Ron Paul is a real person. Ron Paul is not a viable presidential candidate.

I have yet to see Ron Paul make a single statement that disagrees with his political philosophy about what the role of the federal government really is. I've never seen another politician with such a firm grasp on that which defines his beliefs and allowing everything that he says to be seated entirely within those core ideas. He is exactly what this country needs--someone who has a healthy respect for the Constitution of this country and the principles upon which it was founded. I dare anyone to find another candidate on either side of the aisle who even comes close to demonstrating his level of philosophical consistency.

That said, he's not going to get the nomination. The left despises him and the right hates him even more. He's a scary dude to these people, and that's too bad.

It's been such a long time, I think I should be going...

I feel like I should start doing this again, even if there's nobody here to read it. It's good for the brain, for the heart, to write--maybe even especially if no one is reading it.

I quit my job and am currently unemployed. Sweet! I can survive at least another week or two without income.

I am accepting grants for writing my first book. Nothing less than $2500.00 at a time, or else there's really no point. E-mail me if you're interested in financing the next great American novel. For a donation of a mere $10,000.00, I'll even let you pick from the three or four projects I'm currently working on to become my first official work. And I guarantee a 100% return on investment within, I'd say, a couple of years. No more than five years, certainly.

Seriously, though--any drunk, rich people stumbling across this who want to help, I can assure you I'm quite talented.

Thanks.

-Bob.

The secret lives of women...

What exactly is secret about a 400-pound person's eating disorder? I just got in from work, and Lori is watching a show on WE called "The Secret Lives of Women: Eating Disorders." Tammy, or some such woman, is a compulsive overeater. She weighs a lot--an afternoon snack consists of a king-sized whopper w/ cheese meal with onion rings, another Whopper Jr. w/ cheese, a slice of Hershey's pie, and a DIET COKE. Instead of attempting to figure out why she eats as much as she does, she's going to have stomach bypass surgery. We are a proud nation. This is the machine we built, this is the machine over which we no longer exercise any control.

There's a seperate issue--why did I allow Women's Entertainment channel to remain on a television that I was watching for more than a few seconds? It must say something about my relationship with Lori, I guess. This is the machine I've built, this is the machine over which I no longer exercise any control.

The month of June is going to be terribly busy. Lori leaves on May 29 for Washington, and then Europe, for a month. A week later I start class again. Then I have a wedding to attend. On the 20th, I can move into my new apartment. Chris comes down on the 22nd, we go to a Braves game, he helps me move into the new place, we drive to Greenville, hang out for a couuple days, I come back, Lori comes back, we finish moving. Somewhere in there I'll be at work 45 hours a week and in school three days a week. Sheesh. This is the machine...

I am pleased to not be a woman trapped in a man's body, or vice versa.

The Braves have some work to do. I keep the faith, nonetheless.

Enough for now,
-Bob.

understatement of the year...

So it has been a little while since I've been around here. Somehow I'm not so sure anyone even checks this place anymore--it has become as desolate as my high school poetry, at least. I've been harassed about getting back into the blog-o-sphere by a few different people, and I have wanted to, but I've always struggled keeping up with this sort of thing. Then my good friend Augustin started a new blog, and as I've always been one to take the lead from my peers (right?), I figured I'd give it another shot. I had forgotten my password and username here, but I got all that straightened out, and here I am.

I start school again in June... a creative writing class with my favorite professor, and I graduate in December of this year. Yes, this is the second time I've posted the words "graduating in December" in this blog, in different years. I mean it this time, though.

I have to get to work now, but I'll post again soon...tonight, right, Bob?

ttfn.

Oh, and go read Augie's blog... http://augmandino.livejournal.com/

Do you think it was the Sprite?

We have a new pizza at work. It's called the Chicken Bacon Ranch. It has a garlic ranch sauce, chicken, bacon, onions, and tomatoes. All in all, a fairly popular and not-too-bad tasting pizza. I got a call while I was managing the other day from a customer (middle-aged, redneck-y) who was not at all satisfied with the new Chicken Bacon Ranch pizza. The conversation went something like what follows:

Very upset customer:
"I ordered the new chicken ranch pizza and I started to eat it, and, um, it kind of tasted like shit. I mean, it's disgusting."

My sincere response:
"I'm sorry to hear that sir."

Upset customer, sounding as if a good friend had turned his back on him:
"Well, I order from you guys all the time, and I love your pizza, I mean, you're my favorite pizza place and all, but I've eaten one slice of it so far, and I feel like if I eat another slice I'm probably going to vomit. I mean, this pizza is really disgusting."

Me, grinning and stifling a laugh, but appreciating the man's position nonetheless:
"That's strange, sir, because everyone else I've spoken to about it really enjoys the pizza."

Surprised, upset customer:
"Really? That's so weird. I really couldn't eat another bite. I think I would vomit."

Me, putting on my best customer service, man of the corporation voice:
"It is weird, because it's one of our highest rated pizzas ever. Corporate says it tested higher than any specialty pizza they had tested before."

Outright confounded, dumbfounded, almost ready to give the pizza another chance customer:
"Really?..... Well.... I was.... I was drinking a Sprite with it.... Do you think it was the Sprite?"

Me, now all but laughing out loud, not at him but because of how seriously he was taking the situation:
"No sir, I don't think it was the Sprite. Maybe the Chicken Bacon Ranch just isn't for you. I'd be happy to send you another pizza for free, if you'd like me to."

Immensely relieved that I wasn't going to ask him to take another bite with me on the phone customer:
"Oh, thank you so much. If I ate another slice I really would vomit. (Gives me his order) Thank you."

Me:
"I understand. You have a good night."


Occasionally, a single upset customer can make your week. I liked this guy. Evidently he took this very seriously. And it all worked out in the end.

Our pizza is not fine upscale cuisine. There is no particular drink that perfectly compliments it. We are not dealing in fine wines and cheeses. I did not think it was the Sprite.

Just thought I'd share that one. I found it highly entertaining.

Talk to you soon...

Go Braves! Go Dawgs! and a great big hip-hip-hooray for the Culture of Entitlement!

The wireless access point on north campus has proven to be rather unreliable of late. I can connect, hop on the old interweb for a minute or two, and then the connection disappears. I can't figure out why--which is not too surprising, given my limited computing capacity. Maybe Augie can tell me what the problem is. Aug?

