My Friends,
I bought a knife. A 9.25" Ka-Bar partly serrated knife to be specific. It replaces the 12" version which I lost when I got robbed last September in Madeira. I waited for it in the mail for about two weeks and needless to say I was so excited when I received it this past Thursday that I had to bring it into work to show my friends on Friday.
So I did a little show & tell on Friday at lunch but instead of going home after work I had plans to go to Toronto and run some errands. After running said errands I ended up hanging out with a friend until past midnight. By the time I got off the bus in Hamilton it was past 1 a.m. and I still had a 15 minute walk home. I thought of my knife in my duffel bag and I wanted to hold it. Now understand this didn't owe to any feelings of insecurity; my neighbourhood is fairly safe and despite the advanced hour, there were still cars on the street and people within 100m of me. Rather, I just wanted to hold my knife. If you've never held a Ka-Bar, its a beautifully crafted knife, with a comfortable grip, an elegant aesthetic and a nice weight and balance.
So I pulled out the knife (in its sheathe) and just kind of held it discreetly so that the intermittently passing vehicles had no cause for alarm. I was wearing a large knee-length coat so I had no problem concealing it in my pocket.
Something funny happened as I walked though; I began to think of instances where I would actually have cause to use the knife in my own defence. These fantasies of repelling an attacker who didn't suspect I was carrying a concealed weapon started playing themselves out in my head and I began to work out how quickly I could shed my bag, unclip my knife and draw it from its sheathe in order to ward off would-be attackers.
Suddenly I became acutely aware of the footsteps around me: there was a girl about 50m back who had gotten off the bus with me and although I had passed and outpaced her, I quickened my pace to put more distance between us. When I turned onto my own street (less lit than the main street I had been on) I nearly panicked when I realized there was a guy walking 20m behind me. My breathing got heavier and I held my knife in my hand ready to pull it out and swing if necessary, all the while watching my shadow on the ground to make sure no other shadows came too close.
As I got to my parking lot I looked behind me again and realized that the guy behind me had turned down a side-street probably a minute earlier and I had been dreading a mere phantom. I felt foolish until I noticed someone walking on the catwalk which runs perpendicular to my sidewalk. I quickened my pace again lest he had malicious intent and didn't relax my heightened state of alertness until I was safely home and my door dead-bolted and chained.
I think the moral of the story is pretty obvious. Almost counter-intuitively, I feel much safer unarmed.
Stay Thirsty,
-Andre Guantanamo
My Friends,
I have a real problem with being overly argumentative. I am in fact horrible at conveying messages to a crowds which are not predisposed to liking what I have to say. This is a real problem for me because I think I have some good shit to say. At the very least I have some less cancerous shit to say than some people I know, all things being relative. The most glaring manifestation of this argumentativeness and poor communication is my tendency to get embroiled in Facebook threads which devolve into flame wars real quick. Its not because I hate the person, or so much that I object so much to their initial comments or posts (well, sometimes its that), but very often its how people rationalize their opinions when challenged (and I use rationalize in the loosest sense possible). I think it bothers me when people don't do thought experiments with their opinions, extrapolating premises out to the nth degree to see if they still hold water, or attempting to rationalize these ideas within a larger global picture. And when you try and have a discussion with someone who is in a box like this, their truncated frames of reference and ideologies invariably lead to misgivings and resentment.
So yeah, this cognitive dissonance is a very real problem for me, someone who operates on the foundational premise that that the more logical argument should prevail. But in a slow, stubborn way I am becoming more and more aware that such arguments shant prevail if one is sufficiently determined not to be swayed
"Traditional sentiment is constantly in conflict with emergent knowledge" -Peter Joseph, "Defining Peace"
I don't want to pull punches because if I can't be brutally honest here then I can't be honest anywhere, so I will say that as of late most of the head-butting I have been doing has been with buddies of mine from the army who post some super-moto, gung-ho shit, jingoistic tripe about Canadian pride, or bellyaching about how veterans don't get enough respect. I can't stand shit like this but then I can't stand a lot of things. Interestingly though I see myself in the position of being able to call them out on their bullshit while being able to take their main bullet out of the chamber with regard to a rebuttal: "Yeah, well why don't you try doing a tour of duty and then come say that."
Lol, been there done that and I'm still calling you out. And just when I think that my street cred might actually mean something to them and that they might take my point of view seriously because I have gone through what they have gone through, they find some other ad hominem attack to go with which invalidates my points of view in their eyes. Its very frustrating, but its a lesson which more or less jives with my view that you should consider the message absent the messenger; frankly I wouldn't want someone to consider my views simply because I have shared a certain struggle with them, or because I have a certain credential in their eyes. This type of selective attention seems to be the primary way in which we go about things today and its effects are mostly negative. Don't get me wrong, credentials have importance in many regards, but they should only serve as the cherry on top of a soundly-reasoned hypothesis-sundae, not the sundae itself.
So anyway, I have as usual gone on a tangent. My intent here is not to do a critique of the way knowledge is done (I find I do that far too often as it is), but to explain the way I am handling the inane bullshit and drivel I frequently encounter on the Facebooks.
But first, a brief outline of the things which either cause me to comment rashly, face-palm hard, or ask myself, "Why am I friends with this person?"
