The good and bad of Bill Clinton was on show at his appearance with John McCain from which leaked his disagreement with Obama on Syria. Clinton understood foreign policy needs but his decisions were made with a finger measuring the political breeze and therefore cautious to the point of insufficiency as far as actually achieving long-term goals. His political calculation on the Rwandan genocide was Clinton's low point, but my chief criticism is that he set up policies and precedents for the terrorism and Saddam problems but neglected to move decisively (and controversially) to resolve the problems on his watch, rather leaving the controversy for his successor to deal with when the problems reached a head. In contrast to Clinton, his successor, Bush, made rational choices to match means with ends and dealt with the controversy that Clinton avoided.
Given the prominent role of Sunni terrorists among the Syrian rebels, the destruction the terrorists caused in neighboring Iraq, and current day terrorist attacks in Iraq likely bleeding over from Syria, I wonder how Obama's decision to give military aid to the Syrian rebels plays in Iraq? It may be the death of any lingering alliance between the US and post-Saddam Iraq. Obama's feckless Middle East policy increasingly vindicates Bush's Middle East policy.
I responded to Professor Nacos about Libya and Iraq here.
John Yoo's take on the Snowden leaks about the NSA surveillance. In short, the program is Constitutional, legal, and fulfills a compelling state interest.
Damn, Nature, you scary! The Cordyceps parasitic fungus take over the mind and body of zombie ants. The ants' cuticle (hardened skin) offers no protection. Not only ants are affected. Different species of Cordyceps attack different insects. There is a variety of parasitic mind control in nature. The complexity of behavior under mind control is striking, such as parasitoid voodoo wasp larvae that control their caterpillar hosts. Who's to say that human beings aren't changed in mind and body by parasites?
Interesting take on the social-political implosive collapse of American society. The life-cycles of parasites that exploit and eventually kill their hosts seems analogous.
Confessions of a Sociopath. Yikes. It seems scary to be around one yet liberating to be one, but also alienating. Hm. Is Amanda Bynes a sociopath?
More sour cream's "I put that beep on everything." Mozzarella cheese, at least the factory version sold in supermarket dairy sections, is more about texture and has subtle flavor to begin with. It loses its flavor in storage. Adding sour cream to bannock pizza made with flavorless mozzarella adds flavor and a creamy texture. I've also used sour cream as a cheese replacement but cooking with the sour cream diminishes its effect. I may substitute a different, more flavorful cheese on my bannock pizza. Sour cream + hot sauce make a creamy, tasty dipping sauce for meat, especially chicken, which needs the flavor boost.
Egg and scallion fried rice and broiled pork with sour cream + hot sauce dipping sauce on the side is decadent.
Approximate broiling guide: 15 total minutes for beef, 25 total minutes for pork, 35 total minutes for chicken. Beef, as I've noted before, has the least room for error in cooking time.
Once again, wet heat (steam) does not cook the same way as dry heat (bake).
3 boxes of 11 oz double chocolate Krave cereal and 1 gallon whole milk for 9 dollars is a pretty good deal, but not a healthy one. I finished the gallon of milk and 1.5 boxes of the Krave in 1 day. That stuff puts on pounds and my body feels off, whether from the chemicals or sugar, afterwards.
I failed to kill an exceptionally quick mosquito last night and today I have a bite on my index finger. It's likely resting in my apartment somewhere digesting my blood. Update: I killed it plus 3 more mosquitoes. What hole(s) are they using to enter my apartment?
Nietzsche excites an MGTOW like Marx excites an activist. The temptation is to be belligerent and defiant of everyone else's conventions and repressions. To expurgate the internalized subjugation and throw off in a zealous burst all the chains of society in every personal interaction as a matter of principle and newly appreciated ego. However, when I am weak, needy, and disenfranchised, an adolescent acting out without a rational purpose is an unnecessary risky behavior. To subjectify myself and solve my alienation must be a thoughtful, long-term - even lifetime - mastery project. Real life is not literally like the movie The Matrix, with a Zion, or even a Nebuchadnezzar, to which to escape the entirety of reality in one move. I can't physically sever my connections to the world and be reborn as a new, greater self in a fantasy world. I must navigate my way out of the trap in this world. The better compromise with Nietzsche's provocation is to critically diagnose the conditions of my objectification, control the internalized repressions within my mind, and learn to know the world for what it is, like Feuerbach's sensual observation. Be situationally aware and self-aware, and respect the power that the world and other people have over me. Then intelligently apply praxis along Marx's original thesis of sensual activity in order to change the circumstances of my objectification. Weigh the risks and rewards. Interact with the world as a rational self-interested free agent. Renegotiate my Hobbesian social contract. Even if I choose to be altruistic again, I must do so from a reified conscious state.
Richard Swanson was an alienated man who died on his praxis quest to actualize his reified consciousness. I don't know that he was red pill, but he was definitely going his own way. By Swanson's and the author's example, the life metamorphasis must be created with dedicated whole mind-body physical activity.
I had a dream about the Stuy bowling team. It wasn't about my truncated time as a bowler, but more my leadership experience recasting the culture of the team that extended beyond my HS career. It wasn't a replay of the actual experience but rather its pattern with different faces, ie, the more things change, the more they stay the same. All of my leadership experiences have been praxis with the Marxist premise that truth is subjective, creative, and deduced rather than objective and induced. The status quo is just an option. However, I eventually reach a point where my internalized subjugation stops me and fills me with doubt with thoughts that Truth is in fact objective, everyone else is in on it, and I am alone, out of tune with a quixotic fantasy. Yet I have made a difference. I have brought my subjective truth to life, just not completely to life at 1st attempt. But that's only a failure from a performance test perspective, not a mastery perspective. Even when change is a smooth run, Daniel Patrick Moynihan said that civil reform requires a 30 year commitment. I certainly have not followed through on any 30 year commitments to completion. So perhaps the obstacles I've run up against are not Truth dispelling my quixotic fantasy, but rather simply breaching the comfort zone of the status quo, aka the blue pill Matrix, Nietzsche's bad air of lies, and Freud's internalized repression. At that point, it's the dominant subjective Truth vs my insurgent subjective Truth, and it requires competition to break through. And that means competing with my teammates who are still shackled by the blue pill status quo and winning over the fencesitters, which I can do, but the uncertainty strikes at my anxieties and insecurities. To compete, I need to trust my capability and my vision and have the iron will - the Nietzschean classical will to excellence - to fight against social pressures to rise alone. The evidence says I can do it in terms of capability, but I must build up my inner game to match my outer game. I must be in control. I also need to figure out what I want to be and the world to be; bigger than morality, the right thing, or selflessly making the world a better place in a Judeo-Christian sense, but what is my truth I want to define my life and with which to change the world.
This NY Times opinion discusses the compounding impact of moral decay and fraying of the social compact in our society. My aspirations for SU4A seem quaint. As an idealist, where could I begin to patch the tearing holes? It's sticking fingers in a dike that's crumbling under a flood.
From the Grantland article on the Spurs' Tracy McGrady: "Most coaches who don't understand young players view 'selfish' as something bad," Carter said. "My thing as a coach is, I can't get a player to be at the level he needs to be at unless he is selfish. He's got to be selfish to invest in himself."
Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment