parkies

 i tried to search for that episode of carte blanche, or clips from it, where they covered parktown prawns. ever since seeing that repeated clip of a person launching themselves off of a toilet in abject terror, going to the toilet in the dark has invariably included a moment of worrying about whether i'm going to recreate that scene no matter what side of the world i may be on!

i've only encountered those things in real life once or twice, which confirmed for me the veracity of the "i'm still standing" ad... which, sadly, i couldn't find either :(

...

what i did stumble across, though, was becoming the alien: apartheid, racism and district 9, and i just realized that i haven't seen district 9 since it came out! that movie definitely deserves a re-watch.

colonial psychopathy

So, I'm up, wondering if a psychologist somewhere is doing or has done their dissertation, asserting that the behaviour of 16th-19th century monarchs, "explorers", and settlers meets the DSM-5 criteria for sociopathy (ASPD) and that white supremacy is simply a manifestation of the disorder, as it is known to have genetic factors .

me: this is precisely why it's important to teach postmodernism widely and not just for a select few, we end up ascribing ideological aspects to physical traits or personal deficiencies because we have little appreciation for how powerful beliefs and narratives can be. you don't need genes to explain a history of human beings justifying being awful to one another, and those people doing horrible things don't even need to be assholes or sociopaths or evil. many of the biggest tragedies in history were caused by good but misguided intentions borne out of a warped world view.

I absolutely get that. Many "good" people have gone along with horrible things because it was dangerous to go against the flow, or personally convenient, or popular. Lately, maybe because there's a poem coming, I've been reading about European royal families and the degree of generational intermarriage. There are well documented stories about the effects of inbreeding, the Habsburg jaw, hemophilia, etc. Why not the cognitive issues, mental illness and the rest of the potential delays and disorders? These are the people whose worldview got us here. They funded the "exlplorations", had flags planted in their names, and still have their faces on our money. At best, they and their issues were complicit in how we got here through direct or indirect manipulation. At worst, the world's order has been formed by the ideas of sociopaths that then trended and now have a body count in the millions. If we just ask the question, who has killed the most people on the planet, there are clear numbers. Why not look at the source of that genocidal behaviour through a different lens? It's a question. Badness can be bred or born. Both can have influence over large numbers of people.

me: the monarchs and explorers, whatever else may have been wrong with them individually, were products of their time. if you look at the history of genocides in europe, you can make an argument that europeans are a sociopathic and genocidal race. if you look at the history of genocides in africa, you can make that same argument about africans. the idea of exploration is as old as we are (it's how the native americans got there in the first place), same as conquest. what made that behaviour so popular in those centuries was technological advances that enabled it, not sudden psychopathies, and the winners of that era (in particular the british) didn't win because they were somehow worse people, or better people... they won because they had the right tools, the right strategies and a fair amount of luck*
there are plenty of mental disorders that have physical causes, but the behaviours you're describing aren't the product of anything physical, they're caused by good ol' human nature. and that behaviour isn't all good or all bad, it's filled with grey areas. what aspects you pay attention to are dictated by your own ideology, and how you interpret any data you might come across as well. clear numbers don't tell any particular story until you drill down deep into their context.
* if you're interested, one of the most fascinating non-fiction books i've ever read is max boot's "war made new", in which on of the many topics he covers is the naval advances that led to successful british conquest.

Of course there have been genocides all over the world. The difference is that Europe exported theirs for enormous capital gains and murdered and empoverished people all over the planet, particularly the people who look least like them. The idea of race is a creation, but who created it and why? Just because you can, doesn't mean you should, better tools or not. Again, back to the original post. If we look at the colonial mentality as pathological, some might be less likely to accept all of the manifest destiny BS and call it what it was, so we can get on with the business of making things right, and healing the damage, instead of pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it.

me: pretending it didn't happen and telling folks to get over it isn't right, but finding a DSM category for that behaviour isn't going to fix things or help with the healing. colonizers colonized because they stood to gain immensely, but racism isn't confined to colonizers and it's not confined to any one race or set of races. the europeans did horrible things because their ideologies justified it and they could get away with it, not because they were europeans (as opposed to any other race) and not because they were mentally ill.
"the idea of race is a creation" - that's technically true, but it's an organic idea that comes out of seeing differences and having brains that categorize by stereotype and otherness. there's no one race that can take responsibility for racism or xenophobia, it's totally natural, just as it's natural that in every battle or contention one side will win or another. that doesn't make the winner "right", and it's important to teach our kids not to use mental shortcuts like racism (another thing that should be taught to everyone), but to blame any one race for all racism is absurdly racist.
if we want to heal the damage, we need to start by acknowledging what we've done, understanding why we've done it (which is why postmodernism studies are so very important), and then learn how to behave better than our instincts and our ancestors. the first step to achieving that is cognitive contamination, sharing culture and learning to communicate across ideological boundaries. that's hard work, extremely hard work, especially if you're coming from the side of the victim, but it's a war worth waging and every individual win makes you more powerful (which is why so many racists are so defensive these days). what's amazing to me is that we all tend to focus on the bad news and pay relatively little attention to the positive side of things (because we're biologically wired to do that), but if you look at the general state of the world as far as ignorance and racism and homophobia and xenophobia etc are concerned, and compare it to the world twenty, fifty, a hundred, a thousand years ago, you'll see that our ideas are evolving pretty dramatically since we all connected over the internet and things are actually improving. there will always be bigots and assholes and sociopaths, but they're fast becoming pariahs in global culture and the more we all keep talking and posting the more ideas of equality and compassion and mutual respect will become mainstream.