I play poker a couple of times a week with an outfit called the National Pub Poker League, as long as I'm not working or loaded up with too much homework. I have secured a spot at the regional tournament, which is a week from saturday, and if I finish first or second there I get to play at the national tournament, and the winner of that one wins a seat at the World Series of Poker main event next year. Do you have any idea how cool that would be? Pretty damn cool is the answer.

Not too much is going on besides the usual mess of Papa John's and school. The Braves are right where they belong, atop the National League East by a few games and playing phenomenal baseball. Bobby Cox is the greatest manager of all time--there is no longer any question about it. Any sport, any era...no one else comes close. He is winning in the toughest division in baseball, fielding a team that is mostly rookies, and with a bullpen patched together out of nothing to make a decent relief squad. Leo Mazzone will be the first pitching coach to go into the hall of fame for being just a pitching coach because he is the greatest of all time. Most picked the Braves to finish second or third in the division this year, and instead we're going to win number 14 in a row.

The Bulldogs got off to quite an impressive start last weekend. South Carolina's Gamecocks are coming in on Saturday, with the evil genius Steve Spurrier leading the charge. It is going to be a thing of beauty to see him slaughtered inside Sanford Stadium. As some new Georgia t-shirts say, "We always knew Spurrier was a cock."

A couple of thoughts on the hurricane mess going on over there in New Orleans...

Oprah Winfrey, that bastion of rational, reasoned intelligence, believes the federal government owes the people of New Orleans an apology for not responding quickly enough to the disaster with aid and supplies. I agree that they are owed an apology, and I believe it should come from the federal government, but not for their "slow response" to the relief effort.

The federal government should issue an apology to the people of New Orleans for helping convince them, and the rest of the country, that they have to rely on the federal government in order to survive. Thousands of people in the region didn't evacuate largely because they were waiting for their government life-subsidy check to come in the mail on the first of the month. They were waiting for their welfare money. For their food money. Were some too poor to leave either way? Undoubtedly. I have sympathy for them. But I believe most people who stayed behind did so out of pure stupidity, with a rather disturbing faith that the federal government not only WOULD bail them out if things got nasty, but HAD to come to the rescue if things got nasty. Human beings have the right to one thing, and one thing only--not to have their will infringed upon by the will of another. By extension, we have the right to PURSUE life, liberty, property, and ultimately happiness. These are not things we are guaranteed in any inalienable sense. These are not things that have to be provided to us. It is up to the individual to acheive these things, not up to the society or government under which they live to provide them.

People on the street, screaming into television cameras about how they're dying, and where is George Bush, and where is the federal money, and where is what I have coming to me, are products of a system that has taught them that they are entitled to everything and it is not their responsibility to secure their life for themselves. This culture of entitlement is an almost exact parallel to the victim mentality Uncle Gil talks about.

So, yes, the federal government owes these people an apology. "We're sorry we have facilitated the process of you becoming lazy, self-centered, helpless, government-reliant cretins. Please, continue stealing large boxes of Nike basketball shoes and automatic rifles and designer jeans from the deserted stores of your drowned city. Continue to steal from your neighbor's empty houses. You're entitled."

The worst part is, it will be those filthy politicians who scream and yell the loudest about the federal government's inept response that will be most easily elected the next time those wonderful citizens go to the polls. The more that people believe that their government will coddle and care for them instead of having to fend for themselves, the worse off this country is going to be, and further down the road to a place where only revolution will be this country's salvation we will travel.

Talk to you soon...

Conversations of the well-bred and highly educated...

The following is a quote from a paper I wrote at the end of last semester for my feminist philosophy class, directed specifically at an author named Stoltenberg who was arguing for the destruction of the concept of gender. Its applications reach a bit further.

"Fundamentalism, in any of its infinite and idealized incarnations, is a plague upon rational thought that has the rather unfortunate, and usually inescapable, effect of turning otherwise intelligent, well-intentioned people into one trick automatons blinded by and betrothed to the singular goal of enlightening the great unwashed masses of the self-professed Truth with which they have been (all but divinely) endowed. Fundamentalist thought is an insurmountable obstacle that arrests logic and makes reasoned discourse entirely irrelevant, negating the possibility of, and even the desire for, meaningful communicative dialogue between individuals and groups with different ideas about the world around them. Its truths are self-contained and self-fulfilling ideals that function as a tool for handcuffing a particular perceived reality to an overarching ‘objective’ understanding of the world that services the egotistical notion that one’s own personal account of reality is equally applicable to the whole of the human experience. It is a perverse potential side effect of the natural human tendency to want to arrange the bits and pieces of experience that give constancy to life in such a way as to form a cogent argument for defining the inherently inexplicable. The world we inhabit is rife with ambiguity and confusion, and fundamentalism offers a comfortable escape to a state of mind in which there are clearly expressed antithetical concepts of good and bad, true and false, and right and wrong. It is appealing because of the safe haven from further difficult questions about the nature of reality it provides for those who have grown tired of, or never had any interest in, assembling the world themselves–it is malignant because it spawns the belief in people that their Truth is the only truth, and the unbelievers have simply not yet recognized the fact of reality."

That is as succinct a description of fundamentalism as I have ever been able to construct. I bring it up not because of its aesthetic appeal (though considerable), but because of a conversation I heard going on between two twenty-somethings on the steps outside the philosophy building this morning. The girl was raised with a catholic mother and a jewish father, the guy raised totally catholic. She chose, when she was thirteen or so, to go the jewish route, and got bat-mitzfahed and all that jazz. The girl was talking about her boyfriend, who was raised Catholic, and the fact that her potential mother-in-law, a "hardcore catholic", found it impossible to recognize her as a moral person on her way to heaven due to her judaism. The girl is insisting on a jewish wedding, her boyfriend is caught in the middle, and mom can't stomach the notion of little jewish grandchildren.

