Welcome back,

Here's how I spent my last few days. 1900 words or so. Just autobio.

Thursday I worked a bit, corresponded, read the blogs, tinkered. In the late afternon I played some Civilization III -- an integral refresher for western history -- and then went out to the grocery store to pick up supplies to make Grandma Madeline's Iowa Beef Stew. It's simple stuff, but really righteous, and a good pot of it can feed quite a few folks, or one person for quite a few days, quite sumptuously and economically.

Luke came on over to have dinner, and along with Dan we had a little meal of it, toasting with a quart of Miller High Life each. Dan and I showed Lucas Halo 2 and Xbox Live, which represent another frontier in gaming and kind of freaked ol' "Straight Arrow" Dauter out a little bit. After eating and visiting with Dan, Luke and I headed back to the East Bay to hang out and talk and meet up with Luke's friend Sid.

We got pretty high for the BART ride -- oh yeah, get a little paranoid on the BART -- which helped to drive a lively chat on the walk through North Berkeley about the nature of existence and whether or not Domination was a fact of life. Luke maintains it isn't necessary, but I disagree. However, I qualify this with my belief that properly contextualized and balanced, there's nothing necessarily malignant about Domination. I just think you have to pass the conch shell around enough to keep everyone honest, and it'll all work out from there, at least as far as the rules of the State are concerned.

But then that gets into this whole other business of when power is being exercised, and all the forms domination and power-poverty can take; from outright physical deprivation to the kind of mental slavery that exists today. So yeah, that's true, but I'm with Bob Marley when it comes to emancipating ones self from mental slavery: "none but our selves can free our minds." It's not up to the State to Prohibit any and all forms of Domination. It just wouldn't work.

Anyway, it was a good vigorous philosophical debate -- heated at times, but essentially friendly. I'm into philosophy, you know. Like most things academic, I think it's gotten to be a bit out of touch, but I believe in the discipline, whether or not it's being very aptly applied at the moment. I believe I can make it my own. See, we're getting to a new stage in human development. The development of scale-free community is going to shake up the whole nature of society, sure as the cottin gin did.

A brief flashback; I remember the room I had at Rubin hall my Freshman Year at NYU. How innocent. How full of life. How shabby and gorgeous. Back when my life was light, entirely my own and at the same time entirely supported by a vast institution. "Everything's gonna be allright; Everything's gonna be allright..." It was a much more brilliant if significantly less focused time. I think my fond recollection has something to do with the current bout I'm having with the ever-present crisis of meaning.

Anyway, we drank beer and whiskey and got high from the Sobe Bong -- a neat little hack of engineering made by Kim's little brother -- and shot the shit for a while. Sid showed up, and he and Luke tore a brilliant sociological streak that I was happy to mostly observe and pick up bits and pieces from. Sid's a little older, doing grad school as well. He studies interracial violence between Latin and Black gangs in Los Angeles, a serious sociologist.

I started fading after a massive attack of munchies hit as I spectated on Luke and Sid's discussion of these wild academic times. They're onto some rebel shit, all obsessed with Foucault and fired up about alternate theories. For my part, I hadn't gotten much sleep the night before because I was having a wild tumble with this really fantastic woman who I met dancing last weekend. More about that in a while. The point is, Luke put on The Big Lebowski and I fell asleep at some point.

The next day we lazed. Luke had to go proctor an exam for about an hour, but other than that there was nothing on the schedule. Luke showed me where he was at in San Andreas and I played a mission or two on the saved game I made when I was hiding out at his place right before the election. It's a fun game; verging on role-playing in its depth. Having only played a fraction of the game, I don't really know how strong the plot is -- starts out pretty good -- but if those people at RockStar keep working on it eventually they'll hit some kind of jackpot.

There was a little shenanigans with the test because the professor who was nominally "in charge" had gotten drunk at the Sociology Department Party the night before and forgotten to photocopy the questions. So while Luke was out dealing with that and making sure kids didn't cheat, I picked up a sequel to Hitman, which I'd enjoyed playing once. It was interesting. Very adult in terms of the lack of twitchy action (though that's always a possibility) and also in terms of the disturbing darkness of the plot. It was a twinge of what my friend Chris calls Survival Horror.

I play for a bit, and eventually Luke gets back from his exam. We talk about the game and some other things a bit, and soon Kim comes over. Luke and Kim have been together for a couple of years now, but last week they broke up, at least as lovers. They're still really close friends in terms of being mutually supportive and hanging out pretty often, and they'd had tentative plans to go see a movie, so I tagged along. We decided on Blade 3, because why not. It was a matenee, and we figured we could get high over at Kim's North Berkeley House of Bachelor-Degree Holding Graduate Women and make a go of it.

