Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Je Suis Avant Garde's LiveJournal:

[ << Previous 20 ]

Thursday, November 19th, 2009
6:32 pm	A letter I just wrote to the UNCC admissions department. Hello. I had an interesting experience the other night. On Monday, I heard Bruce Stewart from the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. speak on the radio program "Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins" on 90.7, WFAE. I was so inspired by his empassioned discussion on the responsibility of nobility and also the role of education presently and going into the future, that I went to Myers Park Baptist to hear him speak on behalf of the Charlotte Friends School. After he spoke, he briefly received those in attendance to thank him and add to the discussion that he just led. I had wanted to thank him for having been critical in the foundation of the High School I had the pleasure of attending, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics, and to also thank him for saying in such elegant language the beliefs that I have carried with me for quite some time. Amazingly enough, his daughter attended school at NCSSM, and he asked me a few questions, the last of which being "What are you doing now?" I did not have an adequate answer. I wish I could have said, I had accomplished this, I have accomplished that, but I could not. I simply said "well, that's a good question, nothing." This dissapointing response did not deter him, however. He immediately asked "well, did you go to college?" My response was "Yes, I attended UNC-Chapel Hill for two years, and quickly found myself bored and frustrated. I kind of regret that kind of arrogant attitude now, because if I had realized at the time what a great opportunity that I had and how I was wasting it, I would have behaved in a completely different manner." His next question was, "what are you doing tommorrow?" My response was a quizzical "I don't know, looking for a job?". His response stopped me dead in my tracks. He looked me in the eye, and he said, "Tommorrow, you are going to UNCC, and you are finding out what you need to do in order to get yourself back into the educational system, and then you are going to call me to let me know how it goes." He stopped the entire discussion focused on educational affairs and the current political climate and how that relates to educational affairs to scribble down his phone number so that he would make sure that I had it. He then went on to look me in the eye and say "You are obviously a very bright and intelligent young man. You must have great gifts to have been admitted to the School of Science and Math and you not only owe it to yourself but you owe it to society and those who invested in you to begin with to go back to school and apply those gifts in a manner which is beneficial to all in our Society. Go back to school, starting tommorrow" As I stared into his eyes, I felt my own eyes start to water slightly with emotion. He was right. I was intelligent. I was gifted. I did belong in school. I could not deny what he said matter-of-factly within 10 minutes of meeting me or the emphasis he seemed to place on my own well being. Going to UNCC without any type of correspondance with you in the admissions department, would be kind of a waste, I figured. So, I thought that I would correspond with you via email first in order to find out what your thoughts on this subject are and to set an appointment for a meeting with one of your admissions counselors. I belong in school, and UNCC is a great asset to our community that I would be honored to be a part of. I know some might consider me old to give the old college try at 31, but I am completely optimistic about my prospects, and I hope that you will be too. Perhaps I have not lived up to my potential previously, but I desire to more now than I ever have in my entire life. My meeting with Bruce completely solidified and reinforced this feeling. Thank you for your consideration, and I definitely look forward to discussing my future prospects with you and studying with you in the future. Thank you, Matthew Hoffman (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 27th, 2009
6:21 pm	"Hope" Hello my dear readers, greeting, salutations my new friend From my heart and soul to yours I will invite you in To read my simple story, from my perspective indeed May it fulfill your curiosity and inside you, to plant quite a large seed Inside you it may grow and may it challenge you much For it is your heart and soul inside you that I desire to touch You may have observed me, many a time, at me you may have Felt a range of emotions, from the most sublime to the most sad Perhaps you have felt anger and you had absolutely no idea why Or even been placed into fits of hysterics to end with a sigh It is these reactions which have, between us placed a stone For I know these responses have all ended with me feeling alone Out of frustration, I have kicked and I have screamed At each of you for it is out of love for you all, the source of what I have dreamed. And explanations of this belief, I feel has been met with resistance And still, I disagree with your own actions, your persistant insistance For me to alter my beliefs, my own culture, my soul And instead of gold or rewards for my creativity, you have given me used up coal. When, in actuality, my only desire was to feel as if I did belong That my thoughts and my feelings were valid and true The resistance I encountered instead has left me without a clue As to how I could explain to you how it is that I feel In a manner that you all could understand, and in a way that is real Now that we have been acquainted and you have been shown my intent Let my true story begin, and to read this, I hope you will grant me consent. Early in my life, I lived in Obscurity I was born into a family of two, I was number three A young one growing up in the land of America When I was in the third grade, I had a crush on a redhead named Erica Earlier on, I discovered video games The whirl-buzz of electronic noises and colored lights did entertain Me with the exciting pixilated graphics, the logic, the reward Of success in such an abstract and dreamlike world Similarly, I enjoyed playing a sport with a bat and a ball Throwin and catching or even watching the World Series in the fall I was an average young chap, with bright dreams to be sure I believed in God before I had set food inside a Church for I felt Goodness was Pure What I did not quite understand is from what source you all derived your pain What it was you all seeked, I had no idea what you all had to gain From hurting each other, from treating each other with contempt For each breath of fresh air, each new sensation I felt Instilled within me a reaction that could make the hardest heart melt I did not understand the attraction of defiance to the Spirit of our Rules By those I was surrounded by, in their rebellion, I did not find a muse. My conscious itself, I know now was for the best Interests of myself and all others and now I consider myself blessed I did not wish to smoke ciggarettes, like the others in the sixth grade. I was quite interested in having all of us feel happy, like a nap in the shade In this way, I was different from others, I now guess. For they found satisfaction in making their lives and my World a great mess Power is found in ugly ways they exclaimed, In who can subjugate the other and cause the most pain. However, I know that is not from where we all dervie our strength Our food does not have to be prepared with anger of any sort of length Likewise, the wood to build our homes, we don't have to steal For Goodness itself has provided us with these materials so real. Not only does God not want us to be so unhappy, But I am sure you all agree that our current beliefs are so crappy So selfishly prideful, so spiteful, so wrong. Now we find ourselves disbelieving when one among us says "Lets get along" Eventhough in our Nation, we are taught from an early age That "United We Stand, Divided We Fall" is a very true adage. The hypocrisy in these two beliefs is quite difficult for me to really understand For it is Love and Respect for everytone, that I desire for those in my land. A joyful song in our hearts and excitement to see Each others success and not to celebrate our failures is where I would like to be You see, we all live here together, this World is our cage And there are natural laws that have been ignored and at this I feel outrage. We have the ability to make all of our lives great If you have the desire, I would not have felt so irate When you refuse to truly take me in and to support my hopes and dreams, Because I have a great desire to support your true Spirits, to be a leader of your teams. For if there is one thing I know, it is that we all feel the same. Inside of our hearts, we can all consider it a fact that we all are to accept the blame, For the failures of our entire Society. What the source of our Greed is, is quite beyond me. Perhaps you may pretend to not understand the words I speak. For you have you may have encountered me on the street and you thought my clothing did reek, Or that I was quite lazy, and not providing any type of service, To you or your friends or that I did seem to be quite nervous, And unable to stand up for myself or I possessed an ugly soul. How unsupportable did you all find me, how unsupportable my goal? For my purpose must have been so very selfish, with the questions I asked, Or the challenges I gave you and how my ture intent, others masked, In a veilof untruths including that my goals were untrue, Or how if you told me your concerns, I would not listen to you. These types of lies, they did haunt my days. Whispered in shadows, behind me, as I did walk away. An excuse you cultivated to permit you to let me fall, To have me gaze downwards instead of having me stand tall. For I did not choose for other people to be so very rude, That they would have the choice for which others they would wish to exclude. For I was taught and did believe in our Nation's story, And that our Society was set up for all of our Glory, And that when others were excluded, it was because they did not believe, In the Glory of All, and at whose exclusion we should all grieve, As opposed to finding delight in the sin of our shame, Or devising intelligent loop holes to excuse ourselves instead of accepting our blame. We should all accept our responsibility and work to improve- Our collective quality of life, which we do possess the strength to improve. The weight of all hindrance we have placed in our way, For we have found ourselves enraged and at War today. In war, there are no longer winners, only losers and I am very afraid, That these wars are not endorsed by any truthful God, in Our ideal that we have made, To serve as an example to us, to show us all the best method of solving the problems- that in solving other problems we did in fact create. Why is it that we choose to drive cars and to burn gas? When our own legs can power bicycles to make us go fast? Why do we joke about the problems that vex us? Why do we delight and find it funny when we here our leader cuss? How profane each of us is in our own individual design, As we choose to devour the souls of other living beings as we dine? How can we profess to believe in our own good? -Or feel so self-righteous when we deprive our brothers and sisters of food? Perhaps you find it fun, perhaps you feel as though you all are playing a game? I will tell you that I have found these feelings have led me to believe it is each of us who is to blame. This is not a fictional story or some type of clever ruse, This is not some type of justification or poetic excuse- For my own shortcomings, which are many, and for them I do feel much shame, For shame is a proper reaction to failing to properly uphold my own name. Let us begin now to unravel the cause of our own failures, of our own lack of success. Let us not all be cowards For cowards find excuse when one of us is ill. When the illness that is felt causes us all to feel chilled- To the bone with regret for not standing up proud, And saying that perpetuating evil and ill feeling unnecessarily for our own well being just is not allowed. The subject I happen to describe presently is a motivation called Greed, Which compels citizens to strip others of their freedom- Their dignity in order to fulfill their own need. This is a type of Freedom that is not in our own best interests for us to allow. for Greed is a type of Thievery that is so very foul. We do possess the ability to make our own choice- To supply our own answers, concerns and to lift up our voice. I do not believe that we all should ignore anyones concern, For at that point we cease to grow, for we are trying then not to learn- How the concerns of our fellows, our Sisters, our Brothers- Effects each of us too, and how we can support each other. For communal support is the basis of our Nation, our City, our State. Which is why when someone claims that someone else's concerns are invalid, I do become irate. As should you, and we should pray for the best- For each and every single one of your friends, sisters and brothers and until they are satisfied- -We should never rest. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
3:44 pm	Boom. Senor Dragonfly! Email from the honorable Mayor Pat McCrory! "Matthew: Since you want confirmation, yes I did receive your email. My view is that “with freedom also comes responsibility.” Just because there are public spaces does not mean there are no rules or laws. I hope you will continue to use your free time to support more constructive causes, such as volunteering at a charity. Mayor Pat" My response! "Mayor Pat, I agree 110 percent. With Freedom and Resources definitely comes Responsibility. This fact, surprisingly enough, is the message behind my sign. I was never attempting to hypothesize, imply or say that there should be no rules or laws. Quite contrarily, I was implying, stating and concluding that the Spirit in which rules or laws are invented is way more important than the actual letter of the law, which can often time be perverted to cause the law to be utilized in a way that is contrary to the Spirit of the law. That aside, I was asking for clarification on what the actual laws are and where my situation falls in line with the actual law. For example, the officers told me I could not walk on the side walk with this sign, and I found that to be not only offensive, but possibly illegal. Also, their attitude towards me was quite disrespectful, and I do not know if that is illegal, but I'm at least 50 percent sure that it is against the Spirit of the Rules and Regulations of our City for them to disrespect the Citizenry they Serve. If you could possibly address these concerns of mine, that would be totally awesome! Thanks again for your service and diligence, Matthew" (Comment on this)
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009
7:31 pm	Sup Citizens? So far John Lassiter and Susan Burgess have preliminarily responded in receipt of my email. According to Ms. Burgess, a cursory examination of the sign is that it is offensive. Mr. Lassiter said that with the debate schedule between him and Mr. Foxx, he has not had a chance to respond, but he expects to be able to respond tonight in full. The rest of the Council, including Anthony Foxx, has yet to respond. So far, it looks like Mr. Lassiter and Ms. Burgess may receive my support, unless Mr. Foxx comes in with a brilliant response. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 21st, 2009
2:09 pm	Another letter I sent to the Mayor and Members of Our City Council Hello again, Mayor and Members of Our City Council, Approx. 21 hours I sent you all a rather lengthy email. So far, I've received absolutely zero responses. I realize that we all have busy lives here, and it is the Fall of an Election season in which the incumbent Mayor of our City is not running. However, I do not even know if you all have received my previous email, and with current technology as awesome as it is, I would not be surprised if you all had an opportunity to at least take a cursory look at it immediately on your Personal Data Assistants (Handy little pieces of technology, eh?). I would appreciate at least a receipt from you all of this and the last email, as well as well thought out responses as soon as possible. I appreciate your dilligence, Matthew Hoffman (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 20th, 2009
