dusty

"I invite you to realize that this program does nothing other than present us with a protagonist, a coyote, functioning within a system interestingly characterized as a malevolent Nature, a protagonist who endlessly, tirelessly, disastrously pursues a thing, a telos - the bird in the title role - a thing and goal far, far less valuable than the effort and resources the protagonist puts into his pursuit"

"The thing pursued - a skinny meatless bird - is far less valuable that the energy and attention and economic resources expended by the coyote on the process of pursuit."

"Why doesn't the coyote take the money he spends on bird costumes and catapults and radioactive road runner food pellets and explosive missiles and simply go eat Chinese food?"

from - The Broom of the System

 "Over 2.5 billion people live on less than $2 a day. Every day nearly 16,000 children die from hunger and related causes. One dollar can save a life. . . . Poverty is a death sentence. Nations must invest $37 trillion in energy technologies by 2030 to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at sustainable levels. Today's decisions should be based on all the information we can get, not on hiding the decline." - FOIA



waking up from crazy dream - realize all dreams are crazy, that crazy dreams are normal.  are there people that dream of making bacon and eggs, balancing their checkbooks, watching two and a half men?  these dreams would be abnormal.

shower first thing.  always have great ideas at this time.  showering in middle of day does not provide same inspiration.  link to recent contact with dreams?  today's inspiration is to send email to hockey loving raggedy ann met at bar last night.  know first name and little else.  act on one in 4 of these early morning shower inspired ideas - of the others, about half are realized to not be good ideas after all, while the others are overcome by lethargy, apathy and procrastination.

think about alternative outcomes.  usc scored apparent tying td in 3rd ot, however marqise lee stepped out of bounds by half inch at 4 yd line on review.  if game was 10 years ago (of course no ot) there would not have been a review.  if marqise (nice derivation on the spelling) just stays in bounds...  instead curtis mcneal fumbles ball on next play, game over, stanford still alive for mythical nc.  plane leaves 45 minutes late due to computer malfunction.  man has seizure 1 hour into flight.  would he still have seizure if plane not delayed?  what would have been the situation if seizure occurred during turbulent descent?  this is what drives people insane and leads to dreams about changing baby's diapers.

"The shoes and murmurs of shoppers passing him sounded impatient, as pedestrian movements always do to someone at rest, creating a patter so unbearable that only joining it could bring relief. "

"He wasn't a chuch goer, of course, but he'd long allowed the Resurrection a certain margin of credence, maybe 37 percent in a random sampling of his mind's constituents."

"... the character of their drinking began to change, to cross the line between lubrication and anesthesia."

from The Twenty-Seventh City

greed

                The passing of Steve Jobs and the Occupy Wall Street "movement" provide a most interesting juxtaposition.  One of the protestors #1 targets is corporate greed.  But how do we define or measure greed?  I would think the best way would be profit, and an easy way to compare companies is via profit margin %.  Common examples of these greedy corporations are in the Oil and Banking Industry.  Exxon's most recent annual profit margin = 9.7%, which is pretty solid and has been aided by higher prices at the gas pump.  Bank of America's most recent profit margin was 1.9%, and this was before another round of restrictive regulations were imposed to further limit their avarice.

                But how about Apple?  I would guess that there are a fair amount of IPods and IPads are being used among the protestors, and millions upon millions of people get to enjoy the fruits of Steve Jobs' brilliance.  Jobs was self admittedly liberal on most issues, and probably someone many of the Occupy Wall Street truly admire.   Apple's last reported Profit Margin was 23.5%.  That is nearly 2.5X of the robber barons at Exxon and over 12X the evil bankers at BOA!  Jobs definitely charged more than he could have for his great products - is this not the "greed" being chanted about on city corners across the USA?  But, if he had settled for less than the market would bear in terms of pricing, maybe the incentive to create such awesome devices would not have been there, and we would not even know the name Steve Jobs today.  Something for you to think about as you tweet about evil business today on your Mac.

word up

we get one shot at this deal - dont fuck it up and waste time living in the negative. Surround yourself with positive influences, and be a positive influence in as many lives as possible. It is really that simple.

Training

When the head of the family bursts into tears, all the women in the family start to shout, beat their chests and rock back and forth making high-pierced shrieks. And when he stops crying, all the women once again fall silent. - Gomorrah

2011 Book List

The Broom of the System  - David Foster Wallace
The Twenty-Seventh City - Jonathan Franzen
The Visible Man - Chuck Klosterman
Confessions of an English Opium Eater - Thomas De Quincey
Righteous Indignation -Breitbart
Gommorrah - Roberto Saviano
Murder City - Charles Bowden. Author is a certified nut, but interesting writing style and a look into a world that that will blow your mind.
The Warlord's Son - Dan Fesperman
When a Crocodile Eats the Sun - Peter Godwin