I am sick of being the nice guy again. Grrrrrrr

I just want to announce to the word every stupid and smetimes immral thing that I have ever done, just so that the world would know that I'm not so great.

Of course, I won't do that becaue I'm afraid too many people would go down the list and say..."big whoop, I've done all those things too." Then my thunder would be gone.

I do want to say that I find it very ironic that had I, at any of the points of my life where I've been majorly tempted to do so, been a horrible person and do things not in accordance to the nice guy code, I would be a much happier person now...the stigma of being so damn nice wouldnt be there and I would not be treated like a fragile peice of glass by everyone. Man, maybe then I could have even been a real person instead of some cartoon character figment of peoples' imaginations.

I have a fifteen year-old brother and he has some fifteen year-old friends. Right now it is summer vacation, and what do they do with it? Today the three of them woke up at one of their houses, played some video games and then went over to my dad's. At my dads, they turned on the tv and played Vice City on Playstation2. Once I got off an icq chat, they hopped on the computer too. They stayed on the tv for four hours, and my brother just got down with a seven hour marathon session playing some internet video game and chatting with a friend that he had hung out with earlier and that lives down the street. What's up with that?

When I was fifteen, my summers were spent playing football with my friends, running around like idiots at the mall, going to movies, and talking on the phone with our "girlfriends". Yeah, there was some playing the nintendo or on the single 386 computer that one of my friend's parents had...but it was mostly getting out of the house and doing stuff stuff that we did. But the day that I described for my brother is not that unusual. And I don't think it's that unusual for others in their teens this summer.

When I substitute taught a few years back I overheard kids mentioning the internet way too much. Not in the research way or even in an entertainment sort of way...but in a communicative way...amongst eah other. They had chatrooms set up, chatrooms for kids that went to the same school. Thoughts to my meeting my high school chums at Denny's every weekend and McDonald's during the week popped into my head...what ever happened to face to face hanging out?

I only write this because it brings me to a larger question. I have vivid memories of my childhood summers. I remember running around the neighborhood and terrorizing neighbors. I remember sneaking out and doing stuff. I remember going to the mall and playing baseball...will kids these days remember their summers? I mean, computer time, I find, becomes a void in my memory. Especially when it comes to games -- too often ten hours sometimes slipping through with nary a thought to ponder back upon. But what's this trend going to do to the kids these days when they're older and have nothing to look back at? How different are their lives going to be because of it?

We Deserve the Truth

Hehe...this is funny: Terms of engagement -- a newspeak glossary to keep up with the times. I like these the best:

Fox News - The Ministry of Truth.
Eye-Raq - A democracy-seeking Arab state that volunteered for mentoring and tutelage from Washington in exchange for helping out American drivers of SUV's.

I love my senator, he's really been stepping up to the plate on this whole war thing lately:

When asked about the administration's use of intelligence on Iraq's weapons that led to the war, Wolfowitz talked for the first time about the "nature of terrorism intelligence as intrinsically murky." He then linked Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and said the report from the joint Congressional Committee on Intelligence that was released Thursday implies that "we should have connected the dots."

"Boy, it sure didn't sound murky before the war," Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said on CBS's "Face the Nation" when asked about the Wolfowitz statement. "There were clear connections we were told between al Qaeda and Iraq. There was no murkiness, no nuance, no uncertainty about it at all."

The Washington Post

I've decided that having a full beard is, to me, more important than keeping my job delivering pizzas (full beards being against the dress code at the pizza place). Which I guess is just as well as my car is having this nasty tendency to overheat oh so easily...hissing every time I start the engine. In any case, I just thought I'd share that. I don't know why.

Today I was walking down to the courthouse to drop off some paperwork when just down the block from my apartment a dog saw me. He ran across the street and started walking five feet behind me...so I crossed the street, hoping he wouldn't folow me and he'd go back from whence he came. Nope, he followed me. Not wanting to lead the dog downtown to busy streets and all sorts of troubles, I turned around and walked back home. He followed me then too even though I was hoping that he'd get the point and leave me alone. Well, I get home, go in, and look out the front window -- he's standing out there on the sidewalk, looking at the door, tongue hanging out of his panting mouth. A couple seconds later, he moves on a house, only to look back at my door.

He was an ugle dog...he didn't even have a tail...but boy did I went to let him in and keep him. I'm a sucker for that sort of thing, really. I'm a freakin dog person and I'm reminded every time some dog follows me home (or when my cat acts all catty). sheesh. If ayone out there wants to give me a real job so that I can afford a house so that I can get a dog, email me dagnabit.

Friday night I did what I always do – watched a movie. I do it all the time for reasons that I don’t know, even though I did so by myself this time (and, to be fair, the last few hundred times probably) but this time the movie brought upon me an epiphany. I want to share…

The movie that I watched this time was Chasing Amy, a movie I’d seen many times before but for some reason had never gotten. Usually I view it as a story of what can happen when friends try to move beyond friendship into something more and also about the importance of truth in a relationship, but this time it dawned on me that that wasn’t it at all. It’s about more than that, something simpler than that. It’s about love. True love.