7:59 pm	A letter I sent to Mayor McCrory and member of Charlotte's city council. Dear Mayor Pat McCrory and members of City Council, Yesterday, evening I had an encounter with some of our officers who serve us in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Dept. It was not only frustrating because of the lack of clarity that the officers possessed regarding the laws which we have entrusted them to enforce, but because of their enthusiasm and willingness to treat me in a manner that I found degrading, offensive and lacking in civility. Currently, I possess no employment. I possess many high quality job skills (in my opinion), but I have no outlet for these awesome skills, I receive no compensation for utilizing these skills constructively and I have a ton of free time on my hands. I also possess very, very little money, and few resources. Because of this combination of lack of resources, lack of monetary income and excess of free time, I have to be quite creative when deciding how I would like to spend my time. Recently I have taken to walking around with signs. I feel dissatisfied, dismayed and disenfranchised by our Society at all levels, and I have figured, that with my lack of resources, the best way for me to express this dissatisfaction is through the use of a sign, carried with me that I could display to passersby and relay the fact that I am dissatisfied to open a dialogue regarding the reasons of my dissatisfaction. The first sign that I tried out was a sign that said "Poverty Isn't A Joke---It's Counterproductive". The impression that I received of the reaction to this sign the two times that I used it was that it was regarded with redicule and disbelief. It seemed to me that the sign itself put people on the defensive and created a feeling in hostility in those who I felt are most responsible for the propagation of poverty, those who possess resources. My feeling on this is those who possess resources are those who possess the resources inherent to job creation, inherent to teaching skills and techniques to bring entire groups out of poverty and those who can teach those outside of their own Society, how their Societies can better emulate a higher quality of Society. When those who possess these resources fail to take responsibility for the resources they have been priviledged to been granted, the result is poverty and the many drags on our whole Society created by that poverty. One such drag is someone carrying around this sign, which the feeling of the need to carry this sign is not what I would call "fun". Since this sign did not work, I concocted a "funnier" and more "lighthearted" version, with regardless of whether or not you view this as "degrading" to those who see it, I think you can maintain that the sign itself is not, in fact, "vulgar". The sign had two sides. On one side it said, simply, "Sup Sluts?". On the other side was written "More Hips, Less Lip!!!" My thought process on this was that the initial effect, as opposed to the disgust found by the first sign, would be hilarity because of the shocking and low brow humor involved in the phrase "Sup Sluts?" and the fact that it was being displayed on a protest-style sign being held by a citizen. This good feeling (funniness) as opposed to the negative feeling (anger) would lead the target demographic whom the message was intended for to be more susceptible to the actual message I was intending. In other words, if I used a phrase that many found appealing, they would be more likely to want to defend me as opposed to if I used a phrase that people found unsatisfactory and offensive. Surprisingly enough, to many of you I'm sure, the phrase "Sup Sluts?" received a universally more positive reaction from many members of our community than did the phrase "Poverty Is not a Joke--It's Counterproductive". I found positive mentions of the sign on twitter easily, which leads me to believe that there were mentions of the sign elsewhere on the web as well. People thanked me for brightening their day, asked me what the sign meant, and asked to take my picture with the sign. People really liked the sign. After receiving such praise, I decided to take it to the "next level" and venture from the uptown area and take the sign to the Myers Park neighborhood. I figured placing myself near the statue of Hugh McManaway would be a very appropriate place for me to hold such a sign. Holding such a silly sign at that specific corner is very much in the spirit of what that statue represents. Additionally, I figured a little Civil Disobediance is very much in line with the spirit of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county, seeing as how we are the originators of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Again here, the sign received much addulation in the form of laughter, smiles, thank yous and thumbs up. I was on cloud nine, when suddenly a CMPD Police Cruiser pulled up in his cruiser in the midst of rush hour traffic, pulled over, turned on his lights and told me to "get off the statue". I was standing on the base of the statue. I was under the impression that the statue in owned by the public, and in essensce, owned by me, a citizen, as well, and I had every right to hang out there with my non-vulgar sign. I complied with his request and replied "I apologize officer, is there a problem?" His response was like "Of course there is, you can't hold that sign here." Meanwhile his cruiser blocked one of the lanes on Myers Park, adding to the congestion of the already clogged inbound lane of Queens Rd. I asked him "Why not?", and he replied that the sign itself was offensive to some citizens, and that any well meaning citizen would agree. Also, he added, that a few citizens had called to complain. My response was that these citizens complaints were frivelous. I was not endangering them, I was not infringing upon their rights and now I felt as though they were infringing on mine. Also, I reminded him that I was making a political statement, because I believe in the phrase coined by the title of Carol Hanisch's feminist essay from the 1960's "The Personal Is the Political". I then proceeded to ask him what law I was breaking. He then mentioned something about soliciting from a median. As we were discussing these facts, two more cruisers showed up. The other two officers started berating me and telling me that I was being Juvenile and Childlike, and I informed them that it was my right to be Juvenile and Childlike. They then responded that if I were to be physically harmed by someone that I would blame them for not protecting me. I informed them that that was a risk, but that I did not believe that anyone would harm me, since most thought the sign was awesome. The officers continued to tell me to leave and threaten me with arrest if I didn't go. I continued to ask for clarification. They told me I couldn't walk down the sidewalk with the sign, I couldn't stand on the median with the sign, and that I couldn't hang out on public property with the sign. I thought this was wrong, but I was unwilling to argue with them any longer. They then proceeded to tell me to "get lost". That was the exact terminology used "Get lost". I was offended by this phrase. I am not a criminal. I was not breaking the law. To treat me as though I were one was most offensive. They then proceeded to tell me to "go home". I didn't want to "go home" I wanted to have fun. I wanted to hold up my sign. I wanted many things, but "going home was not one of them". They then proceeded to tell me that if they got another call about the sign, they would "find a reason to arrest me". I took this to mean that even if I wasn't arrested for the sign, they would lie and proceed to arrest me for a crime that I did not commit. I'm frustrated about this, because I feel as though my civil rights were violated. I was not soliciting. I was not selling a product. I was not asking for donations or monetary compensation. I was holding a sign with a message that I wanted to express. That wasn't, in my mind, a violation of the spirit of laws to stop "soliciting". Such laws are intended to keep business' from overstepping their boundaries, and to keep Drug Dealers and Prostitutes off of our street corners. My question to you, Mr. Mayor, and my City Council Men and Council Women is that what exactly is the law in this situation? Where can I hold my sign and in what context? Is it illegal for me to walk on the sidewalk (not loitering, but actually walking from one place to another) with the sign? Is it illegal for me to hang out on a street corner with the sign? Is it illegal for me to hang out on the statue of "Mr. Hugh" with the sign? Additionally, what recourse do us Citizens have, when non-criminals, such as myself, feel as though we are being treated unfairly by Police Officers? I felt as though my personal rights were violated by at least two of the three officers and that their bad behavior was counter-productive towards the goals they were trying to achieve. They seemed to have no legal standing to tell me to leave, but proceeded to tell me to "Get lost" and that the "Sidewalk was theirs" and that I had to "leave the neighborhood". This is unnacceptable to me, should be unnacceptable to you, and should be unnacceptable to the members of our Community, as a whole. Three officers were dispatched during a busy hour of the day to deal with a non-criminal when currently there is a Sexual Deviant roaming the streets and flashing children in some neighborhoods, property crime in Dilworth and other areas is on the rise, and, seemingly, noone knows how to properly utilize their turn signals. My point is, that Officer's harrassing a citizen for holding up a sign that many found made their day brighter seems to be counter-productive, when there is more important crime to fight. As one of the officers said "today has been a busy day". I apologize for the length of this email, for having to had raise the issue at all, and for taking up your time when there is much more important business to discuss. Please feel perfectly free to email me with not only exactly what the law means, as you all interpret it, but also with any thoughts, concerns, insights and job offers that you all may have to throw my way. As I told the officers yesterday, "If I had had employment, and felt like I was doing something productive, I wouldn't be out there with the sign." Thank you for your time and for your service. Matthew HoffmanDear Mayor Pat McCrory and members of City Council, Yesterday, evening I had an encounter with some of our officers who serve us in the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Dept. It was not only frustrating because of the lack of clarity that the officers possessed regarding the laws which we have entrusted them to enforce, but because of their enthusiasm and willingness to treat me in a manner that I found degrading, offensive and lacking in civility. Currently, I possess no employment. I possess many high quality job skills (in my opinion), but I have no outlet for these awesome skills, I receive no compensation for utilizing these skills constructively and I have a ton of free time on my hands. I also possess very, very little money, and few resources. Because of this combination of lack of resources, lack of monetary income and excess of free time, I have to be quite creative when deciding how I would like to spend my time. Recently I have taken to walking around with signs. I feel dissatisfied, dismayed and disenfranchised by our Society at all levels, and I have figured, that with my lack of resources, the best way for me to express this dissatisfaction is through the use of a sign, carried with me that I could display to passersby and relay the fact that I am dissatisfied to open a dialogue regarding the reasons of my dissatisfaction. The first sign that I tried out was a sign that said "Poverty Isn't A Joke---It's Counterproductive". The impression that I received of the reaction to this sign the two times that I used it was that it was regarded with redicule and disbelief. It seemed to me that the sign itself put people on the defensive and created a feeling in hostility in those who I felt are most responsible for the propagation of poverty, those who possess resources. My feeling on this is those who possess resources are those who possess the resources inherent to job creation, inherent to teaching skills and techniques to bring entire groups out of poverty and those who can teach those outside of their own Society, how their Societies can better emulate a higher quality of Society. When those who possess these resources fail to take responsibility for the resources they have been priviledged to been granted, the result is poverty and the many drags on our whole Society created by that poverty. One such drag is someone carrying around this sign, which the feeling of the need to carry this sign is not what I would call "fun". Since this sign did not work, I concocted a "funnier" and more "lighthearted" version, with regardless of whether or not you view this as "degrading" to those who see it, I think you can maintain that the sign itself is not, in fact, "vulgar". The sign had two sides. On one side it said, simply, "Sup Sluts?". On the other side was written "More Hips, Less Lip!!!" My thought process on this was that the initial effect, as opposed to the disgust found by the first sign, would be hilarity because of the shocking and low brow humor involved in the phrase "Sup Sluts?" and the fact that it was being displayed on a protest-style sign being held by a citizen. This good feeling (funniness) as opposed to the negative feeling (anger) would lead the target demographic whom the message was intended for to be more susceptible to the actual message I was intending. In other words, if I used a phrase that many found appealing, they would be more likely to want to defend me as opposed to if I used a phrase that people found unsatisfactory and offensive. Surprisingly enough, to many of you I'm sure, the phrase "Sup Sluts?" received a universally more positive reaction from many members of our community than did the phrase "Poverty Is not a Joke--It's Counterproductive". I found positive mentions of the sign on twitter easily, which leads me to believe that there were mentions of the sign elsewhere on the web as well. People thanked me for brightening their day, asked me what the sign meant, and asked to take my picture with the sign. People really liked the sign. After receiving such praise, I decided to take it to the "next level" and venture from the uptown area and take the sign to the Myers Park neighborhood. I figured placing myself near the statue of Hugh McManaway would be a very appropriate place for me to hold such a sign. Holding such a silly sign at that specific corner is very much in the spirit of what that statue represents. Additionally, I figured a little Civil Disobediance is very much in line with the spirit of Charlotte and Mecklenburg county, seeing as how we are the originators of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence. Again here, the sign received much addulation in the form of laughter, smiles, thank yous and thumbs up. I was on cloud nine, when suddenly a CMPD Police Cruiser pulled up in his cruiser in the midst of rush hour traffic, pulled over, turned on his lights and told me to "get off the statue". I was standing on the base of the statue. I was under the impression that the statue in owned by the public, and in essensce, owned by me, a citizen, as well, and I had every right to hang out there with my non-vulgar sign. I complied with his request and replied "I apologize officer, is there a problem?" His response was like "Of course there is, you can't hold that sign here." Meanwhile his cruiser blocked one of the lanes on Myers Park, adding to the congestion of the already clogged inbound lane of Queens Rd. I asked him "Why not?", and he replied that the sign itself was offensive to some citizens, and that any well meaning citizen would agree. Also, he added, that a few citizens had called to complain. My response was that these citizens complaints were frivelous. I was not endangering them, I was not infringing upon their rights and now I felt as though they were infringing on mine. Also, I reminded him that I was making a political statement, because I believe in the phrase coined by the title of Carol Hanisch's feminist essay from the 1960's "The Personal Is the Political". I then proceeded to ask him what law I was breaking. He then mentioned something about soliciting from a median. As we were discussing these facts, two more cruisers showed up. The other two officers started berating me and telling me that I was being Juvenile and Childlike, and I informed them that it was my right to be Juvenile and Childlike. They then responded that if I were to be physically harmed by someone that I would blame them for not protecting me. I informed them that that was a risk, but that I did not believe that anyone would harm me, since most thought the sign was awesome. The officers continued to tell me