The confidence of a single consumer

While whiling away the day, I came across a short video wherein the state of the US economy was discussed. At one point one of the expert panelists (for why would he be asked his opinion unless expert?) gave a short monologue about the slippery fish that is consumer confidence. It was gone, he said, but it may come back, indeed, there are indications that this is already happening, which gives hope that consumers around the country will soon regain their lost gumption, are on the verge of consuming with the same enthusiasm and courage as before the onset of the current economic crisis. As it is though, consumers have little confidence to speak of, yes, purchase goods and services they continue to do, but with trembling hands and sweating brows.

The idea of "consumer confidence" causes me to pause in wonder at yet another macroeconomic concept that commands such widespread respect, but which seems to me to depend on the most tenuous and feeble foundations. Economists talk about the confidence of the consumer as it relates to enormous aggregates of statistics, the spending patterns of millions summed in graphic charts and lists of percentages. Put crudely and simply, the more people spend, the more confident they are, and such confidence bodes well for the economy in general, it is thought, because a person, sorry, consumer willing to part with his or her money means that greater risks are possible, and greater risks of course lead to exponentially, telescopically greater profits. Already, the tides are beginning to turn if the return to multi-million dollar bonuses at Goldman-Sachs are to be taken as a sign.

Fine, macroeconomics apparently means something to some people. I can accept that, they can have their scholastic branch, can delude themselves that they are talking about the world as it really is. I have my own fantasies to impose on the world, who am I to prohibit others from their own? But what of smaller vantages? How about the confidence of a single consumer? The only consumer I have experience with is myself and I must confess: I am not confident. The world appears awash in goods and services I might spend money on. Though many of these aren't exactly aimed directly at me, many others are and I struggle when deciding whether to buy them or not. Come to think of it, I hardly purchase anything outside of the necessities - food and shelter - with anything close to a feeling of confidence. Most often, I'm deeply uncertain about what I'm buying, I have my doubts that I need it, that it's what I want, that it will make me happy. If an economist asked me if I'm confidently consuming goods and services I'd have to admit that I'm a weak-willed worry wart.

"Consumer confidence" is a misnomer, on the surface referring to the buyers' attitudes, but in reality simplifying to the point of willfully distorting far more complex phenomena. The motives behind why people spend money the way they do was a question banished from economics courses with the advent of positive economics. From then on economists wanted the facts only, damn you, and they'd accept nothing but the facts. The behavior of human beings is no different from mitosis or photosynthesis, these positivist economists pretend, just a natural phenomenon among many requiring the cool temperament of the scientist, unclouded by sticky bias.

Macroeconomics does not concern itself with the motives behind the daily decisions made by individuals; it could care less if buying a $15 toaster at Walmart truly reflected a person's confidence about the purchase. For all economists care, she could be destitute, her stomach pocked with ulcers over anxiety about meeting her family's needs day after day. Ask her, "Ma'am, please quiet your uncontrollable children and tell me: Are you confident?" I wonder what she'd say. But no matter, it's not a real question to the scientists of the economy. As soon as that piece of junk, I mean toaster, is purchased, its statistical referent is instantly dispatched to the azure regions of indubitable statistics, where the lords of econolympus look to their great scrolls of truth and they proclaim, "Behold the confidence of the consumer."

Riffing off the journalism of others

Sometimes I feel like Foghorn Leghorn, that patriarchal rooster on Saturday morning cartoons, who would always preface whatever he was about to say with a barrage of "I say, I say, I say, I say..." and so on ad infinitum. Would that silly bird ever get to the point? Occasionally he did, as when he parasitically called on that ridiculous little chicken hawk, conspiring with him to conduct elaborate subterfuge against the old dog who maintained order around the farm. In feverish dreams Foghorn Leghorn visits me, filling my mind with his "I say" so that eventually it's all I can think about. Always "I say, I say" promising so much, but ultimately saying so little.

