My Rants

There are so many religions that stem from the early days of civilization. Even though we kill each other over who's god is better all the time, our stories in these belief systems are all pretty similar.
The story of the Garden of Eden in the Book of Genesis and the Four Noble Truths teaches that our desires are what cause us to suffer.
This is not as simple as it may sound. You see Eve told Adam to try the apple. This action caused them to be kicked out of the garden. Apples aren't intrinsicly evil, niether are snakes. The evil here is that they desired what they couldn't have.

Well it has been a long time since I posted anything to my own website. Gods know I've done so on other's. Well here's an update!
As you may or may not know, I haven't been working much lately. I went back to school last May and started to finish my premed requirements for Chiropractic school. Well it took about a year, but I finally finished and even passed! To be even more amazing, I got into the best school for chiropractic sciences. It is, however, in the metro Atlanta area in Georgia. Yeah... the dirty south.

So, in a few days I am off to Marietta, GA. It is just outside of Atlanta and I really don't know what it there. I did get a nice apartment though!
So I packed most, if not all of my kitchen up tonight - With help from my parents (actually they did all of the kitchen). I can't believe that I am leaving. It has finally hit me.
I left once, a long time ago and it affected me for years. That time wasn't like this one - It wasn't by choice. Not that I want to leave. I just want to do something that requires me to. Of course I am also having that bout of second guessing myself; Am I doing the right thing, and how much different it will be, and how far I will be away from the people I love and care about.
It isn't easy to deal with. The worst part about this feeling is that it all fell on me Saturday night before I went to bed. After I read the looked at the card my niece Skye made for me. It almost made me loose it, it made me realize I was leaving. This is it, it is really going to happen.

There is a time when everyone gets to look at their life. For some people this happens at the dire moment one escapes a life threatening tragedy. For others when they find out they're sick with something that they won't survive. Some are lucky and are struck with that moment of clarity that so few ever get. There are others still, who more tragically, will see their life through the lose of another that they love.

These are our lions, our bears. These mechanized, microscopic, self inflicted by-products of our humanity and civilization. That same civilization we built to protect ourselves from real lions and bears - those land-sharks that threatened us under our branches. These threats were what drove us to achieve, to invent and create. We made tools and weapons and ways to do things better - invented new creations with the elements the earth gave us. Our inventions and our creativity are now the things that run us down.

I haven't had this moment yet, the one that I get to see it all over. I haven't had a chance to look at my lion, but I've smelled the bear that may still yet charge. My hunting for the tribe has put me in harm's way and still only a few scars, but no lost limbs from my tasks. I return whole and am able to feed myself. For all I know I've been lucky. I've avoided the follies and dangers that the young, modern hunter faces and have brought back, on a spit, my pay time and time again. There aren't dangers to weed out the ones that can't perform or learn better ways to do things. I don't know why, but now we just work until it kills us dead perhaps.

I do plan to find out if I am lucky and truly have avoided my lion. If I'm not I'll get to see it all again, my life, in vivid memory. I'll also get to know what it is like to face a lion and the challenge of what it means truly to be a human; to be a survivor in the jungle that we created to replace the jungle.

I used to be afraid of monsters that lurked in my closet, in the attic above me and the cellar below me. These were the hairy, and scaly anamorphic nightmares that plagued every child's imagination. I learned that there is nothing to be afraid of in the dark. That the fear wasn't something that lurked about in wait.

When you get older you hope that these things are real. That some day you'll see one of these things drooled under your bed while you sat up with a bat in your bed.

Recently I've come to know that monsters do exist. The kind that can inflict horror on somebody. The beasts that will take a persons life without mercy. The monsters that lie within, gnawing its way out to satisfy that which makes the most sober of minds sick.
These are the monsters that lurk in our cities, in our malls, on our streets. I have known and seen one of these monsters, and now I don't want to believe that they are real.

"Now I am a drift."
When I saw those words this morning a lot things made a lot of sense to me. It was a rush of sour thoughts and hard truths that came to me.

I have often heard people say to their friend or spouse, "You are my rock". Well I never gave much thought to that. I always just figured that they meant they were a solid friend and never knew it was a reference to an anchor.

Having only gotten this analogy today I've done some thinking about what this means. I've thought about within the context of my own life. I have had a few rocks in my life, some heavier than others. Most kept me stable and afloat at one point or another. But very few have every helped me weather the storms that life can bring.