there is no blaming of one race here, only the desire to call a thing a thing, finally, after 500 years of gaslighting. If the exploration of the conquest mentality that brought us here sheds brighter light on the path forward, I think it's worth it. The way my ancestors have been seen and depicted needs to change too. I just want all of the lies to end. As for guilt, if the shoe fits...let folks wear it, and then do something about it. Guilt alone does nothing. If there was no focus on the good, none of us would be here anymore. We'd have died of broken hearts ages ago. We can focus on the good and acknowledge the bad. Maybe we just do that differently.

me: i 100% agree with what you're looking for, all i'm saying is that you're not going to find it with a DSM label. in a way, a DSM label would do more harm than good as it would excuse bad behavior as an unavoidable consequence of a mental illness rather than what it was, and continues to be: borne of choices we make and ideologies we can be educated out of

racism online

why am i getting into debates online about racism?

i was asked for my opinion on this article entitled 100 ways white people can make life less frustrating for people of color and wrote the following:

some of it i agree with 100%, some of it is silly and some of it is overtly racist. one of the biggest reliefs i've experienced since returning to south africa was working in a company where i was part of a white minority of peers, being able to have healthy interracial relations without the marxist left politics overshadowing every interaction and making people disconnect. people were happy to laugh at differences and have real dialogue, which is not what's happening in the rest of the west. not that things are perfect in this country, there's plenty of racism from all walks of life, but it doesn't have to be everywhere and run / ruin everything. i actually just watched a very interesting breakdown on white privilege and intersectionality by jordan peterson in which he makes the amazing point that intersectionality taken to its logical extreme shuts down the foundation of its own argument, i recommend giving it a watch: white privilege isn't real

at the end of the day, people need to learn to be respectful to people who are different to them and to be fair to everyone. anything more or less than that is wrong. there's plenty of systemic racism (see Filming Cops if you don't believe it) but fighting it with a different kind of racism is counterproductive. if you're privileged, use that privilege to make the world a better and more just place for everyone, but feeling guilty or acting purely out of guilt for being privileged in one aspect or another isn't helping anyone.

my opinion was challenged, and so i broke it down:

i don't believe the current state is "good enough", but i also don't believe that the way people are trying to fix things is going to make it any better. if anything, things are becoming worse as more and more white people are feeling shut out of the conversation and stop making any effort, in particular those who weren't and aren't already allied to anti-racism. it's divisive, and divisive isn't good. but that's just my white opinion, right?

i did read the list, let's exhaustively go through the items.

1-5, 7-10: 100%
6: meaningless
11: i don't know what "rinse" means, but cultural appropriation is a positive thing and trying to stop it is divisive. cultural appropriation is a form of cultural evolution and it works both ways.
12: that's not a race thing, it's a being a dick thing. i'm fairly certain it doesn't fall under "things white people do", but if it does then i agree
13-15: 100%
16: questioning anyone's blackness or whiteness is wrong regardless of your race. don't do it if you're white, don't do it if you're black.
17: this is a logical trap to ensure that white people can't be a part of a conversation on race. "shut your mouth, oppressor!" is not making things better.
18, 19: that's treating somebody of a different race as a "man on the inside", which is covered in points 1-10
20: inversely treating people as representatives of their race
21-23, 25, 26, 28: 100%
24: maybe, but also make sure to read up on psychology, philosophy and literary theory that isn't race-bound
27, 29, 32, 33: support art and projects you like, don't support something on principle because it's non-white. make sure you're not only exposed to all-white art and projects, THAT'S important.
30. it depends on what that means, if it's using something "culturally apporpriated" in a positive way it's fine, if it's making a joke of another culture that's different.
31. 100%
35: this is a long conversation, but in summary i don't agree
36, 37: what has this got to do with anything?
38: it's reasonable to expect immigrants to follow the rules of the dominant culture. if you don't like the rules of a dominant culture, move somewhere else. there's a difference between not letting people trample on your freedoms and on imposing your way of life on others.
39, 40: 100%
41: by race, 100%. by culture, factually incorrect. islam is inherently more homophobic than western society. russians are white, they're more homophobic than americans.
42-44: i don't know why this is in the list, but sure, okay.
45, 46: this isn't about racism, it's about being a dick. it's like thinking you have the right to touch a pregnant woman's belly. except if you're in a relationship with a woman of color, in which case don't assume that your partner is "woke" and just tell them not to touch your damned hair.
47: make sure you have whatever you need when you sleep over at a partner's home, this is not a race thing.
48: sure
49: again, the example is a cultural one not a race one. but sure.
50: silly, but whatever.
51-54, 56-58: 100%
55: do what you can with what you have
59: 100%, but the solutions are often societal ones and not personal which is not implied in this point.
60, 64: interesting, it certainly depends on the context but i generally agree
61, 63. 100%
62: rubbish.
65,66: that's one point, and the point is "be fair"
67: i heartily disagree. if you have something to say you should be able to say it and be argued with. simple.
68. which situations? oh, when you want to have a conversation?
69-75 100%
76: i don't know what ICE is
77: depends on how you define islamophobia, and that's a LONG conversation and not for the faint of heart.
78, 79, 81: 100%
80: *sigh* really? all of it, or just the fact that those kinds of racists are real?
82, 83 back to cultural appropriation, it's a ridiculous and divisive idea that we shouldn't celebrate things we like in other cultures. pull the other one.
84: i just did, go ahead and block me if you're afraid of confronting uncomfortable ideas
85 100%, unless it's done in a way that highlights its wrongness, like in bamboozled or tropic thunder
86: don't sing along to our rap songs? no. but don't use the word unless you're actually talking about the word itself. see louis ck on "the n-word", he's on point.
87: yay! let's whitewash history by rewriting historical texts like huckleberry finn! seriously, this is a dangerously stupid idea.
88. sure
89: and a bunch of other reasons, but those certainly contributed. not really relevant.
90: i dunno, i think it's okay to care about race whenever it's relevant, just like every other issue we have to deal with.
91: does anyone actually do that?!
92: again, when relevant. people of color shouldn't have to, so let's move towards a reality in which they don't instead of one in which we all have to be uncomfortable all the time.
93, 96: please watch that video i posted earlier from before.
94: 100%
95: first make sure that the white person in question hasn't experienced racism, because we're not all the same. being shut out of a conversation because you're white is racism. full stop.
97: sure thing
98: 100%
99: that's phrasing of a very particular ideology of victimhood that's only accurate to a point, but i agree with the intention
100: 100%

