The Invisible Library

Watcha Readin’?

Read any good books lately?

Googlebomb

I just Googled for “awol” and this is what I found. Beauty!

My New Theory

I’ll lay this one out like a syllogism, so even the freepers can understand it:

1. The world’s supply of oil is running out. There are varying estimates as to exactly how much is left but it’s barely enough to get us through the next 20 years, at most.

2. The oil barons realize this and decide that they need one of their own in the White House in order to legitimize their grab of the world’s remaining oil supply, which happens to be in places like Iraq and Venezuela.

3. They do this by piggybacking the neocon agenda of invasion-for-the-fun-of-it, using National Security as their trojan horse.

4. When the oil wells start to go dry, they are the ones in control of the remaining supply, allowing them to gouge the rest of the world when the crisis becomes unavoidable.

Thus, the Oilmen make a butt-load of money and the rest of us get shafted because of their shortsightedness and greed. After all, we still have no alternative fuel source for when the oil does run out, meaning that we’ll all be living in the dark.

Then their grandsons will become tallow barons and buy up the last candles and sell them to us.

Perhaps I’m wearing my tinfoil hat a little too tightly these days but it’s at least as plausible and far more coherent an explanation for war than anything the administration has said in public.

The Hurtling Moons of Barsoom

The Mars Rover on friday witnissed a solar eclipse on Mars, the first time we�ve ever seen such an event from the surface of another planet.

Living in the future is sometimes frightening but every once in a while, I’m reminded that it�s worth it. This is one of those times.

~Thanks to Byzantium�s Shores for the link.

(and the first person to correctly identify the reference in the title of this post will win a mix CD. Yeah!)

Battlefields of the Mind: Looking at the Culture War from Afar
Part One: A Reasonable Madness

For those who don�t read David Neiwert�s blog, Orcinus, you really are missing something. Mr. Neiwert has, for some time now, been documenting the hate speech and general antics of the Ultraconservative Right in what has become known ostensibly as the Culture Wars. And he�s doing an amazing job. Seriously, if you aren�t reading Orcinus on at least a weekly basis, I don�t see how you could call yourself culturally or politically aware.

I�d like to look at the Culture War, but from a Big Picture perspective.

First off, who is involved in this War? What are the sides and where are the lines drawn? It�s harder to pin down these specifics as the culture war, unlike your all too common geopolitical war, is fought entirely on an abstract plane of ideas, with memes instead of bombs and rhetoric in place of machine gun fire. To catch even a glimpse of the Big Picture, we need to examine the mental battlefields where these skirmishes take place.

In it�s broadest sense the culture war has been going on for over 200 years, and started way back in the eighteenth century with the Declaration of Independence (in the US) and the Declaration of the Rights of Man (in France). To generalize for a moment we can look at the current Culture War as little more than an extension of the centuries old battle for human spirit, with the Champions of the Enlightenment on one side and the Minions of Theocracy on the other. But this is, as I said, a generalization (I�ll also admit that I�m squarely on one side of this conflict and so more than a little bias. I�ve always had an affinity for Enlightened Humanism and a profound disdain for theocrats of any shape). But the lines aren�t drawn distinctly. It isn�t simply Liberal vs. Conservative, Right vs. Left or any of the other dull labels that our mass media drag out every time they stumble across one of these ideological battlefields. However, we can make meaningful distinctions between the two sides of the culture war if we examine them from the perspective of Information, or more precisely, their attitudes about Information.

Robert Anton Wilson characterizes the two sides as Infophobes and Infophiles.

The pure infophobe (represented not too badly by most “respectable” law-abiding citizens anywhere) obsessively avoids exotic foods, exotic ideas, exotic clothing, exotic people, “dern foreigners,” new technology, innovative art or music, tabu subjects, originality, creativity etc. Sen. Exon, Sen. Gramm, most of Congress, Theodore Roszack and Unibomber represent various styles of compulsive infophobic imprints. The pure infophile remains a relatively rare person at this primitive stage of evolution. The infophile seeks out the new and exotic in food, ideas, clothing, technology, art — everywhere. Picasso, Joyce, Niels Bohr, Bucky Fuller and all the murdered heretics and innovators of history represent extreme infophiliac imprints.

Infophobes are frightened out of their narrow little minds by any new information that comes along, especially if that new information instigates a reassessment of their values or preconceptions about the world. That the Infophobes have held power for the better part of the last 6000 years is a phenomenon I scarcely claim to understand and am at a loss to explain. Speculating, I�d say they are drawn to positions of power in order to squash as much new (and therefore in their view, dangerous) information as possible. This pathological disdain for the new manifests in a number of ways: disliking of foreign food, culture or traditions, a clinging to nostalgic ideals about a supposed golden past before these tacos and enchiladas where put before their noses. This fascination (which borderlines on obsession for some. See: Pat Buchanan) with the supposed simpler days of Yore is really one of the major traits of the Infophobe. You�ll often hear them talk about traditional values (traditions, being long established, have their origins in this golden past), reminisces of the days of their youth and a general longing to return to some previous state of being long since fallen into corruption by nebulous outside forces (whose agents all have dark skin and weird tasting food). That there never was such a Golden Age of purity and benevolence is beside the point. It never existed, but had to be created out of fantasy in order to give contrast the ever-present here and now, which never seems to live up to their Platonic expectations.