to leave and threaten me with arrest if I didn't go. I continued to ask for clarification. They told me I couldn't walk down the sidewalk with the sign, I couldn't stand on the median with the sign, and that I couldn't hang out on public property with the sign. I thought this was wrong, but I was unwilling to argue with them any longer. They then proceeded to tell me to "get lost". That was the exact terminology used "Get lost". I was offended by this phrase. I am not a criminal. I was not breaking the law. To treat me as though I were one was most offensive. They then proceeded to tell me to "go home". I didn't want to "go home" I wanted to have fun. I wanted to hold up my sign. I wanted many things, but "going home was not one of them". They then proceeded to tell me that if they got another call about the sign, they would "find a reason to arrest me". I took this to mean that even if I wasn't arrested for the sign, they would lie and proceed to arrest me for a crime that I did not commit. I'm frustrated about this, because I feel as though my civil rights were violated. I was not soliciting. I was not selling a product. I was not asking for donations or monetary compensation. I was holding a sign with a message that I wanted to express. That wasn't, in my mind, a violation of the spirit of laws to stop "soliciting". Such laws are intended to keep business' from overstepping their boundaries, and to keep Drug Dealers and Prostitutes off of our street corners. My question to you, Mr. Mayor, and my City Council Men and Council Women is that what exactly is the law in this situation? Where can I hold my sign and in what context? Is it illegal for me to walk on the sidewalk (not loitering, but actually walking from one place to another) with the sign? Is it illegal for me to hang out on a street corner with the sign? Is it illegal for me to hang out on the statue of "Mr. Hugh" with the sign? Additionally, what recourse do us Citizens have, when non-criminals, such as myself, feel as though we are being treated unfairly by Police Officers? I felt as though my personal rights were violated by at least two of the three officers and that their bad behavior was counter-productive towards the goals they were trying to achieve. They seemed to have no legal standing to tell me to leave, but proceeded to tell me to "Get lost" and that the "Sidewalk was theirs" and that I had to "leave the neighborhood". This is unnacceptable to me, should be unnacceptable to you, and should be unnacceptable to the members of our Community, as a whole. Three officers were dispatched during a busy hour of the day to deal with a non-criminal when currently there is a Sexual Deviant roaming the streets and flashing children in some neighborhoods, property crime in Dilworth and other areas is on the rise, and, seemingly, noone knows how to properly utilize their turn signals. My point is, that Officer's harrassing a citizen for holding up a sign that many found made their day brighter seems to be counter-productive, when there is more important crime to fight. As one of the officers said "today has been a busy day". I apologize for the length of this email, for having to had raise the issue at all, and for taking up your time when there is much more important business to discuss. Please feel perfectly free to email me with not only exactly what the law means, as you all interpret it, but also with any thoughts, concerns, insights and job offers that you all may have to throw my way. As I told the officers yesterday, "If I had had employment, and felt like I was doing something productive, I wouldn't be out there with the sign." Thank you for your time and for your service. Matthew Hoffman (Comment on this)
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009
9:40 am	economic philosophy expository. v. 0.0 What to say, what to say. As a citizen of the United States of America, I feel as though I have been granted many opportunities. I live in relative comfort, and a great many of my daily needs are taken care of by other citizens both in this country and in the other countries in the world. If I were to desire to eat almost any type of farmed delicacy, I could probably find a multitude of options within a short accessible distance from me, that would aid me in my quest. I do not have to farm my own food. I do not have to grow and kill my own livestock if I do not desire to. In fact, it would probably take much more effort for me to farm my own food, if I had a great enough desire to do this. I did not have to invent or discover the properties of electricity and electron manipulation for the purpose of generating electrical power to light my house, warm my oven, air condition the space where I sleep or even power a computer to organize my thoughts or a telephone to communicate my wants, needs, concerns, worries, frustrations, joys and ideas to others who surround me. This is all pretty fantastic, and pretty remarkable, if you ask me. I feel as though I am a servant, in a land of servants, and I think that that is an idea which the noblest of minds throughout history have instilled in me from an early age. The God, whom I serve, and who also serves me believes in this ideal as well. As I type these words, you are probably in some way, shape or form serving me. If you are a builder or in the construction trade, you are building a building which I may one day occupy, utilize, inhabit or simply admire. If you work at a restaurant, you are probably serving others so that when you serve me at the same restaurant, you have honed your craft to a point where I obtain excellent service from you. If you are a comedian, perhaps you are working on something to make me laugh at the ways in which the world as it exists is so much very different than how the world would be if everything that I desired were exactly the way things are. There are, after all, certain limitations imposed on how adequately everyone around you may serve you. Whether these limitations are material in nature, or motivational depends upon the situation. A fundamental belief of the Faith in which I was raised is that a Creator or Creative Force underlying the nature of the Earth and the Universe instilled in us the freedom to choose what we believe. This is a belief that can both be awesomely inspiring and at the same time, horrifically frustrating and maddening. According to my interpretation of what I have been taught, the same creative force that allows me to choose to love someone, also allows me to choose to hate that same person or feel ambivalent about them. The same Creator allows me to both choose to farm food, and also to deliberately poison the land. The same Creator that enabled Mother Theresa to fight worldwide poverty and hunger is the same Creator that enabled Adolf Hitler to systematically execuate over a million people with whom he did not agree to further his own selfish agenda and the selfish agendas of those with whom he worked.. It is this essential ability to freely choose to not only disobey Gods wishes, but also the others with whom we live which ultimately prevents people from obtaining perfection according to what I have been taught growing up in the Church. It is a huge “flaw” in the composition of creatures, a flaw which when properly exploited and analyzed ultimately leads me to infinitely marvel and rejoice in the mystery of how everything can be so imperfectly perfect. As I said before, we have been afforded quite a bit of opportunity here in the United States of America. We have plenty of resources, plenty of freedom and a relative pervading sense of safety and security. However, underlying this, there are many here in our own country that do not have resources, do not have freedom and do not feel a prevailing sense of safety and security. I know that I am “speaking of” myself quite a bit here, but, I hope you, the reader, understands that myself and my experiences are the bulk of what I have to inform me of what I do in fact believe is the reality of the society in which I live, and the greater society that exists outside of my own individualized sphere. When I was younger, I did not have a sense of safety and security when it came to material goods. I know that my Mother and Father worried about monetary issues quite a bit, and their worry manifested itself into a sense of monetary insecurity for me as well. Expenses which should seem immaterial to all children became cumbersome and worrisome for me. Eating out at fast food restaurants was seen as a luxury as opposed to a necessary evil. Even an expense as minimal as a delivered pizza and a movie rental was sometimes out of the question. Compared to many others worldwide, I was relatively well off. However, compared to most that surrounded me, I felt hopelessly impoverished. When one is caught in the toxic downward vortex that is poverty, one seems to find oneself at every single rung on a never-ending plummeting ladder feeling as if they could not sink any lower while simultaneously feeling inexplicably as if they are falling even further. Every time I complained about not having new shoes, inwardly worried about asking my mother for a new pair of jeans or pants (I often times in my life have possessed less pairs of pants and shorts then there were days in the week, a fact that I sometimes wonder to myself how I ever survived in such a manner), there were probably countless children in America who were worried if it was going to rain, because it was hot outside and if they had to sleep in their car with the windows rolled up they would suffocate. There were probably countless children who were either on “lookout” for a parent or sibling who were raiding the dumpster at a local restaurant, looking for the thrown out collection of day old sandwich bread that formed the basis of their diet, because they simply could not afford food. My experience with poverty and my realization that while I find my poverty to be an unconscionable result of a short sighted attitude in society that seeks to penalize itself and the members of its society because of the misguided notion that poverty is not only a motivational tool, but also an adequate punishment for not only a lack of “civility” but also for a failure to capitalize on the capitalist system forms a root base of my own personal code of ethics, my own philosophy, my own belief that not only is poverty harmful, as opposed to helpful, but it is a blight, a cancer gnawing at our luxuries in life, choking enjoyment and causing us Humans, here on Earth, to fall entirely too short of our full potential here. It has become my view, that not only was my poverty inexcusable, but almost all poverty is inexcusable and the denial of resources which one group freely enjoys the exploitation of to another similarly minded group of people is the root, the foundation, the bedrock on which a majority of the avoidable suffering inherent to our current human experience, the majority of the suffering inherent to my current human experience is built upon. My writing here is an attempt to explain not only why poverty is inexcusable, and not only to explain that a world without poverty is conceivable, but also to explain how those in the upper classes should want to eliminate poverty in the world. Without motivation, the question the rich will immediately ask when confronted with a request from the multitude who look at them as not only civic leaders, but also as sources of material and social wealth for more wealth, mobility, freedom and resources is “Why should I?”. It is a very fair question. One of Sir Isaac Newton’s fundamental laws of motion says essentially that an object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object which is in motion in a certain direction tends to stay in motion in that direction unless acted upon by an outside force. This idea forms the basis of a mathematical explanation for the idea of momentum. It is demonstrated easily by a bouncy ball. Place a bouncy ball inside a box, and it will stay inside that box, until it is acted upon by an outside force (your hand). Once you use your hand to pick up the bouncy ball and throw it around, the bouncy ball will tend to bounce, and roll around until either the force of gravity, the force of friction or some other force or combination of forces gets the ball to finally stop. At rest, the ball does not want to move. In motion, the ball does not want to stop. Momentum is not only a phenomenon in the world of abstract physics, but is also applicable in the real world. How many times have you been sitting in one of your favorite recliners or on the couch and you realize that you have to take care of some responsibility and found yourself unable to motivate yourself to get off the couch or your chair without expending a great amount of mental effort on your part? Similarly, once you start to tackle your responsibilities, you might find that it takes a similar amount of effort for you to stop tackling the tasks at hand to take a break and rest. Just like a relaxed and comfortable person on the couch, society needs motivation to adapt itself and to take care of its responsibilities. A great deal of responsibility lies in the hands of the most well off members of society. The upper class is responsible for a great amount of wealth, both materially and financially. For example, an owner of a huge lumber company is not only responsible for his home or homes, his automobile or automobile, his food and clothing, his families food and clothing but also for vast amounts of lumber used for building homes, creating toys, paper products as well as the financial stability of his workers and his workers families as well as the financial stability of those whom he depends upon to meet many of these needs, as well as the financial stability of those who use his trees. This same lumber, here in Charlotte, is used in homes in Myers Park, used in businesses near Tuckaseegee, used in homes in Beverly Woods, is in the paper books sold at UNCC Charlotte, and in the coffee stirrer that you just used to mix up your coffee at the local Starbucks. As you imagine in this simple example, all of the products and services provided both directly and indirectly by this hypothetical lumber company executive, you will quickly begin to realize that this leader of this lumber corporation is responsible for not only his and his families wealth, not only the wealth of those whom are employed by him but also the construction of peoples homes, the construction of other businesses that he utilizes, the education of others who will grow to serve and be served by the lumber executive and even the luxury of a cup of coffee for some woman or man the lumber executive may not have even met who does not possess the time, the resources, the motivation to brew their own cup of coffee, throughout the day, wherever their day and their own responsibilities happen to take them. This very same lumber executive has grown up in an era of social and material stratification. From his perspective, he has worked terribly hard keeping all of his responsibilities in check, and he deserves a reward for accurately and adequately meeting the needs of all those whom this lumber executive serves and is responsible. After all, he is the one who makes sure that his business is self-sustaining, that his workers are adequately paid, that his product adequately meets or supercedes the expectations of his clients, and that the workers money is not only acceptable for the goods services and luxuries that these workers need for a healthy survival and life here, but also that the amount of money which they receive is adequate to cover these expectations. While this is a very broad and simplistic generalization, there are seemingly an infinite amount of responsibilities lumped upon this one person, and with these responsibilities comes the expectation of rewards, the expectation of a certain amount of personal freedom of financial independence. Here in our society’s infancy (to not always feel as if our society is in it’s infancy is defeatist and short sighted, in my opinion, for we should always strive to maintain our status here on earth in perpetuity), we are at a developmental stage where it has become necessary for us to grow out of the selfishness and child like mistakenness that has plagued our financial systems like a cancer and a virus. One of the rewards for the owner of the lumber company, one of the lifelong goals, should not only be his own financial well being, but also for every one else that he encounters to be just as well off financially as he is. Selfishly hoarding wealth and resources, while others clamor for the very building blocks of simple survival, which you could adequately provide given simple work, is not only inexcusable but is in fact a denial of one