The guy she was talking to went to catholic high school and is seeing a catholic girl now. He was sympathetic, but also identified with the mother in the scenario, as he himself couldn't fathom the idea of marrying someone who "didn't share the same convictions about jesus." Needless to say, I was deeply depressed by the conversation.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I become that I am right about the religion thing. The hypocrisy of such a statement is not lost on me. My anti-fundie bend is surely as strong as any fundamentalist's own core belief system, perhaps even more rabidly so. But the notion that a family can be torn apart by such a trivial thing as religion is horrifying. The fact that great masses of people believe so sincerely in their truth that they are willing to kill great masses of other people for it is equally horrifying. The difference between those two statements is not in kind, but merely degree, a fact that far too few people recognize. It seems to be a question of economics more than anything. If the Muslim world had progressed as steadily as the west has, if they had their industrial revolution and come into the information age before we did, is it unfathomable to believe that 9/11 would have happened in Iran and not New York? Is it possible that the only thing separating a broken family with a jewish daughter-in-law in America from a suicide bomber in the West Bank is the two car garage and broadband internet? I think so. Fundamentalist thought breeds hatred, regardless of nationality or religion. The difference is simply one of degree.

The counter-point will be come as follows: "MY fundamentalism is the right one, and MINE doesn't breed hatred." I offer the following: if you believe that any person who does not believe in what you believe is entitled to something less than you are, be it here on this earth or in some sort of non-physical afterlife, than you are disrespectful of humanity and driven by a self-fulfilling separatism that will leave you ultimately lonely and devoid of true love. Welcome to my fundamentalism.

--

It has been a while since I had a good rant, and it feels good to peel one off for the first time in a while. Perhaps this one will generate a little bit of discussion.

Off to class I go. Talk to you soon.

Just another argument for strict fascism...

"Freedom," of course, is a wonderful thing. We love ours, other people hate ours but like theirs, and on and on. But how far can we let this freedom thing go? Because I have seen more than my fair share of overbloated redneck chicks walking around in painted-on denim short-shorts and belly-shirts picking at long lost stretches of fabric between their crotch with their legs stuck together almost all the way to the knees rubbing together like two sticks trying to make fire but ultimately failing due to a constant flow of sweat that begins around the back of the neck and pools in salty reservoirs behind them as they take on the challenge of staying upright as they penguin-step towards class. How about a dress code? Everyone has to wear upside-down burlap sacks with a hole cut out for the head and arms. If people can't dress without inducing naseau upon the general public, perhaps the imperial federal government should step in with a little helpful legislation and regulation. Just a thought.

Also, who said the hippies were allowed to have cell phones? If you have dredlocks and no shoes and ankle jewelry, isn't the cell phone a bit of a personal hypocrisy?

In a move apparently designed to get the Athens-area homeless population smelling a little less foul, the University cleaned out and chlorinated the various fountains around North campus over the summer. Instead of a nice collection of natural looking monuments to the aqua god, we now have an assortment of kiddie pools around campus. Word on the street is that the Homeless Union threatened to go on strike if they couldn't dive for quarters in a sanitary environment. Another victory for organized labor!

I am now 95% sure that the lawnmower man cutting the grass in front of me has passed over the same spot four times. Updates at the top of the hour.

---

School is going well. I'm back to getting my judicial system fix, something I haven't been able to do since the Philosophy of Law class a couple years back. I'm taking a history class on the American legal system, with a focus on specific court cases through history. Should be fun. And I'm in another class that is sure to piss me right off--environmental ethics. Should have a similar effect on me as the feminist class, as we'll be reading articles arguing that plants are on equal moral grounds with human beings.

As it is now at least 143 degrees out here and I have class in a little bit, I am off to conquer more of the academic world.

In the words of the immortal Skip Caray...

So long, everybody.

News from the Front....

If there is anything cooler than sitting on a bench next to a fountain on UGA's North Campus and surfing the web and checking e-mail and all of that, I haven't yet discovered it. And blogging about it, no less! Isn't technology amazing when it works properly?

It's back to school day today. In order to graduate this December, I have to get into a French class that is full at the moment. I've already talked to my advisor about it, and apparently if the class stays full, the only thing I can do is try to convince the professor to take on one more. Hopefully said professor, or, more likely, said graduate student, will be a reasonable human being. If not, I may have to extend the tour de UGA another extra semester...for one lousy class. I would be in Athens anyway, applying for grad school and the like, but it would be highly preferable to get it done as soon as possible. May the gods of graduation shine upon me.

Chris was in town this week, hanging out for a few days. Our difference in priorities is staggering, given the fact that we were brought into this world by the same two people. I'm a philosophy major. He's a business major. He nears the point of obsession when it comes to grades. I have trouble seeing the point of such things. He wants to make loads of money in the hotel world. I want to write and have people read--and possibly make loads of money in the process. Admittedly, mine is a considerably higher-risk venture than his. To say that he likes to party would be a bit of an understatement. I like to drink my Jack Daniel's with relatively little fanfare and play trivial pursuit. And he is my favorite person on this earth to spend time with.

Speaking of trivial pursuits, Chris would say that of a philosophy degree. I wouldn't really argue with him very much, though I do maintain that everyone in college should be required to take at least one or two philosophy classes. More than knowing or identifying with any particular philosophers or their positions, philosophy has taught me how to find the holes in any argument and, more importantly, find and correct the inconsistencies in my own. So far as I can tell, there is not a single more critical ability to possess, and it is applicable in every avenue of life. We all have opinions--it is those people who are best able to articulate and defend those opinions who rise to the top of any given field. Its not just knowing the facts--its the synthesis of thought, idea, and application that matters.

It is hot and humid and there is no wind in Athens, today. Across the field from me, someone is smoking and you can see their exhaust hanging in the air--they exhale, the smoke tries to make its way through the muck for a few feet and gives up. If it doesn't get any better, we will all be swimming through the blue-gray cancer. They've kicked the smokers out of the bars and restaurants, but at least there are fans in there.

I've said this before, but now that I am back on a regular school schedule I should be updating this thing on a much more frequent basis, and hopefully not at four in the morning like last year. For now it is off to class, to get a syllabus and a first-day-of-class speech from some professor or another.

Talk to you soon.

And the good news is?

I read an article on the internet yesterday that shook me up a bit, as articles like it are supposed to do. If even remotely true, it confirms what I have felt for a long time--that this world is moving inevitably towards a major turning point in human history, and that it is going to be a bumpy ride. A total rearragement of position, power, and priorities for every conscious being on this planet. A shift as dramatic as the agricultural revolution or the life and death of Christ--that kind of impact. The question, as we've been told over and over again, is "not if, but when." Soon, it seems.

