Jeph

In this time of international crisis, drought, famine, and nuclear brinkmanship, I'd like to personally thank the inbred monarchs of the world for helping me pretend this is a lighthearted place.

"Spanish king denies shooting drunk bear"

Friend: "WHAT?! Is that from the Onion?"

Try the Associated Press.

"Mitrofan, whom Starostin described as "a good-natured and joyful bear" was taken from his home at a local holiday resor... they "generously fed him with vodka mixed with honey and pushed him into a field," the newspaper quoted the letter as saying."

"Naturally, a heavy, drunken animal became an easy target. His Highness Juan Carlos took Mitrofan out with one shot," Starostin said in the letter, according to Kommersant.

Seats for the United States delegation are empty as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addresses the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations on Tuesday, Sept. 19, 2006.

Good to see.

the first thing I did just now was check facebook again

I check my email, IM, facebook and livejournal constantly while I'm "working," instead of seeking out human contact or meaningful company. I wonder if that would make my work easier afterwards? At the very least, it would be more fulfilling than the constant disappointment that my friends don't write, update or post every 5-10 minutes a day, or however long my attention span lasts lately.

I lose hours on fark, political sites, rollingstone.com and a hideous variety of news websites because I can fool myself into saying "An article's short, not a bad study break" before I read dozens of meaningless things. Then, I feel frustrated that I have "no time" to read other things that I've set aside because of the delusion that they'd get in the way of my work, even though I'd feel some satisfaction and accomplishment having read them for the same amount of time.

New goals

Well, just so the government leaves us no confusion about what a woman's role should be, and their choice in it...


"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves -- and to be treated by the health care system -- as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon.


'We know that women -- unless you're actively planning [a pregnancy], . . . she doesn't want to talk about it,' Biermann said. So clinicians must find a 'way to do this and not scare women,' by promoting preconception care as part of standard women's health care, she said."

Warning- this is one of those entries that stumbled out of my head and spat on the paper in a fit of sour grapes that won't even acknowledge we're too lame to write on paper anymore (I said environmentalism's not SO cool that I'll deprioritize paper yet)

I used to be different, and it was a bad thing; I can see that. I'm very happy with who I am if I'm not happy, and that's complicated - I'm positively giddy in my life but it's propped upon external influence and I can't deal with the dependency. It's not dependency but dispersal and it's an unstable way to prop up an ill-adjusted psyche. I love my life but I don't think I did much to make that happen; or rather, from within myself. It's odd, but I feel like all the good things happening in my life are the result of my work, although maybe in a spiritual sense, and I certainly don't mean to imply control - however, I do believe I made myself ready for the providence when it chanced to glance upon me. I'm not alone but I'd be sad again if I was, not just for the loneliness, but for the things I am. I'm not denying my happiness and self image are tied heavily to other peoples' validation, but even with plenty of praise, I know I have a secret, that I'm not really happy with who I am.

So what would make me proud of me? Selflessness, charity work, discipline and education? Sometimes, but maybe not. I was really proud of myself working at the bookstore last summer, especially when I was loving my "work," and more, in a sick way, when I was paid or praised well for things I didn't want to do. I know my idealistic crap grates on Scott, who could be the only person that still reads this, BUT! I stand by the belief that pursuing what many believe to be delusions leads me to more in life, even if some days it's just the sense of purpose, or worse, affliction.

It seems like it's time to make a change, and I say that all the time, but school gets worse all the time. The ability to force myself to work is further and further from my grasp and when a professor tells me to accept that I could fail, I feel betrayed. Then when he tells me that he's confident that any paper I write under that pretense will be fantastic, I wonder what the hell I'm doing here. It's a fabulous compliment, and I'm willing to accept that in certain subjects, work I do that would disgust me with myself is well above the bell curve, or at least representative of the earnest intensity of the journey I'm trying to take into my mind, but I don't want to be graded on a snap shot of my progress. It feels like a pat on the head to say "This is wrong but you're moving along nicely."

