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Loose Change - 2nd Edition

you can see this documentary for free at google video. you can download it for your PC or your ipod.

it speaks for itself. there is nothing i can say that can do it justice. this is all you need to see to understand that there is every reason to believe that our own government staged the 9/11 terror attacks, and no reason to believe that they did not.

the only reason i know of that people do not want to understand this is that they don't want to believe it. it's like not wanting to believe that your priest is a child molestor or your dad has is a tax evador. only on a much grander scale.

invade iraq because (per our current justification) saddam gassed his own people? when is someone going to please invade us to put us out of our own misery? they're not, because we've got the world by the balls- thank you, military industrial media complex.

what i really wonder is this: if people in this country actually start to wake up, will it be too late anyway, to make a better world? we've ruined most of the planet and we all have blood on our hands as thieves of the world's resources, as we cause millions upon millions of people to die because we will not share and we do not care. because we believe "we deserve it."

every car i see, every piece of junk mail, every bit of plastic, sickens me. every little thing is just more evidence of our hoggish insensitivity. but i believe that even if the world ends tomorrow, or in a week, or in twenty years, the only thing we can do regardless of imagined outcome is to try to redeem ourselves by waking up and helping others to wake up.

confidential to working assets: you are hypocritical poseurs. it is clear that you spend more money sending out junk mail solicitations and paper billing than you ever do contributing to "charitable" causes. good luck saving the dolphins. it's not going to happen.

note to self: click on every link in this column

aaah.... so i'm sitting here kind of multitasking and wishing i hadn't drunk coffee this morning because it makes me terribly anxious but i did it because it also helps me multitask and i have a lot of stuff to do... and right now that stuff involves filling out a mortgage application before 3:30 when my mom is going to call me to go over it with me because she knows more than i do about everything that has anything to do with money and anyway i do have an awful lot of email backed up to which i have not responded, much of which i have not yet read, and so i thought i'd knock off a few & delete them so i read mark morford's latest column and had to resist the terrible urge to follow his every link because everything he linked to in this one seemed way beyond relevant and something i'm enormously curious about right at this very moment. and it's funny because he mentioned "text-messaging your sister" and i had just sent off another long rambly email to my own sister. anyway i am proud of me because i resisted the urge to click on links, because i have things to do, but i thought i'd better write myself a reminder to go back and click on them later, and put said reminder somewhere where i'll actually stumble across it sometime, and this is that place. so that's what i just did. i just have one comment about mark's current column and that is that coffee makes me multitask more but as a person with actual ADD which i had long before i had any access to crazy media saturation, which i sometimes love by the way even though i also love mindfulness and yoga, when i take adderall it doesn't really make me multitask more or get a whole lot done. i think maybe i get less done, but i get less started. it calms me down and helps me focus better, but on fewer things. it also does help me wake up though and if i don't take it i can be a groggy loser. but i can also go to sleep on it. and i'm looking forward to following the links regarding ambien because holy fuck, that shit really works. i have had insomnia since i was a baby, or as long as i can remember anyway. i remember my mom being crazy-frustrated w/me because i would not fall asleep for naps and at night i could never sleep either so i was always dragging during the day. i've been taking much heavier medication for sleep, for years, and then my dr. gave me ambien and it's wonderful because it doesn't leave me groggy, and i sleep through the night w/out night sweats for the first time in forever. but my therapist said he thinks there is a dependency that develops... so i need to read up on it and anyway that's why i must return to this very important column later but for now i have to do my boring paperworky stuff and also put up links everywhere to si senor, the literary print journal to which i am a semi-regular contributor and the newest issue has just been published with two short pieces by yours truly, and everyone needs to go to their independent booksellers and tell them to order it, and that's as important as paperwork although perhaps it can wait until after 3:30, so long as i can remember to do it then if i haven't become too distracted by other things. anyway. note to self: shut up, jenna.

click of impending doom

poor little meeeee.... i have been having seemingly endless computer problems. first, my ibook died forever (it has died before but always come back from the other side.) then my trustly old workhorse, the desktop g4, started freezing and i don't know why. i don't have any diagnostic utilities that are any good and/or work with tiger. anyway i have 4 hard drives installed, and only 2 will mount. a third will occasionally mount at startup but soon afterward it dismounts w/out even asking me. the fourth, which is where i keep all my video files and works in progress, will not mount at all unless i put it in an external firewire case, which is preposterous and i keep thinking there has got to be a reason. but it's been years and i haven't figured it out. anyway one of the latter 2 drives is signaling oncoming death with the ominous click of impending doom. it's all very sad. if you read this and you are rich, and you want to solve all my computer woes, here's my dream setup... and all the components are listed on my amazon.com wishlist. note: any one of them individually would make me really happy even with my current setup half of which is near or past death.

