Author: Aaron Weber

Three barely related paragraphs

The Church keeps trying to convince people not to use condoms because it’s a sin. Perhaps they need some information about harm reduction.
Speaking of deliberate harm, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds have a great ode to alcoholism, and Michael Pollan (of “Botany of Desire”) has a great article in the NYT this week on obesity which I wanted to turn into some sort of rant about the way people cede control over their lives to marketers and corporations, and then blame the corporations for running their lives poorly.

Of course if you give your life over to alcohol or television or junk food or consumerism, it’s not going to be yours, and it’s not going to make you happy. Of course if you give your life over to a philosophy that has very strict absolutes you’re going to find uncomfortably sharp edges and contradictions, like persuading people that condoms are useless in order to prevent contraception, and being unable to recognize that you are spreading potentially fatal misinformation and are therefore responsible for the deaths of thousands.

If I’m a marketer of a branded lifestyle like, say, McDonalds or Catholicism is it my responsibility to make sure that my customers are emotionally healthy and moderate in their beliefs? If someone loves me in an uncomfortable way, I can distance myself from them, help them love themselves instead. But I don’t want to make myself unlovable. I want to still be loved, just not loved by this person, or not so immoderately. What does Disney do with someone who loves, really LOVES, Disney? What does the Catholic Church do with someone who is, perhaps, over-fanatic? They don’t want to shut down! They can’t.

If someone gives their life over to your control, even partially, what responsibility do you bear for that? If it’s my job to be loved and lovable, and someone grows obsessed, what do I do? A celebrity, a product, an ideology, a lifestyle… are they the same in their obligations to their fanatics?

I’d say an ideology has a greater obligation to avoid its adherents getting out of control, since adherence is part of its makeup, whereas a product doesn’t include fanaticism by default and isn’t as in control of, or responsible for, that fanaticism. But I’m not sure. Is McDonalds as much an ideological state apparatus (to get a little althusserian on you) as the Church? Urgh, I’m getting back to my thesis here…

Misconceptions and Misperceptions

Forbes portrays the Free Software Foundation in a rather negative light. Of course, the FSF is known for being doctrinaire and annoying, but I wouldn’t exactly call them “hit men.” Meanwhile, conspiracy mongering about the mono project. Come on guys. It’s software. I know you live it and breathe it. I live it and breathe it.

But this isn’t the movies. There are no hit men. X never marks the spot. It’s not called “evil” or “double-crossing” in this world, it’s mere unethical business practices and breach of contract. You want to see pirates and hit men, go run opium from Burma to Hong Kong.

Consumer Preferences

I’ve made this prediction before and I think it’s coming true: Rye whiskey is coming back. Increasing numbers of people are trying it and it’s appearing in larger presentations on store shelves.
Mall Discount Liquors in Alewife had a very large selection, and I picked up some Rip Van Winkle, which I’ve yet to try. This’ll be the 3rd bottle of rye I’ve bought, and will make two unfinished bottles in my collection– along with the three kinds of bourbon. That’s too much damn whiskey. I sense a party coming on.

More on Real Estate

When you’re looking to rent, remember these things:

Your landlord may run a background check that makes a cavity search feel like a handshake.

Your landlord paid a lot for that building and needs to make it back. Needs to make a lot just to pay for upkeep and mortgage payments.

You have rights. Plenty, in fact. Enough to validate the entire history of tenant-vs-landlord antagonism. Enough to make you wonder how landlords ever make any money at all.

People keep agitating for rent control around here and I think it’s a bad idea– cut regulation, cut the cost of providing rentals, cut barriers to apartment creation, and the price of rentals will come down. I want to see more apartments, not rent-controlled apartments.

This is a title here

You may be a duppie but that doesn’t mean you have to go jump off a bridge.

Particularly fun bit about a man who jumped in protest of the Iraq war:

The Coast Guard crew, wearing their standard jumper-retrieval garb to protect against leaking body fluids—Tyvex biohazard suits, masks, gloves, and safety goggles—began C.P.R. Half an hour later, Alarab was pronounced dead. Gary Tindel, the assistant coroner of Marin County, who examined the body on the dock at Fort Baker, at the north end of the bridge, observed that “massive bleeding had occurred in both ears, along with apparent grayish brain matter in and around the right ear.”

and about a man who used to campaign for an anti-suicide net or fence:

He gave up a few years ago, stunned that in an area as famously liberal as San Francisco, where you can always find a constituency for the view that pets should be citizens or that poison oak has a right to exist, there was so little empathy for the depressed. “People were very hostile,” Grimes told me. “They would throw soda cans at me, or yell, ‘Jump!’”

Unsurprising News

Bush doesn’t think that the investigation will find the leaker. Perhaps because the investigation will look through information provided by the White House, after it’s been vetted for critical information!

The fox is in the henhouse kids. Prepare for slaughter.

Morning Fix

I wrote a letter to Mark Morford, the SF Gate Morning Fix writer, and he responded, sort of.

Mark, I love your column, I really do. But I want you to remember, occasionally, that patriotism isn’t the same thing as miniature flags on SUV’s. Patriotism can be a beautiful, wonderful thing, and if you reject patriotism because of the scoundrels who take refuge in it, then you lose, in a lot of ways, a cultural battle that is very important to win: the battle against the myth that liberals hate America. What I’m saying is, don’t recall patriotism: recall jingoism. I know that’s what you meant, but please be clearer! Think of all the good things about this country: freedom and organic food and voting and newspapers and having a job so you can feed your family. Believing what you want to believe. Public parks and and free education and teenagers making out in back seats without being beaten to death for violating public morals. The US isn’t perfect, no country is, but please don’t pretend that those who love it are all idiots– you love it too, you need to admit this, and if you’d get outside of it once in awhile and see what the rest of the world is like, you’d realize just how good you’ve got it. A lot of the left has abandoned patriotism and the American flag because they think it all means international empire and so forth. But the US does some good stuff too– international aid, the peace corps, Radio Free Wherever. Don’t give up on your country– you take too much for granted sometimes.

His response, as usual without the initial letter, was published in today’s newsletter. I’m not sure he got my point, but then again, his column is supposed to be totally off-balance, and my request for balance, if heeded, would totally ruin it.

— To verbal: Well this is the entire point, isn’t it? That thoseaccused of hating their country and of being traitors for calling Bush a dangerous small-minded warmongering idiot lo these past months tend to be, in fact, the most patriotic of all, and not just for celebrating their freedom of speech and questioning the direction of the nation, but for defending for what this country actually stands for, which is peace and nonaggression and the idea that we do not attack crappy little defenseless non-threatening countries just to further the desires of the president’s petrochemical cronies. Believe you me, I believe in patriotism. I understand it well. And hardcore lockstep GOP war hawks who want dissent silenced and want to wiretap your email have proven to be the least patriotic of all.