Surreal Politik

Yesterday Russian Prime Minister/Dictatorial Overlord Vladimir Putin stated that the Ossetian conflict was started by the US in order to boost the chances of an unnamed presidential candidate being elected.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/28/europe/EU-Georgia-Russia-Putin.php

This, of course, is an outrageous allegation from a deeply evil person. However, being a deeply evil person doesn't mean that you aren't telling the truth. One of the most interesting things for me out of the whole lead-up to the Iraq war is that the person who was telling the truth the whole time was Saddam Hussein. He consistently stated that they had destroyed the weapons of mass destruction and that the UN inspectors were spying for the USA. Well, there were no WMD because they had been destroyed, and US officials admitted in 1999 that they had precisely spied on Iraq under cover of the UN. Given the news that the US bugged UN Security Council offices leading up the war it seems more than reasonable to think Saddam was right on this second point. Given the further information of the 935 false statements used to start an unnecessary war used by the Bush administration with Iraq ( http://projects.publicintegrity.org/WarCard/?gclid=COXYntnCs5UCFSAUagodfR5sQQ ) we know that not only will the Bush administration start an unnecessary war, but it will lie in order to do so, and that the reasons for such a war do not need to go much beyond access to oil.

Then we just need to look at the dates of the war, and the polling results in the US election to see if the assertion makes any sense. Georgia (armed and trained by the USA) invaded a province under the protection of a treaty and peacekeepers on 8/8/08. In the week leading up to that date Obama was ahead of McCain in every national poll, ranging between a 3 and 7% margin. 7% is a landslide victory, 3% is the margin by which Bush beat Kerry in 2004. The week after the invasion McCain lead in half of the polls, and was no worse than 5% behind in any of the polls, so essentialy something like a 5% swing in the polls, more than enough to change the outcome of an election. Since then the polls have swung somewhat back to Obama, but not fully to the extent they were before the invasion.

So, we know that being evil doesn't mean you lie. We know that Bush et al will lie and will start unnecessary wars. We know that Bush wants McCain to win. We know that the Bush administration (and the Clinton one before that) will use violence for political reasons. We know that McCain got a bump from this conflict. We know that the US has enormous military influence in Georgia. We know that the georgians initiated the conflict. I can't see any reason why the Georgians would otherwise invade a place under the protection of Russia, a country that could extinguish Georgia if it wanted to.

But what I want to get across is the surreal ridiculousness whereby it is entirely reasonable to think that sovereign nations can be ordered to fight wars IN WHICH PEOPLE DIE in order to boost poll ratings. Even more ridiculous is that this is commonplace, usual, in US politics. Clinton bombed Iraq whenever US domestic politics became unpleasant. Bush the First gave Saddam Hussein permission to attack Kuwait, before he then became outraged and staged a war that briefly boosted his popularity. There was no depth in foreign policy that Reagan wouldn't stoop to. The Gulf of Tomkin incident is notorious. Basically this outrageous accusation by Putin is simply stating something that has been standard policy for US presidents (with notable exceptions) for decades. Until killing people for political reasons becomes more news-worthy and less morally acceptable than cheating on your wife, this sort of surreal politik will surely continue. I wouldn't necessarily put this sort of stuff beyond Barak Obama either, but at least we don't know for certain that he would do such disgustingly evil things.

Unwrinkled Convention.

As I was folding laundry today, a statement that would astonish my parents, I thought upon a topic that as been with me throughout most of my life, what is wrong with wrinkled clothing. Cloth wrinkles unless you put effort into preventing it. Society has determined that wrinkled clothes "Look bad." Your clothing will look bad if you don't put effort into preventing it. But why do wrinkled clothes look bad? There isn't anything inherently ugly about wrinkles in clothes. We have no problems with pleats, which are simply rigidly ordered wrinkles. We have no problem with lines and shapes of all sorts of colors, of textures acros the spectrum from shiny man-made fibers to fuzzy woolen knots.
The reason why non-wrinkled clothes "Look good" is because it is a measure of your willingness to conform. Since it takes time and effort to clean, fold, iron clothes and the only purpose in doing so is to look good enough in the eyes of others, then all it amounts to is a public display of your willingness to do unnecessary things to fit in. The same goes for mowing the lawn, wearing ties or high heels, washing the car, painting your house, and a whole myriad of things we do WITHOUT THINKING WHY. Unless you are trying to get laid, why should what your hair looks like matter?