The whole story lends itself pretty easily to my original conclusion just in the way that Kevin Smith wrote in the entire plot of a lesbian and a guy becoming good friends only to have the guy announce his love to her and stuff happening as a result. The premise flows naturally into the issue of truth as the girl involved had had many experiences in life that she hadn’t shared and he, of course, eventually finds out about them and everything crumbles apart. I don’t know why I’ve always thought that that was all that drew me to it.

What I realized this time was that Kevin Smith was telling a story about how it doesn’t matter what happened in the past of the person you love. It doesn’t matter that two people don’t share the same experiences in the past. What matters are the present and the future. What matters are the experiences that two people in love share with each other. Everything else is null and void.

Maybe that’s the only aspect of life where that is the truly the case, but it is something that I think I’ve grasped in the last few years that I don’t think a lot of other people really have. And maybe it’s because I’ve grasped them that I never really saw that before…I don’t know. You see, I’m not very experienced in sex and love to tell you the truth and pretty much every girl that I come across in life is much more experienced that me – had more “adventures” if you will. That used to bother me…I used to look only for girls that had the same or less experience than me, never finding them, instead finding awesome girls that had had some, or much more than me. That bothered me.

I guess things started to change for me when I fell in love a few years back…with a girl that was an ex-cocaine addict and a more-or-less alcoholic that was not quite virginal. Somehow, none of that mattered to me even though I thought it should because, frankly, I was feeling quite inadequate and very naïve in the time that I was with her. Those were demons that I chased when she wasn’t around however, when I was with her they weren’t there at all.

Before then I was a twenty-year-old virgin who had never had more than a single drink and had never even thought of doing drugs (or, it might be the case, been around them). I believed most highly in never involving myself with a girl that wasn’t a virgin herself, a girl who drank, or a girl who did drugs. But somehow all of that subsided with her…as I did a little Amy-chasing myself.

And through the years that followed I learned the lesson over and over again as I kept finding girls that were interesting to me and yet were much more world-experienced than I was…each time figuring out that those experiences didn’t matter as much as I thought maybe they did. No, as time went on I realized that what did matter, the only thing that mattered was that I was interested in her and she in me…in the here and now…and that that interest was allowed to blossom itself into love. The past was irrelevant.

And now, today, as I write this, I can honestly say that I believe that. Not too long ago I had a conversation about sex and love and marriage and when the person I was talking to asked me if I could ever marry a girl with more experience than me I said “I don’t care”.

And it was, for some reason, bothering me today as I thought about that conversation (as something I saw on TV reminded me of another part of it). Did I believe that? Is it wrong for me to not care? Am I just leaving myself out in the wide open because I don’t want to exclude any chances? And the answers, in order are no, no, and no. I just honestly believe that if you love someone, what that person has done (and with who) is completely irrelevant (except, perhaps, in terms of STDs) to what you and that person are currently doing and what you will do in the time you have together – whether it’s a month, a year, or a lifetime. What matters is the bond you share, the oneness that you feel, the completeness in your soul that the other creates. What matters is how you feel and how you see yourself feeling in the future, and the desire in your heart to do whatever it takes to help that other person feel the same way. That is what love is all about.

I just wanted to post a note to say that I more than likely will not be posting much for the next couple of weeks. My roommate didn't pay the phonebill, so I have no way to connect through dial-up and will never again. I will get cable in a bit, however, I'm moving (probably) in the next three or four weeks so getting it hooked up now would be kind of stupid.

I do still have access while here at the library and will also when I visit my dad's on most weekends...but that'll be all...so, you'll have to go throught hte archives or whatever for your necessary hits of kyledom.

Peace out.

I swear, at least one out of every five, maybe ten, e-mails that I get are ads for increasing the length (and stamina) of my penis. Why God why? I'm satrting to develop a complex or something. Geez...how can I make them stop? And there all so clever too...I end up reading them once and awhile. Man.

But anyway, I'm drunk right now.

Funny thing is...I haven't even been buzzed in like two months and I realized it today while chatting with a friend. I had to fix that I thought and so I bought a fifth of Beam. I'm half-way through it right now and feeling realll, really happy. Or whatever the drunken equivalent of happiness is. Ah. I had forgotten how good it felt. I least I know that since I went two months without realizing it, that I'm definitely NOT an alcoholic. suh-weet.

My mind and heart are in a blender right now...set on puree.

You know, I realize that I've been a little "over the top", politically speaking, with this blog during the past week or so. All this evidence that points to the fact that we went to war and killed a bunch of people over the ideology of a few instead of over the facts (using false facts to try to make it look otherwise) is just royally pissing me off. Not that I was for the war or anything (as my archives will demonstrate to any newer reader), but the fact that the president had the audacity to pick and choose his intelligence to form a case that probably wouldn't have come together naturally without the picking and the choosing just pushes me over the ledge. I will never trust the man again...at all (I mean, I at least believed that Iraq had an operational weapons program before the war...or at least stockpiles...so I can't say I wasn't duped myself to some extent).