of your essential responsibilities as a lumber company owner, and could actually result in the diminishment of your own bottom line. I know this from personal experience. I find it quite coincidental, that at the same time which I became homeless in April of 2007 is around the same time that the first murmurs of financial unrest were felt in our economy and society. I find it even more remarkable, that I was intelligent, I was able bodied, I was more than willing to work, and it felt impossible for me to find a level of reliable safety, even though I had informed many in our community what the status of my own financial instability was. Coincidentally, the worse off I felt, the worse that society fell. Coincidentally, the day Bear Stearns was bought wholesale at two dollars a share, March 17, 2008, I placed a lone two dollar bill in the fountain in Founders Hall, the bottom floor of the Bank of America headquarters. The fountain was turned off because of a local drought, I had a two dollar bill, and I felt as though it would look artistically cool to place a single two dollar bill in the middle of the fountain. When I read the news the next day, right on the front page, I noticed a picture of a two dollar bill taped to the front door of Bear Stearns. A coincidence which I felt, at the time, spoke volumes of how my own personal misfortune rippled throughout our entire economy, and left me feeling not only spooked and nagged by a notion of powers at work that I did not even understand, but frustrated because I knew how counter productive a destruction of our free market system would be. In effect, the failure of Capitalism, which I felt on March 18, 2008 was not only possible, but was afraid may be all too imminent would be akin to curing a patient of cancer by shooting them in the head. Sure, the patient is not suffering from cancer, but you have neither cured the patient nor aided them in living a more full life. Me, a homeless guy, who placed a two dollar bill on a fountain as a sort of “artistic joke”, was thinking these same thoughts that you are currently reading while you may have passed him on the street, hoped he had nothing to say to you, laughed amongst your friends at his plight and silently wondered what it was he did to deserve such a fate. This is inexcusable, and I believe that it is inexcusable if you do not agree. I would find it and have found it equally inexcusable when I have seen it happen to others, perhaps when I have witnessed it occur to you. Many blame the impoverished for the problems of their poverty, and I am challenging you to not only reconsider this philosophy, if it is one to which you subscribe, but I am also pleading with you to challenge this philosophy in others, because in my experience it simply is not true. I know this from my own experience. I know this because homelessness was not my choice. I know this because I know I did not deserve to be homeless. I know this because I have never lived above the line of poverty, and I have always desired to live above the poverty line. I know this from my own experience. It is at this point that I would like to convince you of the rewards to inherent to striving to end poverty. In our current economic climate, in our current manifestation of the free market, poverty is mistakenly used by the rich as a form of motivation. According to many in the highest echelons of our planets society, poverty is a necessity inherent in our society to motivate others to do the work necessary to better our society. According to this philosophy, the only reason that a lumberjack shows up to work day after day is because if he doesn’t, he will fail financially, slowly starve, become marginalized and eventually either die, work again, become institutionalized or subsist on the leftover waste of other more productive members of society. In this model, we are assuming the worst of human nature. As a society, not only should this philosophy be thought of with disdain, rejected, changed and proven to be an invalid hypothesis, but should be turned over on its head. Like a version of a Christian God which we find to be infinitely loving, tolerant and forgiving, we too should assume the very best of human nature. Forever climbing further and further upwards into the infinite, catching those who mistakenly descend and sending them up on the right track, pulling along those who have no legs, so that all can feel the great expanse and riches which were first afforded to so few of us. We should expect the lumberjack to show up to work to cut timber, not because his wealth depends upon it, but because regardless of how wealthy he is, he desires to provide society with the best wood and paper products that he can provide. His motivation at that point becomes charity, because of the charity afforded by those in the highest levels of his society. What I believe we will find, when we take this approach to business, is that when our leaders expect the best, as opposed to the worst from the citizens in society, not only will our world’s “working class” be infinitely happier and possess a remarkably awesome feeling of safety and security, but they will also in turn become more remarkably more productive, producing a higher quality of work, because their investment in that work is the enjoyment that comes with providing that wealth to others, because of the infinite wealth they too have been given. This provides a higher quality of product that ultimately provides the lumber companies owner with even more wealth, and more importantly a larger consumer base, a larger producer base, more friends who are compatibly socially with the lumber companies owner and a greater level of wealth and satisfaction with the lives they lead. This personal wealth and satisfaction with their life is most definitely the reward from a job well done and responsibilities which they have not only met, but simultaneously exceeded. As this simple idea replaces the cancer that is poverty like a bodies immune system replaces a bodily viral infection with anti-viral antibodies, we will find that life becomes infinitely more enjoyable. Crime, which is not only symptomatic of a poverty problem, but is fundamentally caused by the problem of poverty, we will find simply will vanish. We will find that not only are we not afraid of those whom serve us as law enforcement officers, but we will ultimately find that they will become more interested in helping us increase our enjoyment level, because their jobs have become more enjoyable and less focused on enforcement, but rather more focused on “customer service”, where the “customer” in this instance is the average citizen. Once, I had a conversation with a friend, and we were discussing not only politics, but also society, and our own (mostly my own, I will selfishly admit) philosophies and daydreams regarding society. I told him of a daydream I had. It was a daydream where everyone who was a police officer had the easiest job in the world. There would be no crime, so we were paying the officer money to essentially do nothing. His response was a simple “Why would we continue to pay him if his services were no longer necessary.” That was when my soul, and my face immediately broke into a grin, the same grin that I feel welling up as I write this passage. “Because in this daydream, everyone has such a wealth of resources, that why would you not want to pay the police officers, because we all feel as if all of our jobs are as easy to perform as the officers in this example.” Still confused he asked “So why would we pay anyone?”. Then I asked him a simple “Why wouldn’t you want to pay everyone what was so freely given to you?” It was here that my friend knew I had him convinced. The idea I proposed is not only so simple, but for some reason completely contrary to much of the education we had both received. Like a parent to a child who asks “Why not?” when asked something with which it was completely within the realms of belief that I could provide, my response was a simple “How can we make this happen?” as opposed to a “Because, I said so”. I hope the idea I have proposed here is a simple one, and my argument is not fundamentally flawed. I really and truly believe that it is in the best interests of not only those at the low end of the “economic spectrum” but also those in the upper echelons of society for us to strive towards utopia, for us to strive towards financial wealth for all whom it is possible, especially the humans. Not only is it a good idea, but it is crucial to us raising our standard of living which is most definitely always improvable. May we never grow satisfied with the progress we have made, and may we never grow too lazy to help others as they progress. For as we create a solid backbone, a solid foundation for which our society to flourish, the rewards will not only be felt at the base, but also the top. Thank you for reading this, and feel free to contact me with any questions, suggestions, thoughts, job opportunities, investment offers, support, or refutation as to how my logic is flawed, and where my idea lacks consideration for what makes our society so great. Thank you. (Comment on this)
9:38 am	Hello? Hello? Is it me you are looking for? Hello. I feel as thought we may need an introduction. I do not believe that I have been introduced to any of you properly. If you feel as though we have been introduced, you might think that you have some idea of who I am, how I prefer to behave, what I believe in and what I like and what I dislike. The same might be true if we have not been introduced but have been told by others their observations and judgments on my behavior without having introduced themselves to me. Since I do not feel as though we have been introduced properly, it would be impossible for me to imagine how those that mistakenly feel as if they know these things about me perceive me to be. It would follow that since I do not know as to how I am perceived by those who remain strangers to me, that it would be impossible for me to gauge whether or not those unknown perceptions are accurate. I feel rather emboldened today, and would like to thank the Board members for the opportunity to speak in this very public forum that serves as a foundation to legislate locally. I trust that our servants on this board have committed themselves to a form of public service because they feel impassioned to improve the quality of life for all of our beloved neighbors, and not to subvert and pervert their power and the legislative ability they posses that forms the skeleton of that power's body to improve the quality of life of a few of their constituents or themselves at the expense of many others. I believe that this desire to serve others besides ourselves is not only the foundation of most of our major religions, but also the foundation of most of the Republics and Democracies and Communes that exist in our sphere that we would consider "ennobled" as opposed to being "enslaved". Since I trust that you are servants of Nobility opposed to being servants of Slavery, I would like to thank you. Freeing our citizens from a position of slavery while either perceived or real and placing them in a position where their nobility is both perceived and real is at the heart of what I believe makes great framers and legislators of the laws that bind our commune-ity together in the mutual interest of furthering our nobility and suppressing slavery wherever slavery exists. The length and precision of these sentences might confuse a couple of you, simply put, thank you for wanting to serve the greater good of our community. The temptation to serve the base evil that serves to enslave, disenfranchise, humiliate and deny nobility to those that aim for nobility is a great temptation to be sure. Short-sighted though it may be, some who appear noble by financial class and materially wealthy can sometimes fool others who are not as wealthy materially that in order to obtain material wealth, it is advantageous to deny others of material wealth they desire and deserve. This logic is inherently flawed. Creating wealth in others has many benefits for those who already possess wealth themselves. It is archetypal in both histories and literary tales that those who possessed wealth are lonely, insufferable and separated from their communities by their wealth. While they have great wealth, they have no peers with which to share their true thoughts, feelings and concerns. Like a god among mere mortals, they have absolutely no peers. Creating wealth for others has the benefit of creating peers with which to further connect with other mortals who have been both blessed and cursed by our mortality. Additionally, I propose a theory that solitary wealth is unsustainable perpetually while universal wealth is sustain ably perpetually stable. When all citizens feel as though they are wealthy and as if the commonality of their wealth is supported by all of their peers, there is insurance in that commonality that the wealth of all individuals is insured by the very fact that all individuals are wealthy. I am not here to push religion on any members of this board or any citizens at home, however, I will state that I do believe in a noble creative force that has shaped our lives and has ennobled us with great characteristics meant to provide us with satisfaction and the desire for more of that satisfaction. Furthermore, I do not believe that this noble creative force has not given us enough resources on this planet for us to obtain the satisfaction we seek. If there are 8 people in a room that all desire a pizza, I believe that this creative force places 8 pizzas in that room. This does not mean that every person in that room receives a pizza, however. For some reason, either comic or tragic or a combination of both, this creative spirit has imbibed us with a power, a power we can call choice. For that reason, if 8 people want pizza, and five of those people want to share all of the pizza amongst themselves and exclude the other three people, it is entirely possible that 5 members of that room will receive their pizza and 3 members of that room will go hungry. If this continues to happen over time, if every day the room receives eight pizzas for the eight people from the creative force that built the room and the occupants and the pizzas then eventually, three members of that room will die off. Now, the room will have 5 occupants, but still receive 8 pizzas a day. If three of the five occupants decide that they want all 8 pizzas to themselves to the exclusion of others, then the three occupants of the room will become rather fattened by their gluttony, while two more of the rooms occupants will die. At this point, only 3 of the 8 remain. 