1. Super gung-ho army shit, jingoistic fervor and the aforementioned bellyaching that veterans don't get respect. While I do believe that the state entity is entirely responsible for taking care of any wounded (phsysically or mentally) solider and his family, I am more talking about this idea that John Q. Public doesn't give a fuck about the military. I am not sure where this comes from; maybe some people saw a disenfranchised Lt. Dan in Forrest Gump and feel his pain a little too acutely, but I can say that in 9 years of service I never had anyone say a sideways thing to me. In fact they were all smiles and Hallmark cards, thanking me on the street, telling me how brave I was, etc. I can't speak for other countries but at least here where I'm at, the veteran is more or less revered.
2. People who post the most pathetic and desperate aspects of their daily lives for....I don't know, pity maybe? This shit gets old but there's not really much you can say to someone who is complaining about how sick they are all the time, how exhausted they are, how much their kids cost, how tight money is, etc... These are touchy subjects and unlike people with dumb opinions I don't see any glimmer of hope with regard to helping these people come around. As such, I never really comment on these posts, I just kind of cringe to myself.
3. People who make too much of politics. Perhaps this one baffles me more than it should. After all, I voted in the last federal election. But hey, we all do stupid things when we're young. I get that it takes time for some people to realize that non-participation is the best route to meaningful change, and not established processes like voting, and many others never realize this at all, but knowing this still has not afforded me the patience I should have. When someone posts something about how the Liberals are really shitting the bed and how the Conservatives would handle things better I will typically ask the poster something like "Do you think who's in office really matters?" assuming that like me, they will look back to the chain of contrived causality which leads to a partisan system, various offices and of course the media circus which ostensibly handles things with the highest journalistic integrity (wink wink). But no, they take my question at face value and respond, "Of course it matters...."
4. Championing minority rights, a particular disease's cure or the plight of a small nation by advocating the use of established, in-the-box resolution methods and not considering the root cause which lead to these problems. With regard to minority rights, I think helping the black man is great, but if you try to help the black man by trying to help the black man you're only going to piss off the white man, the brown man and the yellow man. There are no minority problems, there are human problems. We gotta start implementing solutions that help everyone and this might mean trying some new things and abandoning others. This same logic applies to curing diseases. I think a lot of people don't really know how disease and addiction are fomented and thus believe there is a way to handle each related problem on a case by case basis. Or even trying to "help" a country without giving it the means to help itself. All of our solutions are not solutions at all, but ways of stroking ourselves to make us think we aren't part of the problem.
So anyhow, these are just a few of my favourite things. And my master plan to avoid the frustration and rage that comes from being subjected to these inane ramblings every time I log onto the Facebooks?
Unsubscribe. This shouldn't be that revolutionary to me because I have indeed directed friends of mine to unsubscribe from me when they complained of how their own news-feeds were full of updates whatever flame war I was embroiled in. But I can actually feel waves of relief over me when I do this. Its so satisfying to scroll through your news-feed and repeatedly lament the absence of a dislike or downvote button.
To be clear I haven't unfriended these people as in most...all cases I still like them. I just don't wanna hear their stupid, tired, unrationalized bullshit every time I log on.
My Friends,
When last I left you I was relating the events of an altercation I had at Toys R' Us prior to Halloween. Well although I managed to purchase the Batman mask I sought, I left not entirely satisfied with how events went down because I was far too adversarial. I didn't realize how bad I felt however until...
I Went to a Meditation Class
Yes, one class. And I should have done my homework better beforehand because what I thought was going to be a two-hour guided meditation (fun, right?) turned out to be an hour long Buddhist wisdom class, followed by Q&A, followed by a comparatively brief meditation. Now, to clarify, I have nothing against Buddhism per se, but I am suspicious of any -isms in general.* However, I have learned that apprehensions and prejudices should not be allowed to detract from the passage of actual knowledge; you must scrutinize all information without reference to the messenger.
So I listened to the teacher talk and actually asked a question or two, and whether from Buddhist enlightenment or from his years lived on Earth, he showed me some small insight into a problem I face in my own life. It was actually kind of refreshing to talk with someone who thinks about things as much as I do, or at least the same kinds of things I do as much as I do.
Also, I found the guided meditation helpful; while I didn't make very good account of myself on the astral plane due to my earthly, flesh vessel's inability to get comfortable I did pick up a small breathing technique which I have employed since. And of course, I mentioned that the session made me ruminate over my encounter with the Toy R' Us manager the week before. I actually got very upset about it (read: I cried) when I mulled it over in class. This guy was a brother of mine and I wilfully set myself in opposition to him because of my arrogance. In a very real way I had done violence to him and I don't want to do violence to anyone.**
I called him up the next day (he remembered me, surprise surprise) and we talked. I made it clear that my feelings about rules in general notwithstanding, I had been too adversarial and put him in the lamentable position of having to flex nuts (prove his manhood). He appreciated my call and explained that he hadn't been trying to profile me. I listened politely but I wasn't really interested in talking about the profiling aspect because the real issue was the presumption of guilt implied in a "NO BAGS" rule. We made peace and said our good-byes but to be honest there was no resolution for next time I go to Toys R' Us. I guess it will be up to me to achieve mutually desirable outcome.
So Why the Disdain for Rules?
Have you ever wondered why a rule applies to you? I think most have not? Certainly many have questioned the arbitrary natures of the rules, regulations, statutes, and codes, the creation of which seem to be the sole prerogative of so-called "authorities," but I think most are of the mindset that such rules, at least from governmental sources, apply to them, justifiable or not. I have begun to question this mindset and actually study said rules and the flagrant violators of them. This may be old news to some but there is actually a group called Freemen on the Land in Canada (Sovereigns in the US) who reject the authority of the government and subscribe instead to a do-no-harm mindset.