I understand that it's extremely arrogant to suppose that I have it in me to understand or conquer these things, but what else would I aspire to? I can think of very little less fulfilling than a grade for its own sake. I don't give a fly if that's a big deal for someone else or I'm ungrateful; it doesn't work for me, and I hope the people it's difficult for won't be too upset if I say I'm jealous of the seamless way their search clicks into the status quo. Run a hot dog through a machine it doesn't fit and tell me that I should stop complaining and accept the way things are when you see how well pink flesh "resists" the rigidity of solid mechanical processes.

Nowadays, I read, but I can't remember the words. I hear the voice in my head, aloud, but little registers, except occasionally the feelings of my toenails. A paragraph ends and then it's gone; any subsequent references confuse me to hell, as I don't remember any of the referred-to occurring at all. The little that finds a place in my head is opaque beyond words, and the distance from mind's eye to paper is absurd. I considered dictation software, but it's clear from conversation that I've lost the will to speak...on these things, at least.

I have two basic sides for listening and speaking, and the third, for contemplation, is largely neglected and entirely necessary. I don't have time for it in my life, and it'll be damned to conform to a schedule. My hypothetical schedule would require something akin to a devotion of the grand majority of my life to sitting still and thinking, and when my classes begin to get pointless or just self-serving, there's nothing in the world that would compel me to turn my brain to them outside of the classroom.

I have to make a choice between my priorities in this situation. I want to think and work at the limits of my standards or not at all, but I keep confining myself to classes I can't be bothered to address in the first place. That's why I spend finals week not sleeping, not writing, just punishing myself, proving that I still have the responsibility in me to sit at this computer and utterly neglect all my meaningful, and otherwise, desires to prove I care about my education, to prove I'm grateful in many ways to be here, and in some way, to earn my spot on the class roster because I've put in the hours.

But I never put OUT the work, not until the end, when I'm so tired my values disappear. It must be the feeling people get before that hook-up that haunts them the rest of their life, or maybe when they finally say that awful thing or bust outwards in some fit of despondent violence that makes everyone say "It's just not like him at all." That's the "schoolwork" that I keep getting rewarded for this year - the panicked "Please don't call my parents' son a failure" drivel that I parrot in my papers without any sort of attachment to my logic, interest or thoughts. Again, to those of you who care, this sounds ridiculous, but it really sticks me in the side when I get strong marks on something I hate or hated writing. I'd rather fail and have my feelings confirmed than be praised for what felt like such a profound failure on my part. Maybe it's saying "Great, your worst is more than good enough for us," but I hear a threat that my best work or real feelings would be unwelcome.

As it stands, I should be spitting out work, but somehow I'm not tired enough to say "suck" yet. The irony is that my body gave out and got sick two days ago, and even though my throat is swollen and red, I can't let go of the emptiness or my commitment to finding meaning here in an assignment that really was never designed or allotted time for that kind of search.

"As global and local carrying capacities are reduced, tensions could mount around the world, leading to two fundamental strategies: defensive and offensive. Nations with the resources to do so may build virtual fortresses around their countries, preserving resources for themselves." internal State Department threat assessment, October, 2003.

President Bush will call for thousands of National Guard troops to be deployed along the Mexico border in support of patrols aimed at keeping out illegal immigrants, White House officials said Sunday on the eve of an Oval Office address announcing the plan.

"It's not about militarization of the border," Bush's national security adviser Stephen Hadley said on CNN's "Late Edition."

I proclaim myself the Panda Cam cult leader:


GB: "Plz don't get me addicted to pandacam...."
Me: "But it's chewing! And fuzzy!"
GB: "Godammit Jeff it's really cute!
I need to go run.
Now I'm just gonna sit and watch panda"

A.Fox:its CHEWING!
Me: and fuzzy! lol
A.Fox: and its looking right at me!
Me: see?
A.Fox: oh to heck with you, jeff!
A.Fox: right now, it appears to be molesting a pile of bamboo

Well then I'll just steal from Scott for the hell of it...