That being said, I find the flare-up over the political cartoon in the LA Times to be completely uncalled for and ridiculously out of touch with the principles of the First Amendment. (see, I'm defending a pro-Bush cartoonist)

For those not in touch with the situation, here.

Wow. The Freak™ has said something that neither makes me scared, want to never have children that I would be forced to hide from him at all times, or want to vomit:

Pop icon Michael Jackson comes out against locking up music pirates

Okay, the question has been asked, and I will answer: What's with the name "pques"?

It's kind of an out of left-field sort of story, one of those "I would never would have thought that" sorts of things, but one that usually leaves people saying, "okay, now it makes sense"...but of course leaves this taste of disatisfaction in their mouths. Because, really, it's kinda lame.

So anyway, it's 1995 or 1996 and I'm looking to get an e-mail address that I can use from somewhere other than school (since back in those middle ages of the internet, such a thing was not so easy to do) so I turned to Yahoo. My first name's "kyle" and I often signed just the letter "k" at the end of messages, so I thought it'd be swell if I could get an e-mail address that was simply that letter -- in some form. Well, just the letter "k" is too short for an e-mail and stuff like _k_ or k__ was just too cumbersome...so I looked to the Spanish language for help. I tried "que", but it was taken, so I tried "ques" but it was also taken... Okay, well I was already adding letters to the word, so I figured that I might as well add a silent letter to the beginning of the word "que" (or "ques") so I tried "t" as that can be used in the english language... "tque" and "tques" looked kinda dumb as far as I was concerned, so I moved on to "p".... I don't rememeber if "pque" was taken, but in any case, "pques" had this look to it that I liked...with all sorts of curvy letters and stuff, so I settled on that. As an old website of mine used to say "pques -- the evolution of the letter K". And that's what it is, and it's pronounced that way too.

So anyway, that's the story of my internet handle...had it now for almost 8 years which is itself, I guess, something to be proud off as many people switch off from time to time. I like it though, it's kinda cool, kinda mysterous, and when the origins come to light...kinda dorky. But dorky in the good way.

Okay, so you know how the president has been saying all along that Saddam could use chemical or biological weapons against us at any time and that was the main reason that we had to go in there NOW instead of letting the diplomatic approach (weapon's inspectors) take it's time? Well, according to the intelligence community, that was not the case. They released a classified report stating that Saddam would probably NOT use his weapons unless provoked in the form of our invasion...in fact, the report (which has now been declassifed in part) concluded that Saddam would be more of a threat if we invaded and he was deposed -- for the very fact that he'd have nothing to lose anymore.

The Washington Post reports.

So, in a nutshell, the story that is develpoing of the entire situation is that Bush picked up pieces of intel that made it sound like we were in real danger, while completely ignoring pieces of intel that made us sound safe -- including the professional opinion of the entire intel community -- in order to get us to war. Say what you will, but that is deception of the highest order and so incredibly not appropriate in a respresentative democracy where things are done in the voters' names by people that we voted in because we thought they'd represent us. This is not the case, not at all. Every American should be outraged....EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US and I'm even more disgusted that there are so many still standing up for this man.

This is totally unacceptable. Totally freakin' unconstitutional as well...and dangerous -- we now live in a more dangerous world than we did before the war, and the intelligence community knew we would and told the president so...and the president ignored them.

Don't you hate it when you got big news that you just want to tell everyone but no one will answer their damn phones or call you back so you can't tell anyone and so all the giddiness that's inside you swells to the point of wanting to burst until you just have to swallow it and forget it...the giddiness gone and the excitement entirely diminished? Yeah, so do I.

Here's the story: A teenager dies in a car accident and the father donates the kid's organs (and bones) to the Red Cross for transplant purposes. That's all nice and stuff right? However, the man's daughter had gone through a $300,000 liver transplant and so the man was pissed, requesting the Red Cross to make sure that no one makes money off of the body parts. The Red Cross cannot garauntee this, so they send the body parts back to the funeral home via FED-EX. How messed up is that? The Red Cross has been doing too much lately to piss me off. I'm telling you...

Body parts' return shocks dad

And then Judicial Watch and Sierra Club's FOIA procedings against Dick Cheney's energy task group was able to obtain maps and papers that were focused on Iraq's oil fields...all done in March of 2001, well before there was any talk of ivasion...not that that necessarily means that the administration had eyes on Iraqi oil fields..but it the adminstration couldn't have asked for a worse time for them to come out. Just some more fuel for the fire, eh? (pun not intended):

Documents to Cheney's 2001 energy task force include details on Iraqi oil industry

This is very interesting and educational reading on the neocon movement in the current adminstration. I'd seen the term, had guesses, and knew who were members, but it filled in the gaps for me.

