A racist religious bigot and my response…

I received this asking what my thought was on the matter…

Subject: Fw: Fwd: Time IS LIKE A RIVER

Subject:  Time IS LIKE A RIVER

This is just awful to have to accept this new order of life in the USA.

Worth pondering and sending on to others….

TIME IS LIKE A RIVER

Time is like a river. You cannot touch the water twice, because the flow that has passed will never pass again.

Franklin Graham was speaking at the First Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Florida a few weeks back when he said America will not come back. He wrote:

The American Dream ended (on November 6th, 2012 ) in Ohio . The second term of Barack Obama will be the final nail in the coffin for the legacy of the white Christian males who discovered, explored, pioneered, settled and developed the greatest Republic in the history of mankind.

A coalition of Blacks, Latinos, Feminists, Gays , Government Workers, Union Members, Environmental Extremists, The Media, Hollywood , uninformed young people, the “forever needy,” the chronically unemployed, illegal aliens and other “fellow travelers” have ended Norman Rockwell ‘s America . The Cocker Spaniel is off the front porch… The Pit Bull is in the back yard. The American Constitution has been replaced with Saul Alinsky ‘s “Rules for Radicals” and Chicago shyster, David Axelrod , along with international Socialist George Soros will be pulling the strings on their beige puppet to bring us Act 2 of the New World Order.

Our side ran two candidates who couldn’t even win their own home states, and Chris Christie helped Obama over the top with a glowing “post Sandy ” tribute that elevated the “Commander-in-Chief” to Mother Teresa status. (Aside: with the way the polls were run, he didn’t need any help!) People like me are completely politically irrelevant, and I will never again comment on or concern myself with the afore mentioned coalition which has surrendered our culture, our heritage and our traditions without a shot being fired.

You will never again out-vote these people. It will take individual acts of defiance and massive displays of civil disobedience to get back the rights we have allowed them to take away. It will take Zealots, not moderates & shy not reach-across-the-aisle RINOs to right this ship and restore our beloved country to its former status.

Those who come after us will have to risk their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to bring back the Republic that this generation has timidly frittered away due to “white guilt” and political correctness… An American Veteran……… Semper-Fi

Got the guts to pass it on? You betcha!!!!!

…and my response…

I find the ignorance, sexism, racism and bigotry inherent with such deluded thought is dangerous, counter to a productive and healthy future. This is the type of thinking that is the birth of such institutions as right wing National Socialists Parties that formalize fascism and bring it to fruition. Often through subversive suggestions of violence that lead to actual violence – and regularly to the rape, murder, torture, and related horrors that white people have ushered upon minorities in America since shortly after our arrival here.

I find statements like this email that was forwarded grossly ignoring the violence committed against the natives (i.e. the Indians) of North America and ignores the ongoing violence and system institutionalized violence and oppression of minorities here. From red-lining, to Jim Crow laws, to other such nonsense I’m surprised honestly that black persons of America haven’t risen up even more and committed MORE violence against white America. I’m shocked that latinos haven’t stood against, rallied, and destroyed white control of Los Angeles, San Francisco, and other cities. Meanwhile the black, Latino, and other individuals slave away at the behest of abusive power dynamics that the white Americans sit atop in this country. White Americans ignore and pretends there is no such things as white privilege. In the meantime talking themselves up while this country was built on the backs of what was entirely minority populations for most of the existence of this nation. Meanwhile the minority populates are left with little, having been overwhelmed by western European styles of capitalism, etc and little to go on for generations. White Americans did a lot of building this nation, but our neglect and unbiased, unconscious, and related cognitive dissonance around our racist declarations of self-made men is disingenuous at best and outright insulting to many of those that did much of the work to build this country.

Now we stand at a time where white man on the continent isn’t always the vast majority, is losing a little bit of our political power, is ceding some to women as women of all races take more control of their place in our society, white man has an ebbing influence of strength and every racist, bigot, and angry person clings to the likes of Trump and Franklin Graham in their shortsighted, public school limited and skewed history education. Many of this old guard follow complete fabrications, false data and ramble on about nonsense as in the previous email. Their America is falling apart, their America is slowly dying. Good riddance to their America, I barely want to live in the one that exists let alone their hate filled, racist, bigot filled idea of what an ideal America is.