April 24th:

Events:

1184 BC - Greeks enter Troy using the Trojan Horse (traditional).
1704 - The first regular newspaper in the United States, the Boston, Massachusetts New-Letter, is published.
1800 - The United States Library of Congress is established
1898 - Spanish-American War: Spain declares war on the United States.
1915 - The Armenian Genocide begann
1981 - The first IBM PC is introduced.
2005 - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is inaugurated as the 265th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church taking the name Pope Benedict XVI.

Nifty.

Birthdays:
* 1533 - William I of Orange (d. 1584)
* 1905 - Robert Penn Warren, American poet (d. 1989)
* 1906 - William Joyce, Irish fascist (d. 1946) - I guess I didn't know the Irish did that
* 1942 - Richard M. Daley, American politician - Chicago represent
* 1942 - Barbra Streisand, American singer, actress, and director - kill me
* 1954 - Mumia Abu-Jamal, American journalist, political activist, and death-row inmate - this is just too perfect...and depressing
* 1964 - Cedric the Entertainer, American comedian and actor
* 1982 - Kelly Clarkson, American singer- this is also very ironic; I'm not ever telling why

Deaths:

1342 - Pope Benedict XII (b. 1285) - I bet you didn't know it's good luck if a Pope dies on your birthday
1736 - Prince Eugene of Savoy, French-born Austrian general (b. 1663) - also if someone dies named Eugene
2004 - Estée Lauder, American cosmetics entrepreneur (b. 1906) - and a superficial freak...three for three...goodnight

It's so funny to me that someone would rather walk over to a stall than be caught using the miniature kids-height urinal. Complex/unking psychoanalysis will be forthcoming...

Greaaaaaaaat...

Spread across the country in 2-4 weeks...

Best way to slow it would be to have workers stay home...

Like we'll ever let that happen. Right Dubya? I wonder if the Iraqis need blankets...

So Jeremy notcied I don't really use this anymore - neat.

Me: "What's on your leg?"
GB: "Oh, hobo oil"

Va. Man Who Killed 4 Had Mental Problems

By DERRILL HOLLY, Associated Press Writer 2 hours, 41 minutes ago

FAIRFAX, Va. - Police said Monday that a Virginia man who killed four people, then himself, on Christmas Day had a history of mental problems.
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Still, police were trying to determine a motive for the rampage. "Perhaps we'll never be able to answer the question that is most prevalent, and that is why," said Col. David Rohrer, chief of the Fairfax County, Va., Police Department.

"This is obviously a complex investigation with separate crime scenes and five victims. The events ... have certainly shocked and saddened us all," said Rohrer.

Investigators believe Nathan W. Cheatham shot and killed his mother in the driveway of her McLean home. He then drove 10 miles to a home in Great Falls and fired more than 50 shots that killed three other people, before turning the gun on himself.

Cheatham, 27, had been arrested on several occasions by Fairfax County police for what they described as "minor infractions."

Court records obtained by WRC-TV show that Cheatham was arrested in 2000 for driving on a revoked license and in 2001 for assault on a police officer, escape and carrying a concealed weapon. He spent 10 days in jail in 2002 for possession of cocaine and other drug offenses.

Police also said Cheatham had a history of psychiatric problems but did not elaborate.

He had been living with his mother, Sheila G. Cheatham, 53, for at least two weeks. He had also stayed with his two brothers at another location in Fairfax County. Police are hoping they can learn some indication of his demeanor, which may lead to an understanding of what led him to go on a rampage.

Police believe he broke into the second home and systematically went from room to room, fatally shooting Janina C. Price, 50, and her son Adam S. Price, 19, who both lived there, and Christopher J. Buro, 20, of Great Falls, who was visiting.

Another member of the Price family hid in the basement and was able to call for help as Cheatham opened fire. He escaped after the gunfire stopped.

