Sopa & Pipa

Hush and blowjob. That's what these acronyms sound like in Greek and I believe this is telling. These bills are another two examples of government overreaching into a realm where they do not belong and should not control. The internet is the most amazing tool invented in our century hands down and government wants to take hold of it and tell you and me and everyone else what they can see. Government want to take that decision away from you and put it in their own hands and in the hands of corporations. It's your decision.

Aristotle and Politics, and Repeat, and Repeat, and Repeat, and . . .

The return of a friend from abroad has re-sparked my desire to write. Some years ago, he was your average american, ie, a deft creation of ignorance and apathy. Today, he is considerably more well informed and, who knows, he may actually give a shit. The reason why I bring him up is because the subject, and the word, friend, has been weighing heavily on my mind for many months. I've been having an existentialist crisis and have been consulting the "experts". I've been doing an enormous amount of reading. "What is Called Thinking? by Heidegger, "Thus Spake Zarathustra" by Nietzsche, "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus. In order to liven it up a little I began to read "The World as Will and Representation" by the greatest optimist (wink)of all time, Schopenhauer. (If you got that joke, good. Hi Lenz. If not, you...um, well, you missed it.) As Whitehead said (I'm paraphrasing)- all philosophy is a footnote to Plato. Because the problems of friendship, life, love, happiness, have been tackled by greater minds than our own when they sat down and thought of these things long ago, I find myself going back to the Ancient Greeks. Aristotle said a friend is one soul in two bodies. This is poignant to me because if one follows this statement through, friends who cease being friends are tearing a soul apart.

It turns out Aristotle was pretty damn smart. He wrote something called Politics which of course has no rival except maybe the Republic (Plato). Aristotle looked at all political systems in his book, and basically comes to the conclusion that he didn't like any of them and they all sucked, which in my eyes begs the question, Aristotle came to this conclusion a long time ago. Aristotle basically defined western civilization (no really) as we know it today, why hasn't anyone ran with this conclusion?



P.S.

The above picture is Heraclitus correctly pronounced EE-RA-KLEE-TOS.
In response to my rhetorical question (which Aristotle literally wrote the book on) my answer is Πάντα ῥεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει.
Speaking of responses, in response to Whitehead's quote about Plato, G.E.M. Anscombe said that all philosophy is a footnote to Parmenides. Leave it to a woman to split hairs and play dirty.

The Case of Sagging Pants

Dress is something foremost in the human mind. The human animal wakes and gets dressed. Dressing is protection against weather and simultaneously a form of self expression and these two worlds overlap except for extreme cases. Lady Gaga would not wear one of her couture outfits to her gym for example and would not wear jeans and dirty t shirt to the funeral of a close relative or friend. I use her as an example only.

This entry is about sagging pants. Recently an acquaintance uploaded a YouTube video about really skinny jeans, discussing their effeminacy and even their sexuality. Now I don't mean baggy pants that sag, but pants worn purposely (with a belt!) under the ass with their undergarments in full view. I, don't care a flip about your boxers but if I did, I'd ask so put you damn pants on please. Men just like women like their pants to say something about them but what do sagging pants say beside, "I think this is a fashion statement." Their are many fashion habits I look at confused because of aesthetics but none due to functionality.

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