I was thinking this after coming across an alarming statistic from Harper's magazine, which stated that something like 85% of all blogs have failed to receive a posting in the last 6 months. You'll note that I have neglected to provide the exact quote so to conform to my own austere "fact-free" standards. I don't like facts, no siree, I stamp them into the ground or better still, launch them out of earth's orbit to plummet through the depths of space forever. So generally if we take my vague reckoning seriously, and there's no reason we should, most blogs aren't being regularly contributed to. I imagine bygone times, when a person might jot down a few thoughts about something relevant to the community and nail it to the market notice board. Imagine walking up to the same piece of paper day after day, which spoke of a missing cat, Pookey Swarthmesson let's say. And knowing that no sooner had the note been posted than Pookey was found, safe and sound, under old man Snubinslabbin's rocking chair; it would seem the old cat welcomed the rhythmic swaying of the old man and his beloved chair.

What do we learn from this? That information quickly becomes useless. It's hard to fathom all of the information sitting on the internet which will never again be glimpsed by another human being. The internet is at once the birthplace and graveyard of information. But no harm, no foul I guess, it's not like anyone's life really benefits or suffers from any of this stuff. We're free to post as many nonsensical ideas here as we want, no one suffers by my mentioning Snubinslabbin's patient rocking or the old cat Pookey Swarthmesson's equally patient purr. They are nothing, like droplets of water evaporating before your eyes, just a tiny phenomenon among the thousands we daily experience whether conscious of them or not.

Yet, somehow I want to say something more than simply describing Pookey's luxurious fur, doubly - even trebly - impressive given the cat's advanced age. What's the significance in that? I haven't even mentioned the animal's sex, the colour of its eyes or its approximate size? I'm leaving all the details out! Where are the facts? Facts are needed to make informed decisions, everybody knows that. No, without facts, a blog is just another weed floating on the infinite stream of information. With no direct perspective - let alone action! - being argued for, what good can come from it? Where are the hot tips for fall fashions? What insight aids our readers in their mp3 player purchases? Show me the post which parses out the ever-subtle laconia of our dear, nay, cherished leader, the governor of this great land, across its breadth and into its depths, from its sovereign claims on those remote arctic seas to its Davidian battle with our giant neighbor over soft wood, I speak here of the Right Honorable Stephen "He that shall not partaketh of the communion wafer" Harper!

No, advice and analysis you'll not find here. I say, I say, I say, not much of anything. Enjoy!

To Be Counted

It's a tough thing being an agnostic in this world. Don't get me wrong, most of us still have values, it's just that it gets confusing when the world becomes more complex. One is almost compelled to become a nihilist and damn this world to it's own machinations. But nihilism is never the answer, and only someone who cares for nothing and has a misanthropic mindset can subscribe to such a view. There is an old expression that states that if you don't stand for something, you'll likely to fall for anything. I would have to disagree, if you stand for only one thing, you find yourself alone. Perhaps this is why I am so dissatisfied by the counterculture and activism I see occurring this decade. Perhaps this is why I am angry at myself for not doing more.

It would seem to me that the world is getting better. Maybe it is because there are more of us, or perhaps it is due to scientific advancement. Maybe we're just being nicer to each other. But what appears crystal clear to me that the world is certainly getting more extreme. For every great advancement we make, for every great deed, for each piece of art; there is a horrible tragedy, a holocaust, or act of startling depravity. Such is the way things occur. But again, the world and the people who inhabit it are slowly learning. We are beginning to cotton on to the fact that this is a small planet, with big issues that can and should be solved.

Some of these issues are becoming more and more apparent. Our world is warming up. The gap between those with money and those without is widening. We may be running out of oil. Our economic structures are beginning to crumble under their very ideals. Our water is no longer safe to drink. The oceans are filthy. People are still starving in most parts of the world. A woman's rights are pretty much the same as they were five hundred years ago. Our food is becoming industrialized and tainted. Animals are becoming extinct at an exponential rate. Religion still dictates much of politics. You can still go to jail just by doing things to your own body.

All of these issues infuriate me greatly, none so much as the fact that it is the 21st century and there are still parts of this world which does not have access to fresh, clean drinking water. The thought of it is maddening. Then I ask myself what it is I can do about this situation and I feel very helpless. Besides going to these countries and helping them there, or inventing some kind of magical water production unit, I can't really do very much. My father used to tell me that one should just take care of themselves first, before they can take care of others. Unfortunately, I am by no means a wealthy person, or even well to do. I live my life on this planet like most of it's inhabitants, on a day to day basis, which makes me part of the underclass here in North America. Possessing of no debt or credit cards, my ability to help others financially at this point in my life, is impossible.

