Friday, December 31, 2010

iBlogger

So, I'm sitting here in front of a blank screen (I write with a very basic text program called Q10) trying to drum up something to write about.

I couldn't think of anything. I was given an iPhone for Christmas, though, and I wondered if I could update my blog with an "app." It never occurred to me to stop and question whether I wanted to do so, I just wondered if I could.

I can. But I still don't know what to say.

I could write about writing, but the truth is, I haven't done very much of that lately. I could write about New Year's Resolutions, but I don't have any, and it's a little too much like the oft repetitive (and dull) self-help shut I used to spew out on the page every month or so (without ever actually doing anything), so I don't want to do that. I could (and probably should) write about gaming, but I haven't sat at a gaming table in months.

Now I'm wondering if having such ready access to my blog in the same device that also features a camera and gps locator is such a good idea.

This is just a ramble, I guess. I hope you'll forgive me for wasting your time. I think the best course of action here would be not to write; but since I'm not going to give that up, I suppose the next best alternative is to "stay the course."

I've a dozen or so story ideas I want to share, as well as the NANOWRIMO stuff I never finished. I have more thoughts on the process, and now that I've started with this, I've a burning desire to get back to it.

I think that, what you can expect in the weeks to come her is new short fiction, the long overdue continuation (and hopefully conclusion) of Reptile, and possibly an essay or two.

Plus (and let's be honest here) I've got a new iPhone and it's like the shiny new toy you just can't put down, so there'll likely be a few photos and "on the go" updates that will have been (once hindsight becomes a factor) better suited to 140 characters or less.

That's it. First bit should be up Saturday, unless I find somewhere to be after work tonight and find myself the subject of embarrassment at someone's New Year celebration.

Monday, December 20, 2010

The Green Dragon

This is a response to the video "Religious Right on Dangers of Environmentalism" posted by RightWingWatch.org. As Right Wing Watch is a watchdog channel, and not proponents of the message (and because this response was too long for my YouTube channel), I decided to post it here. It is mostly and embrace of what it is "they" think an environmentalist is. There are moments when I kind of lost my composure. Moments when I switched gears without warning (mostly following the track of the video). At some points I stopped calling for action and went on the offensive, as though the idiots in the video would deign to read my words. I left it all in here. It seemed the best way to provoke dialog was to go ahead and voice my opinions and feelings - even if they're wrong.


You can search far and wide.
You can drink the whole town dry.

But you'll never find a beer so brown,
as the one we drink in our home town.

You can drink your fancy ales.
You can drink 'em by the flagon.

But the only brew for the brave and true
comes from the Green Dragon. - J.R.R. Tolkien

I believe there is a dire need for radical environmentalism. Now I'm not talking about a turn to violence, at least not overtly. I believe that there is a call for some sort of guerrilla information campaign. A Shock & Awe distribution of truth and solution that could blanket the developed world and start opening some eyes. To this end, in the interest of sparking conversation and debate, I present the following points:

Targeting The Children.

It seems to me that the first priority of any "Green Dragon" MUST be to target the children. Those who are blinded by ignorance and religious indoctrination against worldly stewardship (that's right, I said it) are going to prove least likely to bend to the winds of truth.

Children however, are malleable, open, willing to learn. They can - and want to - be taught the truth. And it is not the world that environmentalists are trying to protect. The world will endure, regardless of whether or not it remains hospitable for human life. It is these very children, and the children to come that (now) we are fighting tooth and nail to save from these blind, greedy, ignorant fascists.

The Needs of the Many

The needs of the Earth, of Nature (more specifically, the needs of our ecosystem) must come before the needs of her inhabitants. It sounds contradictory, anti-human, or even sinister, but without a balance in Nature, Nature will turn on us. Nature will either lash out and destroy us all, or simply stop feeding us.

The poor, the hungry, the uneducated, even the self-deluding asshats who are fighting to yoke Nature like a dog and force it under heel, are all going to die.

We're going to die slow, miserable, agonizing deaths.

The environment must come first. This is not to say that we should ignore the needs of our fellow men. Far from it. I think any environmentalist in his right mind must understand that we have to form a part of that balance in Nature. All of us. But while the needs of every single human must be met, and met today; there are some desires that can and will be put on hold until we have come to terms with our planet.

Those who stand under the shadow of the Green Dragon, who take up arms in its name, must not fall prey to the deceptions of the undereducated, the deluded, and the outright deranged. We must look at the Universe with an open, reasoned mind, and we must ask questions of that Universe and seek answers within the methodologies of rationality. We, as a species, have found within Nature the means to destroy her. We can find - whether within Nature or within ourselves - the means to rescue her from that destruction.

And we must be radical in our actions, our speech, our steps toward confronting the lies and disinformation spread about the sustainability of our grotesquely overindulgent lifestyles. It is time to stop listening respectfully to the bullshit these people are trying to foist onto us - onto our own children and start calling them on it.