It almost doesn't matter what the article said, but here's a link anyway... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=45210

Of course, it comes from World Net Daily. This is a site that has broken some big stories in the past, but try spending five minutes surfing around there. Very creepy combination of far-far-right political ideology and hardcore Christianity...one of my least favorite combinations. The article has to be taken with about a pound and a half of salt...but I can't just completely write it off as nonsense, much less forget about it completely. I don't have it in me to forget such things, and more power to everyone out there who doesn't let such things have any effect on them.

How does a reasonable human being respond to such things? I continue making pizzas. I'll be back in classes in about a month or so. I have a car payment and rent to pay and a cell phone bill. I continue making pizzas. I'm sure everyone has crises of purpose at various times in life, but to a very serious extent it feels cowardly to continue walking the line right now. I truly believe revolution is coming. Something is going to happen. And I'm worried about grad school somewhere down the line? A dwindling checking account? I've felt for as long as I can remember that I would lead the revolution, not get caught in the stampede. I can feel the undertow, and it's getting stronger.

But I will go to work tomorrow. I will continue to hope that I will know when the time is right. Each new generation believes that theirs is the most important time, that the world has built to this moment and The Revolution is Now! It's a very convenient way to feel important, like human beings believing that the Almighty Creator gives a rat's ass with whom they choose to sleep. But if I have to put my faith into something, and I have a lot of faith, I choose to put it into the future. Revolution and revelation is coming. My faith is in our ability to adapt, to communicate, to understand. "Where we're going, we don't need roads." A sea-change is coming, and I just hope I'm deep enough in the water to recognize the shifting tides before its too late.

Goodnight all.

-We have clearance, Clarence. -Roger, Roger. -What's our vector, Victor?

Note to Pop-Pop: It's Airplane!, of course, which is quite possibly the funniest non-Python movie ever made. Not to mention the first movie I saw with the upper half of the female anatomy bouncing freely, albeit for only half a second.
"You ever been in a cockpit before, Johnny?"
"No sir, I've never been up in a plane before."
"You ever seen a grown man naked?"
Truly classic. But moving on....

So it has been a pretty good long while since I rambled on around these parts. School ended for the semester, and four hours later I was jetting my way up to Jersey country for four days with Mom and family. I got back and immediately started my Maymester class, which runs every day from 9:00 until 12:30 or so, which leaves me little time to do homework and everything else that goes into making up my day before work at 5:00. So, to quote another movie, I'M BUSY! (I know dad will get that one, but anyone else? Anyone? Bueller?)

I appreciate the continued interest in my thoughts despite the lack of return, lately. I'll get better...Maymester ends next week and it doesn't look like I'll be taking any other classes this summer. Plently of time to save up money (something I lack pretty dramatically right now) and do some blogging and hopefully even work on a few stories or continue the famed "Pizza Chronicles."

Recent Observations:

--Star Wars Episode III was worth the wait. The saga is complete and Lucas actually managed to make a truly great movie for the first time since 1980. He also managed to equal the emotional punch of Luke discovering that Vader is his father (in Empire) with the scene in which Obi-Wan defeats Anakin... (Obi-Wan crying and almost screaming in agony to Anakin) "You were the chosen one! You were supposed to bring balance to the force!" Such a great moment, especially considering he had just chopped off one of his arms and both of his legs.

--Every couple of weeks on the news they announce the average price of gas across this great country of ours. The Lundberg Survey, or some such thing. Apparently, they survey 7500 gas stations across the nation to determine the average. The following thought occured to me after hearing this fact on the news the other night: When polling human beings, an organization need only talk to 1100 or so people to acheive what is apparaently a reasonable level of accuracy. This suggests a rather startling truth, which I don't think I have to dictate here. Let's just say that it seems that gas stations are more thoughtfull diverse than we are.

--The Braves need a new closer. Real bad.

--I have class in less than five hours.

That's all for now. I'll be back here more often from now on, I promise.

Goodnight all.

Who said the Swedes were allowed to make movies?

I had no idea that those fine folks who delivered unto the world those delicious Swedish Fish also made movies. I just got through watching The Seventh Seal, which is about neither numbers nor hairless aquatic dog-like creatures (as far as I can tell), but quite interesting nonetheless.

I had the night off work tonight. My first Friday night off since the end of January--wow. I'm wow'ing because I actually did work tonight, but only for three hours or so. It feels like I didn't work tonight, let's put it that way.

The Athens Twilight Criterium bike race / festival is this weekend, so downtown was absolutely ridiculous tonight. They blocked off about half the streets and set up beer gardens and stages and such. Pretty crazy town I live in. Tomorrow night I'll be at work, and I'm almost glad. As much fun as it would be to see the race taking place quite literally at my doorstep, I'd rather not deal with the crowds. That is, the loud drunken buffoons looking for an excuse to get more belligerent and hopefully not stumbling off the sidewalk onto the street where the bikes go whizzing by at 40 mph.

We are a strange generation. I don't even like such distinctions, as much fun as they can be. That said, we are a strange generation. I suppose when I say that I'm talking about the so-called Generation-Y. We're not quite gen-x'ers anymore, and they're going to have to distinguish between us and the next group of kids, the current infants through 15-years olds. They will be the generation who grew up with the internet, the ones who don't know life without e-mail and instant messaging and pop-up ads. This may sound like a strange distinction to make for a generational divide, but I'm right, no matter what the goofy sociologists say some day.

That said, that said, we are a strange generation. We are college-educated because that is what we are supposed to do after public high schools finish babysitting us. We grew up watching twenty-five-year-olds portray us as sixteen-year-olds in bad television teen drama. Half or more of us grew up with only one of our actual parents in the house, and most of us are thankful for that fact at this point. Now we are at college and we (or most of them) go to bars packed so full of flesh you can't move in any direction without making some very special new friends. Here we get loaded to the point of falling down stairs and just plain down, so drunk that the only thing we remember the next day is our name and how many times we vomited last night. We have turned popular music into some really awful shite, and attempted, at least as much as predecessors, if not more, to eliminate any notion of learning from what even fairly recent history has to offer.

But we too will one day rule the world. We will make the art that changes what art means. We will declare the great american novel dead, and we will rewrite our own history before anyone else has a chance to figure us out.

I have a lot to say about this, and in a much more specific way, but I'm being asked to be done with this, and it's bedtime and all that.

Goodnight.

Fluoridation of our drinking water is the most monstrously conceived and dangerous communist plot we have ever had to face.