8 pizzas are still being delivered to this room daily. Two members who are in the room decide that they want to share the 8 pizzas, excluding the third member, because of this, the third member dies leaving the two remaining members to eat all 8 of their pizzas. This is the tragedy involved with free choice. The creator in this scenario like the creative force behind my beliefs created an inherently fair system. The members of the room all had a desire, and the creator created enough wealth to satiate that desire. However, some of those in the room decided that they desired more than to have their desires satiated. Because of this you either wind up with one member of the room possessing everything to the exclusion of the rest or no members, because the final two occupants have killed each other to either preserve their portion of the 8 pizzas or in an attempt to posses all of the pizzas. In this scenario, much like the television show survivor, democracy serves to actually lead to a dictatorship instead of ensuring democracy. Sure at every step of the way, the majority of the room dictates the distribution of the wealth found in the room, however in the end scenario, only one or two people have actually dictated the wealth to the exclusion of the desires of the other six members. If in the beginning scenario, the five members had known that their choice to exclude the other three members would lead to their eventual exclusions, they would have more than likely elected to ensure that all 8 members of the room received their fair share of pizzas, ensuring their sustainable wealth in perpetuity. while this illustrative parable is overly simplistic and raises a lot of "what if?" types of questions, I believe that the story is not fundamentally flawed in the least and to the contrary, rather concrete. Choosing to enable others to possess wealth, more likely than not, ensures your ability to possess the same wealth as opposed to taking your wealth away. While in the short-term, taking others wealth might seem to actually enlarge and insure your wealth, in the long-term it actually serves to almost invariably insure the loss of your wealth. This is the reason why I am introducing myself to you all today. I want to ensure your wealth. Similarly, I want to ensure my own wealth simultaneously. We citizens who happen to live in the City of Charlotte and in the County of Mecklenburg in the northern half of the Carolinas in the United States of the North American Continent in the Planet We call Earth, in the star system we call the solar system, in the galaxy we call the milky way, in the greater heavenly body that we have chosen to refer to as the Universe are very blessed in deed. we posses technology that ensures our health, serves to facilitate our level of comfort and happiness and has created an environment that does not cease to make me wonder in amazement at the simultaneous coexistence of complexity and simplicity that runs like an undercurrent throughout our modern lives. We have been blessed to have great benefactors in our midst who have fantastically created a virtual playground for the senses. We have great neighborhoods, great teachers, and a great tradition steeped in the desire borne by our Presbyterian founders to make life enjoyable for all of us. Our roads and their ever changing road names never cease to dazzle me. As I've both driven and cycled these roads, I've been rather taken with the simplicity that belies their complexity. The foundational roads of our fair city read almost like simplistic poetry. We don't drive on u.s. 74, we ride on independence. one of the more popular streets in our city is called commonwealth. providence road is appropriately surrounded by beautiful and majestic houses of worship. Beatties Ford seems less to me like someone’s name and more like an affirmation of faith. We, the citizens of Charlotte-Mecklenburg are very blessed. However, there is a lot of poverty here. Poverty is rampant. A form of slavery, when pushed on those who do not desire to be impoverished, poverty has the ability to bind the limbs and minds of those who happen to be enslaved by it. Deprived of freely obtained and deserved resources, like the losers in the pizza story, they starve and die, perhaps if not literally, than rather emotionally and spiritually. Poverty, by its nature is unsustainable. Poverty, by its nature, should be unacceptable by us ennobled to choose to serve nobility and dispose of slavery. Poverty should not be a cause for celebration, nor should it be a catalyst for laughter. Indeed, for when we as a society celebrate and mock the poverty we create, we are not ennobling ourselves at all, we are participating in and encouraging a gross system, which when allowed to snowball out of control serves to further alienate ourselves from each other, depriving us of the ability to sustain our wealth, our happiness and the wealth and happiness of our children. Now, back to myself. I'm not sure if we have actually been properly introduced. This is the beginning of our introduction. Now you know a little bit about what is on my mind, and what I think about. These are concerns that I have had since I can remember. I have always tried to articulate these feelings in a manner that is both constructive and destructive or kind of constructively destructive or perhaps destructively constructive, however, I feel as though many people have been confused as to what it was I was trying to say or indicate. Like I have said, we create a vast amount of material wealth in Charlotte. The Eastover. Elizabeth, Foxcroft, Dilworth and Fourth Ward neighborhoods are all incredible achievements in both architecture and citizenry, and should serve as a blueprint for how we want all of our citizens to be able to live, if they desire to live in neighborhoods like them. There may not be enough homes in Myers Park for all of our citizenry, but surely there is enough material, knowledge and strength in Mecklenburg county for us to all have the same pride in our neighborhoods that the members of Myers Park have in theirs. In my mind, there should be no "good" and "bad" neighborhoods in the city of charlotte. All of our neighborhoods should be so excellent that the concept of labeling their worthiness should be null and void. People should not think of excellent neighborhoods as a special exemption, but rather, as the rule. Hopefully, everyone in my audience feels the same way or at least desires to feel the same way. Unfortunately, I have a habit of reading the Charlotte Observe. I've read the Charlotte Observer habitually since my name started appearing in the Mecklenburg County neighbors section years ago. Many of you might be surprised to find out that my name regularly appeared there because of academic awards undeservedly bestowed upon me. In a vain attempt to find my name in the paper, I began to become fascinated with other portions of the paper. I discovered, to my amazement, that people here in Charlotte are rather queer. Logic that I had since I was a toddler had taken for granted, seemed to be lost on my fellow citizens. In the editorials, I quickly found that the most vocal members of the highest economic class possessed disdain for the members of the lowest economic class as opposed to feeling a sense of appreciation, love and responsibility. Growing up, I had assumed that the members of highest economic classes knew that with their elevated status came great responsibilities and that their resources were granted to them because they were felt to possess a great wealth of knowledge on how to fairly allocate their resources for the betterment of all, including themselves. I felt naturally, that the rich appreciated their wealth and the experience gained from that wealth, and desired for that wealth to be obtained by those who did not possess that wealth not simply out of charity, but out of appreciation for the wealth that they had accumulated for themselves. Reading the editorial section of the observer, I found that this was simply not true. The poorer members of society were and are derided and blamed for their poverty daily in obscenely disdainful and ungraceful and inhospitable ways. The impoverished racial minorities have similarly been derided and ridiculed to an even greater degree than the impoverished European-Americans. This lack of Grace and Gratitude shown openly and defiantly is untenable. The members of the highest economic class can only properly show gratitude for the wealth that they have been given in this life, by at least desiring for all to have the same type of wealth that they possess. When satisfaction is not being derived from the wealth itself, but rather it is derived from the lack of wealth in others, we are creating that same scenario like in the pizza parable that causes all to lose their freedom and wealth. I do not want us to lose all of our wealth. I do not want you to lose all of your wealth. I want all of us to be wealthy. I hope you feel the same as me. Since I am now focused on those with wealth, I would like to ask all of our citizens who possess an abundance of wealth to look at their possessions and the freedoms afforded to them because of these possessions and how they would feel if their possessions were all taken away suddenly. Imagine yourself in two weeks with nothing. Think about it. Think carefully. Your house, gone. You jewelry, gone. Birth Certificate, gone. Tickets to Carnivale in Brazil, gone. Your shower, gone. Likewise your favorite bed clothes and your favorite perfumes and colognes. All gone. How would you feel having had everything and having had it taken away? Welcome to the world of the modern poor. That is their plight. They are angered, disenfranchised, frustrated and often times volatile. If you were in their position, you would probably not only want, but you would need your friends to help lift you back up. How would you react if instead of lifting you up, your friends laughed and relished in your misfortune? Is this the proper way to act as a neighbor? Is this the proper way to act as a citizen? I hope your answer is no. (Comment on this)
9:37 am	wOOt old post. I feel as though I owe many explanations, explanations to myself and to others concerning my behavior and the beliefs that I actually possess, beliefs that fuel my sometimes odd actions., actions that are mistakenly termed by others to be “eccentric”. Eccentricities are actions delivered stylistically without purpose. While many of my actions may seem to most to be nonsensical stylistic flourishes which are haphazardly delivered devoid of moral structure, standing or purpose, I have found, in retrospect, that most of my actions have been entirely based on actual motives. These motivations, while sometimes ill conceived or ill derived were never delivered with mal intent. Some people, I have found, have misinterpreted and misconstrued my actions as harboring ill will or malice towards them, towards others or towards myself. I wish to dispel these misconceptions. While I have often times felt the entire range of human emotions towards every single living being that I have encountered, it is difficult for me to imagine or to deduce that actions which may seem antagonistic to some are not in actuality based in a fundamental love and desire for simple support and human understanding for all of everything which surrounds me and inhabits me. People have often times said evil things to me and about me. The ugly labels applied to me because of actions misunderstood by some and misrepresented by others have sufficiently harmed my reputation to the point of rendering the creators of these labels to have succeeded if their aim was to injure me. Injure me they have. It’s hard for me to imagine that a relatively short time ago (two years ago, in fact) that my life was on a seemingly endless upwards slide as far as the quality of my enjoyment of my life is concerned. For once in my life I felt genuinely stable, safe, sheltered, supported, supportable and happy. My optimism did not have the ugly attachment of the adjective “cautious”. I had no need to be cautiously optimistic, because I was reaping many benefits from the optimism I projected and inhaled without the necessity of such a trivial deadweight as “caution”. Some may interpret my explanations as a caution against optimism, or as an indictment of foolish lack of caution. I hope and pray that this is not the case. I do not feel as if my actions were foolish, and I do not believe that in an ideal universe led by a universal creator that I should have been cautioned against optimism. Not only do I feel that this type of caution is unnecessary, but I also feel as though it is very damaging. I hope you enjoy getting to know me, and I pray that God has mercy on your souls for the injuries (intentional and unintentional) many of you may have caused me, as I hope and pray the same for you all. I was born in a time space propelled by convenience. My birth came near the end of the 1970’s. Jimmy Carter was the President of the land I was born into, the United States of America. The United States of America, by many estimates, was the richest land in the world. At the time of my birth, my family was comfortably middle class. Simply stated, I was born into a world of great wealth. The hospital I was born into had a loving and caring staff who possessed a great deal of knowledge concerning the science of obstetrics. My mother was a great caring soul. She was quite well read and she put a lot of emphasis into caring about how I was to be raised and reared while coming into this world. According to my father, one of the things that attracted him most to my mother was the way she balanced her pragmatism with a love for enjoying the finer things in life. Apparently, before my birth, my mother greatly enjoyed socializing, drinking and even smoking cigarettes. She showed her care immediately by quitting tobacco entirely when she became aware that I was just sprouting a mortal form within her womb. I do not know if I ever got to thank my mother for ditching her useless and lung staining Salem cigarettes, but if I would have been caring enough to think of it, I would have. Likewise, the conventional wisdom of the day dictated that my mother breast feed me, and she did. Bottle formula was in vogue for a great percentage of the population at the time as a matter of convenience. In the style of the times, a woman baring her breast publicly as her son or daughter suckled and fed was at best regarded as a slight nuisance and at worst was a provocation for unwanted insulting commentary from (well meaning?) strangers.. A decision to breast feed was also inconvenient because it required an almost constant contact between mother and child. Every time I because hungry, I would have to be quieted with the milk of my mother. Every time I hungered, my mother was the provider. If my mother was a working woman at the time, I would have starved to death (or had to succumb to the “convenience” of formula, which I don’t really think of as convenient at all but as an excuse for inconvenience.) My mother never made this decision lightly, and she never received the praise from me that she deserved for having dedicated so much of her time, her body and her convenience to my nurturing. I love my mom a lot. She does not probably realize the degree to which I love and have loved her. I begged all my young life against others better sensibilities for my mother to stop babying me, and for some reason I’m sad that I won that struggle against her. I wish she would still baby me. I wish she still nagged me. My mother has not nagged me with great purpose in quite some time. I rather miss it. It for some reason amazes me that at the same time that I know my mother to be a stoic and well meaning and insightfully caring and compassionate person I also know her to be quite flippant and unintentionally silly and short sighted. Sometimes she is entirely lacking in a sense of humor and without much patience for embarrassment even though she is often times a source of embarrassment for others unintentionally. Such is the way of my mom, and I love her for it. I not always loved her for it, and because of circumstances outside of our control, I never fully realized to always love her for it. I realize that I have to now, as I hope that she realizes that she should always love me for who I am. Rarely do my mother and I converse about life often nowadays, even though I am sure that we would actually enjoy each others company a great deal if we could remember exactly who it is that we are and who we want to be and how to support each other in who each other would want to be. It was not our faults that we slipped from the middle class into poverty. It was not my fathers fault that we slipped from the middle class into poverty. It was the U.S. Governments fault that we slipped into poverty. Ultimately, it was President Reagan’s fault that we slipped into poverty. President Reagan was the man that signed the declaration that effectively fired my father dooming him and ultimately dooming me, my mother and my unborn baby sister to a life without the convenient luxuries that I am sure my mom assumed would be afforded to me when I was born. Poverty is a subtly cunning and ravenous thing. It is pervasive in our world. There are 7 billion human souls overcrowding our planet with an illusion of a lack of resources keeping us temporarily perpetually locked in a counter-intuitive unproductive cycle of competition and exclusion resulting ultimately in a perpetual dissatisfaction with our lives. In our struggle to compete with each other for precious resources which will not only insure our survival but also foster and instill within us a temporary satisfaction with the luxuries and conveniences afforded to us by our existence and our ingenuity in having domesticated our survival struggle cloaking our inability to cooperate with each other in a thin veil of our cooperation in competition with each other we have lost our focus and what satisfaction does in actuality mean. We have lost that focus as a society, as a nation, as a continent, as a world, as a people. Responsibility for our mutual satisfaction and safety has become an inconvenience which we mistakenly view as not only an obstruction to our convenience but as an insult to our character that we should ever have cause to assume responsibility for anyone’s satisfaction and safety. Instead of us viewing our responsibility for each other as a cornerstone of our enjoyment of our lives, we view it as a liability to part with. This frustrates me completely. We have a huge responsibility for each others lives. We are entirely responsible for each others survival. We are entirely responsible for the level of happiness each other experiences as a result of us surviving. Responsibility is not a liability and the declaration that we all have responsibilities to each other should not be thought of as profane or inconvenient. To me, people who find our responsibilities to each other to be inconvenient are the profane. Not only should these responsibilities guide and shield our lives, but they should be a propellant rocketing us into a new level of mutually actualized satisfaction. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 29th, 2009