You cannot speak of "human prosperity" or "human freedom" without addressing humanity. And I'll be completely fucking honest here. I don't give a rat's ass if you get to keep your wealth and comfort in the face of this. So long as one person in the world doesn't have enough to eat; so long as one human being has to sleep on the ground or eat dirt, just to have something in her stomach, the Green Dragon doesn't give two shits about your comfort.

Until every human being can be said to be within reach of prosperity, until every human being can be said to be free, your "human prosperity," your "human freedom" is meaningless. It is a lie - a disease of the foulest sort that, yes, I am out to fucking eradicate.

So long as you or your organization or your corporation or your group or team or club or fucking religion stands against a future in which our children can walk in the same light and breath the same air and enjoy the same world that we take for granted, then yes, I am your enemy; and my goals include an end to your doctrines.

A Spritual Battle

This is more than a political battle. More than a matter of mere education. The enemies of the Green Dragon have personalized their enmity for the well-being and safety of their fellow man by calling it their spiritual right, the divinely inspired gifts of their god. We can have no choice but to stand against these lies, to dissect and dissolve them in the public forum - whenever and wherever we can.

Make no mistake. These enemies of humanity view this as a spiritual battle - a mandate from heaven that no one will save this planet from destruction, not so long as it involves making them change even a light bulb.

These mother fuckers hold in their deranged little hearts, the notion that their god will come one day and wipe away the world. For two-thousand years, they have believed it would happen tomorrow; and so long as they and their children are allowed to continue in this delusion, they cannot help but see the fight to protect our habitat as - not just frivolous - but evil. Evil that flies in the face of all that they have deemed good in the eyes of their imaginary god.

The Religion of Environmental Science

The heart of science is its ability to adapt to new information. So long as we can look at the Universe and learn from it, our knowledge will change, and Science - which is nothing more than the process by which we add to that knowledge - will always be the key to understanding the best methods of saving ourselves from extinction.

Science is the exploration of Truth. If we can be said to have any religion, than it must be the search for Truth. But our understanding of that Truth must be malleable, must be open to the possibility that there is more to understand than what is already known. This is Science. And we must embrace it.

No longer can we stand effectively against these nutjobs who want nothing less than for their way of life to go on undeterred - regardless of the cost to their fellow man or the detrimental impact that way of life is having on their own habitat. We must undertake to understand the science behind the grandstanding of politicians and celebrity. We must know the answers to challenges put before us by these, frankly, evil people.

But picketing and shouting slogans will not suffice. No longer can we rely on the regurgitated catch phrases of a few popular scientists. A deeper understanding of the science behind the pop culture must be understood. We must embrace the scientific study of our environment, in order to protect our niche within it.

The Poor

I am so fucking through with the poor. I'm through worrying about the poor. Fuck the poor. It's about 200, maybe 2,000 years past time we stopped letting these people live in squalor. It's past time we stuck out a hand and started picking these fuckers up and putting them on the path. There are buildings in the world that are nearly a half-mile tall. One, at least, that exceeds that height. It cost 1.5 Billion dollars to erect that one building alone. Starbucks made $700 Million dollars a year selling bad coffee to people who prefer their milkshakes warm. There are shoes that cost more money than some people make in a year.

Meanwhile, there are people who throw away edible food. People who own clothes they never wear, computers they never use, televisions they never watch, fucking refrigerators that sit in unused rooms and never have food put in them. There are men and women who eat the equivalent of four or more meals at one sitting.

When the fuck are we going to stop being such assholes?

There are people in America who call themselves poor and yet have roofs over their heads and food in their mouths. People who have access to the internet, who watch cable TV and are really more wealthy than the Pharaohs of Egypt; than the Kings of Babylon.

You're goddamn right I hate the poor. I'm so fucking sick of poverty it makes my teeth hurt. That's not an exaggeration, I'm in dire need of dental work. But environmentalists like me don't want to eradicate the people. We want to do away with the poverty. There's just no fucking reason for one person in the world to go hungry today if anyone in the world can be said to have compassion.

That Not-Quite Overt Call to Arms I Mentioned Earlier

I think that what you have to open your eyes and ears and hearts to is this: You have no right to the wealth you possess. You have no right to live a life of excess and waste while others die of exposure and malnutrition. No matter how hard you think you worked for it, but especially if you're a preacher, an athlete or some other kind of entertainer. As of right now, you only possess that wealth because we allow you to.

Only because we have not come to take it.

But if you don't start showing some compassion, you are in for a rude awakening. Someone will come to my aid, and we will steal you away in the dead of night and drop your ass overseas in the goddamn center of life-sucks and we will liquidate your fortune and start ending poverty our way.

There is no god granting you leave to ignore the suffering of others. Nothing has been entrusted to you that wasn't taken by force from someone else. It's high time you fucking gave something back.

And it's high time you took your head out of your ass and stopped trying to destroy the only planet that can support our species.
98%

Free Online Dating from JustSayHi

88% Geek