You can all blame Augie for the lack of a post recently. He's a filthy thief, and he's been hogging all the bandwidth for the last few days illegally downloading a television show, rendering the internet unbearably slow. Hey feds! Go after him! He's constantly thieving, and I can provide all the relevant personal details about his whereabouts, eating habits, social security number, and permanent address.

We did a record night at work tonight. $4587.67 net sales, almost exclusively in $5.00 large one-topping pizzas. It was pretty crazy. Everything ran fairly smoothly, though.

The header of this post is a quote from a really great movie. It's a lot easier than the last one. Gold star to the person who can name the movie and the character who says it. And by the way, it was a David Bowie song last time. Come on, people. Get on the ball.

I knew personally two people who died very recently, and they died in about as opposite ways as possible. The first was a co-worker. He was young--23 or so. He died of a drug overdose. So it goes. He's the first young person who died while I was still interacting with him on a daily basis. It's really strange--I can't say that I was terribly surprised or even terribly sad. He was a near-constant abuser of drugs, and it was obvious that he didn't place too much value on his own life. I guess that's the sad thing. He was a really sweet guy and a hard worker, though rarely a competent one. I hope that he is at peace now, given the chaos of his physical life. I can only imagine that his consciousness that survived is now able to recognize the fundamental immensity of his being.

The other person who died was in her mid-eighties, but really even older. So it goes. They knew she was going to die, it was just her time. Apparently she accepted the fact of her death with grace and died peacefully. That's the way to do it.

I am both excited and scared out of my mind about my own eventual demise, like most people, I think. Mostly I'm afraid that I'll leave some unfinished business, that I won't get done what I expect myself to get done here. I'm excited because I can barely wait to answer the unaswerable questions that I can barely rationally philosophize about here. Does it occur to anyone else that pending physical death is the one thing that we all have in common, but the last thing anyone ever wants to talk about? We'll wax on about pointless political debates and irresolvable moral differences but won't touch our own mortality with a ten-foot pole.

On a lighter note, the book of Deuteronomy says that a woman found not to be a virgin when married should be stoned to death by the townspeople (Deuteronomy, Ch. 22, verse 20-21). Same goes for rebellious children (Deuteronomy, Ch 21, verse 18-21). And apparently any wearing of such clothing as a polyester and cotton mix, or a cotton and wool sweater, or any such evil mixing of threads in one garment is right out, because god forbids it (Deuteronomy Ch 22, verse 11). (This is, of course, the classic argument put forth as to why god hates gay people--fags love those poly-cotton-silk blends.) And by the way: "If you are not careful to observe every word of the law which is written in this book, and to revere the glorious and awesome name of the lord, your god, he will smite (!) you and your descendants with severe and constant blows, malignant and lasting maladies." (Deuteronomy, Ch 28, verse 58-59.) I think I just changed my mind about the god-of-the-bible thing. First of all, smiting is always cool, and he's going to do the smiting with severe and constant blows! What a badass.

I can always count on some old testament proclamations to cheer me up. Deuteronomy is especially fun.

The horror of life is that a simple five-minute conversation with any random human being can sometimes be so profoundly absent of rational thought and completely void of meaning that you realize the fight against whatever it is I'm fighting is hopelessly out of reach. The beauty of life is that a simple five-minute conversation with any random human being can sometimes be so perfect that it reminds you what incredible, infinite power we have to overcome the forces in the world that would have you believe in your own insignificance. Smite this.

The time is fast approaching and I'm spending all my time writing philosophy papers and getting underpaid to run a pizza place. Watch as the years go flying by and the world comes to an end. The war is here. Communication is our only weapon.

Enough late night rambling! Maybe someday I'll do a real post again. Goodnight all.

Oh! You pretty things...

It's been a while, I know. I've been busy! Way too many papers and such to do in this college place.

I really don't have much to say tonight, either. Far too tired. Maybe if i just ramble on a bit I'll figure out something to talk about...

Let's play a game. The title of this post is the name of a song. Name the artist! Can you do it without Googling? Without cheating at all? If you do it without cheating you get a gold star.

Einstein once threw a bowling ball at his sister and hit her in the skull. And mom thought Chris and I were too violent.

Note to self: Don't make fun of teenaged sister on the bobblog, because it pisses off the fundies.

How in the world does one insignificant post about the terrifying nature of thirteen-year-old girls end up sparking the most heated debate thus far on this site? Enough of that. Most everyone reading this knows how I feel about what was being discussed on that thread, and I know I'll never get anywhere trying to convince some of the people I care about and love a great deal that what they believe at their core is wrong. Certainly not in this forum, anyway. My final comments on the matter are as follows...

I tried to avoid talking about my own personal morality in my previous comments, and I think I did so with good reason. I was trying to point out that as I see it, there is only one "fundamental" law that human beings ought to follow. That law is: The freedom of any given individual extends only so far as the freedom of another individual. That is to say that I should not infringe in any way upon the freedom of someone else. By freedom I essentially mean the will. I don't think this law really needs much further explanation...if it does, let me know.

Further moral rules can, and do, exist for each individual. It is necessary, by my view, that if these are to be truly moral rules, those rules cannot (by definition) contradict in any way the fundamental law of freedom. My personal morality dictates that when I have children, I will attempt to pass on to them the same core of self-respect and respect for humanity that I have realized myself. Mom and dad and Unk Gil and Louise and Brian and Augie and Lori and my countless other teachers in this life contributed in their own very specific ways to force me to question myself and my beliefs, and I am greatly indebted to all of them for helping me realize my own belief structure. I aim to become that teacher figure to my own children...and ULTIMATELY... THE WORLD. Bwahaha. (Insert evil, world-dominating laughter, dim lights, play string instruments loudly, generally heighten dramatic mood ten-fold.)

I haven't outlined a personal morality here (beyond that one law) because I can't argue for it, I can't support it, and I can't claim that it should apply to anyone but myself. I will in the future hope that my children respect my morality and adopt chunks of it themselves, but hope in one hand and shit in the other and never, ever touch me again, please. The problem is that far too many people believe they have found the answers to every moral question that exists and that their moral laws should be everyone's moral laws. I won't even begin to play that game here by setting myself up by outlining my morality. Hell, I doubt I could if I tried, anyway.