8:49 pm	========================================= the actual economy is exactly the same as it was two years ago, however the media made the economy seem overly rosy then and now they are causing our supplies of good to exchange seem overly taxed currently. the "stimulation package" is just a disguised budget amendment. discuss the validity of these statements to this weekend in preparation for a public discussion on monday. more faux livejournal assignments. (Comment on this)
8:47 pm	++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ the phrase "stimulation of the economy" sounds overtly sexual purposefully prove or disprove this phrase with an essay of at least 10,000 but not more than 50,000 words. this is your homework for the weekend. (Comment on this)
7:54 pm	Hello Fair Journal. Non-existant readers, welcome, I miss you all dearly electronically, I hope you have all been well. That is correct. All one and ones half of yous. I'm sure that it is a bit of a dull ended non-event of a certain type of unnexciting bored down burred lull of a prize for you to see this electronic transmission of words replicating to a certain degree a rough estimation of one singular dimensioned view of a few of the randomized semi regular emissions of electrical pulse synapse transmissions coded into finger sized tap tap tappings of my purloined, that is stolen record of some of these same coded thoughts and feelings that drive and have been derived from certain actions which propel me further in a non-eventful type way throughout my days which give me excuses to do semi-normal events (for a mortal uglitized organic body to take on) such as ingest, digest, compost and regurgitating organic items made from both things engineered by previous organisms and accidentally spun into being from inorganic matters by a series of similarly humorously disgusting and repulisvely attractive events that have populated the histories and events of their lives (or non-lives, whatever the cases may in fact exist to actually show themselves to be). Here's the actual deal. I was walking today, and I came up with an idea for a short story or a snippet of a novel or an inconsequential but time consuming plot twist for a movie. An idea born out of boredom and utility, simply stated. You see, I was riding my velociped, my bicycle, the two wheeler propelled by rotating pedals connected with a simple metallic chain between two similar cogs, circular in shape, with a set of teethe in place to stabilize the chaine and keep the connections of the chain or the (sockets?) (chain spaces?) (black arches?) (holes?) (rectangular recepticals for cog teeth?) (anti-teeth?) I really don't know a proper term for the chain spaces, surprisingly enough. I wish there was a dictionary where you could search for words by their definition, and not the definition by the word. I feel as though words and terms in their direct correlations will survive a whole lot more uniformally and beautifully that way. There must be an ever increasing number of terms, phrases, colloquialisms that fail to survive because the utilizers of those words fail to adequately regurgitate them after hearing or (never hearing?) the people who actually use such turns of the mouth, the cheek and the gums before these very same wordsmiths, these actuall soul inhabiting bodies of gentlemen and gentle women give into the mortal eventualities of habitating a body for a length of time before the soul forgets itself only to rehabitating a different living being or beings without actually remembering the same words and phrases that the soul actually used the last time that a soul habitated a living being, because there is no exactness in soul-habitation, and the very process of forgetting and reremembering based on the inconsistacy inherent in the actual process of living of the time spans of the living that weave in and out of actual being are never congruent spatially or temporally and they sometimes leave gaps in the spans of the uses of words, phrases, ideas by the user souls who may actually forgot a utility of life that it used to enjoy temporally for great dramatic, popular and awe consuming and producing effect. Basically, I had an idea. I wanted to park my bicycle. I wasn't carrying or possessing at that exact moment in time, the ulock designed to keep the bike stationarily attached temporarily to a pole or other metallic object weighted and anchored to the ground or concrete or masonry of some type which is designed to approximate a fake representation of a flatter, more uniform and more "acceptable" ground. A ground more subtebly ulitarian in that it is much easier for round objects which propel and rotate fascilitating movement of masses more easily to propel themselves and better transport the objects (living and unliving) there-on from one temporary zone to another temporary zone to fascilitate commerce (the exchange of nouns between Proper Nouns simply put.) Basically, I left my bike lock at "home-base". I wanted to leave my velociped, in an attractively public place within the constructs of the center envisioned, purposed, explained, created, expanded and further morphed by us human hands to facilitate a particular section of commerce designed to transport between masses of like-minded souls dedicated to lives that border between the absurdly mundane and convenience of utility who prefer lives of obstructed confusing convenience goods and services and nouns and pronouns usually dedicated to displaying simple home and body decorations utilized by the bodies for the purposes of convenience displaying objects which help to enliven their lives by providing distractions from the fact that mortality brings with it certain eventualities of losses and also gains. Gains being the eventuality that happens when you lose a loss or do the opposite thing of losing someting in that you not lose something that you had previously lost. Also, many of these products are derived from things not lost that used to be lost which then spark people to lose things which they previously had not lost that they had lost because they are distractions from the not losing of the lost items... and some of these things are even derived from the distractions that these un-lost items provide. Un-lost. It is the new "found". Did you find that? Hell's to the know's! This old thing was un-lost! Anyways. I decided that if I ever happen to write anything about someone else or myself containing a character that wants to wed a person to begin lives based in forgetting and un-forgetting of things that their souls do forget and un-forget to the delight of both un-forgetters and forgetters for different reasons...that I would enjoy causing the female protaganist in this individual situation to require that the male antagonist wear a promise ring or an engagement band that is the size of a bicycle tire for the duration of the engagement. This, the female protagonist says is to make sure that the antagonist is faithful because there is no way a man can be unfaithful when meeting women of the opposite sex, when they are the only men in their sociological habitation groups that possess symbolizers of a spiritual bond between your own soul and the soul of another being possessing that soul likewise between that being and your own being being the size of a bicycle tire, when normally the object which symbolizes this type of symbolic attatchment between two living things is in actuality hundreds of times larger than the average beings requirement for that symbol. In every single situation, including sleep, this antagonist will be required to keep the bicycle sized wheel (which, thank god for the woman, is not made out of precious metals, materials or stones, even though for the sake of dramatic effect, the protagonist may prove to actually create the symbol out of. I do imagine that a bike wheel made completely of gold or even silver would be quite expensively undurable, the gold or silver metal spokes of which would need to be untightened and then tightened quite regularly if it were made of gold, because i can imagine that the neurotical antagonist who would be so anti-heroically vain to as even consider temporarily cohabitating with either a random stranger or someone who could even possibly be familiarily friendly to the heroic, chaste, beautifully gifted and possibly even financially blessed protagonist to the point of actually allowing them to touch their bassist sexual instruments in an overly familiar manner, the doubts to the possibility of this aren't so strong that the female protagonist would even imagine a smooth move such as requiring the antagonist to make a public declaration of love to even strangers who would find the fact that the antagonist is strangely carrying around a possibly golden bicycle tire in the most auspicious places and areas as a public fast food eating establishment, or a fine restaraunt or a shoe cobbler, a dry cleaner, church services, board meetings for the local parent and teachers association which he happens to be a member of because he is in fact an 8th grade science teacher, a fact which actually helped to endear the protaganist to the idea of dating the antagonist in the first place and others who surround themselves with the antagonist (such as the principle at the school where he teaches) will be wholly likely to question the antagonist about the utility and purpose of him carrying such a large object all the time and that he is likewise attatched to the hip with this thing etc. This would be the type of declaration of constant declaration of love which the object of this sorely cursed antagonist would find completely endearing and humiliating for the antagonist because she finds it so humorous and self fulfilling and complimentary for the antagonist to be humbled by her because when she first met him she felt likewise humiliated by him (un be knownst to him really,,, until she exacts her revenge on him with this show of her own effection,,, because they do in fact possess that type of psychic bond where her actually requesting this event from him shows that they are in fact psychically bonded, because if her soul occupied her soul container and her soul occupied his soul container, he would actually request the very same thing from within her soul if her soul wer actually his soul, which is why he finds it humorously encouraing and this type of public dedication and declaration becomes understood by all friends, family and strangers of the actual participants and they look on at the protaganist and antagonist in a way of encouragingly discouraging bemusement. The type of which is readily understood instictually but is hard to put into words. So, that simply put, I would like for a woman to ask a man to wear engagement rings the size of bike tires as part of a larger story of life, love, engagement and enjoyment. I think that would be kind of nice. The results of which would kind of be hilarious, such as examinging the person trying to wear the ring to bed and typing one handed emails at work and driving with the thing on for the period of 6 months while he has it. Cute type shit. Fresh off the farm action. Yizzahs. Well. That is what I am thinking about right now. I need the monies. Give me lots of monies godz of the moneys. The mall is a ghost zone by the way. There are stacks and stacks of fashionabally durable goods and services that are not being purchased for future utilization by the bodies occupied by the souls which figuratively for reasons both realizedly earned or uneared actually happen to possess representations of material worth. Boo ya. Thanks for reading, and give me your basal supplies. The economy is gods way of saying "thank you" for a job "well done". <3 je suis savant tarde. (Comment on this)
Thursday, January 1st, 2009
6:54 pm	What do I remember about last night? ---->"Hey, I'm asshole, nice to meet you" "Douchebag" ---->"Cory Slusher, he's old enough to be my dad, but he's not my dad, he's my roomate" ---->"Sofia, like Sofia Coppola" ---->"Thanks a lot you just made Sofia shoot out of my nose. Oh how it burns. It burns and bad." ---->"I think they're here to see one of the bands play" ---->"I think John Stewart made flyers for this party and placed them all over town on telephone poles" ---->"There's going to be a fucking fight before the nights over and I know it." ---->"That champagne tastes like a drink from TGIFriday's!" ---->"I think that it is a drink from TGIFriday's" ---->Foosball "The black side are darth vader's and the white side is the stormtroopers. No matter who wins, we're all fucked!" ---->"How did they get so many Darth Vaders?" ---->"They cloned him?" ---->"There can only be one vader." ---->"I don't know if we're going to be able to make it in this fucking garage. We suck too badly." ---->"The turtle was on fire! I saved it's life! The turtle was smoking!" ---->"Gary had a possee of blunt rollers" ---->"You stole my champagne" ---->"Silly String Fight!" That's about it. Oh and the one priceless comment... "My new years resolution is to stop smoking blunts, so I rolled joints instead." FUCK WHAT WAS THE JOKE? Descriptors needed and most definitely necessary please. (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 9th, 2008
4:06 pm	I had a humorous night last night. To be sure. I saw "Much Ado About Nothing" again. Well, the second act alone... I laughed way too much at things that nobody else laughed at, because I was laughing at the double, triple and quadruple entendres and there were a ton of young children there (mostly between 7-11) who laughed at the things that children would laugh at, such as the slapstick, the old constable, the "ass" speech, etc. Because of this, I got some dirty looks from Mom's and even a couple of dad's...oops! Afterwards, I rode far, and was practically kidnapped. yuh.duh. (Comment on this)
Monday, August 4th, 2008
4:24 pm	Thank you trey! (and tom too, I guess!) Another new Trey/Tom tune. I like it alot. It might not feature Jesters with smiles and martinis made of bathtub gin, but it still makes me happy. You can find these songs here http://jamtopia.com/blog/trey-anastasio-at-2008-newport-folk-festival/#jump-trey-newport-farmhouse If I could be a sailor, I'd lie beneath the mast and bask inside the shadow that the sail has gently cast and swim beside the rudder where laughing mermaids play and breathe the smoke of captains toke upon a stormy day I seldom hear the music i heard once in a while where cupids play their wooden flutes that often make me smile If I could be a sailor *4 If I could be a If I could be a sailor If I could be a sailor (Comment on this)
4:03 pm	So Trey Anastasio decided to write a new song called "Peggy". It's about "Peggy Flemming"... I don't know if Trey wrote they lyrics, but they sound very Marshallian. I am really glad they wrote it. It adequately describes my situation perfectly in a multifaceted way... as if I was some kind of pegging pegger...or the peggingest pegger that ever pegged. If you don't know what a pegger is...it's simply someone who pegs their pants legs. So thanks Tom and Trey and thanks Peggy Flemming, this song will get constant flow on my flash drive. "Peggy" performed by Trey Anastasio at Nemport Folk Festival (2008) (Anastasio/Marshall) (Who is she? Music) Somewhere under all this junks---a cage bought for the lemming and here's a box of bottles that never made it from the room skillfully defaced there hangs a shadow Peggy Flemming and dusty tapestries don't let the light invade the gloom cds without cases cover every single surface cases without cds are strewn across the floor magazines and plastic things and too much stuff to mention sits in piles while peggy smiles and stares out through the door and when i hear you calling over air and over wire i will take a running leap and barely clear the fire others watch and point and laugh he stumbles now he slips and peggy i will follow in thin air and off of cliffs peggy i will follow somewhere under all this dust are long lost good intentions looking for them now will only agitate the mess i've got a note from peggy you were indirectly mentioned and why you changed her image i don't even want to guess though when i hear you calling over air and over wire i will take a running leap and barely clear the fire others watch and point and laugh he stumbles now he slips and peggy i will follow in thin air and off of cliffs peggy i will follow and when i hear you calling over air and over wire i will take a running leap and barely clear the fire others watch and point and laugh he stumbles now he slips and peggy i will follow in thin air and off of cliffs peggy i will follow peggy *3! ------------------------------- that's how you write a love song...wow. (Comment on this)