It was allright. The walk over was quite nice. It's good to be high in Berkeley on a relatively warm late afternoon in December. School is getting out and it's a Friday and the energy was bright. The movie had its ups and downs. I think it might just be the first consciously ironic but still serious action movie, another sign of how comic books are coming to inform the media of film. The casting of Parker Posey is the icing on the cake. I recommend it on video if you enjoyed the other installments; wonder how this kind of film pans out as an investment.

After the movie we talked about food and Luke and Kim exchanged some DVDs at Blockbuster. They watch a lot of stuff, have that pass where you can just keep a certain number of movies out. It turned out Luke had had a bit more than me to drink last night and was suffering from a hangover, so we decided just to chill. Kim and I went back to her house where I took a shower listening to Sammy Hagar on 107.7 The Bone via her antique bathroom radio, which has great sound. It was fun, especially since I'd been wearing the same clothes for quite a few days.

When my shower was done and Kim had had a small sandwitch, we went back over to Luke's (they live like three blocks from one another; it's cute) to get Brazillian pizza and watch Shaolin Soccer, an entertaining and worthy -- if somehow distastefully Disney-esque -- attempt at creating a Chineese film with some western crossover value. After that I hoofed it back to the BART home.

Finding myself still with energy to burn and it being Friday night, I took a bike ride to the top of Twin Peaks. I've been doing light yoga, pushups, leg bends and situps this past week, slowly waking up my body. Adding in some good cardiovascular bike riding is the next logical step.

I did it up right with the longjohns under the torn up black cut-offs and the Neal Young-flavored mp3 mix; sweated my ass off, getting in some good uphill attacks and some solid projing on the shallow rises. Downhill I took the twisty backroads route rather than bombing down Portrola; there's this great smooth two-block downhill that leads into a shallow one-block uphill. You can really pump and lean into the downhill, because you know the return curve at the bottom will catch you and let you bleed off the speed. On other downhills it's generally 15-degree slopes broken by flatland crossrodes and you have to take it easy, pump those breaks, don't want to go flying off the edge or slamming uncontrollably into oncoming traffic 200 yards down the line. But this one little lazy half-parabola, you can soar, and I know how to hit it really good. Cheap thrills.

After getting home and stretching/pushups, I took a bath and relaxed. Slept late.

Saturday I had a date. The night before I'd traded voice messages and quick conversations with Carrie, the girl I met dancing last weekend, setting up the plan. She was going to come to my neighborhood and we'd get a drink and see what happened next. I was excited. I spent the day cleaning up the house and my room, then late in the afternoon I fixed myself a little leftover stew, and then headed to Ryan's house, a friend of Nicks, where we were watching Vitali Klitchko defend his heavyweight belt on pay per view.

Nick's a pugilist -- a longtime fan of boxing and now taking lessons himself -- and he does a great job of representing and trying to spread interest in the sport. It reminds me of the people who consciously tried to promote soccer when I was growing up, except somewhat less wholesome. It's sometimes a little weird, but I generally enjoy having a few beers, watching some fighting, eating some chineese food or whatever. It's a good masculine ritual to have.

And then the date, which I thought I would be late for because there were three undercards, and most of the fights went into the late rounds. I cut loose back from the Marina-area to the Mission along Fillmore, slicing through the taxi and SUV-heavy traffic in grand Manhattain fashion. There's something about making a mockery of automobiles with my superior agility that's especially satisfying when you do it to yuppies. I arrived at The Attic, where we'd set to meet, pretty sweaty but generally charged up. Turned out Carrie was stuck up on Twin Peaks because of a public transportation mix up and was waiting for a cab, so I waited, had a beer and listened to some great old reggae music.

She came in good time, and we sat for a bit and caught up. My plan had been to go look at art for free at some of the nearby galleries, but they were all closed because it had gotten late; so we just walked around the mission and eventually came back to my place, which was all right and then some.

That pretty much brings us up to speed. I had breakfast with Carrie at Big Al's. I definitely dig her. She's really funny and really good looking and she really seems to enjoy being with me, and that makes me feel fucking great to be honest. After that I just whiled away the afternoon and evening.

I'm thinking more and more about this big road trip and just how exciting it all is. Maybe it's all the biking and sex and reefer, but I'm starting to feel loose, like I might actually hit a good groove again sometime soon. I think I'm over the election, and I think I'm going to be fine with my separation from Music for America. There's going to be a lot of stuff still to sort out, but I'm starting to feel confident about myself in terms of my ability to set and follow some direction. We'll see how this plays out in this week, if we can actually get some Praxis going.

I don't relish the position of being a naysayer, and anyone who knows me knows I'm an eternal optimist. However, my fundimental optimism rests on my faith in human beings to make the right choices through reason and insight, and as such from time to time it becomes necessary to say things that seem very negative. The point of this isn't to say that all is lost. On the contrary, the point is to say, "Hey! We need to take stock of what's really going on if we want things to get better!"

