I believe that humans are born rational and noble, and that everything we do should enhance the happiness and virtue of people. I believe in the march of progress that was dreamed of in the Great Enlightenment, that slowly and surely, through rational science and the pursuit of knowledge, through contemplation of beauty and love of goodness, the world is becoming a better place, and that one day everyone will live in perfect happiness. Through civic involvement, public works and charity, bit by bit we better humanity. I believe that through the cultivation of art, music, and literature, I can become a better and more virtuous person.

They call me "agnostic," yet as sure as the ground beneath me, I know that all these things are true. A God may guide us in our development, may create us, may take us when we die. Yet all the things I say above are true, or lightning strike me down.

We are not born evil. We will not be thrown into a fiery Hell. We do not sin for loving the world that we were born to love. I embrace God as my god, but not Jesus Christ.

I am not Christian, but my faith is strong.

(Now stop giving me Jeebus pamphlets, people!!)

Apparently the Idaho state House of Representatives has this bit of legislature regarding "Napoleon Dynamite."

...

No words.

You Are 20 Years Old

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

You Passed the US Citizenship Test

Congratulations - you got 9 out of 10 correct!

Could You Pass the US Citizenship Test?

You scored 82 Heterosexuality, 10 Homosexuality, and 39 Asexuality!

You are either straight or bisexual (with an interest in the opposite gender) with a moderate to high sex drive. The higher your score in heterosexuality, the more you are attracted to the opposite gender. A higher asexuality score means that you place a bigger emphasis on the emotional aspects of a relationship and less on the physical.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 66% on Heterosexuality You scored higher than 36% on Homosexuality You scored higher than 90% on Asexuality

Link: The 3-Variable Sexuality Spectrum Test written by kitsunechild on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

This Is My Life, Rated
Life:	7.7
Mind:	7.1
Body:	7.3
Spirit:	8.2
Friends/Family:	5
Love:	6.9
Finance:	6.9
Take the Rate My Life Quiz

A model of San Francisco.. made out of Jello by artist Liz Hickok.

@___@

For that matter, I don't know if I've linked to it already, but:

Lego High Fantasy

Sometimes people are on a political spectrum so wild that one can only speculate. To the visible light reds and blues of the Democrats and Republicans, we can add the ultraviolet glow of Anarchy, the infrared of Communism, and the mind-destroying gamma radiation of Ass Crazy which makes you puke and die. Still others are on the political spectrum frequency that aliens use on people wearing tin foil hats.

Shining examples like a lighthouse in a storm, a fire in the forest, a redneck's tooth...

Ah, yes, Matt! Just to clear things up, Matt is awesome. Just not politically.

Over a series of AIM conversations I have been bludgeoned with a series of political views which are only marginally palatable through a curious paladinly combination of utter conviction and sordid charisma, usually of the "interesting anecotes" variety. Matt, you see, is from the monkey-with-cymbals school of politics: "Look at me, I have a cymbal, look at me, I have a cymbal, look at me, I have a cymbal, aren't I loud?" *clang clang clang clang clang* Yes, Matt is an Anarchist, which, for those of you laymen, is where the Libertarians send their crazy uncles to die.

I have not argued with him extensively on AIM, simply because I am bad at arguing. Bad. Seriously. However, just because I am not articulate does not mean my arguments are wrong. By this logic, since every knows that engineers have no speaking skills, they are wrong about everything. This. Is. Not. True.

However, on my blog, which I rule with an iron fist, I can rebuff and ridicule with impunity.

Example... (shining in the dark)... Matt is annoyed because the online political quiz places him as a "socialist." He is annoyed because he's an anarchist, and doesn't believe in the state. Well, that's fine, I say, but he can't be an anarchist who doesn't believe in the state and supports increased corporate regulation. If anarchy rules, corporations, which are just coalitions of the strong, will just do ... this is highly complex political terminology... "Whatever The Fuck They Want." If he strives to fight against corporate environmental exploitation with less government, he would do better by more clearly defining property rights so that corporations are directly accountable for what they pollute.

Response: "I don't believe in property."

..

You're an anarchist who doesn't believe in property?

"I think people should only be allowed to own what they can carry with them."

... so ok, people don't own anything themselves. Who owns things that can't be carried, like land, the mine, that table over there, that house? Oh, "everyone?" Who gets to use it then? "Everyone?" So you can take a crap on my sofa and I have to clean it up?

Holy shit, Sherlock, we have a word for that...socialism.

Provoking businessmen in the financial district is also silly. There's a small chance that you have made them realize the shallowness of their materialistic lives. Then they'll quit their jobs, run off to a commune or a cabin in the woods and grow hemp while beating on drums. In the meantime, those kids they'd been meaning to put in college with rising tuitions and their aging and ill parents that social security can't provide for and the spouse that's been laid off can go fuck off and die. ... Well, the larger chance by far is that you've just made someone's day marginally worse... worse not in a confrontational, thought-provoking, life-evaluating way, but worse in a, "Crazy hippie punk was yelling at me randomly in the middle of Baltimore" way. At least hoboes go away if you give them money.

