everythinggoodisgone.com

13.3.09

was reading this & it made me want to comment, & then the comment got too long & i figured hey i've got a blog too, so i'm gonna go ahead & post on it! hah!

the films of 1999 - millennial cinema. there was a visceral quality to those films that reminded us why we liked going to movies, the collective angst of a world poised for a new beginning. for me it always always goes back to that moment when we were driving in a volvo on the freeway after seeing "fight club:" listening to radiohead & smoking cigarettes very conscious of our positioning in the world & in the car & in the music video...there was a rightness in this self-other distinction made manifest, how it was taken out of my brain & vomited onto the screen. then the awe of the matrix...i wrote papers about both of these films & their arch use of theory & film & post-post modernism....i only got B's.

i think you've managed to capture this moment for me, a little, extra-long blog posting title from therumpus.net.so thanks for that. & thanks for making me want to write about it, just a little.

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i am running up against a wall in my current employment - starting to hate that i work for money-grubbing jerks...when i began my time in commercials, i really did think i could find a director for whom i could produce & with whom i could have the kind of creative partnership my father enjoyed for so many years with Kenny, his producer...but the more time i spend in this industry, the more i realize that this is a pipe dream - the business has changed a great deal since my father was involved, & the vast majority of directors w/ whom i've worked are, well, pampered children who are barely capable of getting themselves to the office on time for a meeting much less actually _directing_ - they rely on the skills of their 'team' to do their job for them. hence, most of them don't last for long - 3 years at the outside - in comparison to my dad, who spent almost 30 years working... mostly though i am frustrated because i did think of this as a means to an end - a way to transition to more "meaningful" work - but the chasm between commercials & everything else is so deep i'd have to start over again at the bottom being berated & judged by my boobs instead of my brains just to get a 'foot in the door'.

& so i am exploring my options. in a way i feel as groundless & confused as i was 6.5 years ago when i graduated from college. but certainly my experiences, work & otherwise, are valuable? at least i could be a baby-sitter or au pair for spoilt rich kids without much difficulty... but i also do believe i could take my skill set, wide ranging & logistically explicit as it is, & do something worthwhile. what, exactly, that will be, is still up for discussion. i've been tossing about the idea of journalism, in a sense multimedia journalism - that is, mixing my nascent joy of photography (i used to be paralysed by my parents' success into a sort of mediocrity - god forbid i took a bad photograph, so all of them were fairly awful) & my pleasure in writing to create saleable packages of words & pictures... seems like a decent idea, something that could allow me to take advantage of my love of learning new things, my desire to affect change while experiencing the world, & my immense feeling that i'm not doing enough to express my (sometimes unique but always vigorous) opinions.

i did for a while think about working for an NGO but it seems experiences have been so negative & frustrating... i have so much respect for some people's drive to make their passions concrete... they always seem to be doing something for the betterment of mankind in a way i envy - how do you even go about getting these jobs? what do you need to know how to do?

along w/ friends of mine, during katrina we all felt so angry that the response was so damn slow - if any of us in this business took as long to get some stupid narcisist his special bacon sandwich as it took to get MRE's to survivors, we would have gotten fired, not the presidential medal of honor... for a while i tossed around the idea of starting a crack team of production people who would go in & get shit done during disasters...but the hurdles of 501(c)3 status & actually trying to get these faux-idealists off their asses to do things frustrated me right out of the box.

i think that gets to the root of it for me - i have idealist tendencies, but pessimist strategies, for existence - i somehow lost my "i can change the world" glow a long time ago - but am finding myself more & more drawn to a desire to do _something_ rather than _nothing_ - & giving money to the ICRC, ACLU, & joe biden & seeing it mis-spent is just more fuel for the endless cycle of well maybe but then...

as you can see i'm still thinking through how i'm even going to approach this...classic prema - i'll be thinking 'til the locusts actually do show up in SoCal...