Yet one must take a step back and see things for what they are. One person can do very little to instigate change in this mad world. You must be able to find others to instigate some form of change, whether it be through simple protest or calculated revolution. This is where I find myself having problems. I am immediately suspicious of any organizations. It would appear in my eyes, that all of the major activist organizations are as appalling or corrupt as the causes they are fighting against. They use the same tactics of scare and oppression to make people see their view of the world. And the people follow them. Oh, how they follow them so blindly. At any protest you are likely to find yourself at, ask the people around you if they know what they are fighting for. You will usually find that they are eloquent and idealistic, but they seem to lack some kind of focus. Usually, you will find that no matter what kind of protest it is- climate change, genetically engineered food, etc- it all seems to come back to being anti-corporate. Which is fine. But that's not what the protest is about.

I understand the confusion, and it frustrates me. But this draws us back to the main problem of our time and the main problem I have as an agnostic; the fact that we have too many problems. There is so much to be angry about and so much that we want to change and that needs changing. We are awash with obvious problems that need a swift solution, but the sheer number of problems makes solving even one difficult. My unwillingness to believe in any cause completely, angers me and the people and groups that should be trying to convince me are driving me away. Hardest to deal with is the stark helplessness that fills an agnostic heart. I am unbound by belief but my values stand stronger than most.

One value that will never diminish, no matter how extreme things get, is our capacity to change. I don't expect to see any kind of sweeping all encompassing change happening anytime soon, those times are long gone. This revolution will be fought by consciousness and compassion. Hopefully such damning ideas as doing 'what's right' and 'for freedom' will be thrown out the window. It will be based solely on the merit of helping people. Straight up, clear as crystal help. It's starting to happen already.

Right now, we are in the wilderness, sauntering about. The tree's canopy allows for a small amount of light to peer through, and we are starting to see the growth it creates. The light feels good. We want more of it. But as we chase the light every day, each rotation sends us retreading the same ground. We find ourselves spinning back and forth in the thick woods. It's time to pick a direction and go for it. Find the meadows, the fields and the hills- get out in the open. And when we see the light, boy, it's going to feel great.

That's something to believe in.

Beyond apathy.

A tale of rocketry and hair cream

"There is no computerized explorer in the world with more than a tiny fraction of the power of a chemical analog computer known as the human brain, which is easily reproduced by unskilled labor." This quote is attributed to Wernher von Braun, a rocket designer for the Nazis then the Americans. At first he was like, "hey these national socialists are alright," but then he was like, "no these national socialists are all together distasteful, I like them not even a little bit." His brain was extremely precious - for he knew more than anyone alive about how to burn fuel to make things go fast and far - and so America took him under its great eagle wing, and said, "forget about all that Nazi business. Can you make us a super fast rocket?" And he answered them, "I certainly can." Ahh, these were heady days, when a man pulled his socks up tight, coated is hair in a sheen of brylcreem, and ordered the world in the severe tones of black and white.

So when Wernher von Braun surrendered to the Americans, his captors quickly set about determining the high quality of his brain matter, and based on their results concluded that it simply wouldn't do to have such a razor sharp man incarcerated for his long tenure as a Nazi party member, no, he would come over to their side, comb is luxurious hair with American made products, damn it. For what could be more important that devising powerful rockets? How else could the Americans show those god damn Bolsheviks that their appropriation of German engineering talent was top-notch? Anyway, the Russians could hardly even comb their hair properly, many suspected, for what ointments had they at their disposal? Nothing but socialist, Marxist ointments, those that were doggedly mashed in the community mortar by the community pestle. "Thanks but no thanks, we'll take our ointments from the free marketers, them what know how to run a business."

