Saturday, May 22, 2004
WAKE UP! IT'S TIME TO DRINK [Paul]
Another "only in Boulder" moment struck the TM staff this past weekend, for who should have a raging BYOB party but none other than the owner of Now & Zen, maker of the Zen Alarm Clock! Steve Macintosh is his name, and apparently entertaining is his game: hot tubs, a zen rock garden, bottles of wine and beer galore, old men in dolphin shirts with Buddhist deities tattooed to their bald spots, some almonds (ok, so the food was lame), retarded conversations on the porch about integral theory and astrology-- it was enough to put this writer back on the wagon for good. But as quick as it started, it was over: Mr. Zen Alarm Clock had to go to bed (seems a different alarm was ringing), and the hippie integralian scum of the earth (er, us) were sent packing.....
Posted on
5:37 PM
BLOGGING CAN LAND YOU A GIG IN HOLLYWOOD [coolmel]
from BBC NEWS - Film deal for 'Baghdad Blogger' --
The Baghdad Blog, a book based on an online diary written by an Iraqi man about life during the conflict there, is to be made into a film.
can this group blog be made into a film, or a reality tv show? i wonder... nah, it won't even pass as a sitcom. (unless there's a demand for blogging soap operas that would even bore your grandmas to death.) "well, what about a book deal?" you say. hmmm... i better start blogging about Oprah.
Posted on
1:08 PM
Friday, May 21, 2004
PRONUNCIATION, NERDINESS, AND GLOBAL DOMINATION! [Jason]
This is my intro blog post here at the Drinking Hole. I was thinking what a better way to show you what I am all about then introduce you to a few of my favorite past times; geopolitcal books, board games, and global domination!
I play a rousing game called Diplomacy
I happen to play the online version which consists of e-mail correspondence. These games typically can go for six months to a year. Recently, whilst in command of the great Russian army on my way to the conquest of Turkey on my Fall of 1904 turn I ran a foul when the games moderator informed me that we were playing under the Zbigniew Brezinski rules. zbigniew!
The Zbigniew rules are based on his geopolitical book, "The Grand Chessboard" in which Turkey is a coveted strategic position and it takes twice the armies to occupy! I ended up losing my seven month game yesterday on account of this oversight.
Who knew American Primacy and it's geostrategic imperatives in 1998 could influence a board game based in pre WW1 Europe and cost me seven months, 11 Russian armies and four fleets!?!
Damn that former NSA advisor! I wonder in years if there will be a set of Diplomacy rules based on Condoleeza Rice's paranoid foreign policy, god I hope not.
Posted on
12:53 AM
ANDY'S BACK! [coolmel]
i knew it! Andy's still alive! and what better way to announce his resurrection than start a blog of his own --
"Sorry about faking my death. I always knew my biggest supporters would play along until it was the right time for me to return. Yesterday, being the 20th anniversary, was a long enough time to go away. No one has ever gone away that long before. I've been documenting my adventures for the last twenty years in journals and will be posting some of the best stories from here. Mostly though, I've just been practicing transcendental meditation throughout various parts of the world while working odd jobs and keeping a low profile."
and he never lost his humor on his way back from the bardo --
"This is not a simulated virtual world a la The Matrix. If you are approached by a man who tells you he can "free your mind," kindly give him the finger and tell him to f*** off. If you subsequently wake up in a pod of goo and have input/output jacks all over your body, that world is actually the second construct of reality. A virtual world within a virtual world. I made it all the way to the third world that was just pure white light, when a voice came to me and told me that I must return to the first world construct and fake my own death in order to show people 'the door'."
welcome back Andy. i'll wait for your exclusive interview here.
(if only Elvis could blog...)
Posted on
12:01 AM
Thursday, May 20, 2004
PRISON TORTURE: THE PARTY YOU WANTED [Paul]
Another tasteless (read: awesome) issue of Moscow's The eXile this week, with editors Mark Ames and John Dolan coming to the DEFENSE of the Abu Ghraibi prison torturers. A shocking sentiment, but upon reading it makes total, if disturbing, sense. In "Baseball, Apple Pie and Torture: The American Way", Ames basically states that Americans got what they asked for back in 2001 after 9/11. Even "liberal" Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter penned a piece called "Time to Think About Torture" back then, which Ames lists amongst many others. And then there's Dolan, wielding the ugly truth in classic form with "Abu Ghraibi Fever", where he ponders Lynndie England's place in history and praises the torturers for carrying on the fine tradition of raping conquered peoples. As Dolan says: "We're here to say it loud and proud: playing with conquered peoples is the whole point of an having empire!" He goes on to trace the long legacy of conquering armies having their way with vanguished victims, including this prize (in speaking of the Brits):Everyone who mattered knew the point of seizing the hot countries was to allow sexually-starved English youths, tired of being buggered by their tutors, the chance to flip roles from catcher to pitcher.