i invested so much time in that response that i had to post it her for posterity. you're welcome.

vegan compassion

inspired by white vegans need to check their privileges - which i absolutely agree with. speaking of which, regardless of your skin colour or in which country you live i warmly recommend reading unfair: the new science of criminal injustice

just something to think about: there's a food economics issue i keep running into online, we're vegan and we need everyone to be vegan but a lot of us don't take into account that many people don't have the budget for meat / dairy alternatives and they need practical help for getting full nutrition on extremely tight budgets. we live in a country where a frightening number of people have difficulty affording bread, so when anti-science gluten-free* / non-gmo** / organic*** peddlers muddy the waters we're not helping animals or people. it's really important to consider everyone's situations and be supportive especially when they can't afford to live the ideal vegan lifestyle or need patient education before they can start switching.

* my apologies to the rare celiac suffer, but the rest of you gluten-free seekers are into something that's fad and not healthy in the long-run

** yes, there's bad gmo but there's a lot of good (and important) gmo, we need to push for regulation rather than boycotting

*** most organic isn't organic, and it's prohibitively expensive

#paris

i've seen so much ugliness in my feed following last night's attacks in paris; islamophobia, islamism, it's-not-us-but-we're-not-condemning-anything-either, co-opting (gun control? climate change???) and even gloating by those proven "right" [see what i did there?]

dear france: what a horrible ordeal, my thoughts are with you.

dear rest of the world: multiculturalism? pluralism? these only work if everybody's on board. and if you let people fall through the cracks, if you don't maintain good relations, if you don't effectively punish anyone who crosses the line, on any side of the line, if you accept bullying (whether cultural or physical)... you're playing a part in the destruction of any chance of going forward in a positive manner.

if you must stick to simple narratives, then stop playing semantic games and just go to war already.

double standards

to everyone in israel who thinks that anti-semitism isn't really a thing, check this out. read the comments. ignoring (for a moment) the fact that the laws preventing homosexual couples from engaging in surrogacy in israel are primitive and shameful (as are the laws regarding civil marriage), the reality is that no other people in the world would be judged for taking care of their surrogate or adopted babies and not the mothers.

nobody gives a shit about the mothers... unless there are jews involved.

if you think these are just a few voices on the internet, i'm sorry to tell you that you are very, very wrong. it continually horrifies me to learn how much anti-semitism there is even here, in canada, where people are famous for being non-judgmental pluralists.

urgent

to all americans reading this: this is your chance to regain some of your rights.

stopping racism and police brutality would be cool too... though i do believe that's a lot more difficult to achieve. i'm not justifying looting and arson, 'cause destroying your own infrastructure is stupid and counterproductive. but rioting in general? after all the shit that the black communities in america are still being made to suffer?

...

is bud light beer *trying* to demonstrate just how much rape culture is a thing?

maybe everyone has been drinking the kool-aid.

somewhat funny

last year i helped kickstart a documentary on the boundaries of humour by mike celestino called that's not funny. we finally got to watch it tonight, and i'm super pleased that it's been made and hopeful that lots of people will be exposed to it!

operation protect edge do-it-yourself update

i mentioned bnw's husband's anti-zionist post on my wall, claiming israel is guilty of war crimes and is systematically exterminating arabs.

me: bnwh, i don't know where you copied this from but it's completely divorced from the reality of what's going on over there. i would appreciate if you kept anti-zionist / pro-hamas propaganda off my comment threads. facts and rational arguments are welcome, lies and deliberate blindness are not.