1) top-o'-th'-line 12" powermac g4
2) kensington wireless keyboard for the mac
3) 21" flat-panel display that doubles as video monitor (has video inputs as well as computer-y inputs)
4) terrabyte networked storage & backup drive

thanks, wealthy fans!!! i love you!!!!!!

clusterfuck nation

i've been too dazed & staggering-about to write anything lately, as current events defy imagination and leave me entirely speechless. but i miss ranting and so i have stolen this month's entry in my big hero james howard kunstler's "eyesore of the month" to post here because i don't think if i just put a link here that anyone will click on it. what this building reminds me of is this kind of "geek" fashion that's all the rage these days with the geeksters- like clocks that show the time in binary code with LED lights, etc. here, anyway, is something not written by me. i will try to get around to updating this site to include clusterfuck nation in my sidebar links at the very least because this guy is very funny and has a unique and important perspective on things. and he is the reason i got my shit together to make a big change and move back east. and i am thinking i might volunteer to do his website for him because IMHO it's too klunky and i would like to be able to go to the blog or the eyesore site w/out having to always go to the main page first. when i'm done w/the big rework of sonny's site (which i also do for free because it's my little way of supporting the arts and sonny is an amazing artist which makes it an honor even though i procrastinate horribly on it) i will give jim k. a holla. anyway:

from clusterfuck nation by james howard kunstler:

Eyesore of the Month - March 2006

Can you fail to be impressed by the malignant stupidity of this building proposed for downtown Louisville, the 61-story Museum Plaza,designed by Rem Koolhaas's Office of Metropolitan Architecture? It violates everything that we can reasonably expect about the energy-scarcefuture -- most particularly the poor prospects for running skyscrapers and megastructures. But even if that were not an issue, and even on its own terms, what a monstrous thing this is! Its attitude to its urban context -- just off Louisville's Main Street -- is so disrespectful that the context is left out altogether in the rendering above. You'd think all that remained of Louisville a few years from now is a post-atomic-blast hardpan desert. Indeed, the aim of all Koolhaas's work has been to confound our expectations about how the city and its buildings ought to work, and to find ever more innovative ways to make people uncomfortable, while doing everything possible to disregard the public realm. Is it not evident by now that the cutting edge of architecture is a razor blade poised against our society's own throat.

Copyright © 1999 -- 2006 James Howard Kunstler

richmond is #1!!!!! in crime and poverty.

i happened to drive right past this laundromat yesterday, right at around 4pm. i remember looking into it while reflecting upon my own recent brush with death on sunday. call me psychic. i did not see the brown chevy or witness this incident though.

Posted on Wed, Nov. 30, 2005

Teen grazed by bullet in Richmond drive-by

RICHMOND - A teenager dodged serious injury Wednesday afternoon, and instead was only grazed by a bullet during an afternoon drive-by shooting.

Around 4 p.m. a 15-year-old Richmond boy was hanging out with a group of friends in front of a laundromat at the corner of Carlson and Cutting boulevards when a brown Chevy van drove up. A man hanging out the window immediately started sprayed rounds into the group and sped off.

The boy, whose right elbow was grazed by a bullet, was the only person to be injured.

Police had no further description of the van or the suspect.

steve holt!

that is my favorite new exclamation. 2nd place: yogalates!

both of which i say to myself to cheer me up because this world is too fucking depressing. i'm mildly cheered by the new knowledge that chavez is making good on his offer to provice cheap oil for the poor this winter. that rocks. but everything else is so depressing. part of me really hopes the world doesn't end in my lifetime because i dread the idea of drowning or starving to death or dying in a huge fire when someone bombs the chevron refinery, but another part of me thinks that would be better than being reincarnated into a starving person in africa and dying of AIDS in my first few years of life. who knows. there isn't any part of me that is expecting things to get better, or expecting the planet to somehow recover from humans w/out first getting rid of us, but i wish i had hope for that. i wish i was naive and stupid, i think.

anyway i was wandering around point richmond last night with my dog, looking at all the pretty little houses and wishing i lived there, and wondering how so many snooty galleries and real estate offices managed to survive in such a teeny little neighborhood. but there are liquor stores too! like 3 of them, at least. and at least 3 bars. and there's a bus stop and a post office. what a cute little neighborhood. but then i saw the little library branch and the sign on the door saying it was closed due to budget cuts. that is so pathetically typical. in this wealthy and beautiful neighborhood, they can't afford to keep the library open. it's just so depressing. that's all i have to say.

