| Most of you have probably heard of The GLBT public school opening in NYC. When I first heard about this, I sort of didn't care, to be honest. It seemed like yet another school tailored to a specific group which was being accomidated without overstressing a budget or taking anything away from other areas of the NY education system. If nothing else, another school is opening, and I'm hard pressed to oppose that. This would be a fairly uninteresting post, however, if my opinion stayed that way, and, sho' nuff, over the last couple days I've really gotten upset over this being allowed, let alone welcomed.
First, the prevailing reason for doing this is that heterosexually declinant* kids in normal public schools are being "...constantly harassed and beaten..." I'm not sure to whom it is news that kids in the New York City public school system have a rough time as compared to, say, Exeter, but these people need to be found, and taken out of the political decision making process. You can't get rid of harassment and pecking orders among groups of adolescents by separating them physically from their urstwhile malicious contemporaries - sure, the type of harassment might shift from calling them 'fag' to ridicule over wearing last season's Bruno Malis to a dance, but it will still be there. Every behavioral study performed on this type of situation has found that social dynamics from this age group are wildly condusive to herd mentality, and nothing helps that more than singling out someone becuase they're different. Moreover, is the standard we want to set that any group which has a tough time in high school ought to get their own school? Aside from the intrinsic harm of officially recognizing these types of arbitrary divisions, there's the obvious problem that these kids will interact in places other than school - even if they have to get all growed up first. Like, I'm sure that black children in Georgia got less harassment when they had their own schools than they did during segregation, but that doesn't mean they were sheltered from the type of hatred certain people are wont to shower upon others. Then there's the question of what constitutes a valid level of harassment for a group to be extradited from the main pool of kids. Should we separate males from females? People above average height from those below? People with acne from those without? I was, to some degree, harassed for my choice of reading material in high school - does that mean we can split kids up like a library according to their favorite form of entertainment? Socioeconomic status? Do you see where this leads? It's a noble goal to shelter the young'ins from the world, but it's simply not going to happen. All this segregation really does is undermine the idea that this sort of bigotry is not acceptable - from an early age kids are taught that the most minute possible details of each person are a target which makes them a different species, or at the very least of a different tribe, to whom one is not obligated show the nicities of society. This is not the way to find social acceptance of these groups - it's only one more step in the direction of a completely fractured social structure. cranked out at 2:32 AM | |
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I recently watched "Rules of Attraction" about five times, and there are a few things I need to note. First, it is a great, wonderful, fantastic movie. It is the only movie I have ever seen which is needlessly depressing, and the single best example of a film which really portrays the absurdity of most of our lives. It's a movie where there are no heroes, and where the never ending quest of the protagonist is the destruction of purity. Sadly, I identified with the primary character to a degree which gave me much pause.
They did fall prey to one thing which has, more and more, begun to piss me off about film, however. In many movies they want to get across the depth which people actually possess if only you give them a chance. It sells well to a certain demographic (ugly people) if you package the message of even a subplot of your film as, "Oh, no, he would never reject you if only he knew the true you!" In order to do this they invariably cast the "nerd" or "dork" chick who the hot football player or whatever falls in love with after going through a number of gorgeous Hungarian models and finding himself unsatisfied. The relevance to the above movie is, of course, that in RoA they have a "nerdy" girl who kills herself over a guy who ignores her - something which is a fantastically produced scene, but which only seems to draw any real sympathy on the grounds that the "plain" girl is actually really fucking hot. Why do film producers do this? Is it for the irony? Of course not - it's becuase, deep down, none of us really care about people who don't have some potential to benefit us, in this case sexually. It's still annoying, though. I really wish some day some producer would actually sacrifice some focus-group love for the sake of creating something worth watching. Good fucking luck, but still. It's something to shoot for. cranked out at 5:07 AM | |