Insulting the Riot Police is also a Bad Thing to Do. Now, The Man may command these police to taunt protestors in order to rile them up so they can arrest them, so insulting them is Just Desserts. I don't know. I agree that having police wail on protestors will also give you sympathetic press. Some. However, the "..and then they started hurling molatov cocktails and looting stores" press afterwards isn't worth it. People don't like protestors anyway because it blocks up traffic and creates trash, you don't have to get a reputation as "protestors that stir up violent conflict." It doesn't matter who started it, when people see protestors, they go, "Shit, it's them protestors again."

Neoclassical X-TREME!* : Life and Law in Angie-Land

When we hire "public defenders," we should really mean it. The job of the "public defender" is to strive manfully against the prosecutor in the bloody ring of gladiatorial combat, to the entertainment of the jury. (Refreshments will be served). The prosecutor will be armed with a gladius, a helmet, and arm protection, while the public defender will be armed with a net and trident, wearing only a loincloth and an anointment of olive oil over his gleaming body.

This serves two purposes:

1) The "public defender" will now actually have an incentive to, you know, defend, the poor and the weak.

2) It might then actually be fun to do jury duty.

3) Every other country can have their fruity columns, nice inscriptions about Justice, Reason and Enlightenment, and call themselves "neo-classical." We're the only country that's hardcore about it.

*sponsored by Mountainus Dewus. Do the Dew.

George Washington You scored 66 Wisdom, 69 Tactics, 49 Guts, and 28 Ruthlessness!

Washington first served as a British officer during the French and Indian War, a war which he inadvertently helped to start. Afterwards, he resigned his post to marry Martha Dandridge Custis, a wealthy widow with two children. He was elected to the House of Burgesses and became a revolutionary leader at the outset of the American Revolution, attending both the first and second Continental Congresses. Washington was appointed Commander in Chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775?83), leading the Americans to victory over the British, although sometimes in not the most scrupulous of ways. After the war, he served as president of the 1787 Constitutional Convention. Because of his central role in the founding of the United States and enduring legacy, Washington is sometimes called the "Father of his Country."

My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 68% on Unorthodox You scored higher than 48% on Tactics You scored higher than 26% on Guts You scored higher than 6% on Ruthlessness

Link: The Which Historic General Are You Test written by dasnyds on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

You are a Social Liberal (63% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (38% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

*Actually Pakistani

So apparently there was a gimongous earthquake in Kashmir.

I don't know about you, but I'm all aid-ed out.

Sorry crying third-world Indian people! *

Judging by the marginal press this is getting, I don't think anyone else cares either.

Not even the Red Cross.

-... Oh! I saw the Wallace and Gromit movie. It was frickin' hilarious, you should see it.

Have you tried staying over at someone's house? It's pretty awkward if you don't set up a routine for yourself. Have you ever had someone else stay over at your house? Awkward same. You go, "Dum dee dum dee dum... so... there's not much to do." It's just that when you're by yourself in your own house, you don't notice it. And you feel stupid about those dumb things you do at home without even noticing it.

Anyway, he went home.

"I opened the cheese wrong and my dad started swinging at me."

--

I know that as a twenty-something man, in a fight you can give at least as much as you take. Yet something in me quick to burn feels this betrayal sunken deep. Sons are ageless; that's your boy you hit.

I think I should be angry, and I am, but many other things too. When you think about, you know, someone who hits their kid, you probably think of a big drunken redneck guy, right? but I've met his dad and I know he's not like that. I remember him coming in and cracking jokes when we were roleplaying, and the cozy, tidy kitchen with the smell of dirt from the garden on the wind through the window. The small, domestic-ish glass ornaments and those sentimental angel posters said things like, "God Bless This House." I thought, "It would be nice to have parents I could actually crack jokes with like that." It makes me feel ill how wrong I am.

So Chris went to his house to find them brawling and his mom screaming about calling the cops, and Chris fled shaken with him. No names.. people who know will know. For people who don't, it would be wrong that the first thing they learn about This Person is his troubled family. People are more than the sum of their problems. Once you learn something about someone, it attaches to their name forever.

--

You can all rot. That mournful way you look at me, your hellhole desk in your hellhole office. Try to "fix" me, cure the sick me, solve my problems, save me from my sins. I'm not human. I'm a problem, I'm a patient, I'm a "troubled youth" to file with the statistics of the people you have rectified. Well fuck that, who the fuck do you think you are to think you know me? I'm not sick, I'm not troubled, I'm not "special." Don't you dare drug me. To hell with you!