While that brief description certainly colours the groups as out there or crazy, they actually speak a lot sanity: they propose actually reading the acts/codified law-books which we all subscribe to without knowing if they apply to us; a large part of the movement is knowledge of self and realizing that we a divine beings whose freedom can not be taken, but must be handed over willingly (we do this everyday if you think about it); and of course a large part of the movement is responsibility, because our criminal codes are meant for those not responsible enough to comport themselves like adults.
"No" you say? Our codified laws apply to all? Well think about it like this, if you don't work for a corporation, say Pfizer for example, can you be expected to adhere to Pfizer's employee rules & regulations? No, you can't. If you are not the employee or agent of a corporation its rules do not apply to you.
So what if I told you that our government is a corporation?
"Sure" you might say cynically, "Government is just a business. Everyone knows that." But there is a way in which people make these observations absently not actually seeing the truth of their words or the implications. Sure, government is a business but its still a legitimate institution dedicated to the management of the state entity. Well...
Entering "Stephen Harper" in the search field.
The list of businesses by that name. Notice the last one.
Should you ever wish to do business with the Government of Canada corporation, you can order its credit report from D&B to make sure they pay their on time.
I pulled that screencap from Dun & Bradstreet which is a credit database for every registered corporation. It turns out that our legitimate government is provably a business instead of the democratic institution most believe it to be. So at election time we are simply electing a new CEO. Going back to the government's so-called rules or "laws," if you actually look at the 6,000,000+ legislative acts which have been passed in North America, you will notice that they dictate statutes, sections and regulations as opposed to laws proper although there is a persistent tendency to use the blanket term, "law" to describe the rules outlined in such acts. Any so-called law which you at one time or another felt was unjustified because violating it didn't hurt anyone was probably not a law at all, but a codified law or statute, applicable only to persons/corporations. You on the other hand are a human being.
However, another aspect of the movement is taking control of your legal person/government given identity and using it as your tool of commerce by acting as the agent or administrator of the identity assigned to you. Its not YOUR identity after all, its the government's identity (ever notice how any ID card always says that is the property of the issuing body?), which is why they can charge that identity with legal infractions. And as long as you ignorantly agree that you are that identity, they hold you culpable. But if you separate yourself from that identity (and there are ways to do it) and realize that you are not a legal person (and this is where knowledge of self comes in) you begin to realize the presumption of so-called authorities who have the audacity to think they can tell you what to do and that you're guilty.
"Man is free the moment he decides he is" -Unknown
There is a lot more to say about the sovereignty/freeman-on-the-land movement but if you are interested in finding out more the most common starting point seems to be the E-Book, "How I Clobbered Every Bureaucratic Cash-Confiscatory Agency Known To Man" by Mary Elizabeth: Croft but I have found that the youtube videos by Robert: Menard very enlightening. As an added bonus, if you compare his original unedited interview with the CBCto the snippets they used in their heavily biased expose on the freemen movement, you will see that the CBC is not the bastion of credibility and journalistic integrity most Canadians assume it to be.
Note: I have brought this concept up to a cop friend of mine and he responded with insults and denial. Call it a case of seeing what I want no matter what, but I found this hostility very telling.
So Why the Meditation?
So I have been meditating. Its partly because I want to relax. Its partly because I want my self to reach a contemplative state where I can ponder things absent my ego. But mostly it is because UI wan to increase my vibrational frequency to the point where I transcend this dimension.
But srsly though, I am not what you would call a superstitious person and I certainly don't believe in the supernatural, but I do think we must expand our definition of natural to include things which we may not understand or which mainstream science has yet to deal with. After all, if it can happen, its natural. And certain metaphysical ideas which might be popularly viewed as psuedoscience actually have a solid empirical foundation. Of course, due diligence requires that a critical thinker not take solid foundations and make leaps of faith from them. But when a plausible causal chain is shown to exist that can be put to test, any critical thinker has a moral imperative to experiment for themselves. And that's kind of what I'm doing. I find the science behind consciousness, meditation and dimensions very interesting and I think it is an aspect of our existence which has been lost in the daily grind.
I can't really go into the depth I would like to here because RECAP implies brevity, but if you would like to know more check out Spirit Science, the Heart Math Institute and lectures by Dr. Nassim Haramein. For those who don;t know Dr. Haramein he is a bit of a polymath, but he is mostly known for his contributions to physics. His biggest contribution thus far seems to be solving the Grand Unification Equation...
...which was being worked on by this guy before he died.
Well that's all for now. Unfortunately I had to type the last part about meditation again because I deleted it this morning while tired after publishing the post last night. So if you read it last night and are for some reason reading it again, I hope the rewrite retained the original magic of what was lost.
Stay Thirsty,
-Andre Guantanamo
*To reinforce this point, during the Q&A, another student was asking the teacher about clearing your mind of conceptual thought when attempting to meditate. The teacher explained that the so-called "emptying" of your mind was not a sought-after goal of meditation and it was instead it was a prevalent misinterpretation of Buddhist goals which arose from a HERESY in the 1200s or 1300s.
Heresy...
I think that there can be no heresy without an overbearing, dogmatic, institutionalized ideology; the one presupposes the other. Its the universe's way of keeping balance. Maybe I am learning something from Buddhism after all.
**There is a certain amount of violence which we all must inflict to survive in this world. It is often abstracted through monetary exchange and the victims of your violence are often so removed from you that you are unaware you are hurting them. Furthermore, it is not one person's vilence which hurts others or you but an accumulation of the others' violence which hurts everyone else, so in a very real way everyone's culpability is diffused among everyone else. "Don't hate the player, hate the game" is a common defence for such violence and if you think about this defence it implicitly states that we are all chipping off each other in some way. I acknowledge that I am complicit in structural violence and that can not be helped completely because I also must survive, but to whatever extent possible I would like to reduce my participation in explicit physical and verbal violence.
Seriously though, heresy is a problematic word and I am wary of any group who uses it to ostracize others.
My Friends,
It's been a long time and no writing. Well, at least no writing which I have shared with the world. Lots been going on so I'l give you some broad-strokes.
"A Man is Rich in Proportion to the Number of Things he Can Afford to Let Alone" - HDT
I have managed to consolidate all of my worldly possessions into my apartment over the last month; no more shit in my Dad's basement and no more shit in my grandparent's shed. Everything I own is either in my apartment or in my assigned storage unit in my building. Better yet, this mass of shit keeps decreasing by the week. See it always bothered me that I had so much stuff scattered about. Certainly I don't use most of it, but more than that it is burdensome to carry baggage about and it is a burden which I do not like to put on others.
A George Carlin video clip seems almost obligatory in each post now so might as well get it over with right up front.
Well, in the past month I have gotten rid of the metric shitload of clothing and accessories which constituted my army gear (oh yeah, I am getting out of the army - More on that at a later date). On top of that I keep on doing the Kijiji thing and I slowly get rid of stuff that way too. Other than that, anything I can afford to part with for free (books, clothes, etc) leaves my possession at a rate of about a box per week. I can't wait til the day when my modest amount of possessions are simply the things I use on a regular basis with nothing held in reserve so to speak.
Flexing My A-Bone
I started taking improv classes about a month back and frankly I'm not sure why I didn't start sooner. I always loved being in plays in elementary school and I took drama throughout high school. Then after high school I really didn't do anything in that regard, but I always had this idea in my head that I would act again. Alas, it was just a general idea so I never approached it in earnest.
But over the years I have met a few actors and I have always admired their drive to pursue a passion. A little closer to home, my sister, a ham like me, has been taking improv and is starting a Second City course which totally convinced me that I should get my shit together and go do what I feel. I looked for improv classes in Hamilton and found The Staircase. I was amused to realize that it was a building which I had driven by a few years ago and which had piqued my curiosity. I had always meant to inquire as to what went on in there and it is only years later that I serendipitously followed up on that past inclination. A strong argument for intuition indeed.
It has been going well thus far;
Top ... Gun ... Actor!
I go two nights a week and I've met some cool peeps. I even attended the recent Halloween party where there were some seriously wacky costumes. Among the wackiest was my very own...
BANE
I'm not sure at what point it occurred to me that I wanted to be Bane for Halloween but it must have been sometime in the summer because I knew I would have to spend September and October bulking up my upper body to be even reminiscent of the top-heavy brawler. While I certainly didn't expect to get Tom Hardy big,
So I started a regimen of push-ups to supplement my as-of-late chin-up-only routine, and I also activated the Goodlife membership my sister got me for my birthday which helped too. All the while I started putting together the costume. Working in a gas appliance warehouse was very helpful because the gas fittings and thermocouples on-site allowed me to craft a pretty cool mask using a paintball mask as the foundation. That coupled with some gear I picked up from my friends at Hamilton Tactical (Shameless Plug) made for a pretty legit getup:
Given the amount of work I put into the costume and the overall menacing look of it, don't be surprised if I rock it next Halloween. At the very least I'l have to attend FanExpo this summer to floss it.
Squabbles
I got into some altercations last week. Two in two days actually. The first was when a bus driver, who felt that I had recklessly jumped in front of his stopped bus to put my bike on the front rack, tried to lecture me in a condescending way about jumping in front of vehicles. I reacted in a counter-productive way and gave him shit back. Realizing perhaps that he had come at me the wrong way he tried to show me, without lowering his voice, how his condescension had come from a place of concern. It was enough to defuse me. I listened to what he had to say and we actually got to talking about mountain-biking, the army (he was a vet) and the sad state of the world. Given the shitty start of our relationship it actually ended pretty well. I should fight more bus drivers I suppose.
The next day I took off work to get my costume ready for the upcoming Halloween parties that weekend. Going into Toys R' Us, one of the managers jumped on me right away asking me...telling me to take my backpack off. I complied grudgingly and went to the bathroom. On the way I noticed many women with purses and it occurred to me that on top of not liking being told what to do nor being presumed a criminal, I also don't like being profiled. I went back to the counter and explained that I was taking my bag and getting what I needed and that he could assign someone to escort me if he wished. He said I would have to wait a few minutes because he was busy. I said I wouldn't wait and when I proceeded into the store (to purchase a Batman mask btw as an accessory for my costume). He followed and we got into a spat which became, among other things, a discourse about the legitimacy of rules in general, with me quoting Henry David Thoreau much to this manager's lack of interest:
"Any fool can make a rule and any fool will mind it."
I told him that he might as well call the cops and when he left I bought my mask and as I was walking out I saw him on the phone. I asked him if he wanted me to stick around for John Q. Law to show up and he said he just wanted me to leave.