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SECTION 1: PERSONAL
1. Full Name: Gregory Bilaal Faruq James Masteson Arthur. Really. 2. Nick Names: When I play "dressup," they call me Smoove Bea. 3. B'day: July 15, 1983. Today is my birthday. And I am filling this out. My life? A sham. 4. Siblings: Sister, Katherine. Brother, Alex. But not in a catholicish religious sense. Or the way black people say "brother." 5. B/F, G/F: Is the slash really necessary? I mean, it's clearly an acronym (...for single words?). Also - this is a fucking form, why can they not spell it out? I refuse to answer this question in protest. 6. Who Do You Have A Crush On: That hobo I hit while drunk driving through NW. I crushed HIM good. Him and his change bucket. 7. Been In Love: Been in an NCAA pool, from which I won money. And I love money. So I'll go with "Yes." 8. Best Friends: Whiskey and firearms. And spurs. Which is to say, fuck you. 9. Screen Name: "NEC MultiSync 75" is what it says. But it will always be Gertrude to me. 10.Where Do U Live: Alright, seriously. What fucking six year old wrote this survey such that they can't type "You." It's two more letters. A Y. and an O. 11.Birth Place: Sixth, though in fairness I was coming off a very recent injury, otherwise I would have probably taken the bronze. 12.What Do U Look Like: Like I'm about to punch the fucking moron who wrote this. SECTION TWO: FAVORITES 1. Beeper Number: Beeper number? What kind of 80's crack dealer survey is this? Who has a beeper? 2. Fav Salad dressing: A bacon cheeseburger. 3. Have you ever gone Skinny-Dipping: Not intentionally. I fell off a boat once and had to wrestle with a shar... oh, no, wait, that was "Jaws." Uhhh... no. 4. Fav Movie: Donald Duck in Mathemagic Land. If you ever want to see genuis on screen, one need look no further than this masterpiece. 5. Fav Book: "Jimmy Woods guide to spelling and punctuation," becuase it's possible that, one day, whoever authored this bloody thing will read it. 6. Fav Type of Music: That kind where there's all these notes and shit. 7. Fav Song: I think this is pretty obvious, but: Dirrty, by Christina Aguilera. Or Dvorak. They're practically the same, though, roofles. 8. Fav Car: Anything which runs over that bitch Diane Lane. 9. Fav Saying: "WTFACE?" "STFACE!" "OMFACE!" 10.Fav Fast Food: I thought that fasting meant you didn't eat anything?. 11.Fav Ice Cream: Ice Cream is the devil. 12.Fav Soda: Rum. 13.Fav Holiday: ARMISTICE DAY. 14.Fav Food: Gristle. 15.Fav TV Show: The "Girls Gone Wild" infomercials. Not the tapes themselves, mind you, but the commercials, because they remind me that, somewhere, someone is still dumb enough to take beads for their dignity. I had thought everyone THAT stupid was running casinos on reservations still... 16.Fav Radio Station: Nattie P Izzar. (It's what the cool kids call it - Word up to my boy Kojo and TIzzalk of the nizzation, w00t!) 17.Fav Junk Food: Maybe it wouldn't be so bad for you if people didn't go around calling it "Junk" all the time. Elitist fucks. 18.Fav Candy: Kahlua. 19.Fav Color(s): Fucking racist. 20. Fave shoes: Alright, so it goes 19 questions without the ability to put "favorite" but suddenly we hit fucking 20 and they add an "e" just to taunt me? Goddamnit. 22.Fav Smell: Victory. 23.Fav Brand of Gum: A little too "Hollywood" at the point where brand loyalty to body parts starts playing in... 24.Fav Animal: Anything which can be deep fried. There's a place for all God's creatures - right next to the mashed potatoes. 25.Fav Place to Sleep: Alcoholic haze. 26.Fav Things to do in the Summer: It goes without saying. 55 down.. SECTION 3: Have you ever... 1. Caused a Car Accident: Can we, mere humans, ever REALLY cause anything? Philosophy apparently doesn't mix well with insurance claims :/ 3. Done Drugs: I don't get this phrase. It's like asking, "Done chicken?" Consumption is an activity, the thing consumed is not. 4. Ran Away from Home: In fairness, it was on fire. 5. Hit a Girl: It was self defense. I was home at seven, dinner was not on the table... 