And so began the greatest hair cream race of our time, nothing could compare. There went the lathered comb of our newly minted American and rocketry ace Wernher von Braun. His hair glistening in the morning sunlight, he would take to his laboratory, leading his team deep into top-secret projects, not a single hair falling out of place. Not to be outdone, his Russian counter part Sergey Korolyov also combed his hair, perhaps more carefully than our transplanted American, for he knew that at any moment there may be a shortage in hair product, or worse the great man of iron might demand for himself all the best hair ointments. Grumbling in his laboratory, a hair or two falling in front of eyes Korolyov might have thought, but dare not have exclaimed, "God damn our cursed leader, he hordes the highest quality hair creams for himself! How can I be expected to do my duty for the motherland when my hair won't keep its shape throughout the long day?" But no one would answer him because he only thought these thoughts, and did not state them. Then there would have been a knock at his door, no there wouldn't have been a knock, the door would have suddenly burst opened and several men he had never seen before would have come to take him away. It turned out that Stalin had been spying on his thoughts! Korolyov could not get away with such mutinous scheming!

Back in America, von Braun would take his break from his daily labors in a park adjacent to his laboratory. He could think any and all the thoughts he wanted. He gently patted the top of his head, making sure that his hair remained still and luminous, just as he had styled it earlier that day. Of course, for whatever reason, should his hair require some tending to, he would dig down into his coat pockets, underneath his top-secret missives, his small notebooks containing his groundbreaking formulae and equations, underneath all this he would find his trusty tube of hair salve. In a practiced movement he would coat his comb with a layer of the precious paste and then, calmly but not without some measure of excitement, trace the comb along familiar paths, reaffirming his commitment to his conservative but comely hair style. "Ahh, nothing quite like a well-tended head," he might sigh, just as a deer bot fly flies by. The speeding insect might have given him a moment's pause, causing him to make a few calculations, maybe leading him to consider the possibility of sending a man to the moon. It was a eureka moment, and as quickly as possible - but not so quickly as to mess up his hair - von Braun raced back to the lab, with yet another brilliant idea churning beneath his perfectly combed head.

We Chose.

Sorry to make this update a link, but you really need to spend some time on this site.

This kind of thing makes me all giddy. I love science and technology, I also love when it can be put into an artful medium to better enhance my ability to comprehend all of the information. Yeah, I like things to be made simple, but also allow me to use my imagination.

Behold.

This site is dedicated to celebrating the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Perhaps the greatest accomplishment of the 20th Century, besides the creation of the internet, of course. But here, the two finest aspects of human accomplishment and endeavor, meet gloriously.

Kind of makes me wonder what we've been doing since then...

Never give up on your dreams

I did not know what I would find when I sent my finger to dig deep into my left nostril. A slight tickle, nothing more than an intuition really, had told me that I might find something worth discovering there. I hummed and hawed about it for a while, twitching my nose from without trying to soothe the persisting discomfort. Some time passed in this way, achieving only superficial relief. Finally, I had enough, so without further delay I dispatched my left index finger to the offending nostril and delicately and patiently set to feeling for clues, looking for something which might explain my vague feelings of dis-ease. At first everything appeared normal, the familiar concave chamber appeared to house little more than than the soft prickle of hair; from time to time, a particle of solidified mucous might be felt, and carefully without any sudden movements, I would withdraw my finger so to examine the specimen. Nothing worth writing home about, tiny facsimiles of the real thing.

Yet my inquiries did not satisfy me, my dis-ease persisted, something primal and uncertain inducing me again and again to return to the scene. As often happens on journeys of this kind, I had lost hope, had given up on the possibility of uncovering the cause of my irritation. But something in me would not relent, my heart cried out, "Do not give in!" I resolved once and for all to press my investigations to their conclusion, I was determined to get to the bottom of my nostril. At its fetid opening, my finger hesitated for moment, perhaps it was frightened, unsure of itself as it was called on to carry out this task of selfless sacrifice. The nostril gaped open luridly, provocatively, as though daring the finger to get lost inside its cavernous labyrinths. With blazing courage the finger plunged into the depths, deeper - deeper still. No destination but the center of my brain, the pineal gland itself, would satisfy that brave probe, that pioneer of remote cranial reaches.

But what was this!? At the threshold of the upper nasal cavities something blocked its path. A giant booger, a deformed monster guarding its vile lair. Alarmed, indeed scared out of its wits, the finger hesitated, could feel the monster's salty breath against its sensitive pad. But a voice called out in the darkness, it was my own, "Fear not brave finger! Tear out that invader! Uproot that usurper and blocker of nasal passageways!" Summoning all its strength, the finger tip attacked the monster from all sides, would not relent in its war against the invading foreigner. It was a long and arduous battle, the details of which will not be made known here, suffice to say that the casualties were great on both sides. At length the monster lost its strength and like Goliath fell at the feet of the stalwart David. Silently, exhaustedly, the finger slowly returned from the fight, pulling back patiently, with the repulsive creature's corpse shackled to its tip.