I peaced out, glad I had stood my ground and feeling justified for my disobedience, but still not altogether happy. Somehow I felt I had to rectify the situation and I later did. But alas, I must go to bed now so I will finish up this recap tomorry.
My Friends,
A friend of mine posted this linklast night about a currently unavailable app called Girls Around Me. The writer of the blog/review recounts telling a group of friends about an app which allowed someone to find people with public facebook profiles in a certain geographic radius. These didn't have to be people on a friend's list, but anyone who had logged onto facebook from their iphone, basically allowing the user to see facebook users nearby and view their profiles, though it could be set to locate boys, girls or both. Predictably, the boys of the group thought it was funny while the girl's thought it was invasive and upsetting. The rationale for the female apprehension was that a guy could find a cute girl at a bar, look at her pics to see what kind of drinks she likes, what some of her interests are and where she is at a certain moment so that he could go intercept her and come off as Mr. Right, either through slick conversation of liberally applied "frosty margaritas."
By the article's end, the writer describes how his friends, males included, were all uneasy about the invasiveness of the app, and describes how its main function in his eyes was to hammer home the importance of being aware of your facebook privacy settings, and online privacy in general. I don't take issue with this conclusion, and the company which created the app maintains that people could always have adjusted their privacy settings. Rather what I take issue with is the knee-jerk reaction to this technology because it is misdirected, as I find most indignation typically is.
The girls in the article took issue with Apple and Facebook for allowing this app to be created and sold, and of course with the potential rapists and stalkers who would undoubtedly try and use it to rape and stalk more efficiently. Because if there is anything the ambitious rape/stalker values it is maximizing his preying to prowling ratio.
Possible Tagline: "Girls Around Me: The industry leader in streamlining raping and stalking operations"
...or perhaps...
"Girls Around Me: Rape Solutions for the Modern Predator"
In the case of the FB/Apple rage and the uproar which ultimately caused the app to be shut down: is this really the answer? App censorship? Making something illegal or removing it entirely is not the proper way to deal with a problem but that logic seems to dominate any thinking about problem resolution. If we ban enough potentially offensive (or actually offensive) things, will the ne'er-do-wells among us, constantly biding their time waiting to pounce, finally get the message that we don't appreciate the threat they pose and leave us alone? Of course not. When has a law or a ban or a removal of something ever stopped or curtailed undesired behaviours and interests? But clamoring for new rules is a lot easier than taking time to think critically and address causes I suppose.
With regard to the so-called "stalkers and rapists" whom this app served as an enabler for, I have to ask: has this app really been that much of a boon?, and do they even really exist? Now I don't mean to downplay the problem of rape and obsessive behaviours like stalking, and I am not claiming anything like the stats being overblown because I don't know the stats and frankly even one incident is too many. But still, do these people really exist? I don't question the possibility that given a certain sequence of events, moods, and opportunities that rapes can happen. But when people talk about rapists and other criminals like them, their rhetoric always seems to allude to a shadowy group which is constantly watchful in alleys outside of clubs, waiting for an unescorted girl in a miniskirt and wobbly with booze to swoop in on.
First rule of 'Rape Club'...
Certainly to such a group as this, Girls Around Me would be a boon, revolutionizing the rape game by allowing the predator a menu of sorts, but I question the very existence of this secretive cabal of rapists and stalkers.
Now remember who is saying this: I am someone who has no problem believing that there are certain powers which pull strings behind the curtains and who are the true controllers of the world we think our "democratically elected" leaders run, however I can't co-sign the prospect that there are rapists everywhere among us**, and certainly I can't co-sign the idea that they are legion.
Well, one exception comes to mind...
When I hear criticisms of this technology, I see fear that is not unfounded but misdirected. People are so worried about the implications of technology that they will still use anyway because it is actually amazing and has the potential to be incredibly useful if everyone completely opened their privacy settings. But we can't because we have reason to fear being completely open with strangers: why?
Again we come back to "why," my oft-asked favourite question. Why should we be afraid of other people? Like I said, the fear, though overblown, is not unfounded. Why might someone use this or any technology to hurt us?
To those like me who fear institutions more than their fellow man: why would you be afraid of an organization or government using this or any social media to spy on you or data-mine you? Why would they want to data-mine and spy in the first place?
In my head it is clear that these potential misappropriations of technology in no way reflect poorly on the technology or its creator, but rather on the system which puts us at odds with each other to the point where we would use potentially beneficial creations as weapons. If you think about it, all technologies are neutral, yet they get blamed for misuse and the violence which is integral to the system which applies them.
Think I'm full of shit? Mebbe, but let me quickly demonstrate how any technology can be hijacked for violent purposes:
1. Toothbrush
What's more wholesome and beneficial than a toothbrush? It conjures up images of young children learning hygiene and taking charge of their dental health. But to some, this revolutionary technology has far more sinister applications:
"Late night I hear toothbrushes scrapin' on the floor/
Niggaz gettin' they shanks just in case the war/
pop off!.."
-Snoop Dogg Lion, Murder Was The Case
2. Pencil
Arguably one of the greatest pieces of technology ever created. Allows us to solidify ideas on paper and gives us something to chew on when stumped. But it can be repurposed...
"...My little homey Baby-Boo took a pencil in his neck/
And he probly won't make it to see 22/
I put that on my mama, 'Imma ride for you Baby-Boo'..."