6. Hit a Guy: I'm a dandy. I can only prey on people weaker than me. 7. Stolen Anything: I liberated it from the bourgois capitalists. 8. Broken Anything: A sternum. not mine. I wish I were kidding :/ 9. Been in Hospital: No, I was born in a barn in Nebraska o_O 10.Had a Near death Experience: The Ikea Incident. 11.Cheated on Anyone: I snuck the cliffs notes in to bed once. x_O 12.Been Cheated On: Oh dear god yes. 13.Been Attacked by a Big Dog: It was mostly the steaks my parents had tied around my neck he was getting at, so I forgive him. SECTION 5: What is.... 1. Love: A joke at best and a hallucination at worst. 2. The Thing that makes you the Happiest: Online surveys! Oh man, these things are like a KOALA crapped a RAINBOW in my BRAIN! 3. The Best Thing that has Ever Happened to You: Being born? 4. Your Fav Slow Song: "Lose yourself" by Eminem. 5. The Grossest Thing you've ever Eaten: I don't know if you noticed the above blurb about cocaine, but let me tell you, there are only two ways to pay and I was short on cash one time... 9. The Scariest Thing that Ever Happened to You: Getting shot during a bank robbery :/ 10.The Best Number in the World: Pi, obviously. 11.A Memory you miss the Most: If I have the memory.... how can I miss it? 12.The Saddest Memory of Last year: Realizing I spent 15 minutes on an online survey, and then knowing I'll spend another 15 before this is over. SECTION 6: What Do you Think About... 1. Abortion: Baby soup for the soul. 2. Gays and Lesbians: Gays, whatever, Lesbians? Mmmm... Lesbians.... 3. Love: Already used this question. 4. Death: I don't THINK about death, I PRAY for death. SECTION 8: General Questions 1. Do you ever Save Chat Conversations: I save all conversations. Blackmail: 1, tact: 0. 2. Do you save Emails: Once this one was having a really hard time, delivering itself to whoever had an IP address. I took it in to my home, got it some rehab. I like to believe I saved at least one e-mail. 3. Do you Save Poems people sent : "LIFE IS DARK/THE BEAST LEAVES A MARK/LIFE IS PAIN/SHEEP ARE MY BAIN" doesn't count as poetry, Gothie McGothsalot. 4. How many People are on your Buddy List: 199. 5. When are you Usually Online: All the time. There's this thing. It's called "Cable." 6. Do you like Motorcycles: Umm, sure? 7. What are your Fav Stores: Best Buy, until I failed a phone interview with them. 8. Are you a Playa: Am I a beach? Is this some sort of crosslingual play on words calling me a bitch? Oh yea? Well fuck you, too, ugly. 9. When do you go to Sleep: 6 AM on average. 10.Do you Sleep with a Nightlight: The computer screen. 11.Whats underneath you Bed: North Korea, ostensibly. 12.What do you Wear to Bed: One black sock. 13.Do you Sleep with a Stuffed Animal: Used to, but it turns out it was actually a bag of black tar heroin and it got captured by the goddamn Armenian mafia. 14.Is your Bed Made: As opposed to being a hypothetical bed? 15.What do you think of Ouika Boards: I believe that invisible spirits have nothing better to do than impart eternal wisdom on teenagers, like "Does Brad want to make out with me?" 17.Do you type with your Fingers on the right keys: rieuty sggsdhiusdy 09 18.Whats on the Walls In Your Room: Paint, mostly. 19.Do you type without looking: Yes, I gouge my eyes out every time I need to type. 20.Do you eat Chicken with a fork or with your fingers: You mean you can eat it, too? 21.When was the Last time you took a Shower: During the depression years, when candy bars cost a nickel. 22.If you were to get something Pierced, where would you get it pierced?: Kidney, to end the pain of this survey. 24.Any Tattoos: Just those crazy Russian lesbians. cranked out at 10:23 PM | |
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 I'm Hello Kitty Water Fairy! made by: Jen gg hetero. cranked out at 3:47 AM | |
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I have embarked on a quest today. I am making it my sacred quest to become the most singularly undatable human being on the face of the planet. I've realized that, as much as at the current time I have zero desire to begin any relationship, should the opportunity present itself in a form where entering one is the path of least resistance, my relatively apathetic nature (explicated in a rather circumloquacious manner elsewhere on this page) would probably lead me head first in to an unsatisfying partnership. As such, I have to direct my conscious mind to sabotage my very nature in an effort not to fall back in to the pattern which has caused me so much grief in the past.