In victorian times it was considered attractive in England for women to have skin so pale that you could see the blue veins within the skin. In the 1970's it was considered attractive to have skin darkened by the skin to the maximum amount. Why was this? It was because in victorian times people made their living outside, they got dirty and sweaty and burnt by the sun if they had to make a living. But the wealthy could hide indoors all day, or walk around under parasols. It was harder to be pale than tanned, and it demonstrated wealth and power to be pale. In the 1970's women were beginning to have a large proportion of indoor jobs, juggling careers and children and housework, working all the time indoors. Therefore it was a more difficult proposition to lie around outside on sunny days for long enough to get burnt by the sun, hence it was considered more attractive.

Think how much time and effort you would save if it didn't matter what you wore, how it looked, what your house looked like, whether your car was clean, what your garden looked like, etc. other than how you actualy wanted it. Is that five hours a week for you? Do you spend five hours a week demonstrating your willingness to conform? I might.

Bipolar Follow-Up

I went to a doctor today and they agreed with me that I do probably have Bipolar II. Since they were a GP they rather sensibly suggested I see a psychiatrist. That sounds like a good idea, and really quite fun. In college my plan was to become a Clinical Psychologist, which is basically a psychiatrist who isn't also a medical doctor and therefore cannot prescribe medications. The reason that I didn't follow this path was a combination of my deep frustration with college (dumb people disinterested in teaching people, and actually much more interested in being told how clever they were in written form) and actually meeting Clinical Psychologists and discovering that they were almost all completely crazy. Then I spent seventeen years in social work counseling people very extensively in all sort of things that I'm not technically qualified to counsel people about. However, the people I counseled generally said I was better than their psychiatrists (if they had them) and better than nothing at all (which was most of them). So, I am very interested in having an appointment with a psychiatrist and seeing what it is like from the other side. A part of me feels very sorry for whoever gets the job of counseling me.

In a rational world the next step would be that the doctor refers me to a psychiatrist, who I would then go see. But the world doesn't work like that. What happens is I first contact my insurance provider to find out what is covered. Then I call a different number for the insurance company to find out precisely what the coverage is. Then I go to a web site to get a list of psychiatrists. I get a list of 233 psychiatrists within 15 miles who are supposed to take the insurance and are taking new patients. So far I have called fifteen numbers on the list. I have spoken to three humans, one a woman in a billing department, another receptionist who rudely informed me that they ae not taking new patients, and a third human who was very nice who informed me that the doctor was no longer taking that insurance. The other twelve numbers resulted in voice mails. The intimation being that I suppose I'm to leave a message and then wait for someone to call me back. So I've given up today, and I'm someone who is essentially well. I can't imagine what this process must be like for someone with schizophrenia.

