Unhallowed

Just came across the story of Brandon Crisp, who died after running away over a familial dispute regarding his gaming habits. I suppose there are enough opinions about kids playing video games, maybe lacking sense about the real world or survival skills, and stuff like that.

Why then should anyone be eager to talk shit about someone they don't know? Some concerned folk put up a Facebook site during the weeks that he was missing. Many people posted prayers or condolences. Then the trolls found out.

Of the many things we can choose to disrespect or sacrilege, why dead people? Many a net teen is so eager to show off their snark, regardless of classic concepts of etiquette, manners, or plain human decency.

It reminds me of those soldiers unfortunate enough to die in foreign lands where the native people harbor above average hatred. You may be familiar with the scene: burnt corpses being dragged around the city, with a parade of wild-eyes in second place. The deceased is not regarded as a man, but as a monster, some undeserving banality. The soldier death may be justified by certain people or circumstances, but certainly not some kid who didn't approve of his treatment.

Where on the sorting algorithm of evil do we put the naysayers? The trolls who can't be expected to hold anything in high regard? Or those people who haunt funerals because they don't like homosexuals? I'm certain there are objective deductions to be made of those who can't respect human life even in its passing. It's one thing to share a chuckle about a late soul, another to outright mock them with disregard.

A Grey Matter

Break from politico…

Plenty of ways that this post can go wrong. It doesn't have to, but trying to explain my subconscious is like trying to save a bad joke. The explanation is deemed necessary, yet it ultimately ruins the topic of discussion, because logic and humor are disjoint, in a way.

This will be a major theme: there are two sides, both equally recognizable in their own respective domains, and an inverse, which defies description. This inverse—it's the in-between and the outside at the same time; it's the tangent of zero; the words that describe what words cannot. And I'm trying to describe it for my own benefit, and in the off chance that one of you sane people might understand.

Fighting with sleep. A choice: stay asleep or wake up. Two reasonable situations: remain comfortable and rest what's weary, or take the initiative and start the day. A twist—two lame arguments against: I feel like I'm going to die and I already get more than enough sleep these days, but the sheets are already warm and I never do anything important in the morning. The actual matter at hand? This is all just a trigger.

And an underlying conflict is taking place. It's strangely familiar; in fact, it seems to be a collection of phenomena I've seen before. It's not a dream, because all the while I'm criticizing everything that's happening, and actively trying to solve this puzzle that doesn't fit together. The dichotomy again: order and chaos, both existing together.

In this world I seem to be dreaming and remembering at the same time, there are a bunch of rules and progressions. They are rigidly followed even though they don't make any sense, guaranteeing that the resultant madness cannot happen in real life nor in dreams. There seem to be a finite number of motifs, gathered from my experience, and they govern in an uncanny way of ensured outcomes and nonsense.

It's a game. I've forgotten some of the details because the waking mind required to type cannot fully comprehend this grey matter. (If I decided to go back to sleep, I would not have taken the time to write any of this and likely confused it with whatever I actually dream about.) It seems to be cyclic, revolving around children's tag, a bit of roshambo, a board game, any fighting game you'd see in an arcade, and something out of a war game played by sovereign nations. It's played with designs, designs that can be assembled into a tank, which tries to kill you with ballistics, that you can avoid because you can jump circles around everything, yet you always run across another jumble of designs. It's played by countless masses, all faceless and famous, and they seem to be the best at what they do until the next guy breaks the game.

This time, that fear of dying got in the way, along with a strong desire to have a decent breakfast. And here I am left, a dozen paragraphs into the future, and nothing substantial accomplished, save for the possibility that in committing this to digital memory, I might consider returning to this oxymoron land under better circumstances, or at least with a bit more time to enjoy it all as it kills me.

Currently Listening Light Grenades By Incubus see related

Great. Now what?

Prop 8 passed. Marriage is (currently) legally defined as a contract between man and woman. What's so bad about this?