Wish me luck. cranked out at 12:17 AM | |
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Am I too white to listen to gansta rap? I feel a lot like the guy from "Office Space" when I start listening to Westside Connection, somehow made all the more striking by the fact that I'm blasting it in mp3 form on a reasonably new computer. "Bow Down to some niggas that's greater than you," coming from a Soundblaster 5.1 surround system is like "gin and juice" as applied to a nursing home. Ah well, there's always my albino bretheren Eminem.
I've noticed a strange alteration coming about in my life since that relationship thing ended, namely that I've become much more detached from the potential consequences of my actions. As anyone familiar with my recent drinking spate may have been clued in on, I have trouble maintaining context in absence of a person to ground me. This has led to some interesting, albeit unforseen, effects in my life. For example, asking the girl at Starbucks for her number for no real reason other than because it seemed like the thing to do after talking to her for a while. It felt strange to go through the motions again, these stupid little rituals which nobody really wants to participate in, but which they do becuase it's expected. It's like a combination lock - each person puts in their sequence, and things either click or not. I've started acting in many cases capriciously, though without identifying any degree of real spontenaity in what I do at the actual time of performance. It's only in retrospect, or when pointed out to me by others, that I really start understanding that things I've done could be considered abnormal. The other striking thing which I've become more and more aware of without school, relationships, etc... to give me something to focus on and a framework within which to define my transient values, is how utterly absurd most of the things people do are and the degree to which people really take themselves far, far too seriously. My life has been referred to as everything from sham to joke and all degrees of levity in between, yet for the life of me I can't see this as a bad thing, nor can I really understand why anything I do is really any less important than what others seem to be preoccupying themselves with. In the end, someone who spends their entire life forsaking social interaction and fun to devote themselves to 12th century European linguistic evolution is considered a success with a meaningful academic life, while someone who gives the proverbial finger to most of established civilization and goes to panhandle in a Parisian subway and work on a single painting they never finish is called a failure. Yet in the end, how many of these academicians really change anything? Our system of success and failure seems strangely defined in a sense - a living death is the closest to really succeeding as the normal person can get. I was recently talking about a sort of dichotomy between the US and European mindsets with a acquaintance of mine (someone who has been to Europe - I have been spared the torture of such a visit as of yet), and she remarked that there's a sort of optimistic fatalism which people in those countries tend to embody which is lacking in the track-home world of the US. I invite anyone who still reads this wasteland of text to comment on why you might think that is, becuase I haven't really begun to fabricate a compelling lie as to why it may be true. The closest I might conject is simply the existance of a cultural tradition and the belief that there are things more important than monitary success. It's the viewpoint of money being a means rather than, as many in this country seem to be certain, an end, which seems to breed a worldview more favorable to accepting what we might consider "failure." On a less rambling note, however, I may soon be going to NYC (Really it's just a matter of when, at this point.) My catastrophic failure in finding a steady part time job in the DC area has rendered my excuse for being here rather tenuous. I just need to pay one of my housemates back for utilities and set my affairs in order before I leave. Anyone who might want to get in touch with me is welcome to call or e-mail or whatever. Again, I'm fairly sure from the page hit counter that nobody reads this page, so mostly this is posterity to which I speak - it allows me to have credibility when I tell everyone that I gave them notice. People take poorly to abrupt disruptions in their life, even one so minor as an acquaintance going away for a while. I don't understand that, really. That's all for now I suppose. cranked out at 5:46 AM | |
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So I decided to post, since I've been neglecting you - especially, though, becuase of this. It's a blog post from a friend of my sisters, which she insisted I read, becuase at some point, vaguely in the past, I may have called the author "goofy looking." The essential problem is one where, by chain reaction of a sort, any action one takes has the potential for infinite "good" utility, or infinite "bad" utility. You can read the post. I linked it for a goddamn reason, you lazy bastards.