yes, i totally suck

let it be known that i am totally wracked with guilt over not joining the rallies all over the place today which were part of the world can't wait movement which, in case it's not obvious, is a bunch of people making it very clear that we (the world) really can't wait until 2008 to make bush & his entire administration step down. which we can't. wait. that is. i'm glad someone's saying it. and i want to be a part of this!!! i thought if i made it out today, that would be a good way to meet other people who feel the way i do and maybe become less isolated in my pissed-offedness, etc. however, i was accidentally up till 4 am and i slept really late, and i wasted the day away in bed putzing around on my ibook avoiding actually writing prose for my novel. i guess i got a couple other things done though which were important. but i know i should have gone out to join all the rallyers. in my defense, i only found out about it yesterday which didn't give me any time at all to prepare and arrange to go to bed super-early, etc. and had i thought it all out in advance i might have tried to use the occasion to hook up with a friend or two. or maybe i would have felt like being alone so i could not be distracted. who knows. anyway i didn't make it but WE HAVE TO GET RID OF BUSH and i really have to find a way i can help this cause in spite of the fact that i am a socially phobic hermit.

to fix the nation:

here are my ideas for some things we should do to fix what's wrong with us. i don't care if you call me a socialist, because i am one.

• constitutional right to vote. anyone can vote INCLUDING ex-felons who have done their time.


• eliminate primaries and the electoral college. voting day should be a national holiday. all states should have the same ballot for national things. every ballot will allow instant runoff/ranked choice voting, thereby eliminating the sorrowful need to choose the lesser of two evils.


• corporations must lose their personhood under the law


• outsourcing should be made illegal. no more offshore tax havens, either.


• constitutional ammendment making it illegal for any one party to control more than a third of any given branch of government. alternately: do away with parties.


• outlaw all election spending. major tv and radio networks must give free and equal time to candidates.
• candidates may not advertise and must advance on their merit alone.


• outlaw lobbying and donations to political parties or candidates.

and then once those things are fixed:

• free public transit for everyone


• national healthcare system with NO copays


• living wage


• reform of welfare laws making it EASIER to get welfare, and raising welfare high enough that it does not force people into poverty. people will be motivated to work if they can because it will give them more money for more pleasure in life.


• school lunches: all organic, all home-made. no vendors allowed in schools or on school premises. food should be made a part of the curriculum and classes encouraged to grow their own food.

that's just for starters. too bad i don't have the power to personally enact these reforms.

figured this out in my sleep:

to make the bay area livable in the near and far future, we need, above all else, free public transit. in discussions about public transit pets are never mentioned and dog-lovers sadly shake their heads, knowing that even the best rail system won't help them take care of their dogs. what we need is a kiddie train for people and dogs that's free for everyone. it would go all over the bay area but mainly along the routes where we now have bicycle paths, which now go past the two best off-leash dog parks and along the bay. the seats on the train would all be fitted with dog harnesses and leash clips to keep everyone safe and it would run three times a day: at 10:00 am, 2:00 pm, and 6:00 p.m. for starters (adjusted during shorter daylight hours and rainy seasons.) there would be no charge, ever. this system, along with free public transit for humans, would go a long way toward reducing our dependence on fossil fuels. the trains could be built from the start to run on bio fuels.

there would be no restrictions for the train since everyone needs to transport their pets. people would be allowed on with or without dogs, and smaller animals would be allowed on so long as they were safely in carriers. dogs would be allowed on without people as well, if they carried route markers on their collars so that the train conductors would know that everything was on the up-and-up. kids over the age of 12 or with special parent-approved tickets would be allowed to ride anytime as well. the train conductors would be licensed and bonded and a second doggie train employee would be aboard at all times to assist with emergencies and loading/unloading. they would both get to wear old-fashioned train conductor uniforms appropriate for the weather. the trains would be uncovered in summer. they'd make "toot toot" sounds so that everyone would know the doggie train was coming 'round the bend.