[...]

your sources are not legitimate. if you really care about what's going on over there i'll be happy to meet with you and explain where my point of view comes from.

observer: i just want to say that you need to be more accepting of other people's opinions. i am frankly appalled at the way that you have responded to bnwh's citation of un figures.
literally just typing in "gaza" and "un" results in devastating news stories from legitimate sources.
[one] headline reads "gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - un report"

i understand that this issue is deeply contentious because peoples' lives are at stake. however, it is simply asinine to post the israeli point of view and then to discount any opposing opinions. to say on a public forum, "your sources are not legitimate" is tantamount to saying "i am only speaking to be heard and not to listen."

whether you believe that is how you are communicating to the world is irrelevant. it is how i (and perhaps others) perceive your diction. it is incredulous to request that you have the opportunity to "explain where my point of view comes from" when you refuse to respond rationally to a counter-argument that is actually mainstream and internationally-accepted.

the problem is that almost everyone has been flooded by incredibly skewed media - the numbers are questionable, but they're also not the point. the facts on the ground are, and when you cite things that suggest that israel is on a mission to exterminate people, that israelis don't care about the palestinians or even that they're negligent, you're already completely off as far as facts are concerned. everyone's doing a bang-up job of demonizing the israelis and making them seem like bloodthirsty maniacs, which couldn't be further from the truth.

the disturbing nature of a propaganda war is that all of the "israel is bringing excessive force to bear on innocent palestinians" is nothing more than incitement to perpetuate the war, the innocent people who are getting hurt (a fair number of whom aren't really innocent, but that doesn't detract from the horror of the killing of those who are) are actually being hurt more by the moral outrage and the implicit support that it brings for the hamas. the constant referrals to "the occupation" which is a problem but which has nothing to do with the conflict is another technique used to label the israelis an "apartheid state", which it most certainly isn't, and which is actually quite offensive not just to israelis but to any south africans who have the slightest inkling of what apartheid is about and how israel is in fact the only country in the middle east wherein that kind of behaviour ISN'T tolerated.

what i'm planning on explaining to bnwh is where my authority to speak on the subject comes from, what its limitations are, and why the situation there is a bloody, ugly mess and what the options are or aren't going forward.

oh, and how filter bubbles work against us. all of us. i don't want to debate opinions, i want to debate facts. there are plenty of those to go around, but anti-zionist propaganda and willful lies have built up a notion of what's going on over there that's utterly divorced from reality. that's not a healthy debate to enter.

also, what you don't see is that my opinion is NOT blindly pro-israel. and i've refrained from posting anything other than that which i have solid sources for, or confidence in because i've experienced it (one way or another) myself. and i'm certainly not in the pro-netanyahu camp, i'm actually horrified that he's still in power and that he's been lying to everyone, including the israelis.
and if you'd like more details or a real debate i'd be happy to discuss everything with you, too. or anybody. but not on an online comment thread, because it takes more time to type and it's only ever a single side talking at once - this is the kind of story where if you're not asking critical questions or being asked them all the time, you've no clue what's going on. [these forums are] for cheap feel-good or feel-righteous posts and i'm doing my best to focus on the psychologically uncomfortable realities that anybody who really cares has to face.

in response to an angry post slamming bnwh: the reason everyone's repeating all this stuff is because they don't understand what's going on and that's not their fault. if you were flooded with bullshit from all sides you'd buy into it too. and if you become indignant and refuse to talk they're not going to hear anything else.

people don't get that they're being taken advantage of ideologically. they also don't get that there's a level of ugliness to human behaviour that they've been protected from their whole lives. don't be angry with those who've been fooled, be patient and understanding. we need people to understand what's really happening.

the following is the smartest thing i've seen since shit went crazy: i don't want to question your authority considering your personal experience with the region. you are also free to be comfortable with critiquing or discounting news sources that i have presented.

i figure that in order for this conversation to move forward in a meaningful way (and hopefully, congenially), i would like to ask what you consider to be a reliable source. you have mentioned the importance of facts. the interesting thing about reality is that it is exceptionally difficult to be certain of anything. facts are merely the things that we, as an increasingly international society, feel very certain about. and in order to feel certain, we equip our best and brightest with the tools and teachings that enable them to represent complex, changing environments as accurately as possible so that we, the public, can make informed decisions.

this is why i trust information from the un. from the washington post. the intercept. democracynow.org. etc. [at least two of which are notoriously anti-israel sources]

if i were citing foxnews, cnn, msnbc, sure, you would have a stronger argument. but, i have certainly invested time investigating and grading my news sources. you are welcome to do the same and i encourage you to do so as well (or wtv). however, if you are to consider my sources incredible, then i would request that you post what you consider to be credible sources, so that we may have a more transparent conversation. or not - you mentioned your disdain for online conversations. personally, i love them because of the capacity to reference the vast library that is the internet.

it's hard for me to suggest a news source because the reason i don't follow the news through regular outlets is that i've witnessed first hand how out of control media bias is - and that goes both ways. journalists and their employers are paid to sell stories, and honesty in reporting is difficult when so much of what they're producing is being fed to them by interested parties.

having said that, whichever news sources you follow you need to make sure you're balancing them because there's no such thing as objective reporting.

israeli news sources will give you an idea of how the israelis see things and why they're doing what they're doing:
http://www.haaretz.com/
http://www.ynetnews.com/
http://www.jpost.com/
(the first one is the "left" newspaper, so i guess you'd view it as the most balanced)

http://palwatch.org/main.aspx?fi=1045 and https://www.facebook.com/unwatch should give you an insight as to why you can't trust everything you hear out of gaza, and why un sources are not reliable at all.

for general middle east fun check out http://www.memritv.org/

bear in mind that there's also no such thing as objective reading, in this case you're reading with western values and you're ignoring or misreading the things that don't make sense to those values because you're not equipped with the cultural context to follow what's going on.

