Atheist Meditations

By now everybody knows, Torii Hunter has become a member of the Angels. Good for them, they now have more talent in their outfield than many teams (perhaps even our beloved Twins) have in their whole damn roster.

I'm sure many a Minnesotan passed a sneering out-of-town relative over the holiday weekend on the way to the beer fridge, repeating to him or herself the mantra of Twins Baseball. 'I shall not fear, fear is the team-spirit killer. I shall face the fear of losing our best players to ridiculously better funded organizations and let it pass through me. When it is gone only our scrappy, small market club with a big heart and a strong history of Central Division dominance will remain. . . I shall not fear . . . '

Yet now I read this at the Official Site of the Minnesota Twins: Twins and Yankees discuss Santana. The shock of being informed you have testicular cancer must pale in comparison to the spiritually devastating news that the Minnesota's shining star - our magnificent boon from years of solid Minnesota-Venezuela relations - may leave us.

I suppose, I've been reading that Santana after this next bidding war is anticipated to become the highest paid pitcher in baseball, so obviously that means he won't be playing for Minnesota anymore.

Damn the New York Yankees, that region's powerhouse economy and that team's superior negotiations over broadcast rights!

Ahw geez. . . I think I might need to take a sick day today. I'm too depressed to work.

Labels: Twins

Earlier this week I was roped into helping put up Christmas decorations. For the most part, I just hate putting up decorations in general - I'm not that kind of guy - but religious decorations celebrating the nativity really bug me. I got a bit irritated, maybe I was over caffeinated that morning; whatever. I excused myself for a few minutes, wrote down some angry notes, and then returned to participate with a level of enthusiasm that might have approximated good cheer.

My scribbled note:

It is the moral duty of every young man (and any young women who want to be more than property, but those who don't/can't aren't my concern, just as I don't feel any ethical responsibility for domesticated cows that cannot survive in the wild ) to reject religion in general and their own sect/branch in particular ahead of any other exercise in consciousness. This task must be undertaken before setting out to make one's fortune in the world, and before devoting oneself to the search for a truly meaningful romantic partnership. Failure to do so is a moral failing. One fails themselves, their society, their generation and the future . . .

Indeed, I channel the demon of hyperbole exceptionally well.

Skipping over the rough parenthetical outline of why I do not crusade for Feminism (not my job), I'd like to elaborate on this moral calling. Generation Y, Generation Next, Generation Me - whatever someone wants to call these young kids - they have a unique set of opportunities that sets them apart from any of the groups of young men who have come before them. There is also a unique responsibility, and Atheism is one name for that responsibility.

I'd like to make some grandiose statements here about societies and 'moments in time when young people had to make a choice.' That same demon of hyperbole wants we to weave evocative statements about abolitionists and slave owners, those who wanted to appease fascism and those who wanted to fight it; statements about critical mass and when it was necessary to demand 'no taxation without representation.' I can't do that with Atheism.

Atheism is just obvious.

It is simply a choice between maturity and retardation. In order to be true to anything, one must first be true to themselves. Every young man has to learn to stand up for himself, and in our current time Atheism is how you stand up for your own ability to think.

Let me be clear, this imperative rests upon your shoulders, not that of your parents or grandparents. They grew up in a different world. Even when your parents graduated from high school the exchange of Ideas was nothing like it is today. There was no internet, even ocean of books and periodicals has much less circulation and depth. Sure some pursued an education and the knowledge that naturally leads to Atheism, but to not do so is a different species of failure from the one that lurks over you.

There is a direct correlation between the number of hours of leisure time per day that your generation enjoys and the expectations of learning that are thrust upon you. With the internet you can access works of academia and the diaries of total strangers with equal ease. . .

I accuse anyone who grew to adulthood in the age of the internet and has not embraced Atheism of being a failure. A moral failure and someone who will be a dupe and a tool every day they exist upon this planet.