Now the White House is admitting that they fudged reality a bit in Bush's commenting in two different speeches that Iraq had the capability of using WMD within 45 minutes...who'd have thunk they'd lie?

White House Didn't Gain CIA Nod for Claim On Iraqi Strikes

I'm about ready to start a pool as to what other piece of "evidence" is found faulty next...any takers?

July 19, 2002 -- Janet Reno has a dance party, I ride the bus home from work, and later that night I get online and start up this blog. Yup, it's official, "title of the blog" (as I chose for a name because I've always been horrible with titles) is one year old today. hip hip hooray!

What have we learned? Not much, really. My posts continue to be rather inane and the like, sparkled with sometimes-inspiration. I'm okay with that actually, writing more or less daily it's going to be hit or miss with what comes off as inspired. Frankly, most of it isn't. Too bad.

I have gone through a very public time of turbulance and came out of it for the better, I think at least. A little more cynical perhaps, but that just comes with growing older and experiencing more in life methinks.

This blog has chronicled some of the stupid ass shit that the Bush administration has done over the past year -- stripping us from some of our constitutional rights and threatening to take away more...and in between the threats and warrants came some bomb-dropping over Baghdad that killed a bunch of innocent people.

All in all, I think I am very proud of this here blog. Needless to say, not many last this long (my first attempts certainly did not), and so I find this being in a group of maybe 10% of blogs that have done so. Any one that might read this and have a blog last this long should be proud of that fact as well.

Well, enough of the self-congratulatory stuff, on with year two...

Geez...this article about the State of Minnesota and Twin Cities putting up barricades for the homeless under over-passes so that they couldn't sleep there (and it's a big deal because there aren't many other places that the homeless can get out of the rain) was getting me angry. The fact that the governments involved would spend money doing this, hurting homless people even more than they're alread hurt, while at the same time cutting back on programs to help the homless seems doubly harsh...especially when the economy's down and more people are in more trouble. I was going to go on a rant though, until I got to the last paragraph of the story and almost cried:

"Of course [putting up the barriers] doesn't solve anything. People are already having a hardship. This just makes it a little harder. We're still going to be outside," he says. Then, with a sweep of his arm, he gestures toward the Simpson shelter and asks: "Why don't we just have money for more places like this?"

I wish I could do something to help...this is when I wish I was a superhero.

Not all American military deaths are reported by the media it turns out. The count of combat deaths stands at around 150 (depending on when you read this), while non-combat related deaths include another 80 or so. An article about it can be found here while a website dedicated to recording all coalition deaths (and their details) can be found here.

So by now we've all heard about the reports from Iraq that the morale is low and soldiers are pissed off at having been told three times now that they were going to be leaving only to be told later that they're going to have to stay. Well, supposedly, the story is meaningless because not only is the reporter that filed the report gay, but he's a canuck.

That just totally smashes the story to bits, doesn't it? Yeah, me neither. But the White House was hoping it would. Seesh...harassassing reporters and trying to discredit them is all that the White House can do these days, isn't it? Why can't W inc. take responsibility for any of their mistakes in this whole Iraq thing? They just keep trying to shove blame on others and all it does is make things worse, no?

Reason #587 why Bush should not be re-elected.


Speaking of pitiful, this is good.

Geez...not even controversial topics bring out the comments like I wanted them to. *sigh*

</guilttripping>

Someone at least call me a commie or something... :)

See, it's good for you:

Masturbating may protect against prostate cancer

God bless King George

Dear God, please make Pat Robertson go away... Amen.

Praying For Supreme Court Shake Up

Seriously, why do people listen to this man who asks God to get rid of Supreme Court justices? Could you be more loony than that, really? You know, it is people like Pat Robertson (rich white guys who use vast fortunes obtained through their ministries to support dictators so that they can make more money "in the name of God") that are largely responsible for me turning away from the church a few years ago. I'm not taking it out on God, mind you, anything but...just those that profess Love for Him publically so that they can fly planes to Zaire to pick up diamonds under the guise of humanitarianism.

"Every good Christian should line up and kick Jerry Falwell's ass." -Barry Goldwater

Oh, wow, I found the weapons of mass destruction, they're right here....hmmm, I swear they were just there a minute ago...