[...]

the spreading of these stories without knowing what's going on is only making it harder and harder for people to understand what's happening, and the long-term effects of these judgement calls are truly scary (see upsurge in antisemitism). what's happening over there right now is a nightmare and the external aggression is only making things worse for everyone involved, not better. dehumanizing either side of the fence is a recipe for disaster, and these are subjects that cannot be summarized neatly.

---finally: cnn on journalists' responsibility to provide context and lisa daftari making a distressingly good point about the global context.

not so much resting or relaxing - part iii

[... continued]
on my way to meet wire for drinks i ran into vector, who convinced me that things were happening; i haven't heard from him since :/

wire and i sat for a while over beers, and he gave me the last of the cash i'd loaned him. it was more symbolic than anything, i'm really pleased that he's properly on his feet again! we enjoyed a stout called pretty bastard that's brewed in bromont and is pretty darned good.

i came home to indian takeout. i discovered that gd is definitely *not* into science fiction, so i guess battlestar galactica is just for me...

... we watched a few episodes of the boondocks and then went to bed.

---last sunday:

during a chat with my mother i learned that she's unhappy with her iphone, for very different reasons from those that i'm unhappy with mine for. i decided that when i get there in december i'd buy hers off her - these things are *expensive* for south africans...

after going through our feeds gd asserted that i have a responsibility to make a short video explaining the israel / gaza conflict. i guess i kind of do? but i need to invest a lot of energy into something like that, so the scribbling i've done since doesn't seem to be going anywhere fast :(
in the meanwhile, there's pat condell. his piece on hypocrisy over gaza does a fairly good job of covering the bases and its description contains a ton of links to important sources just in case you're not convinced of the veracity of his sentiments.

i went on a quick mission to popeye's for powder, gd and i visited aubut for some shopping, i wolfed down a leftover lunch and then we waited for bnw and her husband to arrive. we'd packed enough stuff to go camping, they arrived with an empty car.

the two hour drive there through the beautiful countryside with good music and plenty of munchies was nice. after we arrived, had beers and met up with another couple we all went on a pretty hike that included farm animals. we returned, waited for ages in line and eventually entered coaticook gorge.

bnw's attitude when we began irritated gd (and me too, but i ignored it) and she then did something that was childish and offensive that threatened to ruin our evening. i like bnw and her husband, they're good people and we share a lot of common interests, but i harbour no illusions about their maturity or reliability. i was really glad that afterwards everyone behaved well regardless and we enjoyed the walk immensely! the light show is incredible and the gorge is stunning with or without it.

we'd planned to leave at 11pm and i was shocked when i looked at my watch and saw that that's precisely when we left! the ride back was uncomfortable due to my suffering from rls, and gd's neck and butt weren't too comfortable either.

---monday:

i woke from a dream in which i'd been disguised as an ultra-orthodox jewish shipbuilder to escape a naval base but had been caught. it was a rainy monday morning and i was warm and cosy under the blanket, so getting up kinda sucked.

first fail of the day: showing the team lead something and having an alert pop up asking for my password. i clicked on it and typed away, and felt really stupid when he told me he could see my password: i looked up and saw that the keyboard focus had magically switched to a different app :$

an examination under the hood of javascript feels like stepping through the looking glass.

big junior and i received a mandate to redesign the streaming solution we're working on and a briefing on the political context in which we're operating. the design's been fun to produce and suggests exciting possibilities to come!

after a long day i found myself in the same metro car as one of our designers. he's a nice guy but riding with him was awkward and we were together for almost half an hour :/

[continued...]

protective edge media update

christian arabs have taken a stand, while while israel is accumulating more things to talk about.

after everything i've seen and heard over the past couple of weeks, that last article is the one that saddens me the most. i've lost faith ages ago, and i can only hope for all our sakes that i'm very, very wrong.

thursday already? part wednesday night

holy crap, i'm gonna be due a paycheck in a moment. it's just past midnight and i'm risking a late night just to post this, but it's looking to be another busy weekend and this is the only real quiet time i have...

---monday:

i suffered from rls and generally not resting enough. i woke up to chilly not-summer weather threatening rain and was frustrated by my hoodie going missing. for some reason it was an aerosmith morning.

an hour or so spent with big junior taught me that i need to be careful with him: he's the gatekeeper for the system i've been assigned to fix and he's really sensitive... smart guy, nice guy, but inexperienced, lazy in the wrong way and a little averse to change.

on my way to lunch i had another think about my middle east solution.

i got stuck with the stupid woman at the supermarket, who mumbled something to me so i had to take my other headphone out:
"that's mars," she said, pointing to my fruit fucker shirt.
"it's an orange, actually."
"no, mars is much more interesting."
...
"an orange ball, maybe, but not an orange."

*facepalm*

the next weird thing was one of my co-workers giving me a "gift" of an image of one of our porn service's girls wearing cat ears. that was a weird gift, and i tried to politely decline and [failed]. at least a couple of the others jumped in to the rescue.

pet peeve: relying on a specific build of something that's used in production and not knowing why nor how to go about building it? that's dangerous. that was my motivation to uncover the whole story of ffmpeg and libav in all its politically pathetic glory. what followed was two days of writing a build script that works, and learning a couple of really cool script tricks that resulted in something i was proud to commit to the team's tools repo ^_^

the rain outside was demotivating but i trained strong in spite of my desire to just go home. on my way out of the gym i realized i'd forgotten my headphones at work... which is really not a problem, my office is on the way to the metro :D

as i left the metro, aerosmith - walk this way came on and i couldn't not sing joyfully and add a bit of a spring to my step.

dinner was awesome in spite of a misunderstanding about a couple of disparate things i'd told gd about work and my co-workers. it's weird working with pornography. it's less weird than i'd imagined, but big junior told me a story about a creepy guy who used to be in the team and the very same day some odd guy from the company tried to friend me on facebook :S

we started watching expendables in anticipation of the third installment coming out. gd hadn't seen it, neither of us have seen the second. it's time.