Just as the young person who witnesses violence in the home, or whose unemployed father drinks and smokes the family into poverty may be unfortunately predestined to be a economic or relationship failure, someone whose parents' utilize the same tactics of brainwashing Chairman Mao used might never escape spiritual failure. Since our society seems to have ceased trying to show empathy for the former, I'm done going out on a limb to the latter.

Labels: anti-ministry, Generation Next, pseudo-inspirational

I'm mainly classifying this as moderate, cuz the UFC is filled with individuals who cuss with style. Even the President, Dana White, can often be overheard telling guys that they fought, 'a fucking great fight.' Clearly, the men who fight in the octagon are not using these words because they want to look tough.

My feelings on '78 were mixed. I was impressed by the caliber of fighters, but irritated by the crowd, some of the commentary, and the judgments.

Negatives first. Perhaps it is just the once notorious environment of 'Minnesota Nice' which I hail from, but I have certain expectation of my fellow human beings even when they are gathered into a huge arena to watch bloodsport. Similar to the revulsion I feel when some dumbass throws the visiting team's homerun ball back onto the field - cuz that's gonna show 'em - some of the crowd's antics at '78 were just fucking childish.

In particular, when Evans and Bisping were going at it, and the crowd started to chant 'USA!, USA!' What the fuck? That just ruined all the energy for me. Did we just win World War II? Did I accidentally flip channels to a Rockey sequel where Sly Stallone is making a comeback against a cartoonish Russian superman? Who let the spoiled college republican crowd in, to get fucking stupid drunk and shout meaningless slogans?

I'd say that the majority of the booing resulted in a crowd that simply did not have the sophistication to understand what was going on in the ring. Part of that lies in the fact, as I see it, that UFC is a pay-per-view sport over a live spectator event. Boxing is boxing cuz they have purposefully simplified it so that even some drunk fucker one hundred feet away can more or less grasp who's winning, who's losing. (More on this vein another time.) Even someone with a wrestling/jujitsu background can't make out too much of what's going on from the twelfth row. Submissions are the highlight of unarmed combat. A crowd that lacks the savvy to appreciate all the aspects of MMA should stick to boxing. Personally, I'm a big believer in the notion that the ignorant should shut the fuck up most of the time.

That brings us to Joe Rogan's commentary. I've learned a shitload about the modern ground game from listening to Joe. He's got good insight and has been making an effort for years to educate the audience on the science of having a solid guard. Even someone like myself with a judo background was well served my his commentary (grappling without a judogi to grab is a different sport, and even the techniques that remain the same are known to UFC fans by terms other than the Japanese I learned.)

I thought Joe Rogan was a bit off in his commentary on the Karo Parisyan v. Ryo Chonan fight. He seemed so eager to display his understanding of the upper body lock-ups Parisyan would use to set up a major outside or inside hip throw ( ko uchi gari) that I thought he missed the point. Ryo Chonan is Japanese and has obviously encountered the sort of 'gentle way' techniques in the past, as well as specifically trained to meet Parisyan's challenge. In my opinion Parisyan used a bit of the rope-a-dope strategy, allowing Chonan to devote a fair amount of his mental game to preventing a judo throw while he instead came at him with some 'back to basics' straightforward wrestling take-downs. I'd argue that a solid wrestling take-down defense and a strong defense against judo throws might even be mutually exclusive. Karo Parisyan will remain a fighter I'll always shell out the ching to watch mix up these forms.

Also, I would greatly prefer throws like we saw towards the end of that fight referred to as 'leg sweeps' than 'trips.' 'Trip' just sounds kinda vulgar. The key to that sort of throw is perfect timing. You sweep his foot out at the exactly a nanosecond before he shifts the majority of his weight to that leg. Too early, he just keeps his weight shifted on his other leg. Too late, and no amount of hacking at that leg will pry it loose. Whatever.

My final opinion here will combine my dislike of the scoring with my respect for the fighters. The various training schools successful programs, combined with the level of competition we're seeing (and I suppose, with Xyience nutritional suppliments) has resulted in a cadre of top tier fighters who are the all-around real deal.