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happy monday. spent saturday at JPL's open house. geeeks iiiiin ssppppaaaaaaaccce!
it was like being inside a NOVA. i learned more in one day than i have in years...everything from what kind of propulsion system the Dawn Satellite will use (ion propulsion. like from star trek. cool!), to the name of the company that merges the Atlas & Delta V rocket groups (aka lockheed martin & boeing's new corporate mashup launch group)... not to mention getting to see a host of geeky teenagers, which is always refreshing & makes you feel better about the state of the union... at least when you're me & you worry about that kind of thing...

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...re-imagined again for the third time, the everythinggoodisgone.com blog. which, it is only fair to say, has been dormant now for 3 years not because i am lazy, but because i had other things on my mind. maybe.




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On this day when we exercise our (more & more hollow-seeming) 'right' to vote, it is perhaps sensible to puruse this, with of course the disclaimer so sensibly outlined by its original poster:

"I think this is a cultural document of the first order. And frightening and strange, strangely frightening.

Before the Stalinist knocks begin at the door here, I want to say I don't endorse this at all. But it should be read."

Courtesy of nettime, the full transcript of Osama bin Ladin's speech.

Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.

Praise be to Allah who created the creation for his worship and commanded them to be just and permitted the wronged one to retaliate against the oppressor in kind. To proceed:

Peace be upon he who follows the guidance: People of America this talk of mine is for you and concerns the ideal way to prevent another Manhattan, and deals with the war and its causes and results.

Before I begin, I say to you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not forfeit their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom.

If so, then let him explain to us why we don't strike for example - Sweden? And we know that freedom-haters don't possess defiant spirits like those of the 19 - may Allah have mercy on them.

No, we fight because we are free men who don't sleep under oppression. We want to restore freedom to our nation, just as you lay waste to our nation. So shall we lay waste to yours.

No one except a dumb thief plays with the security of others and then makes himself believe he will be secure. Whereas thinking people, when disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for its causes, in order to prevent it happening again.

But I am amazed at you. Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September 11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there for a repeat of what occurred.

So I shall talk to you about the story behind those events and shall tell you truthfully about the moments in which the decision was taken, for you to consider.

I say to you, Allah knows that it had never occurred to us to strike the towers. But after it became unbearable and we witnessed the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli coalition against our people in Palestine
and Lebanon, it came to my mind.

The events that affected my soul in a direct way started in 1982 when America permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon and the American Sixth Fleet helped them in that. This bombardment began and many were killed and injured and others were terrorised and displaced.

I couldn't forget those moving scenes, blood and severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished over their residents, rockets raining down on our home without mercy.

The situation was like a crocodile meeting a helpless child, powerless except for his screams. Does the crocodile understand a conversation that doesn't include a weapon? And the whole world saw and heard but it didn't respond.

In those difficult moments many hard-to-describe ideas bubbled in my soul, but in the end they produced an intense feeling of rejection of tyranny, and gave birth to a strong resolve to punish the oppressors.

And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing our women and children.

And that day, it was confirmed to me that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance.

This means the oppressing and embargoing to death of millions as Bush Sr did in Iraq in the greatest mass slaughter of children mankind has ever known, and it means the throwing of millions of pounds of bombs and explosives at millions of children - also in Iraq - as Bush Jr did, in order to remove an old agent and replace him with a new puppet to assist in the pilfering of Iraq's oil and other outrages.

So with these images and their like as their background, the events of September 11th came as a reply to those great wrongs, should a man be blamed for defending his sanctuary?

Is defending oneself and punishing the aggressor in kind, objectionable terrorism? If it is such, then it is unavoidable for us.

This is the message which I sought to communicate to you in word and deed, repeatedly, for years before September 11th.

And you can read this, if you wish, in my interview with Scott in Time Magazine in 1996, or with Peter Arnett on CNN in 1997, or my meeting with John Weiner in 1998.

You can observe it practically, if you wish, in Kenya and Tanzania and in Aden. And you can read it in my interview with Abdul Bari Atwan, as well as my interviews with Robert Fisk.