---yesterday:

a gorgeous morning to chase the miserable one, but rendered uncomfortable by all the antisemitism in our feeds. i tried finishing my chapbook, but the software i tried to use (bookwright) has a minimum of twenty pages. seriously?!

after a month of silence, i disconnected ff from the project and sent her an email explaining why. i just received a message apologizing, responded by making it absolutely clear what the problem is and invited her to rejoin *IF* she thinks that'll change. hopefully that won't be the last i hear from her.

during the day i had a meeting with the team lead for an overview of the system, and i discussed my pet peeve about naming things "new" and "old". he proceeded to demonstrate that i was totally right and he and the manager have agreed to address my concerns.

my team-mates have explained to me why physically visiting a bank teller is an unnecessary waste of time, but that was only after i complained about my bank needing a lunch hour express teller. after withdrawing the cash and paying my rent for august i was left with no time for lunch and i rushed back to a long, boring meeting :(
at least it's the last of the "this is what these meetings will look like" and they'll be quicker and more relevant from now on...

an afternoon of script wizarding whizzed by and i suddenly developed a headache just before kickboxing. that sucked. but in spite of that, and in spite of badger abandoning me to work with the sweet, slow and weak older guy, i managed to spend my hour and a half training hard and really pushed myself. badger and i were talking afterwards and ended up going shopping together so i could show her what to get now that she and her partner are considering a plant-based diet. the talk moved on to politics; we never really got into details about the middle east before and she now has as solid an understanding as anyone's going to get.

when i got home gd told me that she's spoken to nystire who'd told her to tell me about the game. i had a good laugh at that, because i'm not playing but it's rather special considering his usual bashfulness and the fact that he and gd don't know each other from a bar of soap. nice try, mate. nice try.

we finished watching expendables, which i already knew was terrific, then went straight to bed.

[to be continued...]

on the job - part ii

[... continued]

today:

my sleep was perfect and desperately needed, with crazy dreams i can't recall. i got up slowly, twice, spoke to my mother and rushed out for a meeting with the throw poetry collective. i arrived just on time and the meeting was interesting and motivating; also, résonance's chili on rice with its sour cream made of cashews and their latté with home-made almond / coconut milk made for a great lunch.

after two hours of that i visited godmother for coffee. on my way home vfmp and his boyfriend cancelled their plans to go see shakespeare in the park; i understood, seeing as the weather was a bit iffy, but wanted to go anyway. later, when gd and i were getting ready to go it started raining and then suddenly it didn't seem like such a good idea after all :P

saturdays are supposed to be gaming days for me, but i got in about ten or fifteen minutes of ffix before gd returned home. they weren't very good minutes, either :/
i then invested a bit of my soul responding to my unfunny south african comedian ex-friend... it's not a regular duty calls, this is a case of an otherwise intelligent jew with an audience who's clueless about what's going on and is spreading lies that cause anti-semitism. the world is really sucking right now.

my short nap didn't cure my exhaustion, but it made the rest of the evening manageable.

...

we watched the rest of safe, which is an intensely fun film, and finally put stickers on the magnets gd bought so we have a useful tool for keeping track of what we need to do when we get home or before we leave. now that i've posted, it's 3.30am and it's just started raining and we're going to bed.

on the job - part i

achievement unlocked: onboarding (the next milestone).

godmother was telling me earlier that the first phase of joining a new company should be elation: check! on my way home last night i couldn't stop thinking about something: i'm working for a company where people share my taste in games to the point where i got loud compliments for my syndicate shirt, and if you don't spend your lunch hour playing something you're looked at with suspicion! even one of the security guards stopped during his rounds to inquire about shadowrun online and ask if i'd played its predecessors.

---tuesday:

i can't remember my dreams from so long ago, but the note i wrote for myself was "packed holiday festival city of madness".

i couldn't snooze but enjoyed a fantastic wake-up anyway. we had another discussion about the middle east and how we define friends, after which *gd* poked fun at *me* for being disorganized and hurried on my way to work because i've been doing the same to her for months.

for the first couple of days this week, we suffered from an ugly heat wave.

the company provides breakfast to anyone who gets in before 10am. bagels and fruit? don't mind if i do! i spent the day glued to my screen, taking only ten minutes for lunch. i chased that with kickboxing. in the middle of the class my sweating from the heat turned to cold sweat from low blood pressure, but with a little encouragement i pushed through and finished satisfied.

i was, however, disappointed with myself for having forgotten to bring dry underwear. there's nothing like getting out of the shower and putting on the sweaty ones you've just trained in. less disappointing was discovering that my old wraps were actually in my bag - because i hadn't been able to find them earlier i'd bought new ones. and the new ones are awesome.

i quickly shopped and went past my apartment to try and clear mail but the tenants weren't in. when i got home it was still super hot and humid (so much so that the fan was ineffective) and i was super tired to match. i couldn't believe i managed to eat anything in that state.

i watched an episode of hunter x hunter and half an episode of one piece, argued with an anti-israel jewish comedian i used to be good friends with and then went to bed.

