Il me semble que je serais toujours bien là où je ne suis pas…
Not the first time it’s been said but no longer true: I am here, will always be here until the final decay, the final disintegration. My nightmares have ended, a certain kind of peace, the restlessness ebbs and flows as it should: an equilibrium of desire and contentment. I am not all I once was, the figment of an idealized self. I still struggle but not with how to end the demons within me, rather how to put them to use.

Il me semble que je serais toujours bien là où je ne suis pas…
Not the first time it’s been said but no longer true: I am here, will always be here until the final decay, the final disintegration. My nightmares have ended, a certain kind of peace, the restlessness ebbs and flows as it should: an equilibrium of desire and contentment. I am not all I once was, the figment of an idealized self. I still struggle but not with how to end the demons within me, rather how to put them to use.

I think in general it’s good to do something, anything that requires some sort of effort/exhaustion: keeps us even keel about ourselves. This idea of progress, of improvement, of staving off the undertow of time and decay. Not to put a too dismal point on it, but the remarkableness of the human body lies in it’s ability to generate, regenerate and perpetuate.
It is the only machine we get to keep for a lifetime.

playing poker blows: had an amazing run at the start of the day only to lose those gains late into the night. granted, out of the 6, 2 were sloppy plays and recklessness, but the rest were bad beat city: KK versus JJ, AK versus AJ, QQ versus 99, shit like that. had one guy from cleveland ohio bust my balls about a call i had made that nearly wiped him out. So i abused him in turn, telling him cleveland sucks. my avatar on the poker site is a picture of ioanna at one. so he turns and says, ‘bet that kid sucks better.’ and i don’t know, i kinda climbed all over him. but never once did he apologized and i was thinking what a truly disgusting human being.

While looking through blogs, what the fuck are people are writing, how are they making a living at this, if anything at all, I came across http://www.peridotash.com.
I have to say, this is the most amazing thing I have ever read: not because I am reading some sort of literally marvel, but because of it’s honesty and vulnerability. It’s a sex worker’s blog, detailing the ups and downs of a ‘sideline’ escort and the clients she services. it is such an engaging story, wuith reoccurring themes and characters, subplots and conflict, hope and disappointment.
I clicked and clicked and read how this woman transformed from a part time escort who made peace with this aspect of herself (no self hate here, only a very keen acceptness and awareness of what it meant and what she was doing) to a professional dominatrix (introduced to her by a client whom she later gives free ‘dates’ for training purposes).
You can chart her progression and awakening, from escort to domme, from diary style journal writing to self referential web presence. Character’s that reoccured in previous posts are now cross linked in later posts. Associative tags emerge as opposed to rigid/static categories.
As she ages in the blog, she entertains being a pro-domme more and more because she is no longer a naïve twenty something year old, she is aging and frankly “I just don’t want to do it anymore.”