-Snoop Lion, Murder Was The Case
3. Fire
I don't think anyone needs me to post a picture of fire nor tell of how it allowed us to cook food, smelt metal and power early machines. Without saying it is more useful than pencils have been, it has certainly been more fundamental to our early development. However, it too has been repurposed for negative uses:
I suppose we should ban fire now?
4. Rocketry
It can be either this:
Saturn V Rocket, the kind that sent to the astronauts to the moon
Or this:
Trident II Nuclear Missile
Any questions?
***
I hope these examples make it clear that technology is in and of itself benign. Certainly some might be inherently dangerous, such as nuclear technologies, but they are not by themselves malicious or violent. It takes an aberrant and poorly socialized human being (or human species) to look at something and decide, hey instead of using that for the good of all I think I'll use it to kill...
...or rape, as the case may be.
Stay Thirsty,
-Andre Guantanamo
**In a certain manner of speaking, I think there actually are rapists everywhere among us. Perhaps more than even the most paranoid father of virginal young daughters might think. For I think most anyone can rape or commit a violent act given the right (wrong) circumstances. It is folly when people, in shock from stories of a horrible crime, ask, "How could someone do that to another human being?," or even worse when they maintain, "I could never do something like that."
Well, no one is born evil (evil doesn't even exist) or born a rapist, much less conceived that way. So the factors which contributed to their aberrant behaviour must be environmental, which means that anyone can be susceptible to becoming a predator or violent if certain conditions are met. When we are told as kids that we "can be anything," there is actually a lot more truth there than we realize.
There is a saying: "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." That's a bunch of bullshit and we all know it. If that were the case there wouldn't be websites like uglypeople.com and there would be no cosmetic surgery industry. We should stop deluding ourselves with the idea that ugly doesn't exist so that we can address why it does.
My Friends,
I was working at a trade show this past weekend and it proved something to me which I have suspected for a very long time: This life takes its toll in some very unexpected ways.
First, a thought experiment: Imagine someone widely regarded as pretty. Say Brad Pitt:
At his prettiest in Thelma & Louise if you ask me
Now I would argue that Brad Pitt is physically attractive because he has gentle features, all his teeth, a chiselled physique and eyes that twinkle like Paul Newman's when he smiles
No Homo
On top of that I have heard him in interviews and when he is not coming off as lovably, charmingly bewildered, he does seem very coherent and affable. And as if that weren't enough, I'm sure he smells good too. These non-visible cues tend to add to his physical appeal and I would argue that this holds true for all physically attractive people.
However, working at a trade show all weekend I saw lots of people who fell short of the Brad Pitt standard of physical beauty (imagine that!). On the whole it was an average looking bunch, but there were many incredibly ugly, disfigured, wretched people who came by and more often than not their behaviours, whether obnoxious, creepy, inappropriate, spiteful or aggressive, matched their appearance. Now I say this with no malice, for I love my fellow man, but it occurred to me that these folks were living portraits of what this life can do to people.
Science has shown us that from a behavioural perspective, people are shaped by their environments. It has been posited, and I would agree, that behaviours are a reaction or adaptation to one's environment. This is not to say that there is no genetic component, but the genes simply determine a range of possible behaviours while the environment dictates where a person falls in that range. The best analogy I have heard is that human beings are like computers: the genes are the equivalent to hardware and the environment is the programming.
10 years of running a bad program called "Crystal Meth"
I guess I never stopped to think deeply about the ramifications of this principle on physical appearance, but if you think about it, the way someone looks is both a product of their genes and their environment. If they did not have the genes to look at a certain way, lets say morbidly obese, they could not possibly look that way. But just because they have the genes to look a certain way, again morbidly obese, does not mean they are going to look that way if their environment doesn't reinforce that predisposition (i.e. exercise, proper nutrition, etc.). In the above before & after picture, the woman obviously has the genes to look both ways, but her post-meth appearance was by no means pre-determined by genetics. Rather it was a possibility which became reality due to environmental factors.
On a sadder note (yes, sadder than meth addiction), look at this little girl.
Not only is she going to be physically ugly for her whole life (scientifically provable based on the labels pointing out her defects), but she is going to be so very wretchedly so due to environmental factors imposed upon her by the indiscretions of another. For she suffers from Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, meaning her mother drank while pregnant with her.* Often we think of life beginning the moment you are born, but we forget that the newborn has already been developing in its own unique environment for the previous nine months.**
So when I saw so many sloppy, ugly, slouchy, slack-jawed fucks this weekend (again, said with no malice, but ironically love), I couldn't help but wonder how much of their appearance was a direct result of bad programming or environmental factors. And of course, to what extent, if any, are these environmental factors a result of socio-economic status?
Now before you protest what you think I might be getting at here, watch this video:
Now I axe you: do you think the majority of people in that video were from relatively high or relatively low income brackets? I would hazard a guess that they were mostly po-folk from shit-kicker American towns reduced to poverty after the mill/plant/factory closed down.
Now I am not saying that the people I dealt with this weekend were as wretched as the Wal-mart all-stars (thankfully I saw no butt-crack), but many tended toward these appearances (obese, unkempt, misshapen) and behaviours (general apathy toward outward appearance, rolling around on scooters). And while I believe it is wrong to judge someone based on socio-economic standing, the affluent and the downtrodden are by and large very easy to pick out. The wealthier, or at least comfortable have a certain carriage and deportment which is reflected in their attitudes, behaviours and appearances. This is not to say that they always behave better; on the contrary, they can quite often be insufferable assholes and preening douchebags, not to mention misshapen and physically ugly. However, in my experience they tend to carry themselves with a confidence and deportment that poorer types lack. I can only attribute this to some sense of self-worth that they have, although I don't pretend to know where they derive this sense of self-worth from.