The new America will have less wealth, and less white influence, and overall will have more transparency over time and more openly socialist practices. We’ve already had many socialist practices so they aren’t so new (most purported and created by Republicans which is a perverse irony: i.e. Interstate System, corporate welfare, etc). We’ll have children that are more open to being friends with the Indian kid, the black kid, the Latino kid, and they won’t immediately assume – as any open and freshly minded child would be. They’re not born racist. These children are our future, even as we’ve built and will leave then a sick and dying planet. They’ll be the ones who truly have to take hold and right this ship – called Earth – if they want to and their offspring want to survive into the future. There is no mars or the moon to run off to, there is no second planet. We’re on this one and we’ll have to make do. As the population continues to increase however, people are forced to deal with the reality that we’re all from one, we are a human species. Being black or white or whatever is a completely naive and ignorant delineation. The sooner we realize that, accept that we have to develop technology to live cleaner, better, more open and transparent lives, the better off we and our children and children’s children will be.

Personally, I see children today, in Scandinavia, Portland, San Francisco, and New York (the places I’ve visited recently) and realize that the future does look brighter than it sometimes seems on a day to day basis. But seeing the old guard of the racist, bigot filled demographic lose their political power makes me realize we, humanity, our children’s children, i.e. my children and your grandchildren and others’ grandchildren and children of today – might have a great and happy future in spite of all the horrors the current, immediately previous, and past generations have visited upon them.

That’s what I think of that letter from Franklin Graham. Considering the United States fought a war against bigots and racists like Franklin Graham, he can’t lose his power fast enough. It’s a shame people like that even spew their hatred outward and have it embodied in words puked up by people like Franklin Graham. They are indeed sick and horrid people, the people moving the world forward today really don’t need this kind of thing, it is a waste of our resources and time.

That is all.

Coffee Shop WTF Sitrep

Sitting at a coffee shop on Sunday is always sketchy. Sometimes its full of enriched minds and thoughtful souls enjoying life. Today the constituency is however not of this alignment. The suburbs come into town and invade the urban landscape with superficiality, sameness and ideals of ticky tacky pasted homes. They come into town and then bitch about how urban and how things aren’t like where they live out in the suburbs.

One corner is some poseur “transients”. They have a dog, that lives in the backyard of their suburban parents house. Their money, which they’re not spending at the establishment, is from their parents. They’re bitching about how they don’t have enough money, as they check their bank accounts with their iPhones and androids and continue to bitch how they can’t afford anything and it sucks that they can only loiter in the business. WTF?

Standard for the pacific northwest, the business owners are passive aggressive and say nothing. They only stare at them wishing they’d leave. Building up frustration that they’ll then bitch about when the “poseur transients” leave.

Meanwhile to the other side two couples sit and have a conversation about how it takes so much effort to get into a business to get brunch or coffee on Sunday. They complain about the dirty transients (that happen to be from the same area of the suburbs that they’re from – the irony). Then they bitch about the homeless (that are escaping the unforgiving, hypocritical and punishing work environments of rural and suburban landscapes were work isn’t readily available).

Alas, thanks for coming into town and at least spending money in real local businesses instead of the chains gang shops where you guys live. But seriously, STFU about how hard the urban landscape is for you. Stop yammering about the poseur transients, they mooching but it’s more your lifestyle fault than anything to do with the urban landscape. We that live here are not going to build you more parking lots, help you drive your cars or hand hold you through the complexities and wondrous creativity and art that is available in the city. Slow down, think about what you’re doing, don’t get stuck in auto-dependency and you may start to realize how valuable, enriching, and wealthy (not just in the monetary sense) the rewards are from enjoying the city.

So seriously my fellow American Citizens that have no clue about this mysterious urban landscape, I’m glad you’ve come into the city to expand your minds. But try to learn a little and be a little more original before you come invading the city and bitching about everything here.

In the end. Enjoy. I’m off to ride my bike and live the artsy enriching urban life. Cheers.

Impressive Camera Work & Riding

Guns? Suicides? Why Can’t People Actually Derive Logically From Statistics?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state

Note: The District of Columbia and Louisiana (i.e. New Orleans) have the highest murder rates by a multiplier of 2x-10x higher than any other state. Both of these two areas have a city, which has the highest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_in_the_United_States

Note: Suicide Rate, Japan’s is more than 2x the US’s at 26 per 100k vs. our 11 per 100k. Again valuable derived information can be found by this extreme lack of correlation. Remember, Japan basically has zero guns, the United States has tons. Japan is greater than 2x our suicide rate yet they have nowhere near as many lethal options to commit these actions. I’ll lay it out simply, that provides proof that having or not having guns to commit suicide is not the key to decreasing said incidents, but instead changing one’s cultural characteristics is the key. In other words, banning guns is very likely to have almost no affect on suicides over the long term if the United States can’t fix it’s cultural issue, the same is obviously true for Japan, since they’ve already banned firearms and as far as I know from the data, there are zero suicides by firearm. If there are any in Japan, it is such a small number they don’t even differentiate the mechanism used.