--

We spent the night at Marc's place playing Vampire, tearing innocent people to shreds, Sabbat style, laughing while This Person put ice on his hand. Awkwardly, I volunteered Jeremy's place for him to stay the night, and so he went home with us, and we talked about Linux and Exalted and tried on pirate hats and everything was hysterically funny all night and I was afraid to leave him alone in the dark.

-

Something in me quick to pain and sunken deep feels this: you may be keen to laugh in daylight, but night is a different animal when you have no one for whom to maintain your smile. No-family, no-house, no-job, absence of the ticking-tocking-turning winding of days. If you were to disappear into the streetlamps shining palely on the fog, what would they write for your eulogy? "No one from nowhere, survived by none"? What do you have for yourself but your name, and even then, what does it mean if no one knows it? Even if you were to be a monk, would you have wanted this?

I feel that I should make sure his pillows are soft enough, that he has enough blankets, that he has enough to eat that's to his liking, that the bathroom isn't gross, that he isn't bored to death in the daytime. Are those flies? I feel shame; I should keep the house cleaner. Does he want any drinks? 'Cuz we have drinks. They're tasty and cold. Ice for his hand? Bunny pillow?

"No," he says, "I'm fine."
--

He said, "Maybe I'll move in with ______."

And, can you believe it, I was jealous. There's only supposed to be one girl that does all this.

She had better give him backrubs and feed him grapes and wine from a golden cup...or you'll be hearing from me, young missy!

--

Boys are so stiff and alien to me. Boys don't cry. Boys don't hug. Boys don't ask anyone if they "want to talk." Boys laugh. Boys play roleplaying games. Boys ask for another Pepsi. Maybe he likes it better that way. He's been in the same group of friends since middle school. Chris still has the first monster he ever drew for their roleplaying campaign from when he was like, twelve. We were talking about it, and he just pulled it out of his notes binder, saying, "Oh, this?" like there was absolutely no reason for it not to be there. In their way which they deny, they love each other.

--

I am anxious. I need to rush home. I need to rush home to make sure he's still there.

--

Certain acts of bravery commend themselves, those that show full measure of devotion. On Sunday, Chris and John went to his house to face his parents and to get belongings from his room. Who are you, when all your worldly posessions fit in the trunk of a car? For all they knew, his parents could've hurled chairs and beer bottles at them upon arrival. They could've just called the cops. They didn't have to do it. They didn't have to face some person's parents' anger. They didn't have to deal with someone else's domestic problems. They didn't have to have that awkward moment when they show up at the door and say, "So.. we're here for...." But they did, and it seemed to make a universe of difference.

From the New Yorker:

"Like the Freeman brothers, McGruder was born on the South Side of Chicago, though he didn’t stay there long. The McGruders—Aaron, his parents, and an older brother, Dedric, who is now a part-time political cartoonist—shuffled around some before settling, when Aaron was six, in the middle-class suburb of Columbia, Maryland.

So the suburb of Woodcrest in the Boondocks is inspired by Jeremy's (unincorporated) city of residence. ... Mortifying. I didn't think we were that white.

Like Frank Cho, who draws Liberty Meadows, Aaron McGruder went to UMCP and first debuted in the campus paper. As you may know, the Boondocks is a radical leftist comic strip about two angry black kids who move from inner city Chicago to the whitey 'burbs. Liberty Meadows is about a shelter for animals with psychological illness. Matt comments: "Maryland fucks people up."

Woe is me
I am drowning in
pudding

Oscar Berninger! Fix the ice cream machine,
ruiner of hope and dasher of dreams.
Dining hall lord on your dining hall throne,
I pine for my frosty desserts in a cone.

As An Amusement For Myself

Helena Helena Helena Troy
taunts the girls and tempts the boys
cross the sea in Troy's black ships
armies bleeding at your lips

bright-eyed beauty pyre-lit
false and pretty, can't commit
want a boyfriend think you will
how many people have you killed?
1...2... 3... 4..

.... Fall comes heralding the smell of wood and the wings of geese.

The trashbag skull-and-crossbones hung, the seaweed skeleton hanged. On screen and song through mist and fog, ol' Errol's Sea Hawk preyed, Penzance pranced with a piratey dance, and Sparrow cried "Parley!" We downed rum coke through cannon smoke and golden wine we drank. Jelly shots burned down our throats as we learned that there's such thing as too high a proof...

Arrs were arred, wenches busty, cap'ns were dashing, seamen lusty. Hookhands dual-wielded, patches elastic, the big tacky hoop earrings clipped-on and plastic. The pirate hat filled with doubloons passed around, and teeth went a-gnawing with gold to be found.*

Arrs and Avasts filled the near crack of dawn
the day after, one question:
"Why's the rum gone?"

*especially the chocolate ones, which are virtually indistinguishable from the plastic ones