Your Results:

1. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (100%)
2. Green Party Candidate (93%)
3. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (90%)
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5. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (73%)
6. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (72%)
7. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (70%)
8. Leahy, Patrick Senator, Vermont - Democrat (70%)
9. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (64%)
10. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (64%)
11. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (63%)
12. Jackson, Cong. Jesse Jr., IL - Democrat (63%)
13. Feingold, Senator Russ, WI - Democrat (62%)
14. Biden, Senator Joe, DE - Democrat (60%)
15. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (56%)
16. Kaptur, Cong. Marcy, OH - Democrat (50%)
17. Clark, Retired Army General Wesley K "Wes" Arkansas - Democrat (50%)
18. Feinstein, Senator Dianne, CA - Democrat (44%)
19. Bradley, Former Senator Bill NJ - Democrat (40%)
20. Libertarian Candidate (34%)
21. McCain, Senator John, AZ- Republican (27%)
22. Bush, George W. - US President (21%)
23. Buchanan, Patrick J. – Reform/Republican (16%)
24. Hagelin, John - Natural Law (16%)
25. Vilsack, Governor. Tom IA - Democrat (7%)
26. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (5%)
27. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (0%)

SelectSmart.com 2004 Presidential Candidate Selector

Thank God for unemployment. I just got my letter in the mail and I will be able to get enough to live off of for four months. Not enough to save money or make too big of payments on debt sort of money, but enough to buy food, pay rent, andthat sort of thing. whew. That's a huge relief.

But, unforetunately, in the last fifteen minutes since I've checked my mail I've felt "the fear" subside. That was the thing getting me to want to go look for a job -- the thing that has gotten me online pouring through want ads for three weeks. Now I don't *have* to do that. I can subsist. That's kind of shitty. That, and I really want to go to freakin' Europe (though I may not have to do that either)...so now, maybe that I don't *have* to get a job, that cynical side of me that likes to flip off the world will say "go fuck yourself unemployment office, I don't need yer fucking checks..."

we'll see.

One of the situations I hate most in life is when someone tells a joke that is not really funny or they say something is is just blatently wrong. It's not that I think anything less of them or anything (God knows, I say stupid things too), it's just what do you say?

Well, after the president "forgot" recent world history of which he was an integral part, and said that the war in Iraq started because Saddam Hussein would not let the inspectors in (which, in fact, he did...to much news coverage), Dana Priest and Dana Milbank of the Washington Post were able to report on His Retardness with calm, candor, and tact:

Bush said the CIA's doubts about the charge -- that Iraq sought to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore in Africa -- were "subsequent" to the Jan. 28 State of the Union speech in which Bush made the allegation. Defending the broader decision to go to war with Iraq, the president said the decision was made after he gave Saddam Hussein "a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in."

Bush's position was at odds with those of his own aides, who acknowledged over the weekend that the CIA raised doubts that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger more than four months before Bush's speech.

The president's assertion that the war began because Iraq did not admit inspectors appeared to contradict the events leading up to war this spring: Hussein had, in fact, admitted the inspectors and Bush had opposed extending their work because he did not believe them effective.

link

"Appeared to contradict the avents leading up to the war..." Wow, that is good. I don't think I could refrain and call the President a retard like I did above. hmph.

Wow. The president has been caught in at least one lie, and in trying to justify it, he says this in a Q&A:

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, Dana, one last question.

Q Mr. President, back on the question of Iraq, and that specific line that has been in question --

THE PRESIDENT: Can you cite the line? (Laughter.)

Q I could, if you gave me some time.

THE PRESIDENT: When I gave the speech, the line was relevant.

Q So even though there has been some question about the intelligence -- the intelligence community knowing beforehand that perhaps it wasn't, you still believe that when you gave it --

THE PRESIDENT: Well, the speech that I gave was cleared by the CIA. And, look, the thing that's important to realize is that we're constantly gathering data. Subsequent to the speech, the CIA had some doubts. But when I gave the -- when they talked about the speech and when they looked at the speech, it was cleared. Otherwise, I wouldn't have put it in the speech. I'm not interested in talking about intelligence unless it's cleared by the CIA. And as Director Tenet said, it was cleared by the CIA.

The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful.

[emphasis mine]

What the fuck? Hussein didn't allow the inspectors in so we had to go in and bomb the living shit out the Iraqis to get Hussein out? Was I dreaming when, before the war, the moving and talking pictures on the television were telling me that the inspectors were in Iraq and weren't finding anything? Was I hallucinating when I was reading about our European allies wanting to give those inspectors more time to do things diplomatically and without the bloodshed? I swear I was awake and alert, I swear that these things happened. But the president doesn't seem to remember them. WHO THE FUCK VOTED FOR THIS GUY AND WHY IS HIS APPROVAL RATING STILL HIGHER THAN 50%?!?!?!?!

Sorry.

Oh, by the way, the above text is provided by the federal government via the whitehouse's website.

Okay, now I'm getting all politicall on your asses and talking about abortion.

I don't know why I've been thinking about the the issue lately, but I have been...and I'm confused. I think this is one of those areas that my philosophy training has destroyed me, or at least thrown me into the arena of confusion and ambivilence. See, the thing is, my heart tells me that it's wrong...that it's murder, that life begins at conception and that it is an evil that must be made illegal for anyone to commit. Religiously, I want to believe that life is precious and that once it starts it should be protected at all costs. Analyzing that a bit and trying to figure out when, exactly, life begins (and therefore becomes a crime to inhibit) if it's not at conception, I can't come up with anything. Obviously we are alive at birth, and it seems to me wrong to kill a child in the womb ala "partial-birth abortion" that would survive outside the womb as a premie. But there is little that changes in the physiology of the child from the time a fetus is seven or eight months developed and four or five months developed except survivability and maturity and operationality of internal organs and the like.