Sunday, August 3rd, 2008
4:45 pm	This is what "everyone" looked like last night. "Everyone" was "everyone" that surrounded me, not the "everyone" that "everyone" means. I did not participate. I sat on the sidelines, while the announcer said multiple times in a funnily rude manner "now you know who your real friends are...". I had my headphones on tho, so I could not even really care about it all that much. I sat by myself and did not talk to anyone about anything at length. Mikey through a bottle over my head and it exploded on the ground, I was not truly that impressed. Someone made a joke about "that's why we put Roses on your grave".... I was not truly that impressed. That's why I had my headphones on, because I couldn't hear anything like that. It was almost painful to go to bike polo, but I went anyways so that I did not feel like a douche. There were a couple of people there who I did not know... last night did not afford me the opportunity to get to know them. Last night was the night for everyone to joke (apparantly). Everyone that is, but me. Normally I'm in a jovial and festive mood, but not yesterday. It was only one day removed from when Jake had been a complete and utter jerk to me (Thursday night/Friday morning), and I seethed with anger and fear when he arrived. But, I remembered my pacifist ways, and how I would be so excited to see him feel naturally good about something real, so I rooted for his team (as opposed to being against it...they won and it was pretty spectacular!). It was slightly amusing because Christina and I had discussed ahead of time about how sporting matches are rigged, and she explained the concept using the terminology of Greek sports (soccer) and how the Green team always beats the Red team (I think?) And I explained that part of the reason that I like Baseball so much is that it is almost assumed that the game is rigged, and the most delight that I get out of watching it are how the tiny nuances are metaphors for life in general, and that's where I receive most of my enjoyment in the game (or sometimes a lack of enjoyment, when it is Cheesed out like the last Brewers/Cubs series (except for that first night which was awesome!)). I think that the best part of the night for me, myself was Cory throwing a rampage throughout the course by bunny hopping all over the field, including bunny hopping the cones and the )tetherball!?( stand, knocking several items over in an ecstatic declaration that he hates to lose! Also, the use of the siren on kyle's megaphone to declare a kick ass win is sweet as hell to be sure! All and all, I did have a great night, but i felt like a weirdo, because I was listening to phish, moving my hands to both the sound of the phish (from vermont) and to the guys biking and having a killer time enjoying myself. Before that I saw some bands play, and some of the bands were really passioned (and read: creepy!) some of the bands were really loud (and read: silly!) and I think that I enjoyed them, but also, it was more like, I didn't. But I really wanted to enjoy them so I also felt guilty about not enjoying them. Christina reminded me a lot of Marren, so it did not surprise me at all that she was discussing art school. In fact, some times during the conversation, I couldn't help but think that Marren was Christina...but that was really just being high (and mighty). At like a rediculous time like (read: 3 am!) I was kicked out of the house (very humorously I might add...) by Blake (as he apologized while doing it!)and I rode home, crashed out and woke up refreshed! Zingy zing jang jang jang jang! NOW I GET TO GO SKATE AND SING ALONG TO phish. I still need a job. Here are my skills. 1.)I can learn anything that is explained to me 2.)I can utilize these skills to get the job done quickly, proudly, accurately and efficiently. 3.)Given the proper resources and management I can solve any problem. 4.)I'm fantastic at math, and super creative at the same time. 5.)My usage of verbal resources allocated by my brain is improving all of the time. Here are not my skills... 1.)I will not be treated as less than anything than a God or a Prince or anything of that sort. 2.)I will not allow you to take away my self worth so that you can derive pleasure 3.)I have spotty short term memory, but my long term memory is pretty spot on! I'm pretty much suitable to obtain any type of career (in my estimation). Resume time dudes! (Comment on this)
Saturday, August 2nd, 2008
5:29 pm	So, I love William Shakespeare, I'm convinced. His usage of double-triple-quadruple...etc... entendres delights my mind enrages my senses and spins my head round round round round and round again until dizzily I erupt into glorious laughter again and again. The interactions between the players, the comic setups and spoils which feed the love of life, community and the limitations inherent to love, life and community while displaying the varying degrees to which the love of the life and the community creates a paradoxical loophole allowing those limitations to not only become superseded, but also vanquishes the notion that life, community and love are worthless notions to be discarded because of the inherent inequalities. Such was my experience last night when I arrived to see the Collaborative Arts production of "Much ado about Nothing". They were performing inside of the Duke Power theatre in Uptown Charlotte, and they were accepting voluntary contributions (WHICH MEANT THAT I COULD AFFORD IT.!!!!!.) They had gloriously transformed the main part of the theater into something resembling a Dinner Party, or a wedding reception which is very approriate. While the play itself isn't as grand, as preposterous and as awe inspiring to me as "a midsummer nights dream" which, ever since I read the beautiful comic of the same name by Neil Gaiman, quickly became my favorite play (even though I did not understand the plot or the dialogue when I saw a proper rendition of the play when I was in elementary school and we went to the Children's Theatre). Anyways, here's my take on the production... It was worth the money, it was enjoyable, and it was perfectly in the spirit of the original production. The jokes were on point, the references were spot on, and the crowd loosened up rather incredibly. There was a weird vibe in the room that I picked up during the setbreak, and I knew that the weird vibe was going to ruin me. I love the love story between Beatrice and Benedick so much. Benedick reminds me so much of myself that it's rediculous. The tension between the two of them and how they both joke that the other is the worst person on the planet, and how they can never ever be together sends me into fits of hysterics. Especially the scene when Benedick lists all of the Herculean feats that he would accomplish in order to NOT marry her! (Fetch a toothpick from the furthest reaches!) That's how I feel about love. Love is shared by two people who hate each other the most. In that hatred love is created because they both know that what they hate about the other person is what they hate about themselves,and that self loathing combined with the loathing of their partner creates a foundation for them to be able to love their partner, and in turn love themselves. Afterwards, I scooted over to NODA. TouchOne Productions was having a hip hop show at the Salvadore Deli. I acted a little like a jerk, yelling out something during a call and response that resounded like "If you didn't care 8 years ago, why should it matter right now". And "You all don't have any creativity anyways---your just repeating the words that your teachers told you to say" I think people thought I was being a jerk at first but then they realised how awesome I was, and they warmed up to me. I scraped my arms and legs up on the way home (oops!) Now it's time to go skating. I need job options! Any ideas? (Comment on this)
Thursday, July 31st, 2008
4:07 pm	PASCAL'S TRIANGLE (EWE DOOSH!) Real fun stuff.!!!.!!!. This weekend my dad came back for his birthday. Which was great, and exciting. We did not get to go to Milwaukee for the Brewer's Cub's series... but we did make up an amazing Gang Sign! Here we go... ( Read more ) (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:30 pm	Today is the last day of July, 2008. July has gone by rather quickly with a few moments sublime, and many instances of horrific awkward posturing. More awkward posturing possibly then situations filled with sublimity. What else could one expect after the dissapointments filling the past year. Words. Words. Words. Too many words. Words. Words. Words. Stuff happened. It was exciting in a non-productive boring way, I was called negative multiple times, by both strangers and acquaintences. I was definitely being purposefully negative. I agree. I do not know if I appreciated the word purposefully being omitted from the descriptions that people used. For one thing, someone can be hopelessly and dreadfully purposelessly negative. These are people who create chaos in misery in others lives and their negativity spreads like a virus, usurping the attention, the health and the resources of formerly positive people to draw them into the mirth and abyss of the attitude of negativity. Some people are not in fact negative themselves, but they appreciate the fact that they are positive, and as opposed to wanting everyone else to be positive too, they want others to dissapear into a setting of negativity so that they can enjoy the helpful stability inherent in being the sole benefactor of a positive outlook among the other members of their social strata. Like bullies, they seize on any opportunity to punish others for enjoying their lives without purpose, without a desire to educate, without a desire to tell their story or share their lives with others. These purposeless souls, endlessly thriving on the careful cultivation of the misery, the frustation and the flaws of others who previously did not possess such feelings end up actually creating the purposefully negative. The purposefully negative often times are misunderstood by those that surround them, they might be thought of as complainers, given aweful nicknames that on the surface might appear to be apt descriptors, but on second thought they are probably not very appropriate as labels and only serve to dillude the lablers and users of these labels into thinking that it is not only accepteble but is standard operating procedure to neglect the actual message that purposefully negative are trying to convey. The purpose of the purposefully negative is to educate the world about the purposelessly negative and to warn about them so that others do not get sucked into their negative vortex of external loathing. Here is my example from just last night of me being purposelessly negative. I do not possess my identification. I need to go and get another i.d. made, and I've been too lazy to do so. I went out to the club Alley Kat on college to see this band Yardwork play. I arrived and Kara and Brittney were outfront, I said whattup and then awkwardly spoke some Spanish and Kara was like "I don't speak spanish". And then I awkwardly said something like "You should, everyone should speak spanish". And I think that Brittney speaks a little Spanish which is why I was probably speaking Spanish in the first place, and I mentioned the Philosopher's Stone or whatevs and now I'm like agh blagh. And so the awkwardness continued, and then Thomas showed up at the door with the girl from Des Ark who hated me so badly at the St. Patrick's Day show for making a joke about Girls Gone Wild...which I thought was pretty hilarious, but apparantly everyone else found to be offensive, which I guess means people are pretty sensitive about "Girls Gone Wild"? I thought it was really weird. Regardless...lots of awkwardness at the door, and when I finally got to the door, I couldn't get in because I didn't have my i.d. and apparantly ALE hates the Alley Kat, and they had an excuse to keep me out and I should have known better is what the door man said, and that sucked, so I could not see the show and I was really extra-cited to see the show, and I guess it's ok that I did not get to watch the show, because I went to watch the Milwaukee Brewers Cubs matchup instead over at the Philosopher's Stone where I got into an awkward political discussion with a random guy whose name I can't recall, but apparantly he's a Democratic Delegate for Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign and he asked me who I thought was the better candidate for the office of the Presidency, and I had to tell him straight up that it did not matter. He then proceeded to tell me how Barack Obama was going to make life so much better for the lower classes and used a lot of fanciful rhetoric that means a lot when you are trying to convince the naive among us that you are worthy of election but which at the end of the day ends up being just fanciful rhetoric without much substance. My response to him was somewhere along the lines of (as I was sipping my Milwaukee's Best...) "I do not like that Barack Obama is selling himself on the idea of Hope". "I feel like there are going to be a huge contingent of first time participants in our political process, and I feel that him selling himself on the basis of Hope is very misleading and will lead to a dissolusioned generation if he ends up winning the election on that basis, and nothing changes". "For example, if you are in the lower class right now, and your life sucks, and people treat you horribly right now and you cry yourself to sleep every night and you worry about where you and your children are going to sleep and eat and how you will survive and how you will make it through from day to day and those are your constant worries and you hate worrying about them all so much and you have no idea how to make sense out of the misery that is your life... when and if Barack becomes our president, after he is sworn into office in January, that person is still going to be miserable and that person might have been holding out for a better life if you were to elect Barack Obama, and how can you justify leaving that consumer of our political system feeling useless, disuaded, ripped off and Hopeless. Barack Obama isn't a magic bullet, and everything isn't going to be magically fixed when and if he becomes President, and I dislike the fact that the man has co-opted a term like "Hope" which I do not feel he deserves to use in reference to himself." I expounded and pontificated a little bit longer basically implying that Barack Obama was a con-artist (which is in line with most politicians...) while I stopped short from calling him an out and out liar. I also mentioned that while I did not like nor support George Bush's policies, I appreciated the fact that George Bush's speechs ring true to his policy and is an adequate reflection of his policy. George Bush puts all Americans under surveillance, and he gives a speech outlining his intelligence and surveillance policy. George Bush decides to go to war in Iraq, and there is a huge public debate as to whether or not we went to war. He may not have been the most eloquent speaker, and he might not have enacted policies that I agreed with, but he did not lie to me as an American citizen about it. He might have lied about internal affairs... such as the whole Plame "scandal"...he might have lied to protect the careers of those faithful to him...but when it came to actual policy, he did not lie and he did not sugar coat. And he did it with the blessing of the citizenry. Every time Bush made a decision in the first 6 years of office (that I can recall from my memory...not hard fact based research driven support, I'm sure, but hell this is my fucking online diary, what do you expect footnotes?) the majority of the public usually supported his opinion according to media biased opinion polls. The same media that was supposed to loathe him so much, actually produced the opinion polls that informed his policy decisions. When we went to war in Iraq, 60 percent of the public agreed with him. He did his job. 60 percent of the public wants to go to war, he decided to go along with them. He may have known that he himself would benefit from that decision and many others would not benefit at all from that decision, but that was the decision that we all took part in making. We did not argue when the decision was made, we grumbled slightly, silenced those that disagreed because