In that spirit, here's something that's bound to be unpopular: if there is such a thing as a global war on terror -- and for the record I don't think there is; we need better language here -- we are losing. In fact, we are playing directly into the hands of those who are convinced the US must be destroyed. Daily Kos -- Pentagon: Bush's 'hypocrisy' lost us hearts and minds

• Muslims do not "hate our freedom," but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf states.
• Thus when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. Moreover, saying that "freedom is the future of the Middle East" is seen as patronizing, suggesting that Arabs are like the enslaved peoples of the old Communist World -- but Muslims do not feel this way: they feel oppressed, but not enslaved.
• Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering. U.S. actions appear in contrast to be motivated by ulterior motives, and deliberately controlled in order to best serve American national interests at the expense of truly Muslim selfdetermination.
• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah (the entire Muslim community) invaded and under attack -- to broad public support.
• What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of "terrorist" groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.

That's from the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, people, not Dennis Kucinich. It's for real, and the longer the president and his administration insist that we're living in some comic book reality, the further we travel down the path towards failure and defeat. Full report PDF.

In Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the globe, we are engaged in 4th generation warfare (4GW). The important thing about 4GW is the it essentially about moral conflict. In other words, if you do not "win the hearts and minds" you loose, unless you are willing to commit genocide.

I'll say it again, and not because it makes me happy. We. Are. Losing.

(NOTE: I learned to read and write phonetically, though not w/hooked on phonics. Sometimes that puts me in a loose/lose situation. Please pardon my lack of rigor.)

In the midst of discussing the Democrats troubled relationship to foreign policy -- really fascinating stuff from/for the insiders -- Ezra at Pandagon drops knowledge how to have a viable opposition to war, you have to have a viable message and a viable vehicle:

...it's really crucial that the anti-war portion of the left begins representing itself better. Moore is absurd and Kucinich, sorry, seems like he's from Mars... the figures leading the charge seem uniformly unfit for PR purposes. As Matt and I have both noted in the past, part of what sent us towards the hawk camp was that, without much historical context for what war means, we simply evaluated the arguments (and sadly, that means the spokespeople) for the two sides. In that calculus, becoming a hawk seemed not just warranted, but unavoidable. That's not fair to the doves and not fair to the Democratic party, and while we (hopefully) won't make the same mistakes again, it's really incumbent that the anti-war wing funds a media savvy opposition (instead of protests organized by subsidiaries of Maoist groups [read: ANSWER]) so future generations aren't turned off by the absurdity of their spokespeople.

Let's amplify this thought. This has always seemed fucking obvious to me, and I said and blogged so even as I was with the protesters. Something that needs to happen in the Anti-War and more uppity Left in America is for people to realize that the '60s aren't coming back. A "protest movement" is an impotent movement.

Conventional (mass) protests do not drive the media cycle, talking heads do, and they are often able to spin the protest event any way they choose. Mass protest are also very poor places to organize people for effective grassroots activism, maybe you make some friends with the people you happen to be stuck there with, but it's not network-friendly. So, without driving the media or growing successful organizations (or achieving anything through direct action, for you real radicals out there) what good do a million people in the streets accomplish? Not a lot. It might be fun for the participants -- and the ritualistic aspect of becoming radicalized via attending a march and getting tear gassed shouldn't be overlooked -- but on the whole the return on investment seems rather low.

Hopefully some of the sage old heads will expand their thinking and realize that focusing with aclarity on grassroots member growth, earned media coverage, and targeted direct action (hopefully non-violent) rather than the general rubric of "protest" will get us a lot further. Of course, my real advice is not to wait on anyone. We can do this ourselves, and if we do it right we will find some places where we can win, and if we win we'll build momentum. Nothing succeeds like success.

Oh man. The order of occupation in Fallujah has some really unnerving aspects. Prank Monkey: Fallujah Gets Flair --

So not only are we occupiers in Iraq, we're now genetically tagging citizens, making them wear identity badges on their clothes, and forcing them into manual labor to clean-up the city we destroyed (in order to save it).

In truth, it reminds me of nothing so much as The Wave, the high school experiment cum After School Special where a teacher allows his students to show themselves just how easy it is to turn into fascists:

A thought-provoking dramatization of an actual classroom experiment on individualism vs. conformity in which a high school teacher formed his own "Reich" (called "The Wave") to show why the German people could so willingly embrace Nazism. This unflinching yet sensitive 1984 Emmy Award-winner raises critical questions: When does dedication to a group cross the line from loyalty to fanaticism? Does power corrupt? What is the nature of propaganda and mass persuasion? Can something like the Nazi Holocaust happen again? Grades 7-12. Color. 46 minutes."

Anyone else ever get the feeling that Iraq -- maybe the whole Bush administration -- is just a big social studies experiment gone wrong? If only it were over at the end of the semester... Say cool! Have a neat summer! Sorry for bombing your house and killing your family! Friends 4ever!