Police said Cheatham was an acquaintance of the Price family. He had called them earlier in the day and was asked not to go to the home.

"There was a phone conversation between Nathan and somebody at the house," said Maj. Bob Callahan, commander of the police department's criminal investigation bureau.

Four spent clips from the 9 mm handgun were found at the house in Great Falls, an upscale suburb about 17 miles west of Washington. Cheatham also had other unused ammunition in his possession.

The body of one man was found in a bedroom closet. Another victim was found by a bed in a separate bedroom. Mrs. Price was found in the master bedroom on the second floor. Each had been shot several times.

"It appeared that they probably were still asleep or in their rooms when everything started," Callahan said.

Cheatham's body was found in the master bedroom with what police called a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

One of two black Labrador retrievers owned by the Price family was shot three times, but was treated by a veterinarian and is expected to survive.

Tell you what...when you start recognizing skycaps, you're going home too often. Taking the opportunity to watch some football. Oh look, the Patriots are mounting a comeback. Anyone else think it's strange that team keeps winning since 9\11?

My lizard died...
No one noticed...

I cannot help but feel like this is a sign.

As I look into the oils swirling atop my cup of coffee, I realize that even fortune telling is more valid than 4 all nighters in 8 nights, two of them for one Buddhism paper. Obvious ironies aside...

"Eyelid twitching is often caused by stress or fatigue and usually stops on its own in a short time or improves with rest or reduced stress. Twitches are not a cause for concern unless they persist or occur with other symptoms that suggest nerve problems."

"Medical articles on symptoms: These general medical articles may be of interest:

* Symptoms of the Silent Killer Diseases "

My life is defined by Java quizzes...shit, I don't sleep, so...

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. </td> Cultural Creative 88% Romanticist 88% Existentialist 88% Idealist 81% Postmodernist 81% Materialist 63% Fundamentalist 56% Modernist 44% What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Due to an extremely reckless combination of caffeine, stress and sleep deprivation, I'm quite certain that I'll be both sterile and blind before these papers are done. Seriously...aiming at records, guys. Strangely, I'm satisfied. It's strange, but I live to shock people with extreme behavior (read: self-abuse, tolerance for weirdness) That can't be a good plan for the future, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun :-P

It's funny how cyclical things are...following an extended period of mildly respectable behavior, I finally log back on here and realize that I, again, have grown substantial facial hair and don silly hats. Is it 2003?

Lil’ Kim and the gender politics she’s come to represent through her music are a perfect “case of significance” for examining the complications of the progression of female sexuality in modern culture. Kim’s appropriation of stereotypically-male sexual stances seems to be as psychologically simple as it is socially and politically complicated. Her aggressive reclamation of the manipulative, emotionally-distant, sexually-materialistic tendencies of the generationally metastasized “pimp,” “playa,” or “thug” personalities is positively saturated with psychoanalytic significance.

Firstly, the entire endeavor seems to be engendered by the persistent and overwhelming influence that Kim’s Oedipal complex has had in the shaping and direction of her personal life and early musical career. From her father to the Notorious BIG, Kim has had a self-described dependence upon men who are strong and influential in the same exaggerated ways to which she herself ascribes so much performative value. However, the incomplete nature of Kim’s problematic, albeit more literal, Oedipal complex seems to tug constantly between Oedipal and Elektral tendencies. Tellingly, Freud’s theory of the female Oedipal complex holds out and endures the test of even such a sensational case. While Kim’s hostility towards her father and men in general seems inconsistent with the presumable application of the Oedipal complex to women, (that, as young boys resent their fathers, girls would their mothers) it is in fact just a more complicated incarnation of the same sentiment, and Kim’s case, though more exaggerated, is well in line with Freud’s theory.