Anyway, he says it's a problem, and I'm not quite sure why. It has a few minor suppositional errors. First, the confusion with something which is infinite in duration with something which is infinite in magnitude. If I have a ring of dominos, for example, which is just large enough so that I can set them back up after they fall really quickly, such that it is an infinitely continuous loop, that doesn't mean that all the dominoes everywhere are going to fall. Bad analogy, but it's illustritive. Like, the fact that almost any action you take is limited very much solely to the inhabitants of a very small area in general with a finite lifespan sort of precludes the infinities he's talking about. So this idea that there's even a "potential" for infinite consequence is questionable off the bat. Even without the limiting factors of geography (I don't know, spaceship or whatever) there's the fact that actions taken tend to ground out exponentially - that is, even though the ripple effect will allow for the effects of an action to continue forever, the magnitude of impact very quickly diminishes, and even if it never actually reaches zero, it gets very very close, very quickly. It's much like taking the infinite sum of 1/x^9 - while technically you are incrimenting the sum forever, you are never going to get beyond a certain point. This is even assuming that an action will not ground out in actuality - as the effects of actions tend to exhert some influence based on a threshold. Like, the fact that in 1842 Sir Ernest Pinklebottom happened to spank his child may have forced the child to grow up to be cruel, and invent a literary tradition which produced the miscarriage of words we call "White Oleander" (and yes, I will continue taking potshots at the book AND movie of this until the end of time. Infinite utility THAT.), which stole 2 hours of my goddamn life for the movie and much more for the book, but regardless, you can see how quickly the consequences of that will die out, even if they temporarily had a relatively large impact. That is, on the people at the post office I will end up shooting becuase of the frustration it caused me. Anyway, that aside, the point of the post was to say that, given the possibility of infinite (dis)utility, the intended consequences of our actions seem to drop out (if you're a utilitarian, which is to say, stupid.) This is where the above comes in to play. First, it relies on the idea that there is the possibility at all for infinite utility, which I've already noted is sort of silly. Like, the greatest disutility you could POSSIBLY exhert is to destroy the world. That in and of itself is a limiting case. Moreover, and I never thought I'd hear myself make this argument, there are a given number of particles in the universe, and hence a given number of potential intelligences, therefore there is also a limiting (albeit somewhat large) case on the utility side of things. Since the whole argument relies on the fact that there is a potential for infinite consequence, it's pretty damning even prima facie that there are such abominably low limits for good or bad. Even so, it's easy to argue that the expected utility of an action becomes negligable compared to such large amounts of good/bad. That's where the second thing comes in to play. Because the period during which any action exherts, in general, its highest amount of benefit or cost to people is immediately following its performance - that is, during which the consequences are highly forseeable. There are a few anomolies with respect to this rule, but those can be dealt with (a blog post is not the place to really go in to every classification of utilitarian anomoly out there - things like Riemann geometry which, unintentionally, helped give us the nuclear bomb or the fast Fourier transform, which gave us Counter-strike). So the equation actually starts to look something like: Sum[B/x^a, x, 0, inf] + U ____________________ Sum[C/y^a, y, 0, inf] Where U ends up, in actuality, being equal or greater in most instances to the first few terms of any given sum (the remainder of sum of the inverse exponential tends to be close enough to nil to ignore) so even given unintended consequences, the produced utility of almost all actions is exactly what you'd expect. For example, even with big things, say I decide to murder the dictator of Argentina. Weigh the expected loss in security, order, etc... to the people of the country with the benefits of freedom. Then take that, and weigh it against the marginal difference in production technology 10 years later which ends up giving jobs to people in Detroit who were previously out of work becuase they have to ship equipment. The unintended consequences are almost invariably much more minor than the short term, expected ones. There's obviously much more to be said on the subject, but I'm still drunk and it's still 3 AM, so I'll leave it for another time. This is my instinctual outline of the flaws in such a theory, though. cranked out at 2:51 AM | |
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Two interesting things happened yesterday. First, my interview with Best buy. Anyone who has had a job interview knows that the interview process is really pretense for bribes, either in cash or sex form, and as such I was a little put off by the fact that they were to be calling me to conduct it, as it removes my normal method for getting jobs. As such, I resolved not to impress the hell out of the interviewer with my wit, tact and overall charisma in conversation. It actualy went quite well for the first two questions - "What is your name?" and "Are you a US citizen?" Then came the tricky part of the conversation - the moral dilemmas. As near as I can tell, Best Buy vastly overestimates the requisite intelligence for the tasks they need performed. A part-time after-hours stocker seemingly needs to answer questions about complex moral questions to lift a bloody box.