---wednesday:

i woke up from a series of sci-fi dreams that were epically and indescribably weird. i was so spaced out that i filled the blender with water before connecting the stopper, so that saw me unhappily cleaning up water that had poured everywhere. recently gd was watching a documentary and the following quote made a strong impression:

it's not the large things that send a man to the madhouse... no, it's the continuing series of small tragedies... not the death of his love but the shoelace that snaps with no time left.
— charles bukowski

i left just as the rain stopped and the thunder and lightning afterwards was magnificent. the morning was consumed by meetings, i tried to have lunch at subway but the one across the road has stopped serving falafel too... i picked up a veggie burger from harvey's instead. just as i returned i received a call from a recruiter who wanted a reference for my ex-co-worker who i had coffee with a couple of months ago. i was only too happy to provide a good one, and was pleased and amused when the recruiter began asking after my details and i thanked him and informed him that i'm very happy at the moment :D

the afternoon's training went well, and i was deeply satisfied by the general good vibes in the office. i walked out shocked that the week was flying by so quickly! i picked up my mail, stopped for an energy bar and coffee, then hit the gym.

i've been promising myself new equipment for months now, and i finally bought new gloves. they're fantastic! they have small holes for breathability and i can feel the difference. also, they were the only 16oz gloves available and they're a gorgeously ugly blue and yellow ^_^

one of the boxing coaches recently underwent neck surgery and he taught me to do isometric neck stretches pre-training. i can feel the difference, it's easy to do and it's just become a part of my routine. boxing was cool, even though i got stuck with the time waster. it was frustrating but he did actually make a little progress and i got a pretty solid workout in spite of him.

i walked to the metro facing a breathtaking sunset and i was feeling good. dinner was drawn out but was stupidly delicious: my usual salad (before i learned about steaming vegetables) but with avocado and aux vivre's dragon sauce. WOW!

we started watching jeff who lives at home, then went to bed.

---thursday:

i got up with stiff, sore arms and lats. i needed to sleep late but that was denied. it would have been a beautiful morning if not for the antisemitism in the news. and that seems to be getting worse.

i left comfortably late, worried about an accident warning on the line i needed but nevertheless arrived on time. it was a jamiroquai day (i bought high times) and half of it was spent trying to get doxygen to parse php properly.

there was a company lunch and it's a BIG company, there was no way that i was waiting in an insanely long queue for a lunch that wasn't guaranteed to be vegan friendly. instead i picked up a frozen meal at the supermarket, and by the time i got back the rush was over and a single vegan sandwich was left. i wolfed down both lunches.

on the way i tried to call my visa hotline; the damn iphone keeps blanking my screen at the worst times and i eventually gave up. i guess my proximity sensor's screwy.

i completed the research i'd been doing to a reasonable degree and began translating some of what i'd learned during the week into documentation. the girl who sits next to me and i were the last to leave, and she asked me why i wasn't messing around like a lot of the others. apparently my behaviour this week is "grinding rep" :) i can afford to keep this up for four months at least!

my body was still hurting pre-training and the kickboxing class was rough, but i completed the class deeply satisfied and feeling a lot looser. on the way home i thought out of the box, which got a lot less of a response that i'd hoped for, and gd and i finished watching jeff who lives at home which is a fantastic film.

---yesterday:

the weather was definitely cooler, and i dreamed epic dreams. the morning began well with me singing along to simon & garfunkle, and continued with a relaxed code review and a long qa meeting that almost put me to sleep. i had a serious pre-lunch avocado and spinach sub that was huge and delicious, ate lunch while playing shadowrun online and spent a slow, meandering afternoon analyzing the code i'm going to be working on.

did i earn my weekend? i feel amazing about my week. i ran to walmart but couldn't find what i was looking for, picked up rainbow mentos (which turns out not to be vegan) and remembered just how awesome their flavours are.

we had a fantastic friday night boxing class, working hard and feeling good... minus wrist shock from doing impact with one guy who's so solid that hitting him hurt me. the shower afterwards was great, and i walked out bubbling with excitement over ending a week that has been consistently excellent. ^_^

gd ordered good indian food for dinner and we started watching safe.

[continued...]

out of the box

the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

we're way too into this whole democracy thing, israel isn't exactly a shining example of a functional one and most of the powerful countries aren't either. so i say fuck democracy, turn israel into a totalitarian jewish state with democratic values like freedom of speech and equal rights and let all the palestinians in for a completely fresh start.
enforce a separation of church and state, expel any trouble makers, declare a large buffer zone, patrol the borders properly and spend the military money we'd save on new infrastructure for all.

nobody would get to vote, which is great because the entire middle east is filled with incompetent voters regardless of race or religion.

it seems to me that the potential for disaster with this plan is no worse than the current options on the table, the potential for success unlimited and immeasurable. all arguments (for and against) welcome.

[edit] okay, maybe a democracy in which you only get to vote if you've done military or community service and haven't been on any form of welfare since the last election.

regression: protective edge media update

i guess this fighting's not ending anytime soon, and it's paining me to see friends getting sucked into it. i responded to a post of bnw's before going to bed and then found myself awake in the middle of the night worrying about fighting with strangers on her wall. so i deleted the comment, sent it privately and began this post instead.