But that is where it all gets confusing to me.

If life is life in the second trimester, as I believe, then what would make it not life in the first? I don't know. I definitely belive that abortion is wrong in the second two-thirds of a pregnancy, but what can I use as an excuse in the first third? I want to believe that life is precious from the time that sperm meets egg, but the problems start arising then...

Okay, if a woman miscarries in the eighth month of pregnancy, there is often a name given to the child, a funeral even, and a memory that continues throughout that child's family's lifetime. But what happens when a fetus is miscarried after two months? It's not the same. There is sadness, there is often depression, but the funeral is lacking, the name is usually not given, and those women that I know that have gone through such a thing -- a tendancy to forget in time. It is an unfortunate occurance. Psychologically then, we do not inately put as high regard on the "life" of an immature fetus as we do on a mature one. I can't help but feel that that means something. Doesn't it? There just seems to be a higher inherent value in the life of the older fetus and a lesser, more "routine" feeling towards the loss of the younger. The earlier miscarriage is seen more as a "medical mishap" than as a death...even by those that believe more strongly than I do in the conception definition of human life. And that is where I am lost in the issue.

Philosophically, however, I tend to take a Pascalian view of the issue. That is there are two causes to which there can be two effects: Either abortion is murder or abortion is not and therefore it can be illegal or legal to commit. Obviously, if life begins at conception and abortion is therefore murder, then it should be made illegal. However, if life does not begin at conception then it is not murder and should therefore not be considered illegal. But, the things is, we do not know. Therefore, we have to make our best judgement based on the other two combinations: abortion is murder but not illegal and abortion is not murder and illegal. Because we do not know which is the case, we must look at these two options through the blindness of our ignorance:

If abortion is murder (and I use that to abbreviate the idea that life begins at conception and the termination of life is murder) then by keeping it legal we are, in fact, sanctioning mass murder, albeit ignorantly. If, however, abortion is not murder, then the worst that we would be doing is preventing women from terminating an unwanted pregancy and doing to her body what she wants. In our ignorance, these are the two possible wrongs that could come of whatever choice we make (the two right being described in the above paragraph), both are wrong, but which is more wrong?

So we take the two possibilties and simplify them to their basic sin: The first -- that abortion is murder and we allow it -- leads to mass murder through our ignorance. The second -- that abortion is not murder and we do not allow it -- leads to denial of personal rights through our ignorance. Somehow, mass murder seems worse to me than denial of personal choice.

But that is such a shakey leg to stand on...philosophical mumbo-jumbo and a bunch of "what ifs". I wish there was something more, answers of some sort, but there aren't. So I am left with these conflicting views that my heart presents, my psycological intuition presents, and my philosophical analysis presents. I don't like it. Not at all.

Finally I am free. Today I was driving down the street and I saw an old man collapse over his walker...bot a heart attack or anything, just a slip and fall sort of thing. I saw it and was suddenly thrown into my usual superman-esque "here we go again, kyle's gotta save the day" mode when I saw two -- count 'em TWO -- people go to his aid before I even had a chance to pull over to help him out and save the day and yada yada yada. Thank goodness, I'm sick of the nice guy schtick again...it gets me nowhere...but I'd feel so guilty if there wasn't anyone else out there to fill the vacuum...now I don't have to care and can not care in peace.

Earlier I mentioned the way that some at my job were working so fast that it was the main reason we got let go as early as we did...well guess who I ran into in the unemployment line today? The fastest of the bunch. Fucker.

So I'm unemployed, as I've mentioned, aside from my delivery gig a couple nights a week...you'd think that'd be motivation for me to go out and look for a job, right? ehehe. Geez. I can't even get up off my lazy ass to file for friggin unemployment. THAT's how lazy I am and I'm gonna be feeling it real bad come the end of the month. Oh well.

Crap. I bought an air conditioner for my room yesterday and now I fear leaving my room and having to go out into the hot humid apartment. Eek! It was nice, however, to sleep with blankets on last night. Let me tell you...

Wanna see how big a man I am? I went to my dad's today and when I got there I played with the neighbor's three-year-old, letting him climb all over me and mess up my hair to make me look like a clown and a "spider" (kids...). When that was over, I played with my dad's new puppy and had a blast. I love puppy's and kids and playing with both. There's not much better in life than that. What a good day.

And how does this show that I am a man? You might ask. Simply by the fact that I am not afraid to admit it. :)

...and another good thing about today was that the skies opened up and took some of the heat away. I may be able to sleep tonight hallelujah!