The latter is one of your compatriots and co-religionists and I consider him to be neutral. So are the pretenders of freedom at the White House and the channels controlled by them able to run an interview with him? So that he may relay to the American people what he has understood from us to be the reasons for our fight against you?

If you were to avoid these reasons, you will have taken the correct path that will lead America to the security that it was in before September 11th. This concerned the causes of the war.

As for it's results, they have been, by the grace of Allah, positive and enormous, and have, by all standards, exceeded all expectations. This is due to many factors, chief among them, that we have found it difficult to deal with the Bush administration in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and
the other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents.

Our experience with them is lengthy, and both types are replete with those who are characterised by pride, arrogance, greed and misappropriation of wealth. This resemblance began after the visits of Bush Sr to the region.

At a time when some of our compatriots were dazzled by America and hoping that these visits would have an effect on our countries, all of a sudden he was affected by those monarchies and military regimes, and became envious of their remaining decades in their positions, to embezzle the public wealth of the nation without supervision or accounting.

So he took dictatorship and suppression of freedoms to his son and they named it the Patriot Act, under the pretence of fighting terrorism. In addition, Bush sanctioned the installing of sons as state governors, and didn't forget to import expertise in election fraud from the region's presidents to Florida to be made use of in moments of difficulty.

All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two mujahidin to the furthest point east to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qaida, in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human, economic, and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers, as we, alongside the mujahidin, bled Russia for 10 years, until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat.

All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah.

That being said, those who say that al-Qaida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise, because when one scrutinises the results, one cannot say that al-Qaida is the sole factor in achieving those spectacular gains.

Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations - whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction - has helped al-Qaida to achieve these enormous results.

And so it has appeared to some analysts and diplomats that the White House and us are playing as one team towards the economic goals of the United States, even if the intentions differ.

And it was to these sorts of notions and their like that the British diplomat and others were referring in their lectures at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. [When they pointed out that] for example, al-Qaida spent $500,000 on the event, while America, in the incident and its aftermath, lost - according to the lowest estimate - more than $500 billion.

Meaning that every dollar of al-Qaida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah, besides the loss of a huge number of jobs.

As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars.

And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the mujahidin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq, which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan - with Allah's permission.

It is true that this shows that al-Qaida has gained, but on the other hand, it shows that the Bush administration has also gained, something of which anyone who looks at the size of the contracts acquired by the shady Bush administration-linked mega-corporations, like Halliburton and its kind, will be convinced. And it all shows that the real loser is ... you.

It is the American people and their economy. And for the record, we had agreed with the Commander-General Muhammad Ataa, Allah have mercy on him, that all the operations should be carried out within 20 minutes, before Bush and his administration notice.

It never occurred to us that the commander-in-chief of the American armed forces would abandon 50,000 of his citizens in the twin towers to face those great horrors alone, the time when they most needed him.

But because it seemed to him that occupying himself by talking to the little girl about the goat and its butting was more important than occupying himself with the planes and their butting of the skyscrapers, we were given three times the period required to execute the operations - all praise is due to Allah.

And it's no secret to you that the thinkers and perceptive ones from among the Americans warned Bush before the war and told him: "All that you want for securing America and removing the weapons of mass destruction - assuming they exist - is available to you, and the nations of the world are with you in the inspections, and it is in the interest of America that it not be thrust into an unjustified war with an unknown outcome."

But the darkness of the black gold blurred his vision and insight, and he gave priority to private interests over the public interests of America.

So the war went ahead, the death toll rose, the American economy bled, and Bush became embroiled in the swamps of Iraq that threaten his future. He fits the saying "like the naughty she-goat who used her hoof to dig up a knife from under the earth".

So I say to you, over 15,000 of our people have been killed and tens of thousands injured, while more than a thousand of you have been killed and more than 10,000 injured. And Bush's hands are stained with the blood of all those killed from both sides, all for the sake of oil and keeping their private companies in business.

Be aware that it is the nation who punishes the weak man when he causes the killing of one of its citizens for money, while letting the powerful one get off, when he causes the killing of more than 1000 of its sons, also for money.

