Intercepted Grief

I was browsing the wikileaks pager messages from 9/11/01 that were recorded and filed away and then leaked. I don't know what I expected to find, maybe some clue to cause of the 12 chaotic years that have followed. I actually couldn't read much of it as it brought back memories that even masochistic Oggy prefers to ignore. What is it called when you reprint previously leaked material? Releak?

This is the incriminating text message that I want you all to read without a tear in your eye.

9/11/01 5:32:16 ------- "JUST TO SAY HI Y QUE TE QUIERO MUCHO THKS E." 

Take a wild guess what "Te Quiero Mucho" means.

Energy Rhetoric

 There's a debate about energy use comparisons between iPhones and refrigerators. Mr. Mills says iPhones use more and another says refrigerators use more. I had to submit my five pesos worth of nonsense and here it is in verse format because I'm unconventional like that.


Another approach to this debate would be to imagine an
Earth with only 6 things: 2 refrigerators, 2 iPhones
and two immortal people who live on different
continents where they each sit next to their one
refrigerator holding their iPhone.
There is only nature and these 6 things.
Determine how much energy it would take to power the
two refrigerators.
Then determine how much energy it would take to enable
the two iphones to communicate to each other.

But that's still academic and I think this is a
philosophical question:

The values that are important are imagining an Earth
with only naked humans.
Now determine how much energy it would take to
manufacture two refrigerators and run them.
Then determine how much energy it would take to
manufacture two iPhones and communicate with them.

And if you really want to get philosophical the whole
debate is Bernays-ian because it's predicated on the
assumption that both refrigerators and iPhones are
required for a content life. It's fundamentally
manipulative, consumerist propaganda. Bernays wrote
that if you want people to buy a piano then hire
architects to draw rooms named "Piano Room" and the
owner will fill the void on his own. Mr. Mills is using
the same trick: in order to generate pro energy
sentiment, make ludicrous statements about energy use
comparing two consumptive devices. The subsequent
argument will conventionalize the existence of both
devices in the minds of the public. He wins not by the
science but by public perception.

Odd Website

Did anyone else check out the self-departure* website of the sportswriter in Kansas? It's impressive for being so comprehensive. It was definitely a Maude-like decision, referring to the character in the Harold and Maude movie who had already decided she was going to move on once she turned 80. The movie is so good because it has the simplified "suicidal" kid whose fake suicides fail to make his mother see that he's not content...and he meets a 79 year old free spirited woman and gradually learns to love and ignore the expectations of others. But he doesn't know that Maude has already decided to depart this mortal coil on her 80th birthday, which arrives only on the day that Harold proposes they get married. Talk about star struck!

The film's strength is not in character development (the characters are mainly stereotypes) but in the questions it generates in the audience: is suicide justified? What is the nature of a free life? What fears or forces limit us? The answers aren't easy enough to be addressed in a movie but it's clear that Harold finds at least a reason to genuinely feel sad enough to want to die...and it's that feeling that is his unspoken goal from the beginning. The Cat Stevens soundtrack is also a big plus.

Near Future

"The surgeon may put other small surgery tools inside your knee through the other cuts. The surgeon will then fix or remove the problem in your knee."

 My research lately hasn't been fun at all. It bothers me that I'll be awake for this surgery. Like I don't have enough bad memories. I think of the hour long Hemorrhoid surgery I endured in Glendale. I was dead to the world during that and still shudder to think about what was done to my asshole. But my knee is going to be filled with saline and cut and diced. Does anyone have firsthand experience of this surgery. Did it work, is the main question. Right now I feel like Daniel Larusso after a Cobra Kai Black Belt kicked him in the ACL.

No Mercy!

Love Songs

This is the kind of love song I'm trying to write...something obtuse like my perspective, with metaphors and a chorus melody that can be sung by the heartbroken forever. It's easier said than done.

I was playing this song after dinner on Battle Harbor and I asked, "You all know Gordon Lightfoot?" My one audience member said, "Gordon Lightfoot is a national treasure."

You know a song is good when a man can write it and record it and a woman can rerecord it from a woman's perspective. My favorite version of this song was recorded by Don Mclean.