On the contrary, more poorer typesin my experience tend to behave more erratically, being often unpredictable and squirrelly, not carrying themselves so much with confidence, but with a mixture anxiety, fear, desperation, or even malicious cockiness. To me, these seem like symptoms of someone with little sense of self-worth.
I'll just leave this here...
I don't pretend to know why their sense of self-worth is so low though.
Of course there are exceptions to these observations, and I find it fascinating and encouraging to see someone of modest means who carries themselves with dignity. Again, I don't pretend to know where their sense of self-worth comes from, but I do know where it doesn't come from: their bank-account, for we already established that this person is not affluent.
To Be Contuvre...
~Random Tangent - Read at Your Own Peril~
To this last point, there is a Spanish word, Hidalgo, which I am rather enchanted by. Its actual historical context doesn't impress me so much, but its literary context, that of a nobleman who has lost all his wealth but still retains the privileges of his class, well I rather like that. For what more important privilege of nobility is there than knowing your worth; knowing that you are better? Not better than other people mind you, but better than the value society places on you based on your material wealth. This is the most important knowledge. A nobleman can be broke, destitute, emaciated and starving but he could still go somewhere and make a demand with the full expectation that it will be fulfilled. He had knowledge of self and that can't be taken away once it is learned. The problem is that many don't ever learn knowledge of self in the first place; they either learn some religious malarky like "original sin" which implies they carry someone else's sin which they must atone for, or they are just subjected to a society which reenforces subordination to legitimized forms of authority no matter what (don't question your parents, always co-operate with police, etc.). This teaches people that they are less than a human being, they are simply subjects in a pecking order. So instead of rooting their self-worth in the very fact that they exist, they tie it to fluid and changeable things like money, the opinions of others, etc... Things, in other words, which can ultimately be lost or taken by others. This process of acquiring financial means, social capital or other fluid things for the sake of moving up in society's pecking order is colloquially called "getting ahead." So many are caught up in this game when they should be trying to figure out how to get free instead.
Contuvre...
When people who root their sense of self-worth in wealth and status which they do not have, I believe they are wont to treat themselves poorly (poor nutrition, deliberately poisoning themselves with alcohol and other drugs, poor posture). They are worthless in their own eyes when compared to others who have done so much better by the standard which they judge themselves by. This contributes to a less physically attractive person both superficially (slouched, vacant look in the eyes, slack-jawed) and in the long-term, as certain prolonged diets, vices and lifestyle choices will have irreversible and detrimental effects on a person's physical beauty (see above photos of crystal-meth addict).
So back to Brad Pitt, just imagine that he hadn't had the particular upbringing he had and he had instead ended up as a lower-class worker or homeless person. He would cease to be the pretty boy we all know and secretly (if you're a dude) have a crush on. He would likely be some long-haired, leathery-faced, fat American chain-smoker riding around in a rascal at the Springfield Wal-Mart.
Conversely, when you look at the so-called ugly people from the Wal-Mart video, or just the ones you see in everyday life, imagine the wasted potential for hotness that their genes might carry but which has been squandered from perhaps as early as their time in utero when their mother may have drank or done drugs, to their childhood where they were perhaps malnourished and not taught their true worth as human beings, all the way up to adulthood where their bad habits intensified due to the ingrained belief that they don't deserve any better than what they have and society's persistent reinforcement of this idea. This wasted potential for hotness is the unsung casualty in discussions about social change. I truly believe that the further stratified our society becomes and the greater the amount of poor people becomes, the more the average physical attractiveness of the population will go down and the lower the overall number of 5/10s and above will be. If this doesn't instill a sense of urgency in you as to the importance of changing the world for the better, you should check your pulse cause you might be dead.
Stay Thirsty,
-Andre Guantanamo
*By calling the little girl with FASD ugly, I am not trying to be malicious, but honest. One of the worst distortions of truth is soft, politically correct language because it turns some unfortunate human being's real problem into some statistician's quantified abstraction. We must be precise in language and call things what they are, lest we trivialize the problems of others. As is often the case, George Carlin had something to say about this:
**One of the important qualifiers for what constitutes life, or more accurately what constitutes an organism is that it has an environment which it affects and is affected by. In the case of the fetus, its mother's womb counts as this environment which in my mind pretty much galvanizes the position of the Pro-Life camp that life begins at conception. However, this realization in my mind does not soundly resolve the abortion debate because if we are arguing the baby's right to life we must also argue the mother's right to security of person, which should be just as inviolate.
I think the oft-overlooked position in the abortion debate is ameliorating the factors which lead to unwanted pregnancy and the desire to abort at a fundamental, root cause level. Giving out condoms and lectures about safe sex apparently have not resolved matters. A discussion about abortion is something that merits some attention and I may get to it at a later date but I wanted to clarify that although I believe life provably begins at conception, I don't think it soundly decides the abortion issue.
My Friends,
I am working in Toronto this weekend east of downtown. Its actually an easy job: show up in the east end for 8am, set up some stuff for an hour or so, come back at 1pm and tear it down. Then the day is mine. However, it is the period between set-up and tear-down I am most looking forward to because I will be in the neighbourhood of a seriously sweet nerd-shop which I visited back in the summer on another job. To clarify, when I say nerd-shop I mean a place that sells comic books, cards, collectibles, sculptures and most importantly, toys. As you might recall from my recent post, "The Curious Case of Andre Guantanamo" (23 July 2012) I have in the last few months been on an action-figure binge after recognizing that even though I am ostensibly an adult I still have immature tastes and I should nurture these tastes. Anyhow, this particular shop made it into a tweet a while back when I sat mulling over which action figure to buy while there.