Not just competent, but exceptional in all areas of MMA - aside from Houston Alexander's apparent gaps on the ground. Gone are the good 'ole days of a flashy kickboxer thrown into a ring with a college wrestler whose been in a bar room brawl or two. This ain't some '80s movie of one marital art style versus another anymore; those lopsided fights are still fun to watch but won't be headliners on pay-per-view. Under Dana White's stewardship we've seen an interesting combination of skills evolve to dominate. No fighter makes it very far anymore who does not master all of them.

It's much more than just the skills, however. The physical conditioning of these guys puts us all to shame. I remember just a few years ago seeing fighters, particularly the heavyweights, who wold totally hit the fucking wall after two rounds. Two big guys swaying back and forth, hands at their sides, mouths open and chests heaving. Now there was a time to fucking boo a boring fight. Fatigue can still play a role. It can slow down quick hands, it can cause that second hesitation when one feels an armbar clinching up. Just about all of the fighters we saw last night train full time. Another of the major factors that leads to lopsided ass whoop'ens simply no longer exists at this level of fighters.

That brings us to what the commentators call a 'strong chin.' I don't know if that's a combination of training and experience or just a benefit of one's genetic lineage. Some of these fuckers just seem to be able to absorb the kind of punishment that beats all. A few of the fights we saw last night featured men of phenomenal fortitude. Ryo Chonan, for example, how many elbows did he absorb? As the UFC becomes the elite MMA organization in the world, we are going to see less and less fighters who can get knocked out cold. True, no human being is invincible (although a few of those Russians over at PRIDE seem to be), but match ups where one fighter has a combination of striking harder, faster, and more true that results in a bloody knock out are going to be on the decline.

From what I understand of the modern UFC, much of the rules regarding the duration of competition is decided more for the safety of the athletes and to just slip under the legal bar for licensing in most states. I've also got too much respect for the fighters to want to watch the sport devolve into something where the men spend their forties on in a wheelchair addicted to vicadin (that's the NFL.)

So what is wrong with a draw?

The Bisping Evans contest is the perfect example. From what I saw, neither man inflicted any really significant damage on the other. Evans overcame Bisping's takedown defense with effort, but was not able to capitalize on that advantage. The UFC is not competitive Judo, contestants are not scored in real time based on the observable beauty of their throws. A good takedown can be like pulling a gun, if you don't/can't pull the trigger, it don't make much of a fucking difference.

Now takedowns/submission attempts and defenses do take an obvious toll in the realm of conditioning. Trying to prevent someone from throwing you to the ground can use up all the gas in your tank damn fast. Here I would say Bisping appeared to have an advantage by the end of the second round, yet Evans had enough to stay together and hold his defense up throughout the next five minutes. It was just fucking inconclusive.

So now we can argue back and forth about minor details of scoring; should takedowns be worth more than an escape?, do we get like boxing and start calculating the percentage of punches thrown versus landed? Fuck that, I like the Ideal of the octagon with Tina Turner in a ring-mail bra, 'two men enter, one man leaves!'

I'm not saying there is not a place for a decision fight. Sometimes those things are pretty obvious. The title fight of UFC 78 was not. That was a fight that needed another two rounds in order to truly define which of those men was better.

This is a problem that Dana White and the UFC will have to deal with. As the pool of fighters gets bigger, more and more of the guys at the top are going to be solid mixed martial artists with championship skills in all of the areas I've detailed. The UFC is going to see more contests that cannot be conclusively decided in three five minute rounds.

Regardless of what's fair for the fighters, that's more booing crowds and less folks shelling out $39.95 in hard earned money.

Labels: UFC

Day 29, that's 41% of the way through damnable sobriety.

It still sucks.

The intense migraines have laid off a bit, yet the luster of life still be dull.

Cin's got me on a shitload of herbs and vitamins to assist in the detoxification process. I've got enough B vitamin in my system to turn my pee into the color of anti-freeze. That's novel.