I've been accused here of having a warped view of christianity, and my only response to that is quite simply, no I don't. When I talk about christianity, I'm not talking about the teachings of Jesus Christ, because I don't believe that the majority of christians are actually following what Christ taught. Jesus himself would have agreed with the fundamental law of freedom I mentioned above--in a less distilled form the law could be explained as "love your neighbor as you love yourself". If he actually believed he was the son of god to any greater degree than you or I are sons and daughters of god, then he was delusional. I'd rather believe that the people who followed him saw his life as an opportunity to create a religion around a man, and did so rather successfully. But maybe he was nuts. A very enlightened nut, but a nut nonetheless.

I don't think I have created a "straw-god" either. The god I refer to in the previous comments page is indeed a god who, according to his most ardent supporters, allows some people to suffer in hell for eternity. This is not a god I could ever believe in, or respect. I am not exaggerating when I say that I'd rather spend eternity separated from such a god (if he existed) in hell than with him in heaven. I cannot put this any more bluntly. In believing that an infinite god would punish, that god could hate (straight from the most hardcore christians I know), you have created god in your image and, unfortunately, your own self-image is not pretty.

But I really, really, really, don't want to turn the bobblog into a running debate about christianity. By all means, within the context of comments on this post and the last one, please keep it up. And I will no doubt return to the subject, but I don't want to make this site about that. Believe me, it is tempting--not only can I talk about it endlessly, I actually see it as a goal of mine to change people's minds about those beliefs. But I'm not yet fully equipped to do so.

I think that's all I have to say for now. Philosophy papers need finishing, and at some point I should probably get some sleep. I'll be done with the most overwhelming part of the schoolwork I have to do by next Tuesday or so, and by then I hope to get back to connecting the will thing with the all possible worlds thing with the rest of my philosophy.

Note to Augie...thinking about the interconnectedness/network thing. Will devote a post to it soon...

Thirteen year-olds are horrifying humanoid creatures.

It was less than a decade ago that I was thirteen years old. It occurs to me now that either everything has changed since I was that age, or I have intentionally removed from my memory my entire adolescence. Maybe I should qualify the lead up there... I should have said: Thirteen year-old girls are horrifying humanoid creatures. Maybe they've always been horrifying--this is certainly possible. But technology isn't helping. The wrenching 'tween drama and anarchic "grammar" of my sister's AIM away messages alone is enough to curdle my stomach acid. And the music the kids are listening to these days! And no thirteen year-old should ever use the phrase "hook-up" in reference to peers of the opposite gender-bias. If I ever have female offspring, she will go to boarding school in the Yukon at age three, where there will be no MTV or internet or anything but snow. This is for her own good. She will know I love her because I will send her giant winter parkas and thick winter blankets on her birthdays because it is cold in the Yukon. I only know that it is cold in the Yukon because of the Calvin and Hobbes comic in which Calvin and Hobbes head for the Yukon, and ultimately fail because Calvin is six years-old and Hobbes is a stuffed tiger, and because the Yukon is remote from all of society, but good for sledding, For Christmas she will be allowed to return home, but in a bubble. Yukon, Ho!

That's pretty much it for tonight. I'm mulling over a lengthy conversation I had with the Unk Gil, and wondering how close something we were talking about was discussed in more literal (though ultimately unacheivable) terms by Habermas.

And how 'bout them Braves? Little 13th inning magic from Chipper Jones goes a long way. They've now scored a remarkably pitiful 2 runs in 22 innings, but are 1-1 on the season. I can live with that.

A note on the $86 million I didn't win tonight.

Providence dictates that I win the lottery at some point--probably sooner than later. I guess I'll just have to wait for the $102 million on Friday night. Providence, you confound me. I would have settled for the $86,000,000.

I don't want to talk about the Braves' first game. It was a bit rough. I actually feel like it was good for Smoltz to get knocked around a bit for his first start since june of 2001. Hopefully it will take the edge off a bit for his next start, in Atlanta, on Sunday--where I'll be.

Peter Jennings has lung cancer. He too will die. So it goes. I always liked Peter Jennings, even though he leaked a tear or two after Bill Clinton's farewell address. I watched his coverage of 9/11 from the moment he came on the air until he finally went off at some point 18 or so hours later, and will likely always associate the event with his presence. Always seemed liked a good guy, even if he is part of the evil propagandizing globalist news media new world order illuminati mason skull and bones conspiracy designed to prepare the earth for the return of the Atlantians, whose nice city of Atlantis sunk into the ocean oh so long ago. Ever listen to Coast to Coast AM? Good stuff.

Let me try and clear up the free will thing, which I kind of glossed over and left hanging at the end of the last intelligent-sounding post...

I used the example of the window that never breaks. The window will never break, but it is, of course, still breakable. Classic philosophy 1000 stuff, perhaps meant to convince cowering freshman to go running back to church, hysterically crying to their preacher about the devil-thoughts being dangled in front of their eyes at college. But what do I mean by the example? Maybe it's a bad example for what I'm trying to say, and then again, maybe examples are just an excuse to avoid getting at the heart of what I'm trying to say. So I'll just be as clear as possible.

When people talk about the will, it seems to me that they far too often talk about it as something external to them. Christians, in the religious "Christ is the forgiver of my sins" sense, believe that free will is a gift from God, something given to humans, and is perhaps what gives us our greatest resemblance to him. A lot of the philosophers I've read seem to make a similar mistake--when talking about free will it is often discussed as something that exists outside of the human condition, as a trait or characteristic but not as a necessary factor of being human.

Let's play under someone else's rules for a minute... If there is a God, in the Creator sense, it is mistaken to think of him/her/it as "having" a will. If such a being exists, it would have to be simply WILL. When God says in the Bible "I am who am," I think he makes a mistake. (Cocky son of a gun, eh?) He is making a statement of ontological significance, talking about his being. God can't be a who at all...if God is uncreated himself, his essence would have to be simply the will. If he were anything more than the WILL at the beginning, something had to have pre-dated his existence that decided what his traits would be. He's not a who, if he exists at all, all you could say about him is that he is the will. And haven't a bunch of somebody's said a bunch of times in bunches of ways better than me that the most egotistical thing we can do as humans is create god in our image? Suggesting that god has traits or characteristics like we do does just that...calling him the will does not.

Okay, if I have explained the above to a reasonable degree, hopefully the rest won't be so hard.

