one would actually want to live back then, even as he follows this statement up with an explanation that the average Medieval work week was considerably shorter than it is today.

Hey, if the author values good gums over a leisurely life, more power to him. I, for one, will take the free time. As, I assume, would most people if given the option.

Capitalism, on the other hand, prefers its citizens to have a strong work ethic. As to what they're working for? That's irrelevant. Sell widgets, if you have to. Or guns. It's only the hard work that matters.

Which is what leads me to think that maybe this whole "idle"-thing (along with the even more radical ban on banking) is why there exists such an enormous bias against everything Medieval in our culture today.

I do not suggest, in the slightest, that the author is perpetrating some sort of conspiracy. I do, however, believe that he is unwittingly participating in one.

And whenever I feel that I am being told not to look somewhere- there's nothing to see here people, move along now - I want to know just what the hell is really going on.

At any rate, we're all going to be living a rather medieval lifestyle soon enough, whether we like it or not, so we'd all do well to get familiar with such things.

 

RELEVANT LINKS:

Top Ten Myths About the Middle Ages

Oakland Fails Again

I'm very disappointed with my city.

Oakland, you call that a riot?

That wasn't a riot. That was a tantrum, at best.

C'mon, people, look at what you've been given: a black college student is coming home from a late night job, innocently sitting on BART and studying his textbooks when, all of a sudden, a white cop yanks him off the train and shoots him in cold blood.

And the most you can do is bust open a Foot Locker?

You all must really be Oscar Grant because that dude is dead and that about describes the level of your enthusiasm last night.

Very disappointing.

Back in the day, people would have been out in force. Back in the day, things would have been destroyed. Back in the day, Oaklanders knew how to properly riot.

Today? Not so much.

Living in this city is crappy enough. I already have to pay through the ass just to reside here and all I get in return is the privilege of having my shit ripped off every other week. All I ask for in return is a decent riot to enjoy, now and again.

At least, it was a multi-racial riot, showcasing Oakland's legendary ability to bring together people of all types. In this case, black knuckleheads and the guilty white liberals who enable them (not to mention people who love sneakers!)

Where else but in a city with a population hell-bent on destroying itself could you get a mayor like the one we have. The election of Dellums was classic Oakland. It was a throwback to the Oakland I grew up with.

That riot last night? That was the new Oakland; too punk to build anything up, not punk enough to break anything down.

In other words, boring.

I will give the rioters this, however; they shut the protestors up. That was cool.

Mix-Master

A few years ago my good friend (and Oakland's Best Bartender) decided that he needed to take his career to the next level and, so, Alex Smith left a rather cush bar-manager job at Catos Alehouse in Oakland to begin working for various hipster bars in the City. Besides simply offering a much-needed change of location, these San Francisco gigs also exposed him to the cool new scene of cocktail-mixing; a scene at which he soon found himself to be quite adept.

Alex has been so successful with the mixology, in fact, that he recently won a trip to France based upon one of his original recipes. Now, another creation of his, the Hibiscus Tequila Fizz, is being featured in the current issue of Sunset magazine.

Cato's hasn't been the same since Alex left. Nevertheless, I wish him well in his new endeavours.

Congrats, Alex!

Nanny Company

For all of my adult life I've heard people bemoan the existence of our "nanny state;" a government that treats its citizens much like a child-care worker treats her client's offspring.

For the most part, I tend to agree with this criticism. We, as a free people, should be allowed to fail just as much as we should be allowed to succeed.

But I wonder if the bigger problem (one that the libertarians seem to be blind to) is that we're far more susceptible to regression when it comes to the corporations in our lives than to the government.

After all, we go to work all day for these huge businesses that spend most of their time bossing us around. Then, when we finally come home, exhausted and worn, we simply use the money that we earned to pay another corporation in the hope that they'll entertain our boredom away.

We don't cook at home anymore and, instead, we hand our money over to fast food restaurants which feed us complete crap. As a result, we naturally get sick. Then, paradoxically, we turn around and pay the drug pushers to make us healthy again.

Perhaps worst of all, most of our communication and socializing is now done through corporations like phone companies and social-networking sites.

We can't even hang out on our own anymore.

These giant telecommunications behemoths actually require us to pay a monthly bill. Far better, it seems, to spend our money at the pub where we can, at least, chat in person.

So, as far as I see it, the bigger concern is not that we desire for the public sphere to take care of us; it's that we've secretly become dependent upon the private sphere instead. However, either way, it seems that we should aspire not to be suckled at all.

Children are not self-sufficient; that's why they have nannies. Adults, however, are supposed to be able to look after themselves.

Yet, I don't even really know what that means. It seems like true adults are a thing of the romantic past.

I bought a shirt the other day and, as I was pulling off the tag, I tore a tiny little hole. I had to take the damaged article to a tailor in order to get it fixed.

How pathetic is that?

The fact that I am unable to patch the holes in my own clothing is sad. I need to learn to sew. Since I haven't yet gotten off the ground with my gourmet hot-dog cart, I think I'll put this at the top of my list of new priorities.