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

There’s two points you make here that I kind of have a problem with:
While yes, I agree that media coverage of obama was extensive and favorable, I wouldn’t cite the number of good stories about him and the number bad stories about mccain as being indicative of that. For example, you could make the same case for oj simpson: there’s more negative coverage about him than good. But that’s bc he’s a fuck up, not bc there’s necessarily a bias against him.
If you compare the 2 campaigns, obama’s was much better run than mccain’s, less snafu’s (‘the foundation’s of our economy are strong’, ‘I don’t know how many homes I own’, the palin vp pick) and less shake up (changing campaign strategists and strategy, unable to stay on message).
Keep in mind, mccain was the underdog from even the primaries, so negative or unfavorable coverage came from his own party as well. Whereas, there was strong support for both hillary and obama from the onset, both history making candidates, the first lady becoming the first woman president; an african american child (and a REAL AFRICAN american, not just “black”) raised by middle american whites becoming the first afro-prez.
These are powerful narratives that embody the american dream, that capture our attention, that makes us feel good about ourselves and the country we live in. They symbolize the very ideals of democracy, prosperity, freedom and hope we are trying to “spread” throughout the world, ie the middle east.
As I said in my last email, news is entertainment, and what’s more thrilling than watching the american dream come alive right before our eyes?
Now, for your other points about health care and education. I’m not entirely for socialized medicine, but the idea of creating a greater “pool” of insured for more bargaining power, which in turn could lead to lower health care and prescription drug costs, is not necessarily wrong. For me, there’s something wrong with the way health insurance works here. now this is not an argument for socialized medicine and not what obama wants either: if you can afford your own, great; he’s more interested in covering those who can’t afford it, which I support.
And as for education, you didn’t support bush’s no child left behind act, that imposed standardized testing without any goverment funding to enact it? From a pedagogical perspective, there are all sorts of problems with standardized testing with a population as diverse as ours: a school is supposed to meet the needs of its locality. For example, in an area that’s densely populated with immigrants, more funding should be allocated to speech and language training/acquisition. This might not be the case for rural america.
But with the imposition of the nclb act and the lack of funding, the focus is placed instead on passing the test, meeting a government standard (which isn’t a govt standard btw, the content is decided by private corps, not educators), and you know as well as I do, passing a test and actually learning something are 2 totally different things.
I’m not entirely against some sort of standardization, after all, as citizens we need some sort of “common knowledge” and skill set: math, science, the ability to read and write, these are extremely important things to know in order to survive period. And while bloomberg touts how scores have improved in nyc, maritza has pointed out to me that the tests have also gotten easier to pass.
There’s a guy, richard scholes, who’s focused on the changing role colleges have played in furthering capiltalism. He points out how more people enter the job market, the qualifications for a particular job have gotten more specific and more difficult to attain while the salary for those jobs stays the same. There’s an expectation for a greater investment on the part of the student for the same job for the same amount of pay. He argues that instead of giving a student a well rounded education, colleges have become vocational schools. Students are not being taught to think for themselves, rather how to best serve the interests of potential employers.
Now, again, in order to survive in this country, this HAS to happen, and is emblematic of a much larger set of problems about the relationship we have with global capitalism in general. These are, of course, very knotty issues and difficult, I think, to address at a federal level, although I also believe that serving only the needs of the local populace is wrong as well and does our children a great disservice.
So while you and I argue these points, it’s only because we’re reasonably intelligent, rational human beings. We also have other interests besides our careers: we have creative outlets and curious minds. This is not bc we were just born that way: we were exposed. We’ve seen things, we’ve done things and have allowed ourselves to continue to learn to grow. I think education plays a tremendous role in that. It’s something I want my kids to embrace, to never stop thinking or questioning, to be alert and attentive, to expose themselves to as many things as possible before they get locked into whatever shitty career path that’s been left for them.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

There’s two points you make here that I kind of have a problem with:
While yes, I agree that media coverage of obama was extensive and favorable, I wouldn’t cite the number of good stories about him and the number bad stories about mccain as being indicative of that. For example, you could make the same case for oj simpson: there’s more negative coverage about him than good. But that’s bc he’s a fuck up, not bc there’s necessarily a bias against him.
If you compare the 2 campaigns, obama’s was much better run than mccain’s, less snafu’s (‘the foundation’s of our economy are strong’, ‘I don’t know how many homes I own’, the palin vp pick) and less shake up (changing campaign strategists and strategy, unable to stay on message).
Keep in mind, mccain was the underdog from even the primaries, so negative or unfavorable coverage came from his own party as well. Whereas, there was strong support for both hillary and obama from the onset, both history making candidates, the first lady becoming the first woman president; an african american child (and a REAL AFRICAN american, not just “black”) raised by middle american whites becoming the first afro-prez.
These are powerful narratives that embody the american dream, that capture our attention, that makes us feel good about ourselves and the country we live in. They symbolize the very ideals of democracy, prosperity, freedom and hope we are trying to “spread” throughout the world, ie the middle east.
As I said in my last email, news is entertainment, and what’s more thrilling than watching the american dream come alive right before our eyes?
Now, for your other points about health care and education. I’m not entirely for socialized medicine, but the idea of creating a greater “pool” of insured for more bargaining power, which in turn could lead to lower health care and prescription drug costs, is not necessarily wrong. For me, there’s something wrong with the way health insurance works here. now this is not an argument for socialized medicine and not what obama wants either: if you can afford your own, great; he’s more interested in covering those who can’t afford it, which I support.
And as for education, you didn’t support bush’s no child left behind act, that imposed standardized testing without any goverment funding to enact it? From a pedagogical perspective, there are all sorts of problems with standardized testing with a population as diverse as ours: a school is supposed to meet the needs of its locality. For example, in an area that’s densely populated with immigrants, more funding should be allocated to speech and language training/acquisition. This might not be the case for rural america.
But with the imposition of the nclb act and the lack of funding, the focus is placed instead on passing the test, meeting a government standard (which isn’t a govt standard btw, the content is decided by private corps, not educators), and you know as well as I do, passing a test and actually learning something are 2 totally different things.
I’m not entirely against some sort of standardization, after all, as citizens we need some sort of “common knowledge” and skill set: math, science, the ability to read and write, these are extremely important things to know in order to survive period. And while bloomberg touts how scores have improved in nyc, maritza has pointed out to me that the tests have also gotten easier to pass.
There’s a guy, richard scholes, who’s focused on the changing role colleges have played in furthering capiltalism. He points out how more people enter the job market, the qualifications for a particular job have gotten more specific and more difficult to attain while the salary for those jobs stays the same. There’s an expectation for a greater investment on the part of the student for the same job for the same amount of pay. He argues that instead of giving a student a well rounded education, colleges have become vocational schools. Students are not being taught to think for themselves, rather how to best serve the interests of potential employers.
Now, again, in order to survive in this country, this HAS to happen, and is emblematic of a much larger set of problems about the relationship we have with global capitalism in general. These are, of course, very knotty issues and difficult, I think, to address at a federal level, although I also believe that serving only the needs of the local populace is wrong as well and does our children a great disservice.
So while you and I argue these points, it’s only because we’re reasonably intelligent, rational human beings. We also have other interests besides our careers: we have creative outlets and curious minds. This is not bc we were just born that way: we were exposed. We’ve seen things, we’ve done things and have allowed ourselves to continue to learn to grow. I think education plays a tremendous role in that. It’s something I want my kids to embrace, to never stop thinking or questioning, to be alert and attentive, to expose themselves to as many things as possible before they get locked into whatever shitty career path that’s been left for them.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