Now, instead of thinking of yourself as your physical and mental characteristics, your personality and pants-size, what if you thought about yourself as simply the will. What defines you as you at your core is "willing". This is not to say that your personality and pants-size don't also represent you in some very real sense, but rather they are what is external to the actual you--instead of your will being considered that which is external, perceived as some sort of gift, it is the essential.

If you accept that premise, it seems to me that the rest is gravy. My finite circle of infinity is the result of my will, my existence. It is who I am, in it "I am who am." It cannot possibly be contrary to my will...it is my will. (Look! I'm doing it too! Calling it "my" will. This sort of thing can be hard to escape.) Not "my" will, but me. I am inseperable from my will. I can't say it any better than that right now, which is frustrating.

Maybe that has cleared some of the window thing up. I think it does. If not, just forget about the window example completely and go based on what I said above here. I'm getting back to all possible worlds soon, I think.

By the way, I'm a sucker for knowing who has been reading this thing. Just a hello to let me know who is reading, even if you have nothing to actually say about the post. I would greatly appreciate it.

Goodnight all.

Back in the saddle again.

I saw the movie "Sin City" tonight. Let me preface the following comments by saying that this is not a movie I am recommending to everyone. Did you hate Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs? A Clockwork Orange? Starship Troopers? Don't see this movie. Mom, if this movie was actually a meal you were sitting down to it would be a bloody slab of steak next to a pile of bacon with a pitcher of beer to wash it all down. Not your bag of chips. That said...

Sin City is one of the coolest movies you will ever see. Is it violent? See the above movies, and put them all together. Is it gory? Remember the stomach-turning brain-sucking bug from Starship Troopers? Yeah, it's that bad (good). Are most of the female leads scantily clad throughout? Like it was 1973. Even the mom from Spy Kids shows up in the buff. Is there some sort of moral or message? Hell no. As far as I can tell, the only message is "Be glad you don't live in our town."

Remember in Pulp Fiction when every character you meet is just plain cool...so cool that you know this is a movie because there aren't that many cool people in the world? You meet Travolta and Sam Jackson, and they're spouting old testament fire and brimstone as they blow away their victims. You think, whoa, those guys are cool. Then you meet Bruce Willis, and damn, he's cool too. And then you meet Harvey Keitel, and he's so cool he makes everybody else look like an umbrella-in-your-pink-lemonade-loving nancy. This movie takes that to the next level. Every character is a warrior, with maybe one notable exception. They all chew asphalt for breakfast. They're just plain cool but you wouldn't want to hang out with a single one of them.

But this movie is about the visuals. And they are perfect, brilliant, and indescribable. This is what digital filmmaking is all about. What a movie. Highly recommended.

I'll be going to the Braves game on Sunday...as far as I can tell, it will be John Smoltz's first start in Atlanta in years, assuming the rotation holds up for the first week. Opening day for the Braves tomorrow in Florida...4 p.m. on TBS.

Go buy the new Beck CD. Immediately.

It's called Guero. It's fantastic. It rocks and grooves. He will be remembered as one of the greatest.

I'm taking a little break from the philosophy-speak tonight. You try working with a bunch of 16 year-olds all night and then thinking clearly afterwards. I have a newfound respect for parents, and a slightly less vague idea of what dad means when he says "your life is over as soon as you have kids." All teachers probably need to be commited.

A note about feminism, and most other ism's...why is racism bad but feminism good? Racist, supremacist, elitist, fascist, socialist, communist, fundamentalist...feminist. Maybe that's the point, though. Maybe the oppression of women is so complete that even their movement gets lopped in with all the other ist's, relegated to the trash heap of discarded and humiliating parts of human history. But then again, maybe it belongs there.

I'm taking a feminist philosophy class this semester. There is about as much philosophy going on in this class as you might find in a Waffle House thirty miles south of Macon, GA at four in the morning. Speaking of which, ever notice the Waffle House policy of the waitress calling out the order to the cook instead of writing it down for him? Such faith in the literacy level of your employees you have, oh WaHo.

But back to feminism...I don't think it should be completely ignored. The women's rights movement was indeed essential for the growth of our country and western society as a whole. (Now that I have copped out...) But get over it already, quite simply. The authors that we are reading conflate the situation of western women today with American slavery, domesticated animals, and Coca-Cola products. All of this while they live in a society that lets them speak their mind, publish their fundamentalist garbage, and do basically whatever they want--at the same time that the religions and cultures of the east really do treat women as property and while 97% of women in Egypt are still genitally mutilated. But man oh man, have they got it rough here.

And I guess it all boils back down to fundamentalism. If there is only one truth, and you've found it, it can be tough to let go, to ever admit that your one Truth is nothing but the worst of your own biases and psychosis emotionally manifest as Clarity.

So. Don't ever take feminist philosophy at the University of Georgia taught by Sherman, though it has provided a great deal of entertainment, and more violent, destructive, dream fantasies than any other class I've had.

As Father Kurt says, there is nothing to be said about a massacre except what the birds say. Poo-tee-weet.

Terry Schiavo is dead. So it goes. I have nothing to say about that situation except that Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity deserve 15 years in limbo between dead and alive for turning her situation into a talking point for the republican party. Go read the constitution, please. And no, I'm not talking about the New Testament, Rush, though you would benefit from a better understanding of that, too. Heil, heil, heil.

But seriously. Go get Guero. Tune out the awful cycle of broadcast hatred for a little bit. Next time I'll be in a better mood. Goodnight all.

Johnny Cochran is dead and Jerry Falwell is dying. So it goes. Love live Jesse Jackson and Pat Robertson. And the crowd went wild.

I'll bet Johnny Cochran shows up alive a couple of months from now, talking about how he proved to the Almighty that the brain tumor that killed him unfairly targeted him because he was black.

Tuesday night is my least favorite night of the week at work. We sell large 1-topping pizzas for $4.99 on Tuesday nights. I made something in the neighborhood of 600 pizzas tonight. Actually, it went relatively well...I ran a decent shift and it only took me two hours to shut down the store after close--at times it has taken four hours or more.

Customers are quite wonderful little creatures. "I was told on the phone it would be 15-20 minutes! I got here twenty minutes later and was told it would be another five minutes! What's your name?! I want to talk to the manager! You are the manager!?!? Well, I've never met anyone so rude! What's your name? Give me your supervisor's phone number! I'm too fat and southern to have to stand here for an extra five minutes to wait for my 1500 calorie order!"

