Word Virus » ramblings

From the mouths of children

gabriel — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 18:22:00 +0000

Early childhood development is really fascinating, especially in relation to philosophy, and how we understand the world. This morning, Anais, 3 years old, was sitting on the bed with her sister. Both of them had on “footie” jams. She put her legs over her sister’s and said, “We’re the same.” Then she looked at the pajamas, she had on Buzz Lightyear and Ada had on Disney Princesses, and said, “But they’re not the same.” She then gave me this really confused look, and said, “Daddy, our footie jams are the same, but they’re not the same.” In that brief moment, she stumbled upon one of the most fundamental questions that have plagued philosophy since the beginning. Then again, perhaps I’ve just been reading too much Heidegger of late.

Life as Literature

gabriel — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 15:29:46 +0000

As of late, I’m not reading nearly enough. I’m not even reading that many comics lately, so you know my regular reading is suffering. To this point, I decided last night to come up with the 15-20 books that defined who I am. These are the books that shaped my view of the world or at least have defined how I see and relate to the world on a daily basis. As I started trying to prepare this list, which is really just an easy way for me to see what I want to read again, I realized that I miss how much I use to read. Guess I need to take care of that. So, in no particular order, here’s the list:

William S. Burroughs – Naked Lunch
Friedrich Nietzsche – The Gay Science
Arthur Rimbaud – A Season in Hell and The Drunken Boat
William Blake – Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Milan Kundera – Life is Elsewhere
Henry Miller – Tropic of Cancer
William Gibson – Neuromancer
Charles Bukowski – The Last Night of the Earth Poems
Martin Heidegger – The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays
Martin Heidegger – Poetry, Language, Thought
Frank Herbert – Dune
Ayn Rand – Atlas Shrugged
Tom Robbins – Another Roadside Attraction
Samuel Beckett – Waiting for Godot
Jean Genet – Our Lady of the Flowers
Milan Kundera – The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Robert A. Heinlein – Stranger in a Strange Land
Phillip K. Dick – Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Friedrich Nietzsche – Thus Spake Zarathustra
William S. Burroughs – The Ticket That Exploded

The funny part about such lists is realizing, afterward, some of the other books you’d put on there. For example, there’s no Aristotle, Plato, Hegel, Kant, Marx, Wittgenstein, all of which shaped my life in different ways. I could also list every book by Burroughs and Genet, and all the poetry of Rimbaud, the major works of Joyce, or the non-sense novels of Beckett. Like all lists, this one fails to really capture anything other than what is currently floating through my head, and the way I feel at this particular moment.

Why the GOP really scares me

gabriel — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 19:32:17 +0000

A recent poll of 2,000 self proclaimed GOP voters, came back with some horrifying numbers, that show just how bad the GOP party base has become. I will be the first to admit, I’m not a big fan of polls, but the fact that someone would buy into this trash being pushed by Beck, Rush, Fox News, just goes to show how easily people are manipulated.

39 percent of Republicans believe Obama should be impeached, 29 percent are not sure, 32 percent said he should not be voted out of office.
36 percent of Republicans believe Obama was not born in the United States, 22 percent are not sure, 42 percent think he is a natural citizen.
31 percent of Republicans believe Obama is a “Racist who hates White people” — the description once adopted by Fox News’s Glenn Beck. 33 percent were not sure, and 36 percent said he was not a racist.
63 percent of Republicans think Obama is a socialist, 16 percent are not sure, 21 percent say he is not
24 percent of Republicans believe Obama wants “the terrorists to win,” 33 percent aren’t sure, 43 percent said he did not want the terrorist to win.
21 percent of Republicans believe ACORN stole the 2008 election, 55 percent are not sure, 24 percent said the community organizing group did not steal the election.
23 percent of Republicans believe that their state should secede from the United States, 19 percent aren’t sure, 58 percent said no.
53 percent of Republicans said they believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Obama.

A president that “want’s terrorist to win”. That one really is shocking. I don’t care about the birth thing, it’s just plan stupid. I don’t care about the Sarah Palin thing, everyone is entitled to their opinion. However, the socialist, racist and impeachment questions show just how ignorant these people really are. Do they even know what a socialist is? Someone please show me this racist intent. And you have to commit a crime to impeach someone, and even if you do, that does not remove the person from office. Remember the $18 million or so dollars the Republican party wasted proving that Clinton got a blowjob. They even impeached him. Take a basic fucking Civics class people.