On that last bit, you are very much on the mark: historically, this country has done better economically with a dem prez and a repub congress. So having both branches of govt being dem is not a good thing, in my opinion.
As for the media, and I think I’ve already mentioned this, I find them totally gross: I find myself often screaming at the screen. In the end, they are a business like any other, and to keep things “entertaining” they try to create these sweeping dramas that completely over simplify the issues.
The nite that hillary was supposed to give her speech during the dnc, cnn spent the entire day talking abt the angry hillary supporters, the enraged hillary supporters: all this without fucking interviewing one, without putting on one face to match the coverage (which is what good journalism is supposed to do).
Then hillary spoke and after some commentary, they go in the crowd and find an “unconvinced” hillary supporter, who, guess what, was not only a woman but black too. See the potential for drama there? And this woman was going on and on about how obama had a lot of work left to earn her vote, she might not even vote, saying this with tears in her eyes. Then boom, straight to commercial. Did they return and interview a hillary supporter that would now support obama? No, of course not. That’s due diligence, that wouldve been good journalism but a horrible cliffhanger. Better to leave us wondering, leave us in suspense.
It’s disgusting.

From: Al
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 22:44:01
To: Manny
Subject: Re: I should know better than to start this
Very eloquent.
I guess I’m just irritated how the media seemed to gloss over a lot of different issues that came up during the campaign concerning B.O. while true or not, never made it’s way to the masses. No attention was paid to things like him saying in September on Meet The Press “My Muslim faith…I mean my Christian faith”. Seriously, have you ever slipped and said “My Hebrew faith”? Or how the LA Times had a tape of Obama socializing with Rashid Khalidi- it may mean nothing, but why refuse to show it?? McCain wasn’t my choice for the GOP nomination but he was a better alternative than this guy. Hell, I hate Hillary but I’d rather see her than this pair. A study showed that the majority of the stories regarding McCain were unfavorable while the majority of stories for Obama were favorable. It just seemed very lopsided towards one candidate.
All politicians are crooked, yes. And don’t think for 1 minute that The Chosen One will be any different. The government could care less about the people- all the more reason for them to stay out of running almost every facet of society (heath care, education etc).
It seems that the people were so anti-Bush that the were ready to elect any non-Republican. Which is understandable. I just think that too many of these people didn’t really look at both sides and their
policies. They heard “change” “Iraq is bad” and “McCain=Bush” and it was a done deal.

On that last bit, you are very much on the mark: historically, this country has done better economically with a dem prez and a repub congress. So having both branches of govt being dem is not a good thing, in my opinion.
As for the media, and I think I’ve already mentioned this, I find them totally gross: I find myself often screaming at the screen. In the end, they are a business like any other, and to keep things “entertaining” they try to create these sweeping dramas that completely over simplify the issues.
The nite that hillary was supposed to give her speech during the dnc, cnn spent the entire day talking abt the angry hillary supporters, the enraged hillary supporters: all this without fucking interviewing one, without putting on one face to match the coverage (which is what good journalism is supposed to do).
Then hillary spoke and after some commentary, they go in the crowd and find an “unconvinced” hillary supporter, who, guess what, was not only a woman but black too. See the potential for drama there? And this woman was going on and on about how obama had a lot of work left to earn her vote, she might not even vote, saying this with tears in her eyes. Then boom, straight to commercial. Did they return and interview a hillary supporter that would now support obama? No, of course not. That’s due diligence, that wouldve been good journalism but a horrible cliffhanger. Better to leave us wondering, leave us in suspense.
It’s disgusting.