And the same goes for your allies in Palestine. They terrorise the women and children, and kill and capture the men as they lie sleeping with their families on the mattresses, that you may recall that for every action, there is a reaction.

Finally, it behoves you to reflect on the last wills and testaments of the thousands who left you on the 11th as they gestured in despair. They are important testaments, which should be studied and researched.

Among the most important of what I read in them was some prose in their gestures before the collapse, where they say: "How mistaken we were to have allowed the White House to implement its aggressive foreign policies against the weak without supervision."

It is as if they were telling you, the people of America: "Hold to account those who have caused us to be killed, and happy is he who learns from others' mistakes."

And among that which I read in their gestures is a verse of poetry. "Injustice chases its people, and how unhealthy the bed of tyranny."

As has been said: "An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure."

And know that: "It is better to return to the truth than persist in error." And that the wise man doesn't squander his security, wealth and children for the sake of the liar in the White House.

In conclusion, I tell you in truth, that your security is not in the hands of Kerry, nor Bush, nor al-Qaida. No.

Your security is in your own hands. And every state that doesn't play with our security has automatically guaranteed its own security.

And Allah is our Guardian and Helper, while you have no Guardian or Helper. All peace be upon he who follows the Guidance.

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oh, just read this. because it will make you laugh, & tear up, & hope to god you did everything you could by just remaining sane in the face of unbearable obscenity made manifest in our president & his little cab[al]inet. & because we all need perspective all the time, but especially now, when we as a nation as a republic for which we stand seem poised on the tipping point, at that moment at the edge of the black hole when you just might be able to pull away if you increase the engines just one more bit...& if you don't you'll go sliding into nothingness, the utter gravity of the thing crushing you, turning you into dark matter that really might as well not exist unless of course you're some kind of astro- or particle-physicist. *sigh*


Friday, October 29, 2004 (SF Gate)
Get Out And Vote And Scream
Now that we're all completely fried and bitter and media punch-drunk, it's time to act
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

So here we are, staring down a rather historic moment amidst the
sputtering ideological orgy that is the American experiment and if you're
paying any sort of attention at all you're doubtlessly drunk on election
hype and saturated with Bush/Kerry platitudes and you wish a white-hot
death upon every screeching TV pundit who is right now analyzing yet
another insidious national poll that seems to reveal everything and
nothing at the exact same time.

And Bush is out there right this very second stumping and sweating and
blinking fast and defending his useless hideous little war and hurling
snide little invectives and completely fabricated exaggerations at John
Kerry, and Kerry is returning the favor by casually mentioning how Bush
has ruined the goddamn nation and decimated our self-respect and run
roughshod over our international relations all while raping the
environment like no president in history and racking up a world-record
deficit and mangling the language like a child on too much Ritalin.

It has been, in short, the longest and most painful episode of "American
Idol" ever, wherein the two finalists have belted every cheesy American
standard and regurgitated every lame disco-era stage move and hit every
warbly high note and sacrificed every shred of dignity and integrity and
true individuality they might've once possessed, all in the desperate hope
that you are finally sufficiently numbed to where you are finally ready
press the right 800 number on your AT&T wireless service and place your
stupefied vote.

We are almost there. We are so very on the cusp. This is where it all
comes down to your intuition and your intelligence and a sheer force of
will, your ability to overcome the media-induced nausea and deeply inbred
American political ennui and hoist yourself out of this election stupor
and go to your polling place and punch the little card or push the little
button, and then pray you don't live in a state where the GOP has rigged
the touch screens or shredded all the Democratic voter registrations as
you think, wow, world's foremost democracy and yet why does it feel like
I'm voting in, like, Yugoslavia? Why does it feel that this election is so
incredibly messy and loaded and rife with snakes and spit and hissing
corruption? Weird. Sad. Telling.

It has become surreal, this election. It has become beyond coherent. We
are at a point where our election system has become suspect and deeply
flawed and our ideology has come unraveled and we as a nation no longer
fully understand our role in the world and the bloom is way, way off the
patriotic rose, so much so that it's no longer just a matter of which
candidate will put a shinier coat of paint on the massive ship of
bureaucracy, but who will stop us from sinking too abruptly into the
quicksand of abuse and arrogance and ever increasing irrelevance. Go,
U-S-A!

So then. As we stare down this uncanny and indelible moment in American
history, there are two angles of approach. One: sit back and reflect on
how the hell we got here, what bizarre machinations and demonic falling
dominos managed to put BushCo in power, just what sort of humiliating and
positively satanic chain reaction lo these past 50 years led up to where
we are now, to this bitter yet oddly amusing spectacle of a massive and
awe-inspiring empire in full crumble.

This approach, it is the more depressing and fatalistic and painful of the
two and will result in much sighing and the supping of wine and the
licking of lovers to deflect the pain and energize the skin and try and
put it all in perspective, and is recommended only in small doses. Except
for the drinking and licking part.

Conversely and perhaps more enjoyably, you can project forward, then
reminisce. You can, that is to say, imagine it's a short 20 years hence
and it's about 2024 and we're sitting there sipping our laudanum/Vicodin
Colas and injecting Nexium straight into our eyeballs and watching our
10-foot plasma-TV walls and looking back and saying my god, 2004, that was
a weird one, wasn't it?

Remember that ugly time? Remember when that smirking dolt Bush Jr. was
president and we went through that dark dank tunnel of spiritual dread and
international humiliation and we bombed Iraq for no reason and killed all
those people for no reason and gutted our own economy for no reason other
than to line the pockets of the Bush WASP mafia's corporate cronies?
Wasn't that just so, like, crazy?

We will make jokes and shake our heads and sigh. We will say oh man
remember that defense guy? Rumsfeld? Remember his black and ominous eyes?
His savage abuse of power and complete lack of accountability? Remember
that demon-god Ashcroft and his oiled feet, didn't dance and didn't smoke
and didn't drink and didn't have sex and wanted to crack down on nipples
and scan our e-mail and check our library books and tap our phones?
Remember Condi Rice, that lost and desperate look, lonely and sad and a
creepy veneer of doomed longing over her soul? Weird times, my friend.
Sip.

We know that 20 years hence, there will be no Reagan-like legacy for
Shrub. There will be no renamed airports or honorary expressways or
revisionist rose-colored history books arguing the good and the bad of his
epic much-loved presidency, because there is so little good and so very,
very much bad and there is absolutely no love anywhere.

We already know that history will look very, very unkindly upon this most
booblike, lie-torn, appallingly underqualified of American presidents. Of
this we can rest assured. Of this we will only look back and be incredibly
grateful it didn't last all that long.

This angle, it is the moderately healing and perspective-adjusting one.
It's comfortable and helpful to project in such a manner, especially given
how it's almost too hot right now, just too frustrating and painful to
remain in this moment, to sit here and wait for the election returns and
the potential lawsuits and Supreme Court riggings all the while knowing
the GOP is trying everything short of launching another terrorist attack
to maintain power and will stop at almost nothing to instill fear and
dread and Dick Cheney deeper into the numb American psyche.

You cannot stay here. You cannot sit in this moment any longer. You simply
have to get out and vote and scream and then roll up this ugly hunk of
living history into a tight little ball of hot gelatinous goo and hurl it
at the wall of time and see what sticks.

This is my recommendation. That and the wine thing. And voting. Voting is
mandatory. Do it. Do it so you have something to talk about in 20 years.
So you can say you were there and you participated and you tried like hell
to change history. Because of course, you can.


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ladies & gentlemen....we're back. that's right. after a hiatus of over a year, everythinggoodisgone has realized that there is a serious derth of blogs out there in the blogosphere, (which didn't exist the last time we posted). what that derth is, has yet to be determined.

but we're happy to know that after miscellaneous full-time employment gigs just didn't work out, we can now return to the places & faces we love - otherwise known as the utterly vacuous publishing sphere of the internet.



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