Needless to say, the statistics and single data points the anti-gunners, and the pro-gunners use are often nefariously used at best and often completely irrelevant without looking at more data points around culture, habits, behaviors and other indicators within social groups. Until we as a nation learn to do that and mold our society into something more closely that we actually want, we won’t get very good results by screaming about gun crimes and guns and the horror of the tools we employ.

Strangely enough, this goes the same for the automobile vs. any other mode of transport argument. Until we realize the costs, the REAL costs, we’ll keep making absurdly stupid as hell policy decisions around these things.

Life Has Improved…

Buying power is decreasing these days, but for people who really pushed away from the typical average American way of life, things are good. Buying ability continues to drop, slowly but steadily. Many of told many others that this would happen. They’ve often been laughed, scoffed and shunned by the majority.

I’m sitting here though, not living like an average American in many ways, unless you consider the average American of about 1790 or 1820. An American who was involved, building a town or city, building a new country and a new world for themselves. Some of us are striving to do this, in spite of the shrinking majority that wants to maintain the average American way of life, that has only really existed since about 1955.

There are millions of us for every few million that are against us, for now. We’re the millions that are seeking out organic food and healthier alternatives to the chemically laced science experiments of the last several decades. We’re looking for a return of the good ideas and obliteration of the bad ideas. We’re looking for greater community and less dependence on other countries, outside hand outs, and a greater inward looking solution to our problems. Because really, those outside hands and those others that are supposed to help, they just fuck up all the time. Over and over they want to push their agenda and we want to be rid of their planned cookie cutter lifestyles.

We’re the generation guard at this point. The next generation will be even more demanding of the removal of this faux science of chemicals and petrol powered community destroyers. We want to know each other again and not to push apart, to separate, to hide like cowards in cul-de-sacs.

We want to build our cities, our world, and our lives up again. In the here and now, that’s really our only option since our immediate “greatest generation” has screwed up our entire economic system, broken our justice system, and laid in a path of conservative destruction of close minded bullshit built on a false history and false pretenses.

It’s a simple request, we’re here now. We will hopefully win. The alternative is a step back to a much darker part of history and a hopeless future.

Groovy, Shred It

Racing Culture & Really Serious Gearheads, or why I’m in Startups

I’m sitting here pondering the nights I was behind the wheel. 135 miles per hour and we pulled onto the twin span. Clearing regular traffic as if it were stopped.

We headed in line, watching out for each other. A flash for helicopters, two for traffic issues. We’d gotten used to each other, our techniques. We could tell the intensity of the drive by the slight movements of the wheels, the angle of attack on the cars. We could see millimeter differences from a distance, the twist of suspension and more.

The speed was almost like slow motion. The lift and drop as we rolled over bad interstate sections heading into New Orleans. We imagined what was happening as the suspension compressed and decompressed to light the cars firmly on the road. Those wings, that so many might make fun of, a very valuable physical asset to the cars at this point. Helping to keep the ass ends firmly planted and the front ends firmly aligned with our drive.

We’d notice the hard break of an cohort in the drive. 135 mph becomes 65mph in a mere few seconds. All of us in perfect succession break, knowing there is only one reason for such a massive drastic shift. Of course, off to the side the lead’s radar had detected a pig. We cruise by and at the respective distance drop the hammer again. We roll onward to an easy cruising of about 105 mph.

Yeah, we’re in the United States. Do we care about the speed limit or the police? Yeah, we care about everybody but we just don’t care about their nonsensical approach to all this. The adrenaline rush overrides all of that anyway, the precisions and the dance of it all makes us not care. We’ve been cast aside by society for so many years now we don’t care anyway. We know the ins and outs of the system, we understand what we’re doing, and we do what we can not to involve those that are innocent or uninvolved. It’s a simple thing really. Overall, we stay on the hard core, underground, down low.

The 105mph trickles down to 60mph as we take the off ramp that reads 25mph. Except we don’t slow down, because our cars are built to handle this turn at an easy 60 mph. Nobody is anywhere to be seen. We move toward Michoud. The technology in our cars reads back various metrics; air pressure, compression ratios, air and fuel mixtures, we get trended data of our average speed across the 6 mile bridge. We’re all data nerds at heart. The difference between other data nerds is we’re all adrenaline junkies. We all roll down to the roads that are wide open and completely empty at this time of night.