Returning to light, after so long in the pitch blackness of conflict and destruction, was hard on the poor finger, indeed it collapsed as soon as it reached the nostril's outskirts. My right hand sympathetically raced to its aid, clasping my left wrist tightly, lifting it high in the air, like a hero in a movie. At the tip of the battle-weary finger, the nasty booger rested peacefully in its eternal slumber; it would tickle no nostril ever again. I made my way to the balcony, leaned over the railing, and in one final burst of effort my finger sent its foe down to its resting place, far below. It fell fast, with the gravity of the dead, and landed with an audible thud against the ground which received it. I looked at my brave finger, grateful tears swelling in my eyes, brought it to my lips and kissed its tip. "You have relieved me of my discomfort, dear finger. Now rest and be comforted. I will look to your example and remember that all is not lost, nay, all is indeed possible!"

Should have stolen what was paid for; paid for what was stolen

There are some days in this life when great moral lessons are made plain before our eyes; the sunlight melts the obfuscating nimbostratus revealing heartwarming herds of plump cumulus humilis. Yesterday was one of those days. It all started when with great eagerness I made my way to the nearest movie house. With a comrade I did tread, we weaved among many others who had different aims fueling their wanderings. A few, I suspect, were headed to the nearby Bangladeshi festival to sample a samosa or two, but be warned, those fried snacks of thin breads housing varied contents do not wear well over a long day, best get your samosas fresh or not at all. That was lesson number one.

To the film theater we marched, crossed its threshold and within seconds, in fact nothing compared to eternity, were standing before the automatic ticket dispensaries. We pounded at that confounded instrument, demanding nothing but what exactly corresponded to our whims. "I will have none of your stale, tasteless popcorn!" I thought this thought with great fury, and scowled noticeably so that a teller someways off, if she had noticed, would probably have thought, "I notice another customer is dissatisfied with our terrible kernels, I must be sure to counsel the confectionery team to remain diligent."

In no time we were led to the moment of payment, and to my great shock and dismay, the sum required to view this particular feature was a great many cents larger than I had anticipated: $15 Canadian dollars, a modest number in world currency markets I know, but a considerable portion of my leisure fund nonetheless. I hesitated. Sweat gathered on my forehead and palms, my heart skipped a beat. All of a sudden, the complete expanse of it, I knew what I must do, I pressed 'Accept', swiped the magnetic key which controls the gate to my inconsiderable treasury, and was dispensed a ticket, thereby guaranteeing my entrance into the theater. And so some time was spent watching Bruno, and it sucked. Sigh. And I sighed in regret, tears of disappointment streamed down my cheeks in my imagination, and I prepared for the waves of disgust which would wash over me in the coming days. $15 dollars spent for a commodity worth (I made the calculations in advance of this post) - $0.39. While Baron Cohen certainly does have a fine pair of buttocks, admirable cheeks indeed, I could find little else in the film to justify the great expense paid to view them. And so hands buried in my pockets, head sunk into my neck, I kicked stones bitterly as we made our way home.

What happened next I struggle to explain. My sense of injustice grew and grew, overwhelming my reason. I was blind to order, to coherence. Up turned upside down; the leafy branches of trees plunged into the earth, their tangled roots shot into the sky. Birds wiggled underground, worms flew like Chinese dragons in the air. At noon the moon shone bright, at midnight the sun climbed high. Though I admit it's only an excuse, in my confusion, I thieved something I shouldn't have. I downloaded an album, Bitte Orca by the Dirty Projectors. My greasy hands grasped it electronically, it took no time at all. For a moment I felt justified, as though I had set the world in balance once more. Bruno stole from me time and money, so I stole Bitte Orca to return my world to its equilibrium. Then I listened to the record. I realized soon enough that I had made a great error! My second that day! I should not have stolen this provocative and beautiful record. I should have paid for it.