'Unauthorized Reproduction'

this has gotten way too little play in the media. i had to hunt hunt hunt to find this after hearing 2 brief mentions of it on air america over the course of maybe 4 days:Daily Kos: Indiana R's Seek to Criminalize 'Unauthorized Reproduction' [UPDATED]

if we blink we're going to be living in the scary world of "the handmaid's tale." except much worse because also our planet is dying. i really hope it manages to survive even if or especially if we don't. what disturbs me the most about THAT though is just thinking about all the toxic waste we're leaving here no matter what happens. can you imagine if the human race did somehow survive for another hundred years or so, what it would be like for anthropologists etc. who escavated nuclear waste by mistake?

i suppose the people who didn't think of that were busy thinking they'd be saved by the rapture or they'd be happily away in heaven, or something. what i find most disturbing about religion (as opposed to spirituality) as presented to us in the mainstream is that somehow people aren't able or willing to do good unless there's some reward for them at the end. that without things like the bible, people would just run amok and do horrible things. yet of course the people touting their religion the most are the ones spewing the most toxic hatred everywhere. ok so top 3 things about religion that disturb me are:

1) it's used to justify the most horrible things
2) self-professed godly people are the most ungodly creatures
3) it appeals to our very basest natures

i think that's it. i am rambling all over the place because i have a terrible headache and can't think properly. however on a closing note i should mention that i dig the spiritual progressives and i really liked the yom kippur "prayer" that came to my email box from rabbi michael lerner. it can be downloaded here as part of tikkun's 2005 high holiday thingy.

delusional optimism

i'm starting to notice little advertisements here and there regarding "higher beings" or "masters" who are preparing to come save us from ourselves. it would be really nice to believe something like this. in fact, it would be really nice to believe that i am one of the chosen disciples with whom the masters are communicating telepathically and that i have an important role to play in saving the world, and that is why i'm so smart.

however, i don't buy this. it seems like a very easy out. maybe it's a necessary one because it's very hard to keep going on a day to day basis feeling so hopeless but i think the problem with "god" is people thinking that somehow this sort of parental figure is going to save us in the end, like in a movie. therefore we kind of abdicate responsibility and don't face the extreme nature of the situation we've gotten ourselves into.

i think i'm with kurt vonnegut in thinking that the human race is a disease and the earth's immune system is trying to get rid of us. he says the only responsible thing for us to do is to stop reproducing. it's sad but true. here's the thing. if there was a god and this god gave humans an ability to reason that the rest of the animal kingdom did not enjoy, then clearly our "test" was to see what we would do with it. having chosen to rape and destroy our planet and all the beings on it rather than linging humbly in harmony with nature, why should we expect to somehow get out of jail free at the end? if it was a test, obviously we've failed so why would this god come save us at the end? and if it wasn't a test, what kind of ludicrus god would give us the ability to reason, knowing (as it would, being an omniscient thing) what we were going to do with our reasoning power?

no, the "intelligent design" theory makes absolutely no sense. what intelligent designer would put humans in charge? so i'm devoid of delusional optimism. still it would be great to not only believe this but to actually have it happen.

American Democracy in Trouble

wow. al gore. and he won... should have been prez... i've wondered this whole time (this whole illigitimate bush reign during which the world has gone mad) what it would have been like with gore, and what gore would have done in the face of the already-corrupt structure of the powers already in place, and the realities of global warming and peak oil, and if he would've been assassinated, etc. also i wonder if he'd become prez could he have gotten rid of the stiff neck? because i have read things which led me to believe that he could be very cool and witty if he felt comfortable enough.

anyway as depressing as this is it's always heartwarming to have a voice of sanity out there. here it is, al gore's keynote speech at the we media conference in new york.

Chavez: Venezuela Moves Reserves to Europe

Associated Press Business News: Chavez: Venezuela Moves Reserves to Europe


he is just so smart. every move chavez makes impresses me with how strategic it is, and how forward-thinking it is. i have the 2 books on him, haven't read them yet. will read them very soon. but here is what i'm hoping: that when the empire falls, latin america will survive and grow strong and healthy out from under our cruel thumb.

it remains to be seen what will happen with china, or with the us-china codependency thing.

but imagine if future generations on this land we call the united states were actually in canada or latin america, and people lived in peace? if you think about it most of the wars in recent memory (or not-so-recent memory) they've been caused by the US, whether overtly or covertly (i guess almost always covertly.) read howard zinn. and michael ruppert. and others. and declassified documents. cuba. anyway i really hope that chavez knows that not all americans fear him, some of us are truly enthralled. smitten, if you will.

coming up for air

i've been absent for a while because i was obsessively reading, among other things, crossing the rubicon by michael ruppert. that is over 600 pages (of teeny type, very hard to read i might add) of extremely convincing evidence, thoroughly researched and meticulously documented, that 9/11 was brought about with not only the full knowledge of the bush administration but with their help and the help of, i hate to say it, administrations before them.