...

you don't believe the jews? well, here's a lebanese woman who's seen it all. if you don't speak hebrew, almost everything she says is in english. she's the same brigitte gabriel who spoke at duke university many years ago.

here're some interesting and disturbing articles from un watch:

• a palestinian speaks frankly about international law and human rights
• some foreign journalists in gaza are seeing things
• the un shouldn't be returning weapons to terrorists
• and it certainly shouldn't be ignoring a wave of anti-semitism sparked by the media war on israel

this article speculating on the media focus on gaza contains a lot of food for thought, but the conclusion leaves me wondering why nobody gives a damn about darfur.

---an argument with someone i went to school with who's completely lost the plot has proved to be most informative: i had no idea netanyahu has been lying to everyone (again, but on a different issue) nor that attitudes appear to be growing bleaker. that nobody has faith in obama is unsurprising, but the rest of the stats paint a picture that means something.

protective edge media update

this is what happens when you stop to think for two seconds.

as i've said before, the more you support hamas and its actions and the more you hate on israel for defending itself the more you hurt the palestinians as well as the israelis. your "omg israel is horrible" is only keeping the war going.

...

when you post propaganda you're picking a side. here's an article entitled why i'm pro-israeli AND pro-palestinian, it's badly written but absolutely correct. between this and the previous link, i've said just about everything that needs to be said and i'm now ready to resume with my regular programming.

a response to BDS propaganda

i've lost the link, but badger asked me to respond to a video that falsely summarizes the history of the arab-israeli conflict.

no, not really, this is a perfect example of the BDS movement's propaganda. the sad reality is that israel isn't interested in controlling more land, israel is interested in maintaining security. there are a couple of contentious settlements - and most israelis want them evacuated as soon as possible - but the ongoing fighting and terrorism make it practically impossible for this to be dealt with.

until the british ended their mandate the jews and arabs, while not living precisely harmonious, were allied in their desire to get rid of them and actually worked together. the jews have been proposing a two-state solution since the late 1920's, but the rest of the arab world (the notion of "palestinians" is a recent invention) rejected a jewish state and attacked when independence was declared, and what we're seeing now is still the independence war that never truly ended. when i say there were no palestinians, what i mean is that there were egyptians and there were jordanians, but when they fled during the war their countries refused to shelter them, which is why they're refugees now.

the sad truth is that the palestinians are pawns in the greater arab world's fight against the existence of israel, they have been oppressed and weaponized essentially by their own people. israel is the only entity in the region that's actually interested in their welfare - israel has been looking to make peace since its inception - but they keep having to fight the terrorists who use the palestinian people both as weapons (suicide bombers) and as human shields. from the palestinian perspective, it's very hard to negotiate with people who you've been brought up to hate and have been taught are the reason your lives suck, and from the israeli point of view it's very hard to negotiate with people who are constantly attacking you because they're not at liberty to do anything else.

the territories in question have been under exclusive control of terrorist organizations for many years now, and so no matter how many innocent, long-suffering palestinians there may be who have had it with fighting and just want to get on with their lives they have no control over their situation. hamas has brutalized their population in the name of the war on israel and currently all the casualties you're seeing are caused by people walking knowingly to the deaths as the israelis warn about impending strikes. even the egyptians, who HATE israel and israelis, are sick and tired of seeing what hamas is doing to the region and to the palestinians.

regarding "second class citizens", israel is no angel but the arabs living under israel's authority are the only arabs in the entire middle east to enjoy western rights just like everyone else. the right of return is an issue only insofar as it's a barrier to negotiation. that part's complicated and ugly.
israel has arab members of parliament and a vocal and visible arab population.

all of the fighting, the BDS movement as a whole and the terrible media bias against israel does little to help the palestinians. the longer everyone sides with terrorism the longer this story is going to be drawn out. the israelis have been sick of it for decades, and there're definitely a lot of palestinians who just want these horrors to end. but first the hate and the attacks have to stop. when things are quiet and israel's not on the defensive, they'll address the settlements because nobody wants them, they're a huge burden on the country.

the palestinians have recently created a new hashtag #FreeGazafromHamas and everyone who's hating on israel right now, everyone falling for "pallywood" using images from syria and even stills from hollywood movies to shock and enrage and inspire antisemitism, everyone calling israel an aggressor is only making their situation and their bondage worse. when the palestinians are given an opportunity to decide their own fate instead of being directed by countries like iran, the chances for peace will shoot up infinitely.

protective edge media update

yesterday there was a riot in toronto. nothing's changed, anti-semitism rules the day. nobody who's made up their minds already is going to see anything other than an extreme zionist point of view in this, regardless of the fact that what this man's saying is absolutely correct.

here, it's difficult to express any other point of view without being shouted down by those who mistakenly think they're defending human rights, even when what they're really supporting is quite the opposite.

never again? wishful thinking.

---i've seen a number of videos posted with jews spouting pro-palestinian propaganda. it's incredibly distressing, they're ignorant people giving legitimacy to something that's hurting jews and palestinians alike.

protective edge media update

seeing an israeli official being interviewed in arabic and actually being heard is extremely gratifying (if i come across an english translation i'll post a link), and canada's rejection of the absurd criticism of israel is as well. this south african summary of the situation is really good too.
so at least not everyone's buying the bullshit.

having said that, there've been some extremely shameful and embarrassing moments. a reporter showing images of palestinians next to rubble and calling them israeli victims? israelis sitting on deck chairs to watch "the fireworks" in gaza? my gods, like israel doesn't have enough of a disadvantage in the media war.