My second lesson yesterday, the first being the importance of eating samosas only when fresh, was that two wrongs sometimes do make a right. Now I merely need to determine before hand what I will enjoy, what is good for my heart and mind, and from this vantage either pay for or steal accordingly. It's so simple.

Slobbering syncopation

Isn't it strange that humans appear to be the only creatures capable of getting down to a funky groove? Just last night, while waiting for the musical stylings of Broken Social Scene, what did I spy there at my feet? Why, a young German Shepard, whose lanky appendages indicated to my keen analytical mind that I was examining a youthful specimen.

And I watched her, as her tongue hung slobbering from her smiling mouth, watched as it bounded up and down as she breathed, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4. Human hands regularly came into view, to stroke her head or back, and at such times her tail would swing brazenly through the air, smacking the legs of those standing by her, thwack-thwack-thwack. "What is this glorious beat-keeper?" I wondered aloud, "how are her beats so funky, so dear to my heart?" But then, as the band took the stage and started in on one of their cacophonic orchestrations, all rhythm keeping stopped by said canine. She laid her body down and proceeded to sleep. Now that's a music critic for you.

In their day-to-day goings on, animals showcase a wide range of rhythmic sensitivities. Close your eyes the next time a horse comes your way, of course first ensure you're not standing in the noble beast's way, lest ye be violently trodden on, crushed under hoof, left a mutilated corpse, your final breath feebly emitting a "damn the equine race" before you pass from this world. Standing safely out of the way though, eyes closed, you will hear the most playful tune played by the animal's feet, cloppity-clop-clop, covering the gamut of possible tempos, from a slow down-beat waltz to a frenzied swing. Open your eyes and note how the beast swings her plump hind quarters in flawless time keeping, she's a veritable four-hooved metronome.

And such learned displays of rhythm isn't solely the domain of the higher orders of life, but lesser creatures also display an uncanny inclination towards groovy ways of being. Who hasn't woken to the irritating buzz, the monotonous vibrations of some insect or other in the depths of the night? What is the silly creature up to you may wonder, inspecting the unique folds and curves of your ear you suppose, likely with insidious intentions in mind, and so your hand darts up and swats randomly in the darkness. The buzzing goes away for a moment. But like an emotional crescendo following a silent bridge, there it is once more, with a vengeance, the pitch and cadence suggesting the tiny creature's renewed investment in carrying out its primitive task.

The animal world is constantly displaying its tendency towards rhythmatic ways of life, and yet for all their impressive skills, not one appears capable of enjoying the many varieties of human-made music. The exceptions prove the rule: a parrot which bobs in time to Ray Charles belies the patient training of its earnest owner. No, the animals are not impressed by our passion for musical creativity.

The Death of the Conspiracy Theory

Book review magazines around the net have been abuzz with the news that Dan Brown has recently released the cover artwork for his follow up to 'The Da Vinci Code' which is to be titled 'The Lost Symbol.' I'm sure it will be one of the biggest book releases in the history of ever. More copies sold than the bible. And, curiously enough, armchair intellectuals will congratulate themselves and Dan Brown for cracking open another mystery of religion and clandestine organizations, as well as being able to take those 'Bibley-types' down a peg. What a wonderful thing it is. Surely, there will be numerous companions and television specials deciphering all the strange coincidences and purported facts Dan Brown will enlighten us with. All of this is well and fine.

But it all makes me very very sad.

Conspiracy theory is a subject dear to my heart. I would never at any time degrade myself by proclaiming to be a 'conspiracy theorist.' I'll leave such titles to the uncreative and small of mind. A conspiracy theory is a jumble of information some of which may or may not be correct. In many cases it is a revision of history as we know it, or an ongoing plot that has yet to unfurl itself. But mainly, they are merely stories. That is all. My favorite conspiracy theories walk a tightrope between fact and fiction, providing me with enough points of reference that I may check them at some point and perhaps see a small grain of truth. Most of the time I get tiny snippets of information that inhabit the excluded middle; a place where Aristotelian logic dare not tread. An artful conspiracy theory is one that sounds true, has a bit of whimsy to it, perhaps a wink, but probably isn't true in any way. This doesn't exist anymore and I blame three current figures for killing it.