Tangent aside, the next thing he asked was, "Do you believe it is ever okay to steal $1 from a register - even if it is just to get a soda on your break?" My answer, and a decent one if I do say so myself, was, "No, stealing is a categorical harm which undermines the precepts upon which an employer/employee relationship hinges." My interviewer seemed interested, and asked, "It's a 'categorical' harm?" Naturally assuming him to be a man of reasonable intelligence, if they trust him to sort out the correct and incorrect answers to these somewhat tenuous moral inquiries, I thought he was asking for me to elaborate. After about six seconds of explaining in what way such a small transgression should not be accepted on principle, he stopped me and asked, "Oh, no, I mean what IS a categorical harm?" The interview went downhill from there. The second interesting thing was the Poker Stars freeroll. I was in 2nd-4th place for a majority of the tournament, when I saw a chance to pretty much guarantee a qualification by jumping far in first and knocking three people out. Essentially, I caught a straight on the flop (10-A) and assumed that anyone who didn't have trips or the same straight would just fold. I got three to go all in... the fourth card came, couldn't have helped anyone but someone dumb enough to go all in chasing a flush which had almost no odds of coming. And the final card put three clubs down. Naturally, I was sitting about adding up totals... when I realized I had lost to someone who played 2 and 5 of clubs and randomly got their flush. I was about to punch myself. I ended up making a halfhearted comeback before going all in on a stupid hand just for the hell of it so I could go to bed, finishing far from qualifying. It strikes me that I may need to change my outlook in a few different ways before something REALLY goes wrong because of it. cranked out at 5:50 PM | |
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I was in the grocery store today trying to decide if I really needed the extra large nutmeg, or if the regular sized nutmeg would do, when I realized something monumental. The thing which struck me wasn't the fickle nature of my life or the fact that it seems devoid of all but the most superficial meaning, no. It was that I really should be depressed about recent events. Really, given everything that's happened, along with the potential disaster in the short to mid-term future, I know for a fact that some emotion ought to be oozing out of me, forcing me to take care of whatever is the matter. The fact is that these emotions don't come. The worst feeling in the world isn't anger or depression or apathy or sadness, it's the cognition which allows one to percieve the human element which should be there, but isn't. One's humanity is made all the more striking in contrast to the gaping hole where some reaction ought to be. Yet, I cannot bring myself to care that much about anything important. I can summon forth a wellspring of intensity if someone wants to try and tell me that Voltron is better than Power Rangers, or that animals have rights - but when it comes to the vital organs of a healthy life, my reactions are all what I think should be, not what I actually want to do. As anyone who knows me is aware by this point, my long term girlfriend and I are no longer a couple. The absurdity of the end and my situation in general makes it impossible, however, to really take the whole thing seriously. Reaction only comes at a visceral level if you take things as important, take them as something which is not ridiculous. When you reduce life to its constituent parts, however, it's impossible not to see it as an elaborately designed sideshow exhibit. We spend a majority of our time worrying about the most idiotic little things - whether the girl who glances at you really likes you, or if she just happened to scan the room, whether or not the Nikes you want will be on sale in a week anyway and whether it's worth the money. And so on and so forth. We are a culture of people who have more loyalty to the brand of soda we drink than any sort of ideal in the world. I can't see this, somehow, as problematic. As I stood in the aisle, dodging people who seemed to believe that their cart having wheels entitled them to go as fast as possible, kids running their hands along the catsup bottles lining the second shelf and causing a huge mess, I decided that the extra nutmeg just wasn't worth it, picked up the smaller size, walked to the check out stand. It's questions of nutmeg which really are what my life is about. Let other people worry about love and loss. It's all a cheap ripoff of Shakespeare anyway. cranked out at 5:07 AM | |
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