It can be hard to recognize the infinite nature of the individual when you deal with these type of people on an everyday basis. I'd be willing to bet that food service produces more solipsists than any other industry, and not because those in the business are necessarily less intelligent--rather, it is almost impossible to believe that a lot of our customers could possibly exist and function in the world.

It occured to me as I re-read yesterday's post that I should probably outline my theory of time/life before continuing on with the "all possible worlds" theory, since the latter is kind of given rise to by the former. That said...

Imagine for a moment that the conception of time that we all have drilled into our brain by the process of being alive on this planet is completely wrong. Life on this planet moves in a linear direction----->forward. We are born, we grow up, we get old, we die. So it goes. The sun rises, the sun sets, the earth turns, the tides roll. Time necessarily moves forward in this world--the only way we can properly, logically experience life is to do so in this linear manner. The problem is that time cannot be thought of as infinite in this way--it is merely indefinite. (This terminology is, I believe, somewhat similar to what Spinoza, whose thought was propelled by Descartes, had to say, though I'm using it to other ends. (Just a sidebar: one of my philosophy teachers described Spinoza as a "stealthy Jew."))

Those of you whom I have spoken to about this sort of thing before may remember me talking about a "finite circle of infinity." The following is kind of what I mean by that.

Here is what I mean by the above (and where you might take issue with me): the infinite, in order to be so, must be finite in some loose sense. Otherwise, we cannot say that it is truly infinite, but only indefinite. This is more than mere semantics. Imagine a rope that you are following along through space. You can see it going on for as far as you can see in front of you and behind you. As far as you can tell, it might go on forever--but you'll never know. All you can say about this length of rope is that it goes on indefinitely. Someone might tell you that this rope goes on forever, but it takes a leap of faith for you to believe it--and even if you do believe it, you haven't said a thing about the rope itself. All you have said is what you believe, which exists independent of the nature of the rope. O.K....

Now, imagine another length of rope in outer space. This rope you are following makes a complete loop around Venus, Mars, Earth, and our moon. After a couple of trips around, you can make certain assumptions about this rope, namely: it loops around a few planets, it is finite in some sense in that it does not expand outwardly forever, or go on linearally forever. Another thing that you can definitely say about the rope, like any circle, is that it has no beginning and no end. This is a factual claim that you could not ever make about the length of rope in the previous example. The rope is therefore infinite in some very real sense. It exists beyond the linear plane, and it is not indefinite.

My claim is that this is the actual nature of time, instead of the linear way we conceive it on this planet. Time is a constant happening, something infinite, not indefinite. When people talk about existing outside of time, they're actually talking about existing in my conception of it, instead of the typical earthbound prescripted perception. When you accept my version of time, you realize that nothing could actually exist outside of it--it is life. In order for us to be infinite beings, we must exist all at once. By this I mean that if there is something about us that is infinite, it must all already be complete, or else it would go on linearally, indefinitely. I think this is clear...if not, tell me.

So. Each life is a finite circle of infinity. Each interpersonal relationship/interaction we have is a spot on our finite circle of infinity that overlaps or intercuts with someone else's. (Solipsism, as it turns out, might not be so far from the truth, and certainly not the butt of a joke as it commonly is.) We experience life linearally because that is how are phsyical bodies are best able to cope with time...our brains may well be the limiting factor keeping us grounded in linear time.

But Bob, doesn't this eliminate free will? Doesn't your claim that all instances of time are condensed into some sort of circle that we simply follow around do away with the possibility that we can change a thing about our lives? If life isn't linear, if we could step outside of it somehow and look at it as "infinite" in your terms, doesn't that mean that everything is predestined?

Umm. No. Think about a window. This window has in it a sheet of glass that will never be broken. This doesn't mean that the glass is unbreakable...it simply means that the glass will never be in the state of being broken. Just because you've already made the decision doesn't mean you couldn't have made another decision...you just didn't. Maybe I could explain this further, but right now I really don't want to. This has been much longer than I originally anticipated.

More to come....Comments are welcome! That's the whole point!

A message to the marginalized masses...

I am quite bad at communicating with the people I care about. That is not to say that when I actually talk to you people out there that I am not able to have intelligent and meaningful social interaction, but rather to say that I rarely place phone calls and never, under any circumstances, do I compose e-mail. Sorry. I have thought a lot about sending out an e-mail to family and friends on a monthly basis, but I'm pretty sure I would not keep up with it. But maybe it will work out with this blog thing. Probably not, though.

Things are going pretty well for me right now, in general. I expect to graduate from the University of Georgia in December of this year with perhaps the most practically inapplicable undergraduate degree this side of Recreation and Leisure Studies -- a bachelor's in philosophy. But that's O.K., because I also have an exciting career in the fastest growing sector of the U.S. economy -- food service.

But now to the meat of this post...reading through Uncle Gil's blog, it seems to me that most of what he's talking about is solved by the theory of all possible worlds. As far as I can tell, the theory of all possible worlds is the most likely scenario to be the case if you take the traditional notion of the Creator out of your personal philosophy. Basically it says this: every world that could exist does, in fact, exist. All possibilities are played out, all potential scenarios come to fruition. We just happen to be the product of one particular possible world.

More on why this doesn't eliminate free will, and how this plays into my theory of subjective-objectivity and the infinite nature of the individual later. Right now, it is time for bed.

Run!!! It's a bobblog!

Only the ancients know whether or not i will ever be posting here, and whether or not i will ever use the SHIFT KEY when i do so. For the record, my non-capitalization of the first person pronoun "i" is not an artistic decision, as in crappy seventh grade poetry. Rather, it is all the fault of Bill Gates and his Microsoft Word, for he has been capitalizing my "i"s for me for well over a decade.

This page has been created solely because I (!!!) would like to be able to respond to my Uncle's posts over at his blog, The Heart of Service (http://heartofservice.blogspot.com). If anything comes of this at all it will likely be mindless ramblings about my life, my patchwork philosophy, society at large and at small, my country, and my Atlanta Braves. I'll try to keep it as clean as possible, but then again i am but a product of my mother and father, and mom's got a mouth on her.

Thanks for stopping in, and i'll try to keep up with this on a fairly regular basis.