Yesterday way 'National Smoke Out Day' (not that anybody promotes it - fuck if we'd ever use our omnipotent media infrastructure to do anything but sell ED drugs. ) On a day like today I've got absolutely zero patience for anyone who hasn't quit the cancer sticks yet. Toughen up candy-asses! If I can have my own personal weakness kick me in the nuts (and my liver's nuts) over and over again for two months and change, you can go twenty-four hours without nicotine.

People assure me there is some element of spiritual growth in denying oneself pleasures.

Maybe I'll get lucky and a truck will back over me on my way to work. With my fucking luck, I'll be on my way to Boozemart on December 28th when some vacuum tube at NORAD burns out and our entire nuclear arsenal goes off.

Yeah, Alanis, isn't that ironic?

'Two men think they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong. . ."
- Dire Straits, Industrial Disease


Thus the simplest of wisdom is preserved for the next generation in a catchy tune. Of course, it just might be possible that neither of them are the Second Coming incarnate, but that's a blog of another color.

I'm still simmering with an ice cold fire in regards to that one third of the American population who believes that the United States Government's involvement in 9/11 far exceeds mere incompetence. Those special souls who willingly participate in the sort of mental masturbation that is found in the 'documentary' Loose Change.

This film's third and 'final cut' (I sure hope they apologize to Roger Waters) was released on Sunday - with a premier right here in our sister city of Minneapolis. I was tempted to go and see it myself, and then write a review. I couldn't get over the notion that paying money was sort of like giving L. Ron Hubbard a few grand to discover first hand that his program is a load of poor fiction. Fortunately, U-tube has plenty of clips from the previous release. I devoted most of my Sunday morning to these viewings ( We Atheists are always finding productive things to do with that extra morning we get every week.) I was not converted.

Let me say to anyone who has taken this burgeoning mythology seriously: Do not feel ashamed. These things can be seductive, and those of us who are a bit more creative, a bit more worldly, a bit more willing to zig where others zag . . . this conspiracy is like the huge shot-glass of vodka that the little voice in your head tells you not to hit but you want to do it anyway. Bush is an absolutely terrible President and human being, and one could easily imagine him guilty of all sorts of vile acts. Slamming the Loose Change shooter is like going to see a Saw sequel, it is a walk on the dark side, and as Camus said, 'it is essential to know the night.'

Yet now we must travel back.

Towards the end of Loose Change, while discussing the validity of cell phone use on those doomed flights, the narrator makes a relatively unequivocal statement: "The cell phone calls were faked, no 'ifs', 'ands', or 'buts'." Yet within barely five minutes, the narrator summarizes the film's arguments while the camera rolls through a hazy scene of debris and the strong, angular shapes of first-responders in uniform. After a clumsy attempt at rhetoric, where the government's reports are the true conspiracy theory, he encourages his viewers to stand up to their tyrannical government with the same heroism of Todd Beamer when he shouted 'Let's Roll!'

Two men think they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong.

Either the phone calls were faked as part of a CIA plot to create a story regarding what happened on 9/11 - to incriminate the hapless catspaws on Al-Queida - or, Todd Beamer was a hero who helped lead a tragically noble charge to reclaim that plane from murderous fanatics. One or the other. You can't disparage the man and everyone else on that plane on one hand, and use him as an emotional icon with the other. Unfortunately, such glaring lapses are just one example of the contempt this film holds for the thinking power of its viewers.

Perhaps the filmmakers are true believers who just happen to make sloppy arguments. More likely they are shameless exploiters to National Tragedy seeking profit and attention. Either way, I will not tolerate this asinine conspiracy theory anywhere near the Ideals of the Left that I still hold dear.

I know myself well enough by 32 to know that I'm a hopeless Idealist. These days I'm inclined to believe that a condition within my brain causes me to obsess over morality and the best life. I refuse to give up on the notion that we can, by making choices about society based on pragmatism and open discussion, create a system that strives to maximize the number of winners and minimize the losers. The exact opposite of the model which now prevails, where a handful at the top profit immensely off the maximum number of losers in the economy.