The first is Dan Brown. He has provided some intellectual element to conspiracy theory. His stories are enjoyed by middle aged people of moderate intelligent who don't read on a regular basis, as well as people stuck at airports. His well crafted books read like they were written by a quiet librarian who loved Indiana Jones. I have no quarrel with his writing, just the fact that atheists and fundamental materialists seem to take his Christianity-baiting at some sort of value. He knows he's writing crap, but many people buy it hook and sinker. Problem is, there's no line. Most of 'The Da Vinci' code was nicked from another book published in the early eighties, called 'Holy Blood, Holy Grail' which for my money is a brilliant work of artful conspiracy theory. Funny thing is, more people bought the theory when Dan Brown presented it, than when Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln published it. Funny how that works.

The second murderer is a fellow called David Icke, who was once so bold that he published a book called 'The Biggest Secret: The Book that Will Change the World.' In it, he solved the puzzle as to why the world is so fucked up. It just so happens to be because there is an Illuminati controlling everything. No big change here from numerous conspiracy theories of the past two hundred and fifty years, right? Well, this Illuminati is actually a race of alien reptiles that has crossbred with humans for centuries. Honestly, he totally believes this and people believe him as well. The other day a friend of mine was rambling on and on how she had done hours of research that day on it, and that it looks to be so. She told me about the reptile children in the Philippines and pictures of George W. Bush looking fairly reptilian. Infuriating to no end.

The last perpetrator is a right-wing loudmouth called Alex Jones. At first I found him to be somewhat amusing. Bat-shit crazy, but still amusing. He has over the last ten years gained considerable acclaim for some reason. His shtick is that there is a group of people, an Illuminati if you will, that want to make the entire planet into a prison and create a New World Order. Nothing freaks out the right-wing like having a single government ruling the world. He has a radio show and can also be found going to the Bilderberg Group meetings and screaming at them with a megaphone. You show them.

There was a time in which conspiracy theory was not merely about pointing a finger at some invisible force, and that some of those involved were seriously trying to find out what was going on. At the beginning of the John F. Kennedy craze, there were individuals who were considered lunatics at the time, earnestly trying to chip away at what was perhaps a genuine conspiracy. They didn't have a grand theory to begin with, they were just looking for more information. Mae Brussell uncovered information that after World War II, many high ranking Nazis waved a hankie at the oncoming American soldiers, gave over a bit of information, and were suddenly landing jobs within the FBI, the CIA, and other secret services. In these cases, they no longer became conspiracy theories, some became fact. Unfortunately, paranoia becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because both the JFK theorists and Mae Brussell began to believe everything they saw as suspicious, must be true. Something's not right, so everything must be wrong.

I guess what I'm trying to get at it the concept of belief in these theories. I had a good teacher, his name was Robert Anton Wilson. Back in the seventies, he co-wrote a series called the 'Illuminatus Trilogy.' These days it's somewhat dated, but it still has it's moments of brilliance and you will find plenty of theories that will make you sit back and scratch your head. As soon as a passage like this occurs, you can be assured that the next passage will snap you back to reality and slap you in the face for wanting to believe it in the first place. Bob Wilson was a cut above such conspiracy theorists at the time, He took every story he heard with a grain of salt and a wry smile. In a sense, he made us understand why we loved conspiracy, because we love the line between fact and fiction. He was a champion of the excluded middle, and a model agnostic who used conspiracy theory to show people that absolute belief is a dangerous thing in all respects. "All affirmations are true in some sense, false in some sense, meaningless in some sense, true and false in some sense, true and meaningless in some sense, false and meaningless in some sense, and true and false and meaningless in some sense..." He would quip.

Conspiracies are real. At any time there are thousands of conspiracies occurring, all over the world. Most of them blow up in a matter of years amid selfish human behavior and general pettiness. But conspiracies that deal with what happened in our past have no real bearing on our future, unfortunately. If you want to subscribe to Dan Brown's picture of the past, what you have is a worldview that is different, but in no way more interesting than what we have already. If you want to believe that there is a vast ongoing conspiracy, you're stuck with an unimaginative hold on life that is less than empowering. It's far too comforting to see some force guiding all of the bad events that occur before us. The world is far more frightening than an Illuminati dictating it's whims. The truth is, this world is utterly chaotic. Nobody is in control. We are rudderless.

