DIRT

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS

love, esh.

karma police

I have always believed in Karma in the strict sense, like Jains.

everybody relax, nazi swastikas go the other way.

Jains walk around with cheesecloth over their mouths for fear of inhaling airborne insects, and push a little broom in front of them for fear of stepping on a crawling critter. My Buddhism professor in college called them “Karmaphobes”, and whereas I’m not THAT crazy, I believe it fully.

I’ve been playing a lot of Fallout 3. It’s a wonderful game about America, specifically the DC metro area after the nuclear apocalypse. There are many choices to make in the game, like deciding whether or not you are going to blow up a town built around a live nuclear warhead.

If you’ll watch the video, you can see that right after the town explodes in the distance, a little icon appears in the top left corner, letting you know that you’ve lost karma. The karma system in the game is strict, if you steal a bowl of noodles from someone’s shack, your karma drops. If you hand a beggar a bottle of water, your karma increases. This effects how you are treated and regarded in the rest of the world; and I’ll stop talking about video games…..now.

I bring this up, because before I even played this game, this is exactly how I saw the world. Every day, we have a series of choices, make the right ones, and you’ll be rewarded. Attempt to shortcut, screw someone over, lie, cheat, or steal, and you’ll get yours, quickly, and evenly. If God is how he is described in the Old Testament, this makes sense what with the whole eye for an eye thing and whathaveyou. Even though reason rejects this very notion, that there is some sepulchered force embedded in every choice and every deed, punishing the evil and rewarding the good; I like it, and I live this way.

Years ago I made a pact to quit lying entirely. Cold turkey. This is harder than it sounds. Most people walk around all day considering themselves to be honest, forthcoming, secure, and self-aware; but try it for one day and I assure you that you will have far greater respect for truth tellers. Don’t embellish any of your stories, don’t make any excuses for screw-ups, don’t lie, at all, about anything, for one day–be aware of it. You will find, as I and anyone else who has accepted this challenge, that not lying is incredibly difficult. Here are some choice quotes from some of my favorite people on the subject:

“A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth puts its shoes on” – Mark Twain

“If you once forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem. It is true that you may fool all of the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” – Abraham Lincoln

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics” – Benjamin Disraeli

“The easiest thing about telling the truth is that you never have to remember anything” – Mark Twain

“Oh what a tangled web we weave,
When first we practise to deceive!” – Sir Walter Scott

and the icing on the cake:

“People never lie so much as after a hunt, during a war or before an election.” – Otto Van Bismarck

In politics lying is casual, habitual, and pervasive. There are two things that are wonderful about always telling the truth:

1) It becomes ridiculously easy to tell when others are lying.

2) Brutal honesty is met with simultaneous apprehension and respect.

The Office, believe it or not, has this great bit where Kelly is in confession, talking about her relationship with Daryl:

I had this same thing with cheating on exams in high school and college.  In high school, we had a veritable black market cheating ring going on.  A lot of the AP kids were doing each other’s homework, programming the test answers into their calculators, and taking adderall.  I did none of this, I was an honors student (which is less impressive than being an AP kid, but whatever, fuck you, at least I earned it).  And that’s the whole thing right there.  I’d rather get my own C than someone else’s A, and besides, if I look at your paper during an exam for an answer, that is a tacit admission that you’re smarter than me, and I will never concede that, even if it’s true, even if it means Yale or Harvard, and even if it’s a lie.

I got one C in my entire college career, and it was in a course called American Presidency.  Anyone who knows me will have their eyes bug out of their head and hit the screen immediately

took me forever to find, but this is apparently called Bug Out Bob

I got the C because during the final exam, two frat boy douche bag fuck heads were passing this huge binder between each other, with me caught in the middle.  The binder was wikipedia printouts of every president that they would bend over and leaf through.  This class was in a huge lecture hall, about 300 people, and there were TAs patrolling the aisles looking for something like this.  For fear of being accused of cheating with them, and for fear of getting my head squashed if I tattled, I simply brought my half-complete exam to my professor an hour into the thing, handed it to him, and told him I’d write an email to explain.  So I did, and the professor wrote back…..

Holy shit, Gmail is awesome, I just found the email I wrote, and the prof’s response:

> Prof XXXX,
>  i was a student enrolled in your american presidency class this semester.  i am writing this letter to
> you at 8:57am immedeately after the exam this morning.  i am the
> person who told you about the two people cheating during the exam with
> the outlines under their desks.  You told me that i did the right
> thing, and i firmly believe that, as i have never cheated on an exam,
> and i would rather fail than ever cheat.  I come to you with a
> request, which i deem fair, and i hope you do as well.  I finished the
> first essay without complicatoin, i answered the question to the
> fullest of my ability.  However, the second question, as you will
> notice upon grading my essay, is a mere page and a half.  I wasn’t
> able to complete the question not because of my lack of knowledge on
> the subject, but because i was extremely anxious and nervous about the
> two cheaters in my proximity.  The one was sitting directly in front
> of me and could have easily placed the blame on me if he was caught,
> as he was constantly pushing the papers back underneath his chair
> toward my personal space.  I was anxious and rushed out of the exam,
> because if the two knew i ratted them out, i’m sure i would face
> consequences of physical abuse, as these two people seemed extremely
> menacing, and are frankly, much larger than i am.  I am asking you to
> allow me to make up the second essay sometime, somehow.  I know this
> is a stretch, but i am doing this in honesty and desperation, as i
> know my second essay is not sufficient enough to even pass.  I didn’t
> sleep last night, and i stayed up all night reviewing my notes and
> studying from the Edwards and Wayne book, all to be rushed out of the
> exam by two cheaters who had not put honest effort into studying for
> your final exam.  Please give this consideration, and email me a
> response whenever you get a chance.  Thank you.

From the Prof

Don’t worry about your exam.  I’m sure you will do well.  I will
contact you again about the final.  Again, you did the right thing.

Prof XXX

Wow, I’m a twerp, but regardless, I did the right thing.  The professor, however did not.  He never contacted me about the final, didn’t let me take it over, and gave me a C as a final grade (one of those classes where the final exam grade = your semester grade).  Then he went back to Columbia and was never heard from again.  I feel like the sum total of the karma I garnered from that event alone allowed me to:

• get dean’s list every semester thereafter
• move to Colorado without a clue and find a job doing what i love and what i’m the best at
• major in Philosophy and not have anyone whack me over the head or kick me out of a job interview

So, all in all, it’s a wash, and that’s the idea.  It’s always a wash.  You can lie and cheat and steal and brace yourself for the consequences, or you can lead as noble a life as possible and reap the rewards, even if they sometimes come too late, or sometimes never at all.  If you put good into the world, it will come back, evil too.

only after a total of 10 reloads did i get a different set of ads, one for a “career hub for tech pros” and “sigur ros at red rocks”  one of a total 20 ads actually applied to me (sigur ros is wonderful, and red rocks is a very cool place to see a show)

this whole “targeted marketing” thing might not be all it’s cracked up to be.  i really wonder what the referral-to-signup ratio of clicks from those things really is.  

i guess predatorial action, whether it be advertising, scams, dating, college, whatever, just make me kind of sick.  especially when they prey on the lonely, old, foreign, or hopeful.

it’s like that subplot of Requiem for a Dream, i just don’t want anyone’s mother ending up like this:

call lavalife to chat with hot local singles.

please, don’t try and peddle your dating services to me, i will never use them. 

i wrote an article years ago about how i thought that with the internet dating scene and match.com’s brand of “special programming” or whatever it is they use to match people up would get so good that no one would ever meet in an organic way anymore.  you’d be a fool to!  ”why take your chances with some stranger on the street?  we here at soulmate.gov believe that all americans are entitled to true love, so we’ve matched you with the most compatible mate based on your frequently visited websites, amazon.com purchases, google searches, and facebook messages”

i'd probably end up with her

we should all just be alone for a while.

for those of you from Arizona, here’s a map of the middle east.

it's called IRAN

as you see, the Iraq/Pakistan border Senator McShithead is referring to is a little country with a flag that features what looks like a decapitated penguin wearing a tie.

perhaps he's also got a handlebar mustache.

 
Oh, yes, also.  McFailure has some other recent redrawings he’d like us to take note of.

Despite the cringe-inducing “bennifer” analogy from our most respected news team, they’re right.  The Czech Republic is the “brangelina” of the situation.  I’m trying to say, it’s the culturally accurate term for that part of the world.  Here are some more maps to illustrate.

Czechoslovakia is very hard to spell.

Jen AND Ben, not Bennifer.

 
As those of you, who have not been in the United States Senate since 1987, can plainly see, and may already know, Czechoslovakia was dissolved into two sovereign nations in 1993, The Czech Republic (sometimes still referred to as “Czechia”) and Slovakia.  Good job, Senator.

There should be a test to run for President of the United States. Every election year, a special bi-partisan Congressional committee should be required to write a fill-in-the-blank style Geography and History exam which anyone wishing to appear on any ballot in any State has to pass in order to run for President, regardless of party. The scores should be public, and after the exam we should be able to see exactly which questions a prospective candidate answered correctly and incorrectly.

As a nation, we must demand geographic knowledge, at least at a 7th grade level.

Quick quasi-related link, things younger than McPOW

It’s my first one. I’ve been “producing” music for about three years now, and most folks
a) don’t know this
b) wouldn’t care if they did

so that’s what blogs are for. to self promote shamelessly, to an audience which may or may not exist.

i put Public Enemy’s “Harder than you Think” to Benevento Russo Duo’s “Sunny’s Song” check it out, let’s hear what you think

Enemy Sensibilities

Yes, yes, yall.  I’ll be posting more production/remixes soon, because this is fun.