We’re primed. The ladies and gentlemen of the crew are now all lined up. Yes, it looks like those shitty movies. With amazingly beautiful ladies, some really young, some of the ladies sit in the drivers seats. It’s the most sexist non-sexist environment ever. Everybody is there to get their adrenaline bump. They are there to see the technology, to feel the speed or hear the sounds, to see the elated people and share in the moment. It’s intense, it’s driving, it is contagious.

The first two cars line up. A straight and two turns. There are no rules, just stay alive and lead. Simple

As they pull up the tech can be heard, air intakes and turbos, forced induction pushing power into ranges that V8s dream of. All in a measly 1.8-2 liter engine. Power to weight ratios that are usually only in 160k dollar cars, all sit in front of us with the creative work of really smart individuals. Often in the beautifully modified piece of art coming in around 20-40k. These drivers working 2, 3, or 4 jobs to make the money to create these masterpieces.

A young lady decides to step up to flag the start of the race. She throws down her hands as the count ends and steps forward to be sure to avoid the car paths. The cars lurch forward in a violent passion, screaming engines and turbos spooling hard. Machine, tech, power, lust, and brute force combine to throw the cars forward to 30mph, 60mph, and faster. Mere seconds pass, a quarter mile is broken and triple digit speeds are broken. The first turn can be seen and the curs stab forward as the breaks are applied. One car leads into the turn, kicking out ever so slightly. The driver has balls, or maybe I shouldn’t say that. Because she’s doing an amazing job of smoking the guy in the other car.

The tear thru the turns and come back around. Slowing with hesitation as they approach the crowd as dozens prance forward to congratulate them on a great run. The both egress from their cars to discuss the dynamics of it all. To throw a little bravado forward and enjoy everyone’s congratulations. Again, to enjoy the moment and hubris of it all.

The race is done. Adrenaline is had. The love of it all is beyond evident to all but the dead.

I know this, I’ve felt it, I’ve been there, raced there, loved it there. Now I do none of it. But the passion of the technology, the integration, the effort and drive is all there in me. This is why I love the startups, the small business, the effort to step above the fray and move forward. To make that little impact in the world and get the smile on your face that comes with it.

That’s why I work for startups. That’s why I’ll try until the last gasp I take.

I Read a Story…

…over on Jillian’s Blog about a drunk driving incident, fortunately no one was killed. It however brought up an incident that I saw in New Orleans years ago. I wrote about it in the comments section and have copied it here,

I approached an intersection that approached an on ramp where someone, intoxicated, had stomped the gas into the floorboard to make the light – trying to get onto the Interstate. They’d hit the car (which was progressing under a green light now) square in the drivers side at about 50mph, almost killing the driver. Instead the driver of that car laid in the car dying, blood pooled around everywhere while some others around called the emergency crew. The drunk driver was however immediately punished by fate. They had been flung through the window, being severely cut and bones broken. That however was the easy part of this incident. The driver at that speed broke through the windshield and then flew forward making it over the car that was impacted in the side. There was a “dragons tail” of blood from there all the way to were this person had stopped flying forward. There sat their corpse. Absolutely horrible scene. Both innocent and guilty dead. The innocent suffering the most… as it took about an hour for them to die as others tried to save them.

Horrible story, but to take note. Stay safe, stay of sound mind when driving. Don’t kill people, that’s not cool. Please don’t operate anything over 5 mph when intoxicated, hell, one shouldn’t even walk too fast when drunk! Find a good couch, relax, enjoy one’s altered reality. 🙂

Seriously, I can’t say it enough. America sucks for drinking, it is absolutely the reverse of logical about it unless you live in a major urban center (i.e. Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, New York, you get the idea). One has to be extra careful in this country about driving out to drink… simply, if you’re in control of a car you shouldn’t drink ANYTHING (cept water and such).

The “RISK” of Terrorism

Nice Statistics

Guns Are for Old People…

Funny, so many interests are focused around the older, more fearful citizens of the country.

Gun ownership for instance, is vastly higher among the older rural middle class than urbanites.  Funny were the crime happens.    hmmmmm.  Make yourself prey, the crazies will attack.  However the suburbs are the new crime zone…   how strange and awkward for those conservative Republican enclaves of the suburbs. They’re like the hypocrites of the party.  😦

However most progress and wealth is NOT created in the rural world, it is almost solely focused in urban areas.  Even the suburbs provide a moderate middle class generation of wealth, and often are a net loss to urban and rural workers. How perverse really, that the suburbs are labeled the “American Way”.

Funny when one looks at the various numbers, statistics, correlations, actual causation, and other numbers.

It really makes registered Democrats and registered Republicans seem like a bunch of cranky, unyielding, nut cases…

 

…even though the media would have us all think the “middle of the road” people are the crazies.  WTF?!?!