RotJ Luke, ESB Han, or WW2 Captain America. I opted for the Cap under the advisement of the clerk.
These three figures were only a sampling of the many figures at the store from both the retro Star Wars line and the Marvel Universe line, my two current favourites. So needless to say I am excited to go back. When you factor in that I could also potentially visit the Silver Snail on the other side of the downtown core while in the city, well it occurred to me that there would be a veritable feast of toys to choose from this weekend.
And therein lay the problem; nurturing a massive toy boner,
Pictured: Another Kind of Toy Boner
I got so worked up about the smorgasbord of action figures I would get to choose from that I prematurely decided to go looking for some toys on the way back from picking up the gear for the weekend from the company's warehouse in Mississauga. Chatting with one of the workers there (a fellow nerd) I learned of Gotham Central on Dixie Rd., not 5km from my current position. I asked him to clarify if they had the toy lines I was looking for and he confirmed it. So I went and checked it out, and while it was a good shop he oversold it a little and it turns out they didn't carry much in the way of what I was looking for.
But this was ok, as I had only learned about this place at the last minute and my actual plan had been to hit the Toys R' Us on Hurontario and the Wal-Mart on Hwy 5 and Trafalgar on the way back to Hamilton; a somewhat roundabout way to get home but planned with maximum toy exposure in mind. So I hit the TRU and was mostly disappointed. They really had nothing too much in the way of either preferred toy line. Dejected I decided to make my way to Wal-Mart but I did notice two shelves of Marvel Universe 2-packs. The two which caught my eye were...
...Black Costume Spider-Man & Dr. Doom...
...and Old-School Wolverine & She-Hulk.
Now right off the bat I have to say that I have no special affinity for Dr. Doom or She-Hulk. I just wasn't raised on them I guess. That said I couldn't really justify buying either set when I would be paying twice the price for a character I didn't want. But even more than this, I had a close look at the knee joints of Spider-Man and Wolverine and they looked a little fucky so I decided that discretion would have to be the better part of valor and I proceeded to Oakville and the Wal-Mart there.
Utter disappointment awaited me here as the only thing they had in the way of Star Wars figures was the shit that no one wanted,
Quinlan Vos anyone?...Anyone?
and for the Marvel figures all they had was toys from the Spider-Man movie. I gave these a quick once-over to see if any struck my fancy but there were like ten variations of Spider-Man (i.e. Hydro-Jet Spider-Man, Rocket-Boost Spider-Man, Chunneling Spider-Man, etc.) and they all sucked.
Moving right along, I headed west across Dundas into Burlington where there was another Wal-Mart on Appleby Line. Again I was presented with the same disappointing array of toys and out of desperation turned again to the Spider-Man movie line. There was in this case one action figure who caught my eye:
"Symbiote Strike Spider-Man"
My interest in this figure stemmed solely from the fact that I am a fan of the Venom character and this was Spider-Man wearing the symbiotic black suit before Eddie Brock got it. But I am a discerning shopper who does not simply buy something flashy if it has no utility. Thankfully we live in an age of iphones and tech-savvy nerds like me who do things like post toy reviews on Youtube. I watched this review while standing in the aisle,
and decided to pass on this figure on account of his poor articulation and poseability. You laugh at my thoroughness, but this is actually the second time I have checked out a review for a toy on the fly. The first time was about a week back when I was trying to decide between Master Chief from Halo 4 and a Dark Knight Rises Batman:
As you can see, I also consulted the Twitters
I made up my mind to get Batman after watching a review of the figure which allayed my fears of poor articulation and poseability. In fact the figure turned out to not only be incredibly detailed but very poseable...
...as you can see here.
So I left Wal-Mart still empty-handed, disheartened and resolved to head home. But like a spiteful harpy bringing deceitful promises of wonderful toys, I saw another TRU as I pulled out of the Wal-Mart plaza. I suppose they had built it just recently and I hadn't as such been able to work it into my original plans. Was it worth checking out?
Worth dying for...
Worth killing for...
Worth making an illegal U-turn for.
FAILURE! This TRU actually had some of exactly what I was l looking for, but its failing was that it didn't have all of exactly what I was looking for. I couldn't believe it: I had checked out five stores across Mississauga, Oakville and Burlington and none carried any of the good toys I wanted, and when they did carry something good it was never the character I wanted or it was bundled with some garbage. Perhaps this is a testament to my pickiness. But I like what I like. And if my woman makes fun of me for spending so much time searching and being picky, I will be forced to remind her that it was the same pickiness and discernment which led me to choose her. Smooth right?
Still I think I learned that if you're excited about something, like I am about tomorrow's happy toy hunting in Toronto, you shouldn't cheapen it with little teases at the local toy emporium. It's like knowing your going to have some freaky, guilt-inducing sex and getting so stoked about it that you get horny and relent to watching some missionary porn. What's the sense in that? Honestly; why not just wait?
Anyhow, I didn't quite get my proverbial "toynut" today so if I don't find something incredibly sick tomorrow I run a serious risk of catching the collector's equivalent of blue-balls.