This fight is not over. Not the fight to save souls, to allow human beings to at least try to grapple with the awesomeness of consciousness without some religious prick retarding their understanding. Not the fight to have some say in the shape of this world and this economy, to fight for the liberties and opportunities that still are at the heart of Liberalism. And certainly not the fight to keep these defeatist, conspiracy-nuts from soiling both the name and the direction of Modern Left.

I expect I'll be getting yelled at a lot and getting called a fair number of impolite names in the next few months. That's o.k., I'm an Atheist. I can take it.

Labels: Loose Change, pseudo-inspirational, Skepticism

This is a blog I don't want to write, but feel I have to.



e·pis·te·mol·o·gy /ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒlədʒi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-pis-tuh-mol-uh-jee] –noun a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.
(Dictionary.com)


Last weekend, Cindy convinced my occasionally anti-social ass out of the house to meet up with a local group of progressive democrats for coffee. This would be the third political sort of group that we've tried to interact with, it can be cumbersome compared to drinking beer at 11 Am and starting a game of Civilization 4; it must be done. It was a small turnout, and my intention is not to paint a picture of the meeting at all. I do believe, however, that my uncanny levels of observation did detect a slight hint of something that might be more than just a curiosity with some of the more radical of progressives. There was an undertow of 9-11 conspiracy. To the point where President Clinton at a recent fund raiser here was confronted by a group of 'radicals' who shouted at him, '9-11 was an inside job!'

First, let me insert again into this web log a serious caveat regarding the discussion of 9-11. The event was a serious tragedy and dramatically affected the lives of over eight million New Yorkers, along with millions of other human beings associated with those doomed flights, the pentagon, and the family / friends of America's lost. I, living in the Mid-West, was considerably isolated from the true terror of that experience as well as the intense pain of personal loss. Many who are invested in this debate have grieving loved ones. My intention is to discuss the matter with adequate abstraction to avoid insulting anyone.

Just as I can look my grieving aunt straight in the eye at the funeral and say, 'you know it, he's in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ right now.' There is a little fucking thing called tact, and I try hard to have it. Blogs, unfortunately, are exceptionally poor transmitters of this fine virtue.

Well, lets have a go at it then.

Within our modern world we must grapple with the double edged sword of our media. While more information than ever before now moves around our society in packets ranging from gossip to Wikipedia, groups also have the capacity to close their own systems, thus recycling their own Ideas and flying under the radar of the rest of us. A surprising number gather their RV's in Roswell and listen to speakers discuss the government's complicity in hiding the 'truth' about UFOs from the population. A great number are not there to be amused, they make the pilgrimage because they are true believers. Likewise, on the West Coast, a frightening book has become the nucleus of a 'masculine christianity', Eastern European, militantly anti-gay movement. Scott Lively's The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, fabricates a history where Hitler and his ruling cabal were all gay, and it was out of that gayness that all their faults and crimes sprung. (SPLCenter.org)

Obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can all rattle off a half dozen such groups and movements of various degrees: theorists advocating an alien/Atlantis connection, Scientologists, believers in 'faith healers', Bigfoot 'researchers', Holocaust deniers, and the movement for 'Intelligent' Design.

My point is that everybody loves a mystery, and some part of the human brain digs engaging the 'what if' regions of mental experience. Yet the world has plenty of L. Ron Hubbard's (whom I'll always fondly remember by his nom de plume: Winchester Remington Colt), we must be careful. Our epistemology must have a solid foundation.

Some folks trust Fox News to report so that they can decide. Others rely on the natural mellowing agents within NPR. Some trust preachers, some trust professors, some gangstas who 'keep it real.' How can we know anything?

Carl Sagan tried to equip society with the tools in a chapter called 'The Baloney Detection Kit.' I skipped it, my penchant for vulgarity thought that was the dumbest fucking title ever.

Personally, I think the most rudimentary skill with which to dig the foundations of epistemology is good old anger. Channel some high quality righteous anger. Close your eyes and remember George W. Bush and the Republicans during the 2000 election cycle, when every damn sentence had the word 'accountability' injected into it like 9-11 gets injected now. Eight years of liberal largess had resulted in all sorts of over-expenditures and corrupt failures. They were going to usher in a new era of 'accountability.' I know, irony can fucking burn.