In a post-9/11 reality, we now have so much information we don't know what to do with it. We are stuck with generations of people that are beginning to question everything and make up their own answers as they see fit. This is unfortunate because all that is needed is to... Simply... Question... Everything.

The Great Stupor; or the depravity of a gluttonous rodent

No, I would not like to play another game of spider solitaire, you arrogant automated prompt, but I will take a quick peek at my statistics so that I might know the abstract measure of my progress. And it's not so good, indeed, it's very bad. While the world turns, and people welcome babies and bid farewell to the dead, my record with spider solitaire sits at a measly 10% of games won. Let me punch the numbers for a minute... carry the 7, divided by the variance of equal rotundity across the southern axis... yes, one minute more... multiplied by the slightly diminished power of 'W'... rooted by the inverse bulbousness of a chipmunk's cheeks..., I have it now, that makes 10% of games won, 90% games lost. Embarrassing really. Well, I do play it at its most challenging, that's right, all four suits. Yeah, I know, that's kind of awesome, awesome like Sarah Palin's presence in the public sphere. "How is this possible!?" one might fairly inquire.

But enough of my dominance of a venerable microsoft time waister, on to other things, important things, dare I claim alternative things? I'm wondering about something I read recently about sickness and depravity. The quote goes something like, "Illness and despair are often only forms of depravity." The words are attributed to a fictional character, Lodovico Settembrini, in a book of fiction, The Magic Mountain, written by the flesh-and-blood, decidedly nonfictional writer Thomas Mann. So Mann has Settembrini talking with the book's supposed hero, probably an anti-hero if one were to be pretentious about it, Hans Castorp, when he says, I repeat, "Illness and despair are often only forms of depravity." Hmm. I think he's right, at least from my particular view, singular in the sense of one brain/one consciousness, not in the sense of inimitableness, if you catch my sense.

My own bouts with despair regularly leave me feeling tainted and hollow, shamed somehow. I sit at the end of the day, perched on my daily labors of procrastination and regret, and I say to myself, "Woe is me." But so ordinary has this routine become, I don't need the words themselves to pronounce on my woe, for they merely abstractly signify something much more viscerally felt, in my bones and blood. So more often than not, I do not say, "Woe is me," rather I say nothing, but instead feel my woes and do not think them or about them. But like my ongoing love affair with spider solitaire, this is becoming deeply redundant. I'm at a loss, and not satisfied with it. Let's return to the magic mountain to see what happens.

Eventually Mann has the fictional Castorp rejoining, "But illness as a form of depravity? Which means, not that it arises from depravity, but is itself depravity? Now that's a paradox." Hmm, good point Mann via Castorp, though I agree with Mann via Settembrini who goes on to counter, "Paradox is the poison flower of quietism, the iridescent sheen of a putrefied mind, the greatest depravity of all(!)." I have added the exclamation mark to modernize the text, but even without my editing the final parry by Settembrini slaps me across the face, and the many nuts and legumes which I was storing in my capacious cheeks are violently expelled, glistening with saliva, making a disgusting mess of the place.

Yes! The paradox of my dissatisfaction with the daily grind of nothing special, and my robust reluctance to change, itself constitutes my place among the highest orders of depravity! Therein lies the source of my weather-worn ennui, my predictable gloom! Yes, as it is with the host of fictional characters who populate Mann's fictional sanatorium for the wealthy and privileged, despair is a form of depravity, in our cases at least. Like them, my despair is completely self-originating, it begins deep from within myself, from my spurious self-analysis onto tendentious and specious claims about myself (all italicized adjectives are here meant to stand for 'false'). It's true, any despair I feel is a sign of the depraved depths into which I have dug myself. But, lo! What's this!?

I have my trusty ladder constructed out of that eternal well-spring of will, of self control and direction. It appears before my eyes as thoughts of personal responsibility and dignity grow from vague whispers to loud exclamations cascading out of my recently emptied mouth. No more will this maw choke itself on regrettable regrets and shameful shames.

No more illness for e. herzen,
which is to say no more despair.
I'll immediately get to the healing,
first a game of solitaire.

Life Inc. Dispatch

Life Inc. Dispatch 07: Less is More from Douglas Rushkoff on Vimeo.

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