all of this would be hard to believe (for most people, not me) if it weren't for the big secret they're keeping from us all" peak oil. since i first heard the term (this summer) i've done little else but read everything i can about it, and the term is starting to pop up in more and more mainstream places. but it's not a happy thought and it goes against conventional economic thinking (which is based on the fallacy of infinite resources, not to mention the unquestioning ideology of expansion) so most will discard it until it is too late.

what do i mean by too late? i mean the point at which the energy it would take to come up with and manufacture alternatives to oil would be more than the energy we have available or can afford. the thing about the peak is that once it is reached (which happened around 1970 for the US, and for the world best estimates are that it's happening right now, as in 2005) it becomes more and more difficult to extract the remaining oil until a point is reached where it takes a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil, and at that point there is no point.

so, as i've been learning more and more about this, i've become more and more disillusioned with the progressive voices out there, few that they are. i read the news at all the places i have linked on this site, and i used to read everything every day. as i started learning more about peak oil there were progressively fewer articles that i didn't think were just missing the whole point, not seeing the big picture. i now believe that we will destroy ourselves trying to fight the little battles (like increased fuel efficiency for vehicles- there just isn't TIME for that to make a difference) and not preparing for living without oil, entirely. it makes me sick seeing new developments still going up, knowing so many people are still living their lives as if nothing is going to really change...after all, nothing HAS really changed in the US in the past 50-ish years. not really. things have gotten worse absolutely, but nothing really radical has happened. people really seem to believe that everything is permanent, especially those born into this affluent society. even to be in poverty in this affluent society is to not have a clue that there are other ways to live. and that there are much, much BETTER ways to live. we're not allowed to think that or say that in this country. but it's true.

i don't know what to do. i try to warn my friends. very few people want to talk about this. it's not a pretty thing to talk about. it brings up very scary thoughts. i have to decide whether to stay here or try to get back to the east coast. the chief benefit of being here is that the weather is pretty mild. except when there's a heat wave (like this past week) i can handle the warmest weather, and where i'm currently living i can go without heating all winter. it's warmer upstairs, so in the winter i just have to hang out upstairs and stay under the covers. that's fine by me if it means not using gas or oil or electricity. also, i can grow food pretty much all year round (it will help when i actually learn how to garden properly, and when i start eating all those vegetables i grow because they're sadly so much easier to grow than fruit- i'd live on fruit and nuts if i could grow them.) well anyway, i'm living alone, glad to be sort of part of a community, but not hoping to, like, marry anyone. ever. never again! part of me really really wants a kid, well most of me does. i want to be impregnated by a black man (hopefully someone i am friends with, if i can have everything my way) and have a beautiful brown baby and not be married. i'd home-school. and i don't know what else.

but that seems like a very short-sighted and selfish thing to do... on account of that we have a serious over-population problem in this world. then i think but having a kid would give me hope and a reason to go on. something to believe in. but to bring a kid into this world knowing what may very certainly lie ahead? i just don't know. i always wanted to get pregnant accidentally, sort of leave it up to the fates. but it's very difficult to get a guy to not use a condom in this day and age, unless he's a dick who i'm pretty certain has at least one STD. or like one guy i know who refuses to wear a condom but insists that if a woman he's with gets pregnant, she's getting an abortion. so i'm nearing the ned of my childbearing years and it seems like if i want this to happen i have to do it really on purpose, and if i do that, i will have only myself to second-guess. "did i do the right thing? what have i done? how will i explain to my child that i brought him/her into this world, and that this world is dark and dismal?"

but what else is there? everything IS dark and dismal. what is anything worth without love and family? i don't mean dysfunctional family. the fear of that (or the reality of it, i guess) is the reason why i live alone. i have yet to hve a non-dysfunctional experience or to be content and not miserably depressed while in a relationship. but damn, i love little people (babies, kids) and even those crazy teenagers. and i love my dog. i love my friends too, though i never see them. i'm starting to forget what they all look like. i'm starting to wonder if any of them will find out if i die because we've all been out of touch for too long. will any of them be surprised? or will my death, like elliott smith's death, be something that seemed pre-destined, and not all that surprising? i personally never expected to live this long but here i am.

i suppose it's a good thing that i'm in such a weird period of between-ness in my life. if i had something going on it would be hard to switch gears. not knowing what's going to happen, i want to be able to play things by ear. i just wish it wasn't so hard to find other people thinking like this, people with whom to hold hands as we leap into the abyss. la la la.