The infophile, meanwhile is a curious little monkey scampering through the modern world in search of knowledge and an ever expanding consciousness. The Infophile never knows what they may find around the next corner, over the next year or week or day. But whatever it is, it can only broaden ones picture of the world and therefore it is welcomed and even craved when absent. Infophiles like to travel, watch foreign films (are intrigued by the various languages that the subtitles translate) are curious to try that new Ethiopian restaurant down the street and can�t wait for the new book by their favorite author to hit the shelves of their corner bookstore. That these sorts of people tend to be day dreamers and creative types, always thinking about the future and speculating what it might hold is a common trait and one that arguably has been the force behind every human advancement. After all, people who respect their elders and like the way grandpa thinks aren�t interested in changing anything. That might upset the status quo.

Obviously, this is another generalization. But if we keep in mind that these two types, the Infophobe and Infophile are at opposite ends of a sliding scale, we can have a greater, more nuanced understanding of who the fighters in the Culture War are and what it is they stand for, regardless of what shape their rhetoric takes or how they spell their name.

It’s a bit maddening to play these verbal games but when a war is being faught in every brain in the nation, a more reasonable form of madness is all we can hopefore.

In Part Two I�ll look at some specific battles in the Culture War and maybe identify some of the current generals on both sides.

The Adds the RNC Doesn�t Want you to See

from CNN:

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Republican National Committee is warning television stations across the country not to run ads from the MoveOn.org Voter Fund that criticize President Bush, charging that the left-leaning political group is paying for them with money raised in violation of the new campaign-finance law.

“As a broadcaster licensed by the Federal Communications Commission, you have a responsibility to the viewing public, and to your licensing agency, to refrain from complicity in any illegal activity,” said the RNC’s chief counsel, Jill Holtzman Vogel, in a letter sent to about 250 stations Friday.

“Now that you have been apprised of the law, to prevent further violations of federal law, we urge you to remove these advertisements from your station’s broadcast rotation.”

But MoveOn.org’s lawyer, Joseph Sandler, said in a statement that the ads were funded legally, calling the RNC’s letter “a complete misrepresentation of the law.”

“The federal campaign laws have permitted precisely this use of money for advertising for the past 25 years,” he said.

And MoveOn.org, which was planning to spend $1.9 million on an ad buy that started Thursday, said Friday that it would spend another $1 million.

They�re not even pretending to defend your freedoms anymore. It�s outright censorship for politcal gains. So all you freepers, next time you wonder aloud, “Why do Liberals hate Bush?” just follow the long finger pointing at all the signs.

If you haven�t already donated to MoveOn., now would be a good time.

Thanks to Lambert over at Corrente for the link.

Ever Wonder What Country You’d Be?

Who doesn’t? Turns out I’m not a country so much as an assortment of countries. Whitman said we contain multitudes but where do we shop for pants that can accomadate them all?

You’re
the United Nations!

Most people think you’re ineffective, but you are trying to
completely save the world from itself, so there’s always going to be a long
way to go.  You’re always the one trying to get friends to talk to each
other, enemies to talk to each other, anyone who can to just talk instead of
beating each other about the head and torso.  Sometimes it works and sometimes
it doesn’t, and you get very schizophrenic as a result.  But your heart
is in the right place, and sometimes also in New York.
Take the Country
Quiz at the Blue Pyramid

Mugging for the Cause

Both Atrios and NTodd are running Kerry donation campaigns right now and I support them whole heartedly. While I may not be a card carrying Democrat and have doubts about the validity of the Democratic process as a whole, it’s all we’ve got to work with. So if you really want to get rid of Bush in November, donate to Kerry, the DNC or MoveOn.

Disclosure: I haven’t donated yet but I’m in Grad School. So when my next round of loans come in, I’ll be dropping some coin in the bucket.

Never Fear! The… Pope is Here?

From Tom Tomorrow:

Pax Christi USA, the national Catholic peace and justice movement, will announce its plan to bring election monitors from the international community to observe and monitor the November elections in Florida. Pax Christi USA will also issue a call inviting other state and national organizations to join them in monitoring the election, especially in Florida, in an attempt to make the democratic process transparent and free of the kind of controversy witnessed in Florida during the 2000 election.

The Catholic Church has never been what one would characterizerise as a progressive, pro-democratic organizationtion. After all, these are the same folk who twiddled their thumbs while Hitler was murdering his way across Europe and conducted their own bloody little inquisitions all through the Middle Ages. But you know things are bad when the Pope, Steward of Rome, who rules until the King of the World returns, thinks there might be something fishy going on with the way your government runs its elections.

_________
edited to exterminate Fnords

Now Playing in My Head:

The Smiths, VICAR IN A TUTU

I was minding my business
I was lifting some lead off
The roof of the Holy Name church
It was worthwhile living a laughable life
Just to set my eyes on the blistering sight
Of a vicar in a tutu
He’s not strange
He just wants to live his life this way

A scanty bit of a thing
With a decorative ring
That wouldn’t cover the head of a child
As Rose collects the money in the cannister
Who comes sliding down the bannister ?
The vicar in a tutu
He’s not strange
He just wants to live his life this way…