One of the things that I have been thinking a lot about lately is peoples' shortsightedness. The job that I was working until last week was paramount to the thoughts. Here was a job that had a definite and set amount of work to be done and it was over -- the faster we worked, the shorter the job would last. The more thoroughly we did our work, the longer the project would last. But people raced through the work, and when time came to analyze what we had just gotten accomplished too quickly (the reason the firm I worked for having been granted the contract), they would sit on their hands and not offer any insight. I couldn't help but be befuddled...here I was working with people that neither wanted to do their job well (evidenced by their not offering the input they were being asked for) nor did they want to preserve their employment (evidenced by their racing through the work). I don't get it.

I am reminded of the dog that my parents used to have. When his bowl was filled with food, he would wolf it down almost immediately. There was no recognition of the fact that if he did not eat it all as quickly as possible, it would still be there. There was no understanding of the fact that if he ate more slowly, and only when he needed to eat, that he could spread out his eating and eat more often than the once or twice a day that he was actually fed.

There was, in effect, no realization that the future was affected by his current doings. There was no abilty to thinking temporally. Everything was now and in the now. The future -- unknown and not worried about. There were no consequences to their actions. There is no ability to see what will come and what will be needed once there. And that is also something that I do not understand.

Eat, drink, and be merry is not a life philosophy that will lead you to a long and prosperous life. It may be fun, and it may provide a maximum value to life in the present, but in the long term it is not. When an engine runs at full power it runs out of gas more quickly, the star that burns most brightly goes supernova exponentially more quickly. Plans must be made for the future, or the future will be grim indeed. There'll be no food in the bowl and no job to put more food in the bowl.

I'm laying here on my bed, writing in my blog, and can hear the fireworks going off downtown. I wasn't able to go because I had to work. I was only to scheduled to work until 8:30 which would've left me more than enough time to get down their before dark, but because people didn't show up for work, I got stuck there later thus ruining my holiday.

I say "people" but there was only one person that didn't show up -- one of four though so it makes all the difference in the world. And I say "person" instead of "friend" because she has done this to me at least once every other week for the last three months -- placing her desire to go out and have fun over those of anyone else's, even her friends...fucking them over again and again and again. I can only forgive so many times.

I don't know how people can do that...I am always one to be weary of how my actions affect others and will make small sacrifices if the impact on others is too great...especially on friends. But I have been used and abused and spat upon enough times to know that I am of a very small minority when it comes to this. Which, of course, means that I don't even try to fight it any more -- but, rather, expect it (which itself is shameful) -- but I'd still like to know why so many other people are so capable and willing to stick it to other people for their own benefit? Please, someone? anyone?

I forgot to post something yesterday (since now it is technically the 4th) about the fact that it was the 140th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg yesterday. Such a senseless loss of life that was, especially the third day of battle which yesterday was the anniversary of.

12,000 Confederate soldiers were ordered to cross a field, miles wide and slightly uphill, into a line of union soldiers made relatively safe by a knee high brick wall on the top of cemetary ridge. Those men must have known that what they were doing was suicide, that they were more than likely not to go back to their families, but they did it anywhere for many reasons -- pride, honor, and conviction among them -- and they paid with their lives. And it wasn't just that one advance either, but the entire battle, the entire war, the entire history of warfare from the time that monkey-men beat each other with mammoth femurs.

How many men and women have been lost to war? How many poets, statesmen, scientists, and explorers? How many teachers, engineers, and philosophers? How many parents? How many grandparents? How many people, good people, great people, have been robbed of life, not even given the chance to be conceived, by the evils of warfare often driven by the greed of those in power? It is conceivable that a man that would have fathered the great-father of the scientis responsible for finding the cure for cancer died on that field on that day 140 years ago. It is possible that the private from Virginia that hoisted that flag after its previous bearer was shot could have been the man that would have discovered the secrets of the atom years before anyone else. Imagine the novels that could have been written, the poems that could have been shared, the speeches that could have inspired, all lost in an instant when lead hit the body at the speed of sound. It is sad.

But I fear that no one cares, as we still fight and bicker and kill for our pride and greed and fear. We still send our future great thinkers and doers out onto the battlefield to die before their prime. We still bomb the great peacmakers while they lie in their cribs. We still drive to hate the ones that would've devoted their lives to love had their father and mother not been killed so violently. We do this, and it costs us more than we shall ever know.

It is funny how love works sometimes. Too often in my life I have known a girl and known her to be very good for me and me very good for her...but she didn't see it. Sometimes, on rare occasions, others saw the same connectedness/perfection between us that I have seen...sometimes it probably worked in the opposite direction too I guess. *sigh*

The problem rests, I think, in the way that the girls that I find myself interested in are often interested in other guys at the time. Not dating, necessarily (though one has been married...which sucks), but just pining away for some guy out there that isn't me...isn't even like me really which makes it that much tougher. Blinded by, or fixated on, the light that of that boy that she can't see my glimmer, even though it may even be brighter. Who's to say? It's sad though and I am forced, more often than not, to sit on the sidelines and wait for her to open her eyes and realize that I'm here and waiting. Too often the frustration wears and I walk away, or at least give up hope, settling for friendship or whatever is left. It is sad, watching someone that I know I could have something with if only she'd give me a shot, wasting away staring starry-eyed at some other guy who can't appreciate her for everything that I do. This is the skipping album that makes up my love life...from the time I frst became interested in girls.

