Californication is Funny

Californication is funny. The acting is incredible and it's perfectly childish. It's classier than fart-funny, but close to that description. Boobs and farts. Snorting coke off a girls backside and teen perversion. It's pretty much my kind of show. And David Duchovny is hot. It's awesome having a sex addict play a sex addict. It really works. I have a friend that reminds me of Moody, but I dare not say his name. It would flatter him too much. I love horribly innapropriate things. I wonder if people ever look at me and think I look normal or conservative.  Haha.

I heart skateboarding

I was just watching a video about a skateboard company named Roger. I was excited to watch it, because I am friends with Michael Sieben, one of the owners. I met Michael Sieben in Austin in about 2000 and always loved the zines he made and his art. He is now very well known as desrvedly so, in that he is incredibly talented and funny and hard working. Now he has graduated to movies produced by Thrasher, and I fricken love seeing him in films. The movies are always hilarious, and the quality of direction and cinematography totally match the high quality of his humor. And this video about Roger is also so well done and interesting and professional, and I absolutely loved watching it. Inlaid with some beautiful music, one of the characters (real or fake owner I don't know) says:

"There is something that's inside skateboarders that constantly drives them to do new things and to overcome things: this like its me against them attitude that you get. You are not making a bunch of compromises to fulfill another's idea of what you need be. The motivation is something different. The motivation is being something that you do to being something that you are."

It's a laughably cheezy thing to say and said completely tongue-in-cheek and said to make fun of skaters and their followers, but it made me think.  My brain began wandering around like it does, neurons firing away through memories, visions, insecurities, and ideas. I had to stop watching the movie, so that I could explore where my thoughts were going. Something clicked at that moment and I had to start writing. At some point I just realized that skateboarding fits me like nothing else. It just clicked like a piece of broken china that seamlessly fits together with a tiny dot of super glue.Why do I love skateboarding so much? How is it that I am 40 years old and still love it so much? I may be a masochist and a loser, but it is so much more than that. It's as if nothing else even comes close to itching the insides of my brain.  Riding that stupid little board with four wheels has been a life long commitment.  Kind of nuts.   

The Constitution and Interpretation

I feel that adapting to modernity while reading The Constitution is important for everyone.  The 2nd Amendment was not originally about individuals, but I can honor that it can be considered that today.  But we also need to realize that these guys were talking about muskets, not hand guns, grenades, uzies, etc.  Owning guns for individual protection is one thing, but stockpiling is dangerous for the security of the state and other individuals.  Modernity is what really makes the Amendment seem the most ambiguous, because so much has changed. 

I still wonder how many people realize that the 2nd Amendment has the words "well-regulated" in it.  These words can never successfully be explained away.  Furthermore, few people understand that The Constitution, all the writings around The Constitution, and The Constitutional Convention were mostly about State vs. Federal rights.  Reading the original authors words in The Federalist and The Anti-Federalist Papers is extremely eye opening when it comes to the concept that Government equals Liberty.  People today have such a deep seeded fear of government that is entirely unconstitutional in itself.  I understand all the emotions for why people fear the US government, but just laws do exist: laws that encourage a healthy republic based on democratic principles, and laws that deal with public safety and the general welfare.  The authors of the AFPs wrote that tyranny can never come in the form of public safety.  Public safety is the most benevolent thing your government can do for you, so regulation of gun laws may be more liberating than people realize.  Something to think about.  Especially when we compare ourselves to other safer countries who have strong regulations and high gun ownership.  With that in mind, our 2nd Amendment can still be relevant, although ambiguous, because it seems to match well with countries who have strict gun laws that either have militias in the traditional sense or do not.

It is very obvious to me that the 2nd Amendment is not really about a healthy debate any longer, but mostly about corporate gains, the power of the NRA, and manufactured consent.  Propaganda is a powerful and oppressive tool, and it's power today is unfortunate for all of us. 

Ayn Rand Suck Pt 2

It shouldn't be surprising that one of Rand's heroic characters was based on a serial killer.  There are sociopathic and narcissistic elements in her protagonists and in her total obsession with selfishness.  Her heroes have no remorse, and she creates falsehood on top of falsehood to explains why no one should care why some people do not have equal access to resources.  How people can drink that kool-aid is beyond me, mostly because her theories are unthoughtful and undemocratic in every way.      
    

What does it say about humans that they change their entire belief system because they read a FICTION NOVEL?  It's baffling to me.  It is no different than Scientology or any cult or pseudo-religion that uses literary fiction to sway the mind.  Fiction novels do not generally show empirical evidence, encourage critical thinking, or offer any comparative analysis.  So if Rand could convince people to wholeheartedly follow her thinking, using fictional characters, she must have been highly persuasive.

Ayn Rand constantly wrote about good and evil, right and wrong, black and white, and wrote that the "middle" is even evil.  (Her words, not mine)  Ayn Rand never lets you question her.  And Objectivists seem to see things only through the lens of Objectivism and have a hard time discussing the possibility that their may be differing opinions-or they say that non-believers just do not understand her. (a very cultish reply) 

At some point in my education I realized that the "middle" is probably where true knowledge lives: collecting evidence, reading more, questioning, talking, re-questioning, comparing, etc.  Right and wrong, in an absolute way, probably does not exist entirely and never will, and it might be prudent to distrust people who say they know the true definitions of right and wrong.  Avowing right and wrong in a new passionate way is often how cults are formed.  And perhaps the "middle" actually creates the purest kind of individuality.  Extremism, such as objectivism, will always be too cultish to create an individual honesty of heart and mind.  I think people should read Rand's works for sure, but they should keep reading and compare her ideas with real life, before they get too stuck in a lonely, left-brained, fixed mentality.  Her concepts likely wont jive with reality, because they are not created in reality.  Furthermore, many of her beliefs go against so much known science: neurology, anthropology, sociology, poli-sci, philosophy, economics, etc etc.  It does not make her entirely wrong, but it certainly means her "absolutism" is in question.  

But, really, how is it that people are perfectly comfortable changing their entire relationships with morality after they read FICTION, and then become entirely different political entities??  It's shocking how gullible people are.  But we have seen this kind of mental and emotional brain washing of humans time and time again.

Sorry, I have to run- I have to take my spaceship back to my mother planet and try to help Xenu and my fellow Thetans.