Bipolar II Disorder

I have known for about 15 years that I am susceptible to episodes of major depression. I have had a couple of very severe times of depression and probably ten occasions of moserate depression. What is the difference? For me a good descriptor is that with moderate depression I can still taste food, while at its worse I have simply ingested fuel.
Last year for the first time in a situation of depression I went to a doctor (it was dumb for it to be my first time) and I was prescribed Lexapro a Selective Serotonin Re-Uptake Inhibitor (the same family of drugs as Prozac.) Within three hours of taking the first pill I felt an improvement, somehing I attributed to the placebo effect. However, as time went on my mood improved, I got more energy, I felt fantastic. Then, on the third day my energy increased so much that I couldn't sit still, my mind raced uncontrollably, and then I started getting panic attacks. So, I stopped taking it. The good news is that it seemed to bump me out of depression for a bit.
This weekend I stepped onto a scale, and was cruelly informed that lying around a lot and drinking beer will make you fat. I had put on about twelve pounds over the last year, mostly in the last couple of months. So, I started riding my bike more, even getting up in the deep, dark night to ride with my wife to her work and back. For some reason Don't Call Me Chrissy gets up before many people go to bed to go to work. I stopped drinking beer for a few days, drank water, glanced briefly at what was passing my lips before inhaling it like a rabid beast.
By the morning of the second day I felt great. Not just great, really great. The sort of great where you feel you have everything all figured out, you feel strong, healthy, intelligent, brave, and beautiful. I got a bunch of stuff done, made plans for the future, practiced the mandolin, I was happy and productive. By the morning of the third day I was up for the bike ride, then an hour walk with the dog, then a blog post, and faster, and faster, and faster. I became irritable, dogmatic, dismissive of others. I couldn't keep my hands still. I started about eight different projects, unable to get more than five minutes in to any of them. I couldn't decide what to eat, I ended up eating a bowl of cereal yesterday. I went to a bookstore to buy a book, usually the most relaxing thing I do. I left without a book as I was unable to make a decision. Suffice it to say, by the evening I was really hyperactive, literally bouncing up and down, talking rapidly and loudly. I was hypomanic.
Fortunately I drank a bunch of beer and didn't exercise today and I feel fine again. Anyway, from what I can tell I have Bipolar II Disorder, I may even see a doctor about it, because any medication with hangovers attached is far from ideal. There's a genetic component to this disease, so anyone genetically related tome who has some mood issues might want to check the following link out,

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/bipolar-disorder/complete-publication.shtml#pub4

The good news is that I lost five pounds in three days.

Ignorance.

Since I was 16 my major interest is how people think/feel/believe. As a result I studied psychology and worked with developmentally disabled and mentally ill people. Part of this was for self-preservation, I started off with wanting to know how people could be happy, and how to avoid being as unhappy as I perceived my father to be, while fully aware that of all the people in the world he is the person I am most like in terms of natural tendencies. I still find myself thinking in ways unique to my father, still find myself going through little mindless habits or idiosyncracies that are also his. While typing this I can almost see the hands of my father doing the same task, with the staccatto rhythm that he has, the small bursts of extreme energy followed by a tugging on my/his lip o stimulate the next thought.
At a time of impending personal crisis (faithless women and fickle friends) I then broadened this interest into religion and spirituality. I had been almost entirely devoid of spirituality or religion in a personal sense (I have sat through innumerable Church of England services, the sound of drudgery is an english congregation singing a hymn) and I thought that this massive area of human thought worth looking into. So I read works on religion, mostly eastern religion. I meditated, and I experienced a change in my person as a result which stopped oncoming depression. I even had the enlightenment experience, which as far as I can tell is the same thing that those who are born again in christianity experience.
Anyway, since then I have been interested in religion, and I go onto an internet forum to discuss religion. It has been an extremely interesting and useful experience. I now know far more than I would have expected about how people become religious, how they experience reliion, how it colors and effects people's lives.
One of the things that I have found out is how extraordinarily ignorant many people are about their own religion, many christians have almost no idea what Jesus said, and of all the great religions in the world finding out what the purported originator of christianity actually said is by far the easiest, as there are only a few hundred words.
The two most egregious examples I have found recently are: the belief that Jesus was not a pacifist despite him saying, "Blessed are the peacemakers. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also" and the belief that Jesus was not against material things despite saying, 22When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still need to do one thing. Sell everything you have and give the money[p] to the destitute, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come back and follow me." and, "And he called unto him the twelve...And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats.