The idea behind the female Oedipal complex is that all children, by some function of the birthing and nursing process, have an identical psychosexual attachment to their mother, with a parallel development of attraction through the oral and anal stages of development. However, it is at the phallic stage that Freud posits the desire for the mother and recognition of physical “inferiority” in the female child establishes the break between the nature of the complexes in male and female children. The children have the identical desire for the mother, but the female child is forced at this stage of her development to confront the physical impossibility of fulfilling her fledgling Oedipal desire. Consequently, the desire is transferred to her father, both out of envy and, Freud asserts, practical utility. First, the daughter envies her father’s penis, not necessarily for any Victorian notion of inherent biological superiority, but at the very least because he is physically enabled to consummate his desire for the analysand’s mother. Secondly, Freud would have us imagine that the second half of this desire is to become pregnant by her father, somehow remedying her genital inferiority and regaining her footing next to him.

This is the point at which Kim’s sexual stance breaks from Freudian gender boundaries and is truly revolutionary: at times, Kim blends the gender line, developing elements of the male Oedipal complex, specifically in the nature of her hostility towards her father, but simultaneously retaining the validatory dependence on men, as indicated by the submissiveness of her relationship with the Notorious BIG and her continued psychological reliance on the belief that he is still “with her.” While Kim’s intimate relations with Biggie, and men in general, seem completely in line with the female Oedipal urges and their development into heterosexual female sexuality, she is by no means conventional. The masculine elements of her development are more significant by their very existence, fully-developed, not to mention the prominence they take in her public behavior and the image she sets forth for herself as a celebrity and figure of importance in the hip-hop community. However, the truly remarkable thing about Lil’ Kim’s existence is the crossover and intense interaction between the elements of her literally bisexual Oedipal drives.

The reverse expression of Kim’s sexuality refuses to make the split between male and female at the phallic stage, and instead takes on both of the identities. However, as antithetical as they might seem, in Lil’ Kim’s case the identities connect and blend over the anxiety of the developmental period. She develops the castration anxiety experienced by young males in the same period as she is supposed to be simultaneously transferring emphasis between her clitoral and vaginal erotogenic zones. There is a fascinating similarity between the genders in the psychological development indicated by these mental gestures. It’s as closely paralleled between the genders as the shockingly similar biological nature of the penile and clitoral structures. With the psychological similarities between the loss or loss of significance of these body parts, sexuality, at least on a mental level, is seemingly flexible and almost hermaphroditic, appearing to be more a matter of degree than particular distinction between the sexes. Lil’ Kim’s sexuality, then, should not be so shocking in theory, but the uniqueness of the boldness and character of her exhibition stands in confrontation to almost all assumptions about gender, including Freud’s.

However, the legitimacy and sensibility do not in themselves affect the perversion of some of Kim’s acts. At the same time that she’s eloquently revealing her penis envy and immature clitoral sexuality, she is mixing male and female oral sex metaphors to explain what is really important to her, and that is the power gesture. As far as the phallus can be described as power or mastery, Kim is stereotypically masculine, and the sexual attitudes expressed in her music very clearly reflect that the dynamics and power politics of the relationship are more significant than the orgiastic elements of the experience. As a result, Kim is not only perverse, but by Freud’s definition, pathologically connected to the political gratification. The partner or sexual object is seemingly replaceable and is commoditized, fillable by any male with a power or identity worth subverting. Similarly, the sexual aim is completely misdirected from reproduction to the immature clitoral orgasm.

Again, Freud would not necessarily judge the pathology of her actions as more significant than their revolutionary quality, but he would not be able to ignore the connection between the political motivations and disorder of her sexuality. Through her revolutionary lifestyle, Kim’s sexuality is not only stretched across the gender gap, but is pathologically perverted towards the gender politics of oral sex. To the extent that Kim controls these aspects of herself, the disorder of her sexuality may be insignificant in the context of her commitment to a liberating gender struggle. However, the motivation for such a displacement of the sexual aim and object is ultimately equally irrelevant to Freud’s assertion of their dysfunction and perversion.