When I was young rocks always seemed me be just that to me - extra weight. After awhile it became tiresome. The extra weight would slow you down and keep you from seeing all the things you thought were the world. They held you down. After seeing a lot of those things, and after cutting loose from several anchor chains, you start to notice that the things you wanted to experience and see themselves become weights. The only things I started to find to be important to me were safe sailing and having a destination. So I started to look for them.

I found a 'rock', after a lot of looking, that I knew would keep me steady in the harshest of storms, keep on track and steady me all through our travels. And during this time I have faced my share of hard times in life. Nothing life threatening mind you, but some hard times none the less. And I was lucky and blessed that I never lost my baring or was completely lost, even though I was sometimes far from the course I wanted.

Then one day my rock sunk. It was lost to me. Nothing I could do would allow me to reclaim it - The sea of life is sometimes very deep. It was then that I went adrift.

What do you when you can't stop? I'm not traveling at any speed to fast. Nor am I able to know what's next. I can only hope and steer towards those things that I can't see all that clear in the distance. I guess I'll eventually run aground, or find a port I hope. But where? I can't tell. I pray that I don't get dashed onto rocks or just plain lost. I can remember where I was heading but I don't know how to get there from here. Sometimes though, I feel like I've passed through some where before - things look familiar. And I get some of my baring back.

To feel this, to realize this after so long... The irony of it all is I learned it from the man they named July after.

I have to admit, I stare at people. Yep... I watch what people are doing all the time. I'm not really nosey and by that I mean it doesn't matter to me what they are doing. One thing I have honestly enjoyed about my commute every morning is that I often see the same faces on the subway. There are handful of people that I see repeatedly and I often find myself observing them over the many other subjects.

There is a blonde girl about my age that gets on at 33rd Street. If you looked up reader in the dictionary it would have her picture there. She has a new book almost every day. I try to see what she's got, the title, author, whether it's from the NYC Public Library. It is almost a goal of mine to see what new book she's reader before she gets off at Bleeker Street. I make a note of these titles, and if they sound interesting or she seems to have a read in a shorter amount of time than she normally takes, I put them onto an online shopping list.

My other favorite run-in on the train are young, recently engaged couple. They are both in their early late 20's to early 30's. They get on the train with me, we all love that last car so much. The guy makes sure that as soon as seat opens up he claims it for his lovely lady. She repays his chivalrous acts with a smile that I can truly say is the most honest reflection of love and adoration. When he gets off at Astor Place, they say good bye with a little kiss and she watched and waves good bye until we have sped off into the dark part of the tunnel. It's the kind of love that can make a person jealous.

These are the only three people I would consider striking a conversation up with. I would love to ask that well-read blonde what she thinks of her current tome. I want to tell that couple what an inspiration they are, that who dream about that kind of love can see it's real just by their morning departure.

People watching is one of the cheapest hobbies I have. You don't need binoculars (If you do use them though, you may be arrested!) and it much more rewarding than bird watching.

Pax Romana is was a time when Roman rule and its legal system pacified regions, sometimes forcefully, which had suffered from the quarrels between rival leaders. It lasted a little over 200 years when Augustus Ceasar declared an end to the Roman civil wars. It was a time when Rome's economy and commerce was at its pinnacle. Even though Pax Romana is Latin for Roman Peace, it was not always very peaceful for the rest of the world. There were rebellions and uprisings, but Rome itself suffered little bloodshed within her boundaries nor attacks on them. These things, along with economic prosperity gave way to the longest stretch of tranquility human civilization has known - for the most part any ways.

The idea of Pax Americana is what I would like to call the United State's push into the global arena since its involvement in the First World War. A noble idea of world peace brought about by noble and fair leaders. An idea that gave way to things like the League of Nations, NATO, the united Nations. The US is a baby in terms of world powers, and we missed out on a lot of "opportunities" that our peers enjoyed, most specifically colonialism and most importantly imperialism. Since her beginnings the US has frowned on these notions, having been a colony of the British, Spanish and French empires. Then in the 1822 the US elbowed its way to the table with the big boys.

It was Liberia, a small area on the Ivory Coast of Africa. It was a colony settle by "free men of color" from America under the title of the American Colonization Society. The next puppet government the US set up was after the Spanish-American War in 1898 when Spain handed over Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the US doe $20 million bucks. Puerto Rico and Guam are both territories to this day, bt the Philippines became a commonwealth in 1935 and then given independence after World War II.