But then 20% of people in the USA and UK still think the sun goes around the earth. This is a useful statistic whenever you think that nobody could be that stupid, no matter how stupid 20% of people can manage it.

Dark, Wet and Grey

After weeks of warmth and bright sunshine we got a thunderstorm and rain today. Pattering moisture, scents rising from the earth, diffuse grey light nibbling at the edges of perception. It is the colour and environment of when and where I grew up, prone to reminding me of curling up in a bed with a book, alone, untouched by humanity. Solitary, quiet, still. Unconscious connections with the english culture, or perhaps an english culture, a state of mind without pain or pleasure, without excitement or misery. An unthinking existence, like a deep pool still and hidden away from sight.

The Serenity Prayer.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.

This is called The Serenity Prayer, attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr in 1934. One of the more interesting things about this is how was it that nobody came up with this before 1934?
Another thing I find interesting is that if looked at closely it seems to have two sections, the first is an attitude, the second is about action.
"God, grant us the grace to accept with serenity", you could stop there. God simply grants you serenity, sounds like a good deal, story over. The second part seems to be a recipe for getting that serenity, despite it being explicitly asked for as a gift of grace from God. Accept what you cannot change (in buddhism, the source of pain is wishing things to be different than they are, so in that tradition one simply accepts) is simply common sense. However, it requires the ability of the last clause, being able to tell what you can or cannot change. The final clause for me to look at is "The courage to change the things that should be changed." Here is the rub, what should be changed? It depends on how much serenity you have, how much acceptance you have, and then how much courage you have in order to be able to change things, and then the same qualities for everyone else in the world. An example of the interconnected nature of reality.

Basically it is a request to be serene, wise, and courageous. Which are good qualities, but as with almost everything in life, the specifics of how to be these things are extremely complex.

The reason that I thought of this is the present situation in Georgia, in light of the ongoing idiocy in Iraq. I wish to be serene, and if there is a god and he makes me serene that would be great. Given what I think of the chances of that happening I must move on to the rest of the prayer. I think people in Georgia, russian, georgian, ossetian or whatever should not kill each other. But can I change that in any way? Perhaps if I dedicated myself and my life to stopping conflict, perhaps by chaining myself in the path of tanks in Georgia I might make a difference. That would take enormous amounts of courage, and would probably make zero difference, but it might make a huge difference just as Gandhi demonstrated. So, I should either serenely accept the situation and do nothing, or I should be outraged and do everything.
Perhaps the serenity prayer could be summed up with the following, "When it comes to life, shit or get off the pot." The worst thing you can do is care deeply about something so that it eats at you, but not be able to do anything about it. So, here's your question, are you going to do something about it, or are you going to be serene? Because if you aren't picking one or the other, you are screwing up.

Solitude and Rest.

I had most of a blog written about how important solitude and rest are to me. But then I realized it was complicated whining about not getting enough sleep and therefore being irritated. Again.
Basically, I cannot turn off the bit of my brain that pays attention to other people. So I have to be alone to get rest. The dog counts as people because he has feelings. So I am very tired and have been for months. I am never alone. This is a very boring blog, but I don't do anything interesting because I am too tired.

TFOE Pictures.

As requested by Emily, my sister-in-law rather than my sister, here are more pictures of The Face of Evil. I have put in a picture from when he first arrived here as well for an idea of the changes in four months, and because he used to be cute and evil, rather than just evil. Size is difficult to judge here, but by weight he's four times smaller in the first picture than the rest.

Larry likes swimming, particularly if the water is fetid, disease-ridden and green. What you can't get from a picture is the smell.Larry contemplates the possible flavor of cat. He often licks Canterbury which looks cute, but I firmly believe this is simply his version of an aperitif.Trying to take a picture of Larry when he is not in motion is like trying to understand teenagers, just when you think you've got it, something unexpected happens. These last couple of pictures illustrate this point by being the best I could do, and being crappy.