Still, the concept have value far exceeding a slick, yet meaningless, talking point. When someone lies to my face I, like most adult males, find that to be disrespectful and thus it makes me angry. Perhaps not the ideologically pure anger associated with 'accountability', but I don't like that guy. I used to work with a fella who was completely full of shit. Despite the fact that I knew he grew up in a nearby town he pretended to talk with a Southern accent and claimed to have served two terms in the Vietnam war. He was the same age as me and that war ended when I was three. In my mind he is still an anomaly I just can't figure out.

So we have the growing mythology out there that 9-11 was an 'inside job', that our government went beyond merely being a tad unprepared for an organized terrorist attack, they actually committed it themselves. Government investigations into the matter cannot be trusted as the myth places the investigators in the shadow of guilt already. Plus, most of us know that our government has done some nasty things - and we all hate Bush/Cheney - so why not? Is it not plausible?

Yes and no. Some varieties of the myth, some of the accusations are just fucking ridiculous and I worry about the society that creates individuals who can repeat them without critical analysis. Like claiming the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile or that any of the three buildings at Ground Zero were destroyed by previously planted demolitions, I don't even want to begin to engage such theories. Hundreds of eye witnesses watched the plane hit the Pentagon, crew uniforms from the flight with body parts still inside were recovered. All three buildings that fell that day were occupied with thousands of workers - perhaps someone would have noticed if truck loads of explosives were being strategically placed . . . Other parts of the myth might be plausible, but extremely implausible claims require extremely convincing evidence; at the first wiff of an L. Ron Hubbard or a 30 year old 'Nam vet, we need to get fairly angry and cry bullshit!

Lets just take one example, I believe it is from the 'Loose Change' documentary. In it CNN correspondent Jaimie McIntyre is shown reporting that he just can't find any evidence that a plane crashed around the Pentagon at all. I mean here we have a good looking CNN journalist saying something pretty straight forward, before the government can enforce their cover story onto the media. Yet honest research reveals that his report has been edited to take that statement out of context. Apparently, in the initial chaos some conjectured that Flight 77 may have hit the ground first and then sort of 'skipped' into the Pentagon. Mr. McIntyre was responding to a question of that nature, and his reply in the the negative regarded evidence that the plane struck the ground before it hit the Pentagon. (Skeptic vol12 num4 2006, p37)

Here the editors of 'Loose Change' are indulging in the same shit bird tactics that 'vags use when trying to convince folks that Albert Einstein believed in their god by taking a few quotes out of context and ignoring the great deal he said specifically regarding the matter. Either the editors are just carelessly sloppy, or they are purposefully manipulating their media to try to make a quick buck. Maybe enjoy some notoriety.

Unfortunately, the world is full of shit birds. Many may even feel that the 'ends justify the means', so a few embellishments are o.k. Even on the level below them, many people will want to tell juicy stories about government conspiracies on a similar human impulse to having the best gossip about a co-worker. We can look at multiple examples in our own current society where these same tactics and impulses create very robust mythologies.

I believe those of us on the Left have much more important battle to fight.

I got no time for this shit.

Labels: current events, Skepticism

Over the course of the weekend I've been passing the time as I re-organize my workspace up here by listening to some of the many archived podcasts available at the Skeptic.com website. Under the name Skepticality, co-hosts Derek and Swoopy have interviewed a great many of the big guns in the modern skeptic movement. Sometimes these programs are highly stimulating, other times the full hour of conversation seems to drag just a little.

Last night I finally caught up with one of their most recent interviews, released on October 16.

Daniel Loxton begins the podcast with a reading of his essay, Where Do We Go From Here?, in which he draws from some surprising resources of pop culture (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the spin-off Angel) to make an appeal for the morality of skepticism.

I found his presentation to be both informative and inspirational.