Posted on
1:05 PM
IS MY BIBLE ERROR-FREE? [coolmel]
fellow Christians, before we take literally what is written in our Bible, first we must make sure that our Bible is proofread thoroughly. and once we're sure that it's proofread accurately, it's time to make sure that we have the right version, and that our version had been translated correctly. and what about the Lost Gospels? i hear someone asks. let's not even go there, brother. and once we're pretty sure that our Bible is error-free, we then ask ourselves whether we're interpreting it correctly. then someone shouts, i don't have the freakin' time to do this! then rot in hell my dear brother, rot in hell.
Posted on
8:22 AM
Wednesday, May 19, 2004
BATTERIES NOT INCLUDED [.j.evonne.]
Solar recharging adult toys!
Blowfish's alternative power vibrators "put the power of sunlight to work for your sexual pleasure". Wow....technology truly will save us all....or at least give us a few moans along the way.
Posted on
5:01 PM
PLEADING FOR PEACE [coolmel]
just got back from the Plea for Peace tour. i hate to sound bitchy but during the first 30mins i was literally pleading for peace. i'm grateful that it's for a good cause and all that political awareness stuff, but guys, people could use some melody (and soundcheck). good thing these dudes showed up.
(thanks to Marco we DIDN'T get to meet Saul Williams...
i forgive you man, i forgive you.)
Posted on
1:46 AM
Tuesday, May 18, 2004
WTF?! INFLATABLE CHURCH?! [coolmel]
what a cool idea! maybe i can check it out and donate a lot of hot air. i guess the metaphor can be, "will the congregation be a bunch of inflatable dummies?"
Some 2,000 of the dummies were dropped in the Philippines.
WTF?! that's why...
Posted on
2:24 PM
PUMP, PUMP, PUMP UP THE PIETY! [Paul]
I know there's a metaphor for right-wing fundamentalist Christianity in here, but I can't figure it out. God in a bounce house? Why not?
Posted on
12:34 PM
EXTREME POSTMODERNISM BY ANY OTHER NAME... [coolmel]
...(other than boomeritis) would suck as much.
a politically-oriented blogger got cranky when he observed that:
There is a certain kind of Berkeley professor who I am losing my tolerance for...
You know (or maybe you don't): the kind who believes that your first duty is to sympathetically understand where people are coming from. Unless they're Republicans. You have a duty to enter into the thought processes and sympathetically entertain the understanding of the world of a guy in Nigeria who has a picture of Osama bin Laden in his car, or a bureaucratic functionary working for Fidel Castro, or somebody who thinks that Bangladeshis should not be allowed to work in the textile industry. But Republicans? They are Blue Meanies. They are one dimensional. They are baaaaad.
which prompted some reflective blogs from other politically-oriented bloggers:
Is it okay if I'm universally intolerant of people who don't share my point-of-view, or am I supposed to be nice to everyone?
----
The fact is that pretty much any intellectual principle becomes absurd and unusable when taken to extremes -- as the academic left seems to have done with the initially useful ideas of postmodernism. Academic lefties are hardly alone in this, of course: history is littered with the corpses of movements that had a single overarching vision that metastasized over time and eventually led them to their doom.
i'm not the politically-oriented type and i try not to look at things as merely "left" and "right." i prefer to see life conditions, memes, whorls, colors, and Spirals. not that this is the best worldview there is, but i do find it quite useful (at least in stabilizing my own sanity) -- no synesthesia required.
(thanks to Scott for pointing this out.)
Posted on
12:01 AM
Monday, May 17, 2004
PEST CONTROL [wrench]
From my foreman, Bill, recounting his early morning run-in with an opossum...
"I think that 'possum died from an overdose."
"An overdose? Of what?"
"Lead."