Ok so what am I getting at? Well what's going on in the Middle East is all part of this foreign policy that began in the 19th Century. A quick democratic colonization that will lead to support of American interests and those of her allies. It is almost the same thing that the Romans did in making people follow Roman rule and laws. History tells us that strong military action, then martial law until the unrest is settled, followed by the implementation of a democatic government worked for the Roman Empire. What they did those many centuries ago isn't far from what is going on in Iraq, but only in the simplest of terms.

Rome did this for power - Economic power, politcal power by her rulers, and to increase her military power. The US is doing it for the same reason. What is different here is that Rome was able to open up new trade routes, gain resources for not only the Empire itself but for the new Roman cities that would grow in the newly conquered territories. See the difference? The US involvement in Iraq is to open up new test markets for large corporate interests. It is also feeding the corporate interests that fill military contracts (where as in Rome, the bought its supplies from roman merchants, aka the private sector), and to acquire oil. None of these things support the US "Empire". The people of Iraq will not be annexed into the US and receive the advantages of being an US Citizen while the US Citizens will not see any of the economic gains that are being reaped by the large corporate and contract driven interests - at least not for many years to come.

Vietnam, fought under the auspices of democracy drove the US into a depression that lasted most of the 1970's. The 1980's, however, were a prosperous era for the country even though it was wrought with government corruption and was also the breeding grounds for the current administration and the neocon movement behind it. War is good for the economy, we've all heard that and it is true, but it all depends on who's economy we're talking about. The economy that feeds companies like Haliburton, and insider-trading exempt congresmen. What Rome did was for Rome. Yes, her elite got the most of that money too, but they were able to spend that money with in an all Roman economy. These new markets that are being created in Iraq will help out any US business that isn't directly in that market.

In short, in comparison to ancient Rome, the US policy of democratic peace falls short in all areas except maybe military force. There is no era on tranquility for the common people that will be brought out from the United States' current foreign policy.

I will leave this here, slightly unfinished, but open for discussion.

News travels at the speed of electricity now. A few bytes over the wire to let you know something has happened. I used to think, "Man, this is amazing! I can know what's going on almost as soon as it happens. Even if it happened on the other side of the world."

If you think back 15 years ago, you relied on other people to give you the news, at a certain time through some certain medium. If you missed it, you had to wait for it in some other way or at some other time. You were out of the loop. You may have missed Wolf Blitzer in Baghdad the first time around. You may have missed the attempt on Ronald Reagan's life. But these things caught up with you, the news about these people you've never met from places you've never seen.
In the past I have gotten bad news. It has mostly gotten to me through word of mouth from other people. Most of this news is about people, friends that have passed away. I heard about my first friend from kindergarten over dosing days after I moved back to the neighborhood from another friend of our's. Or how a cop friend of mine found a friend dead in his chair, and they family wouldn't let them do an autopsy and had his body shipped down south before we ever heard about his passing.

Hearing these things make you miss a person even more because it's after the fact, because you didn't know. The one thing that is still there is the shared memory of the people who transmit the news, that carbon based network we take for granted. Today I heard about a friend passing but on the internet. Oddly it was through a page that another friend had created. Though I was never close to the guy I had often thought about him since our last time hanging out together. To hear that he passed from some digital script was a little alien to me. There is nobody there to share that moment with. You can't enter your questions into a search engine about it, you sure as hell can't look into your monitor and see a shared memory about the guy backpacked Europe and brought a can of wolf repellant with him. But you sure do miss the old days.

Sometimes the internet isn't the best way to get your information. Sometimes you want to hear things from a person, and not some marked up text sitting on some server somewhere.

No. I am not being deep, or philosophical in anyway.
I just don't get why people question others concern.When you ask somebody something, becuase you care, and they immediatley question that. I don't get it.

Ok - I am coming back from lunch today and there is a guy standing at the downtown 6 train exit on Lafayette and Spring. Ok nothing odd there. Oh yeah, and he's quaking. Still, nothing that strange. Nor is his inane ramblings - He is all by his lonesome. But this is New York and things like this aren't unusual.
What is unusual is he's talking to his belt loop!
Now, I've seen people babble to their reflections, to an invisible person next to them on the subway, hell I've seen people claim they were talking to God Almighty. But a belt loop?!

OK - there have been some changes here at the ICEC.I have added a media blog, listing the books I'm reading, the DVDs I'm watching, music I'm listening to and the games I'm playing.
Also, I have taken off the latest referrers list on the page. Sorry if this was your main source of porn, diet pills, online pharmacies and poker sites. I just hated the daily need to prune the crap off of that list.
The other additions are a a page of links to sites that I like and this section, where I'll just occasionally write about things.
With that said, I'm off to think about things I want to write about.