Mr. Loxton describes the sense of burnout that plagues many of the old guard in the skeptical movement as well as really fleshing out just what it is that these individuals are actually doing. Following in the footsteps of Harry Houdini himself, guys like James Randi confront mediums and faith healers who are cynically profiting off of the grief and desperation of some of the less sophisticated amongst us. The motivation is not to 'ruin the fun' in someone's happy fantasy that aliens routinely visit the earth, it lies in protecting the public from charlatans who sell worthless (or even dangerous) goods and services without a scrap of oversight from either the government or the media.

His position spurred me to think about a lot of things, and has been my high point in philosophical stimulation in at least the last few weeks.

I recommend the audio media to everyone. A printed version has also been made available in pdf format. Kudos to Skepticality and all the sentient beings who still strive to extract something of the higher potential of human consciousness for our public sphere.

Labels: Generation Next, Skepticism, Spirituality

Today be day fifteen of Damnable Sobriety.

This morning I've got some perspective on the experience. Enough to affirm that it is probably a good thing for me to go through, but I still have intense, visceral reactions daily where I declare that it has been, 'the stupidest fucking thing I've ever done.'

While it is easy to buy into the media product that one's brain has an imbalance of chemicals and thus unpleasant mental stimuli needs to be modified via barely understood drugs; try grappling with the notion that unpleasant mental stimuli be the result of your own normal cognitive function and the dysfunction of most other human beings in society.

Alcohol has always assisted me in skating over the thin ice of that existential abyss.

Modern existence ain't easy for anybody. An acute sense of powerlessness as we realize that our survival depends much more on the decisions of others over our own prowess, combined with a severe divorce from the natural world. All of us are vulnerable to social and violent acts which are powerful enough to impose changes upon our behavior that we may not be able to grapple with consciously. Escape from this reality, however fleeting, has been an essential part of our successful existence for thousands of years.

The breaks can be as brief as a genuine laugh or 'the little death' of orgasm. They can be as permanent as the functional retardation of evangelicalism.

Chronologically, Alcohol lies much closer to the former than the latter. I'm still fond of informing folks that 'Beer is much older than god.' Members of our species were pushing back frothy libations long before they worshiped anything more ridiculous than the Sun.

According to Cin I've been going through 'mild to moderate' withdrawal symptoms.

I've never had a headache that wasn't caused by the Irish Flu. Last week I not only lost to my brother at racquetball, I got a migraine that lasted for two days and hurt like a bitch. Not the dull, vaguely pleasant, ache of the hangover, more in the frontal lobes - definitely affecting my personality. Even fucking worse, it seems that caffeine can trigger 'em, so it's like I'm losing my whole damn harem not just one pleasant distraction.

Boredom has become my most common conscious state. There ain't a damn thing on television (even deep cable) that doesn't suck. I guess I never used to watch T.V. without a brace of beers to lubricate myself into disseminated stupidity. I'm also pretty sure that programming has gotten much worse in the last seven years. The other night the 'History' channel had a much hyped special on the lost book of Nostradamus, despite the fact that all evidence seemed to point to the fact that he didn't paint the ambiguous images that supposedly drew parallels to 9/11.

I'm almost ashamed at the number of distractions that I formerly indulged in which I cannot tolerate without suppressing higher brain functions with sweet Mistress Boozilla.

I've also gone from sleeping about six hours a night to nine plus. I think part of it is just the piercing boredom - might as well be unconscious. That's been a trip, however. Unusual dreams are also supposedly an effect of alcohol withdrawal. Last week I had a series of dreams based on the Disney sort of programming where various internal organs are played by character actors to educationally entertaining effect. My liver was played by Robin Williams. I'm not a fan of Mr. Williams, and in my dream I had to resist the urge to smash him repeatedly in the face with a series of beer bottles. Not sure what that dream was all about. . .

So to summarize, withdrawal is not fun. I'm 21.5% of the way through my self-imposed role as an abstainer. Committed as I am to fiddling while Rome burns, longevity has its place too.

Stay groovy,