Ecce Sigum

Immanentize the Empathy

Author: John Winkelman

State of the State

John Winkelman

…it’s not that I oppose removing Saddam from power; I just want the administration to admit, in so many words, that this whole thing is about oil. They could give a shit about terrorism. The kind of ego which wants to be president (i.e. sociopath) doesn’t see the people which elected it as real, let alone human. So then all of politics is a game played by the few who have been allowed entry and understand the rules.

Is Bush a sociopath? Sure. So is/was every other president since 1868. Not all have been as “psycho” as the current one, but the signs are all there. Disconnection from reality. Can’t distinguish Right from Wrong. Believes self to be the only real thing in the universe.

The only reason we are involved in the Middle East is oil. Sure, there are other reasons used as excuses to cover up the role the oil cartels play in our government games, but if you take oil out of the equation, we rapidly forget why we were ever there.

So let the baby-eaters in Washington play their games. I just want a little honesty. I and the dozen or so people left in this country who refuse to play the (non-existent) political party game are not stupid. Don’t talk down to us. We can see what is going on.

And for the hundred million of you jingoistic redneck ditto-heads who now think I must REALLY hate America, I have this to say: Fuck you. I love my country. But I loathe, to the core of my being, what the politicians are doing to it. There was an article on NPR last week discussing a "rider" on the defense spending bill. This rider was, in essence, a re-definition of "organic food".

Huh? What the Hell does A have to do with B????

This is typical of the little political games played within the larger context of international politics. This is the deliberate attempt, by the politicians of BOTH PARTIES, to remove from the people of America, a little at a time, the right and opportunities to make decisions for themselves.

This kind of shit has been going on for a long, long time. The line-item veto which raised so many hackles during Clinton's presidency was a feeble attempt to correct this legal atrocity.

This is the end goal of politics: To remove all power of choice from the people of this country. The people we elect (while we still have that right) make decisions and pass laws and write bills and wipe up after themselves with the constitution. And lately (since the politicians started using the 9/11 terrorist attacks for self-aggrandizement) any criticism of anything at all that happens in DC is met with cries of "traitor!"

Having said this, I will sit here and wait for the American Oil Mafia to break down my door and shoot me in the head. Remember, you heard it first here, at www.eccesignum.org/.

Angst Post

John Winkelman

You know what pisses me off more than anything in the world? The fact that every person on the planet has the potential to be an Einstein, a Gandhi, a da Vinci, a Florence Nightingale, a Dostoevsky, a Mozart, a Michael Jordan… This is what a human being is capable of.

Now take a good look around.

Kind of depressing, isn’t it?

Spend some time reading through The Edge . Think about the articles and conversations. Contemplate .

Realize that the minds here are not superhuman. The bodies and minds eat sleep work shit ache play relax laugh cry fuck create and destroy. Just like everyone else.

Perhaps they are a little more curious than most. A little more restless. Just a little.

If that is the case then the public opiates and soporifics of mass distraction are killing us all.

Passive Voice

John Winkelman

I apologize for the lack of updates. My time has not, lately, been my own.

This past Tuesday my grandmother, Bernice Winkelman, passed away. She was 99. I remember seeing her maybe six or seven times in my life, the most recent being in California about four years ago. Before that I was in high school, and before that, in fourth grade. We weren’t really close, but she was kin, and I miss the opportunities I never had to get to know her.

*sigh*

We have a martial arts demo at Grand Valley this weekend, as part of the International Festival. For the past three weeks Rick and I have been at Master Lee’s house at 7:30 in the morning for iron-shirt chi kung training. It’s a great way to start the day; a huge burst of adrenaline, then sit in front of a computer for eight hours. Usually by noon I am ready for a nap.

I Have a Life?

John Winkelman

Being a hardcore member of the swinging bachelor scene I expected to curl up with a beer and some nice cuddly porn this evening, but instead a beautiful woman called at the last minute and we spent a couple of hours at the Bar Divani, where I had a glass of Condesa de Leganza Crianza ’98 ; light, dry, and quite yummy.

I first met V. at school about eleven years ago, and then recently ran into her at a bookstore. This time I remembered to get her phone number.

It is a wonderful thing to be able to talk the night away.

A Little at a Time

John Winkelman

Little by little this thing is coming together. I got around the IE6 fuckup bug by redoing the layout as absolutely positioned DIV tags, rather than floated DIV tags. The only browser which will be broken by this will not load the stylesheet at all.

While studying up on some artists I came across Olga’s Gallery , a huge collection of scans of artists from all eras, from all over the world. Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Titian, all four Brueghels; well over a hundred artists and over a thousand works of art.

This is the only place on-line where I have found Ivan the Terrible and His Son by Repin, scanned with any skill at all.

And so to bed.

The More Things Change…

John Winkelman

“……sober thought in our time is all but impossible: it costs too much. It is true that people buy read-made ideas. They are sold everywhere, and even given away; but the ones that come free of charge prove to be even more expensive, and people are already beginning to realize that. The result is benefit to none and the same old disorder.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky, 1873

A New Look

John Winkelman

So here I am with a new look and feel. Still ironing out the bugs. The worst one is an IE 6 quirk which doesn’t precisely render 70% and 30%, thus sending the navigation down to the bottom of the page, below the content. Also, IE6 has a problem rendering the page if I have in-line images within the content. Basically, IE6 can bite me. So can any other browser which renders in a manner inconsistent with Mozilla.

I returned Flash Math Creativity. Everything in it can be found on line, and I felt the $50.00 could be better spent. SO yesterday I picked up The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins and A Writer’s Diary: 1873-1876 , volume 1 of a two-volume set of the writings of Dostoevsky. I picked up the Dawkins because, as I was thumbing through it, I found screen-shots of the Biomorph artificial evolution simulator. I spent hours playing with the thing a year ago. And again just now.

In other news I am, for the first time in my life, watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.