I don't know if it is my fault, if it's my lack of aggression or what have you, my inability to go out there and get the girl or whatever, or what, but it plays out over and over and over again. Perhaps its the role of the forever nice guy in our society.

Too many friendships that I have today are nothing more than failed attempts at starting some sort of romantic relationship with a girl. And to say that most of my friends are female only makes my inadequacies that much more evident. *sigh* But that is what I do, that is where I can go. I have always felt that my "one" would come from a pre-existing friendship, that one day a friend would turn to me and say "you and I would make a great team" and I would grin from ear to ear and we would live forever in bliss, happy til old age, complete is being friends and more than friends all at the same time. I still believe that to this day. I have to, because it is all I can do, it's all I can hope for. And, actually, I believe that it's the best way in a way. If given time to nuture itself and grow at its own pace, I think that it can be the most beautiful kind of love.

I just wish that one of these times that I might be at the right place at the right time, ready to be seen as what I could be when a girl takes her eyes off of her hopeless one. Or maybe, even better, outshine whoever it is that she has her eyes set on.

Wow, I was just noticing that I have kept this blog in operation for almost a full year. I've attempted a couple of blogs over the years (even before they were called blogs or had fancy editing programs like blogger to make them easy) and none of them have come even close to the longevity of this one. Hell, I have a couple of 90% empty books to prove that no hand written journals have come close either. I'm just proud of myself for that.

In any case, I was re-reading some of my eariler posts and I came across this one which was pretty much the start of that lil ol' crisis I had for a half year there. What strikes me most is that I could say all of the same things now and be honest about it...but it isn't bothering me so much. I appreciate the loneliness for the time being, my being poor is teaching me some incredible lessons on budgeting, and the thought that I'll spend the remainder of my life with no lady on my arm isn't really all that scary. It's funny how attitude can mean everything.

...the only thing that bothers me about it is whether my apathy towards these things is the result of my learning to cope with the downs of life and realization that life is just that way sometimes...or if I've just given up. That latter possibilty scares the crap out of me, just the possibility that it could be the case (even though I don't think it is).

A reprint of a post I just made at WWDN:

I hope to God she doesn't know of the existence of this site...but she's in Disney World right now, so I don't think it matters...hopefully. I'll probably delete later.

A female friend of mine got married this weekend and I was not invited. Not as close friends were invited, but not me. When I'd say something about it, my friend would get puppy dog eyes and apologize...never offering an excuse or anything. I just got the impression that I wasn't as close as I thought I was, though I did tell myself that maybe there just wasn't enough room at a smallish wedding for me.

But then I found out the real reason. Pestering a mutual friend and playing the whole "I can't tell you but if you guess I can nod" game that I really, really hate, I found out that the reason I wasn't invited is because she had feelings for me somewhere in the past, and they're still lingering a bit. She and I went to the same elementary school, to the same high school and then seperated as I graduated two years before me. To tell you the truth, I didn't really even know her back then. Our paths crossed, sure, but we weren't friends...I knew her name, I knew a little bit about her, and that was the extent of it. Well, six years pass and I go to work one day and see her there. I recognized her, but couldn't put a name to the face and it wasn't for a couple days that we had the opportunity to get re-acquainted. She was newly engaged I found out, and she was going to school to get her masters...and blah blah blah.

We ate together along with a couple other friends a couple days a week, planned on meeting up after work but never did, and that sort of thing. I guess you'd have to classify us as work friends. I never thought of her as anything but a friend, I never thought she thought of me as anything but a friend -- given that she was engaged and all.

But I was wrong. I go into detail because the only time and place that she could have had a crush on me so intensely as to not be able to invite me to her wedding was --unless it was while she was engaged...and she's not that kind of girl. I don't think, nor do I want to. If that's the case that the crush was in high school, it must have been something major for the uneasiness to carry on to now -- eight years later. It had to have been heartbreaking to her that I never asked her out or even really paid any attention to her. Hell, I get this feeling that I'm quite possibly her "one that got away" or something...

And now everything is weird. She doesn't know that I know this, and I don't want her to know that I know this. I don't want to bring it up, I don't want it to slip out, and most certainly I don't want to be there driving a wedge in between her marriage if it's still the case that there are some feelings still there...and I can't help but think there might be -- if there wasn't, I probably would have been at the wedding, no?

In any case, I just wanted to share that because I think it points to the need for friends to open and honest about their feelings for one another...Had she said something to me way back when, or even when we became re-aquainted, then things could have been talked out and the misunderstandings of my not being invited to her wedding missed. But as it is, there is this tension in our friendship now, and there will always be with it cemented in her marriage.