1. It clearly denies same-sex couples the right to marry.

What did we gain from refusing contractual marriage to gays? It doesn't add years or quality to existing marriages. It doesn't eradicate homosexuality. It won't increase the ranks of church-goers. There is absolutely no public benefit to Prop 8.

And who is clearly able to demonstrate that same-sex couples are inferior to "traditional" couples? The only obvious prohibition is their inability to procreate. Maybe that's a good thing. We wouldn't want homosexuality passed on to children, eh? It's clearly a genetic disorder. Oh, except now homosexuals can only marry across gender lines, and have gay babies. Oh no! But seriously, cite me documented cases of children growing up afflicted in a same-sex household, and how this differs from the millions born of traditional dysfunction.

2. It emboldens religious groups to enact changes in government.

No, we are not a Christian nation. American ideals may have much in common, but it is the notion of religious freedom that distinguishes us. The first Europeans to settle America were religious refugees. America's "founding fathers" were patently averse to monarchy, that one person was akin to godhood and held jurisdiction over all.

Still, throughout our history, religious authorities—mostly Christian—asserted that God deserved a place in a government that wanted nothing to do with religion. And in many small yet pervasive ways, reminders of Dominion were introduced into the national eye. The Pledge of Allegiance was neutral up to the past 50 years or so, when the Knights of Columbus lobbied for the addition of that loaded phrase, "Under God." Now rather than addressing the issue of religion, many schools opt to not utter the pledge at all. Because only Christians can be Americans, right?

What more? If the Knights of Columbus and the Mormon Church can sway the electorate, so too can even more despicable groups such as the Scientologists. How much longer until we're forced to admit the influence of space aliens upon government?

3. If anything, we're wasting resources on an issue of dubious importance.

It would all be well if the wasted effort could be limited to the Religious Right. But now with Prop 8 to take effect, we now have to devote time and money to dispel this unconstitutional matter. Perfectly capable men, women, and dollars will now be diverted from issues that actually have bearing on our current sorry state, like the economy, a futile war and a forgotten one, and to what degree government will ensure our welfare.

Will you be so bold as to declare marriage the exclusive right of heterosexuals? Fine, take it with you. Abolish all mention of it in law, and let religion keep it. Marriage is only legally recognized as a matter of courtesy. It was never a guarantee of a healthy, happy family, or a stable society, despite all affection to the contrary. Show us that your precious sacrament has demonstrable permanence and solvency, and the rest of us will take it seriously.

Currently Listening Black Holes and Revelations By Muse Invincible see related

Minutiae

• Process Explorer by Microsoft/SysInternals is very useful, much more so than Task Manager. While TM can show you what particular program is taking up resources, PE can show you how and why. Just a moment ago I was trying to uninstall something. I pressed the "Remove" button, and waited. Something was happening, there was a lot of computation going on, but no window or dialog. PE eventually showed me that the uninstall script was in an infinite loop: it was programmed (in BASIC, it seems) to delete a file, and (potentially bright idea) retry if the file was somehow still there. Problem was that the script didn't have permission to access the file, and it kept trying because it knew nothing else. Programmer didn't account for this, so I'm suffering silently.
• Read Time magazine? Love that graphic that shows support for the candidates by country. Obama is overwhelmingly preferred by the international community—only in America does he face any significant opposition. And likely by the same people that believe he's Arab (because black men have black names like Jackson and Banks and Cube, right?), that Creationism works, that the church deserves a say in politics (never mind that the Pilgrims came here specifically to escape religious persecution), and who believe in "moral values" even as their children have children and their authorities commit the most heinous of crimes.
• Still perusing Craigslist for a (meaningful) job and a place to live. Yes, I'm still trying to finish college, too, the housing market is awful, and the economy sucks. Just because I was a percussionist doesn't mean I have a perfect sense of timing. Maybe we really should have moved to Canada back in 2000, eh?

ANSWER THE GODDAMN QUESTION!!