Posted on
10:33 PM
MEERA IS STILL ALIVE [Meera]
Don't celebrate yet; I'm still alive and kicking. It seems I've fallen victim to an atrocious and still poorly-understood malady; this pestilent virus is known to some as Apathy (or for me, also the variant Seniorolysis: "breakdown of the senior"). Unfortunately my symptoms have spread from outside my schoolwork to encompass the rest of my life. It turns out these symptoms have arisen regularly throughout the past few years because the disease itself has never been fully vanquished.
In between seeking out the source of this disabilitating condition and gradually taking control of the world (side-project), I have managed to find time for taking lame photographs.
Posted on
4:53 PM
HOLY DUTIES PERFORMED [.j.evonne.]
The sacrament before the sacrament is now complete: I have survived my first bachelor party. Ah yes, I hear you wondering now...."isn't Jen a girl?".....but by some blessing of almighty beauty I get to wear a baddd-ass tux and accompany my best friend from college on his trip down the aisle.
If there's one thing to be said about weekend-long bachelor parties, it's that there should never be a shortage of good drinking. Here's a partial list consumed by the four of us this weekend on Jay Peak in VT:
1 750 ml. Raspberry Lambic
1 Honey Mead
4 Dogfish Ales
18 Long Trail Ales (and other mixed brews - Blackberry Wheat, Hit the Trail Ale)
1 Growler of localbrew IPA (for the toll-bridge)
A bunch of German beers that I cannot recall
1 750ml of local spiced brew
1 Bottle of Shiraz
Now you understand why the boys were perfectly trashed by 8AM on Saturday monring. Even the Cajun Salmon was cooked on the fire with Dogfish....likely the best fish ever cooked by man.
Posted on
9:23 AM
YOUR MONDAY MYSTIC [Paul]
Name: St. Catherine of Siena
Fighting Style: Christian (Catholic)
Weapon of Choice:
Dialogo, a text "dictated" to Catherine by God containing a Dialogue between the Big Guy and his Daughter (Catherine's Soul), featuring a vicious left uppercut in the form of the revelation that God's Son is the bridge between God and man (making him what, Hermes?), "a bridge that is like a stair" (a.k.a. a developmental hierarchy). Also beware the sweep kick: the Son's "divinity is kneaded with the clay of your humanity like one bread." Kick ass.
Posted on
1:17 AM
Sunday, May 16, 2004
ON REMOTE VIEWING [coolmel]
current reading: Limitless Mind: A Guide to Remote Viewing and Transformation of Consciousness, by Russell Targ --
Remote viewing is not a spiritual path, but psychic functioning is a step in the direction of conscious awareness -- nonlocal mind revealing itself for us to see.
Overtime, I have sat in a darkened interview room with hundreds of remote viewers as they shared their mental pictures with me. It is a fact that people can experience a mind-to-mind connection with each other. They can also expand their awareness to describe and experience what is happening in distant locations. Fifty years of published data from all over the world testify to this.
In the fall of 1972, Dr. Hal Putoff and I started a psychic research program at Stanford Research Insitute (SRI). We were both laser physicist who carried out research for a variety of U.S. government agencies for many years. Our great partner and teacher in the SRI program was the New York artist and highly respected Ingo Swann. Ingo introduced Hal and me -- and the world -- to remote viewing. Actually, the chain of events went like this: Ingo taught us about remote viewing, we taught the army, and the army taught the world.
(i see Marco and Paul in the living room, naked, and playing Tekken.)
Posted on
12:21 PM
WHAT ABOUT THE "PAUL SALAMONE INNER CIRCLE"? [Paul]
In "Shut-Ins: A Story On Hermeneutics & The Wilber Inner Circle", David Jon Peckinpaugh compares integralians(my term) to the Samurai and European Renaissance Men as he frets over the "closed" nature and unconscious processes governing Integral Institute. He even goes so far as to compare Ken to Freud and George W. Bush (for all the wrong reaosns as you can imagine).
Even Ken Wilber's own criticism regarding the 'Atman project' the 'monological gaze,' 'deep ecology,' and 'boomeritis,' has been an attempt to make conscious the unconsciousness inherent in one or another camp or clique. The question, though, is this: Does Ken Wilber and the Inner Circle think that they are somehow immune from unconsciousness, such that they are immune from any and all critical insight and observation offered up by the outcasts, dissenters, and outsiders among us?
...Ponder, ponder, ponder...
Posted on
11:13 AM
