Author: cheerfulchaotic

farscape character

Remember
by Christina Rossetti

Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann’d:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.

The Hopeful Appeal
By Minyoung Sohn

If perchance I am sent
to a distant hollow
Sweetest love I ask,
with me should you follow?

Would you close your eyes
and hold your breath
Take a step into Tomorrow?

Would you grasp my hand
and still my heart
Purge me of my sorrow?

One bookshelf and one bike down. Dad bought the bike, I almost wonder if he was doing it just to provide me the only support he could without directly giving it to me, though he does claim to intend to ride, and in particular to work on wednesdays. I hope he does. That would be so cool.

stuff sold

(posted in response to radi0actv‘s slew of comments on an earlier entry of mine)

Comment #1: A stylistic suggestion. There are no limits on entry length, even though there are on comments, so it would probably be simpler to put the one entry in your journal, then provide a link to in via a comment in mine.

Comment #2: The way I see it, we’re looking at this from two different perspectives, aptly summed up with the difference between a couple of prepositions in spanish (and in french, as I understand it). Among many other things ‘por’ means ‘because’, as in, “I smacked him because he smacked me.” It sums up the conditions that led to an action, or, a reaction as I tend to think of it. The corresponding meaning of ‘para’ is harder to sum up in one word. Usually, in english we construct the concept with an infinitive, but without a preposition, as in, “I smacked him to stop him from smacking me”. But indicates the ultimate intent of an action. You’re talking ‘por’, I’m talking ‘para’.

Perhaps I’m a bit odd in my thinking on morality, in that the ‘por’ angle doesn’t matter to me. I care about the future. I do not approve of punishment or revenge. I approve wholeheartedly of prevention. And I can see situations where even capital punishment is a valid and morally justified form of prevention. In general, I oppose it only due to the fallibility of human judgement.

I do not accept prior crimes alone as justification for response. Whether he hit me, killed my parents, or destroyed everything I ever loved. From a moral perspective, I care about that only as an indicator of future actions. In general one is justified in taking action where the predicted net consequences do not outweigh the harm of inaction.

What I’m predicting is that by our action over there we’re building resentment which will result in at least as many kamikaze terrorists as we took out. We’re doing this by killing more people than they ever did, and imprisoning more, under conditions we don’t have much information on, but you can guess aren’t meeting the Geneva Conventions. I fail to see how this is a moral war, from the ‘para’ perspective.

If we go back to another ‘por’ v ‘para’ perspective on post-war treatment, and the consequences thereof, we have only to look at the end of WWI, and compare it to the Marshall plan at the end of WWII. Tell me whether you’d rather live through the Great Depression again, or, far that matter, WWIII, with nuclear technology far more widely spread?

As was put quite eloquently on a poster I noticed on my way home last night: “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.” You may believe that the U.S. performed no hostile act against the Afghanis prior to the attacks on the world trade center, but I assure you, they do not. No one will ever agree that it’s all even ‘now’, no matter when now is. Someone has to be willing to let the last word go to someone else. And it’s hardly likely that the side that lost most will be the first to forget.

Too much navel gazing of late (and *way* too much videogame playing). Time to get shit done. To the apartment, to start packing.

So, the more tired and more stressed I get, the more I go looking for/at guys.

I’m pretty tired, and pretty stressed.

I’m going home now.

the politics of fat

There’s a reason Rome made it big. It pounded everyone it ran across flat. And then it rebuilt and built more on top of it, while giving the flattened area broad social and moderate political autonomy. If bomb, and move on, you make alot more enemies. No matter what you do, if you flatten an area, or a people, you are going to make enemies. Wonder what would happen if you didn’t flatten, but actually stepped forward to help in the first place. Bombing creates terrorists. What does building roads do?

Chatting with BoyBlue, this guy in Berkeley who will be moving to Michigan for med school, discussing our attachments to our respective cities of residence, (he expects to like michigan less than berkeley and I expect to like berkeley more than pittsburgh, yet still we both experience a reluctance to go) this flowed off my finger tips,

No matter what pushes or what pulls, the roots we have grown hold us still.

Or maybe it was only profound to us, but it works.

Finally

All my stuff for sale

If you actually intend to buy something please read the directions on the website. People who have a hold on something, please let me know. I had written down prices and dimensions for everything, and of course now I can’t find any of the info, so I sort of wung it. If things change before tomorrow morning, please don’t assault me with chainsaws. I certainly won’t hold people to price increases or anything like that.

Comments about the general look and feel of the website, my ancestry, my sanity, or anything else not really related to buying my stuff can certainly go here.