we were going to war and then we went to war. Was it a beneficial war? It depends on who you ask. Public opinion right now is sour towards this conflict in a way that it has never been sour towards a conflict in my recent memory. We created a new generation of those who believe that fighting is a means of persuasion. Intimidation is a means of quality control. We have created fear where previously there was no fear. The terrorists haven't terrorized us nearly to the extent that we have terrorized ourselves. In the past 8 years I have been transformed from someone who felt like those in my community could be trusted to someone who fears all of those in my community. I am as afraid of the upper class as I am afraid of the middle class as I am now afraid of the lowest class. The fear has been cultivated within me partially because of my ecstatic absence of fear before. Where there was fearless courage and reckless self expression, there is now a feeling of courageless fear and conformed restraint. Most of this transformation has taken place in the past year, since I became an active Obama non-supporter... which has led me to believe that Obama is cultivating "false Hope". In my opinion, if Obama and his supporters were so interested in creating an ideal society different from how our society has existed previously, I would feel as energetically blissful as most of the world knows me when I am in the greatest of moods. Some who might argue that I am still that energetically blissful know that there is something absent from my state now that was there a year and a half ago. That something is "Faith". I feel as though already, in as short as a year and a half, my community, leaders and followers, took my "Faith", shat on my "Faith" and then replaced my "Faith" with a pale imitation. "Hope". "Hope" is "Faith" without commitment. Kind of like Faiths younger brother or sister. Hope is like thinking about a vast desert and wondering if it contains an oasis... faith is thinking about the same desert and knowing that it contains the greatest city in the world right smack dab in the middle and then going out into the desert, walking to the center, discovering the city (unsurprisingly so, because you have faith) and then partying in that great Desert oasis city for the rest of your life... that pretty much sums up why I dislike Obama's campaign right now. My dislike and my questioning of his campaign are natural extensions of my community (the vast majority of which are open Obama supporters) actively and enthusiastically replacing my beautiful Faith with the empty and promiseless False Hope... only to replace that False Hope with the ugly and pitifully nasty feeling of Despair... which is a natural extension of False Hope... If Obama's supporters are this cruel, this callous, this uncaring and this manipulative... are they in fact representitives of Obama himself? Similarly, do they not realize that adopting the tactics and the techniques of the Republican party and the tactics and the techniques of Ronald Reagan is not only not really a CHANGE but is EXACTLY what everyone desired to fight...which was the status quo that they saw as so unfair. At this point, I feel like if I had a real message outside of enjoy your lives and live the most pleasurable, misery-less pain-free existances possible, that it has been mistaken by some of those who actually believed I had a message to deliver, co-opted, subverted, reflected and perverted to the point of actually being contrary to the original message I tried to deliver. When I spoke about how great it was in the 1980's when Ronald Reagan was the President, and how great of a media manipulator and fabricator he was, and how his ideas work the greatest and his ideas should be replicated by modern day Democrats... I was joking. Ronald Reagan was a more eloquent version of George W. Bush. A carefully cultivated and manipulated figure who's promises were empty and his curruption was evident in his every move. He made a lot of people rich. That is for sure. For every person he made rich, he made someone poor. That is for sure. He could have made all rich, but he decided not to. He was a weak man. Making all people rich is easy to do. We have enough resources to utilize, we have enough intelligence and we have enough people. It is a horrid abomination that poverty exists in any form in America. It is a horrid abomination that people excuse this through the use of humor to neglect and ignore the situation... as opposed to the use of humor to help and solve the problem. I'm sure Barack Obama had a lot of fun bringing the press corps to the Wailing Wall and over to Germany and the Arc D'Triomphe (why, btw did he speak in Germany and not in Paris? Germany did not provide us with the shelter from the British taxation that we desired...France did.) but if Barack Obama is so much for change here in America, why is he not showing us how he intends to make life better for all of us. Why is he not showing us American universities and technical schools where we are developing new techniques of energy production? Why is he not doing a photo op at a windfarm in Texas? Why isn't he touring the University of Wisconsin's biology department touting new treatments for cancer? Why isn't he showing communities that are solidifying in their strength because of positive programs to bring all members of the community out of poverty, allowing them to feel secure in their positions in society. Why is he not touring Microsoft in the Northeast, thanking the company and it's constituents for creating the great internet where you are reading this? Why is he not thanking the pilots who daily risk their lives transporting Goods and Citizens across our nation and the world allowing us all to have better access to all parts of our country? Why is he relishing in explaining that America is in such a bad place right now without saying that we can change things nor explaining how it is that we will effect that change?! This not to say that I am a McCain supporter either, because I am not. I feel that this is the same election that has been going on since the beginning of the modern era in politics which started right around the New World Order of Reagan. The New World Order was the right way to explain the new era of politics, because that is exactly what has happened...it's almost as if 1984 hit, and we've been perpetually stuck in 1984 ever since. George Orwell would be proud that he picked the date...more clever than Nostradamus, I'm sure all of us in 1984 were so relieved that his dystopian vision never arrived... I feel no love for McCain. He does not purport to see that moralistically, it is way more moralistically sound and Christian to show love and compassion for all of those who are different from you...Gays, Lesbians, Unwed Mothers, Single Fathers, the guy with no teeth that wants to drink a beer because he once was beautiful and intelligent and people decided that instead of allowing him to grow and supporting him in a loving, tolerant and magnificent way that they desired for him to go through that radioactive decay that slowly, patiently and methodically has eroded his former sense of self worth over time, the fat woman who has gone through a similar process of decay until she no longer knows how to converse with anyone, the Rich man who you can not relate to because you do not possess much common ground with the concerns of someone who feels responsible for more property than they actually possess, the hired C.I.A. assassin who says a prayer before dispatching an international terrorist and hopes to his Christian God on sunday that he had in deed killed a bad man and prevented more deaths with his deed than he actually created, the farmer who grows a lot of corn, but not much else, because of the soaring prices of the usefully useless crop...who owns cows as pets and milk producers, but would never consider eating a steak. In fact the same farmer has a graveyard in his backyard dedicated to his cows who he feels are as much a part of his family as his children, the family dog, his wife, her parents, his parents, etc... I'm not so entirely sure that John McCain feels the necessity to represent all of those interests simultaneously...and that is a fact that is not only slightly disturbing but wholly alarming. The thing that I do appreciate about Mr. McCain, is that I think that his experience as a prisoner of war would be actively reflected in his policy. I fail to believe that someone who endured the experience that I'm sure that Mr. McCain endured in Vietnam when he was shot down and captured as a Prisoner of War would enact a policy of torturing foreign combatants captured as hostile combatants by the United States of America leading America to be labelled as an oppresive society failing to uphold the standards of both the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights both of which are Global Accords that we not only helped to author but Championed world wide. When we chose to spit on these documents, we chose to spit in the faces of not only the entire global community, we chose to spit in our own faces... ...Such is the nature of war. Such is the nature of manufacturing hatred. Such is the nature of profiting from misery... Such are the things we would all do best to avoid and upend in our struggle to become globally self-sustaining as opposed to self-defeat... Well. Those are all of the thoughts that I tried to convey last night... ...that is cautious optimism to me. Not falling for the rhetoric. Reading between the lines. Explaining to others what is being said between the lines... and educating that if you actually do believe in making a Change, then we have to start by actually empowering those in our communities who are not empowered, as opposed to taking what little power they have away and enslaving them... Barack Obama is at a critical time in his cultivation as a leader, if he is actually being cultivated to lead, and if he actually believes in leading us into a brighter future free from the constraints of the illogical fears which have not only paralyzed many of us so many times before to our detriment, but have also created the divisions in our society that exist unnecessarily... creating misery without purpose. Creating misery that pervades the culture like a virus, providing those without resources and excuse to rejoice in that misery which, seeing misery in others precludes them from the responsibility of the misery that could possibly exist in their life, or the responsibility for helping others overcome their miseries. The "excuse me" mentality of such nasty cultivators of pointless misery is a childish excuse, a remnant of the past which we need to leave behind... I think that Barack Obama has a choice to make at this point. Does he want to be a global leader willing to sacrifice his own image for the betterment of our society. Is Barack a leader who is willing to buck the trend of following the status quo in an effort to create in all of us the life which we so honestly desire? Is Barry the kind of guy who is willing to reject the false evidence of the need for a war in Iraq only to say "NO! WE WILL NOT GO TO WAR! I DON'T CARE THAT WE HAVE A 60 PERCENT APPROVAL RATING FOR THIS WAR!" Is this the Barry Obama who when Palestinian Homes are demolished, actively insures that these newly moved global citizens have adequate shelter? Is this the Barry Obama who will persuade the upper classes to consume less food resources so that others can survive? Is this the Barry Obama that will convince people that the consumption of Animals as an active component of the global economy isn't economically sustainable forever? Is this the Barry Obama that will convince business, that it is time for us to make our money off of happiness and enjoyment of the universe as opposed to misery? Is he really going to be able to effect the global change which he says that he wants to insure for us all and will he be able to convince the populace to stand behind him in these desires? Or will he cave into the status quo...trading in his policy of "Change" for the counterproductive policy of "Not really change, but it seems different when you watch it on tv" Is this the Barack Obama willing to create a world where all people are experienced to not only the Pursuit of Happiness, but the actual feeling of blissfully ecstatic enjoyment of the world around us! Is he willing to ensure that all of our citizens are allowed to feel rewarded when they feel as if they deserve rewards!? Is this the Barack Obama that not only accepts a call to leadership, but actually leads as opposed to be led by handlers? These are questions, which as of right now are unanswered by me. What a difference a year makes, and my personal experiences of the last year have placed me in this uncomfortable position of neutrality. While I was initially encouraged by the growing electorate, I am now discouraged by the execution of the policies of that electorate. People are encouraging the basest behavior from our newest members in unrestrained shows of force used to silence those whose opinions differ from their own. Ask me how I received this bump on my nose, I will inform you of how I wrote "Loses" on the bottom of an Obama sticker that someone delicately placed on a trash can, and how a week later, at a Tavern next door, someone stole an item of mine (a pair of pants!)and when I asked the other patrons if they had seen the theif...I was ejected from the bar, and had my nose broken because I was trying to retrieve the pants... only to have the guy who just broke my nose show up at the Ambulance to say "hey! here are your pants!" The owners of the two establishments are both known to be supporters of Barack Obama's campaign, and the only thing that I could figure out is that they were trying to influence political opinion by sending the message to the neighborhood that "See, if you do not support Barack Obama, then this is what happens". The moblike mentality of such actions undermine everything which Barack Obama's campaign is supposed to represent, especially when we are supposed to be proud of our right to dissent without threats of physical violence. I guess the establishments forgot about that part when they were stealing my property, breaking my face, and then returning the property only to say "you should feel lucky you aren't charged with assault". This event (among others) has displayed to me (so far) that Barack Obama's campaign is possibly marred by empty rhetoric. He is for the freedom of speech (as long as you support his policy). He is for the freedom of religion (as long as you support his policy). He is for equality (as long as you support his policy). He is for the creation of capital and for job growth (as long as you support his policy). HOPEfully (see how I've co-opted your term Mr. Obama.), Mr. Obama will know when his supporters are actually perverting, subverting and contrapositively stifling the tenants of your carefully constructed campaign, and you will acutely deal with problems in our own community connected to the use of bullying, connected to the unnecessary use of force and the use of coercion unnecessarily when dealing with people whose ideas are so vitally important that they probably have (unknowing to you I'm sure) created your campaign for you without even being compensated for the counsel that was given to you freely. this diatribe was brought to you by the great delegate from kannapolis who so lovingly mislabeled me as "negative". ...at least he offered to buy me a grey goose? also, after I left the philosopher's stone, I almost got into a damn fight with Jake Humphries. He said a lot of really nasty things when I tried to apologize, and hurt my effing feelings. That was pretty fucking assholish of him. Like way too fucking assholish. He said a couple of things and I was just like "Don't ever mention, this, don't ever mention, that. You don't know anything about either situation, they aren't your business, and I'm sure they aren't everyone elses business too". What an effing ahole. Not only did I apologize, I apologized multiple times. I was in trouble for calling his girlfriend a "Scowl Monster." This is how it happened "What's Up Scowl Monster!?" Her response "Fuck you, I'm not a scowl monster". My response "No way, why do I get a fuck you?" "I wasn't being a real asshole, I was just trying to say hello!" Her response "Fuck you!" (not in the funny way), then jake comes out, proceeds to threaten me, pushes me like a damn dumb ass asshole, pulls out his knife, asks me what I'm going to do like a damn dumb ass asshole and then proceeds to spit out some of the meanest shit possible... as I am apologizing! What an arrogant fucktard. I was not impressed by his behavior. words words words! (Comment on this)