Charleston Tea Party, PART II. This time we're not sure why we're protesting... money, right???

There was a tea party in Charleston this weekend that a couple of people I knew attended. It was a gigantic misguided mess, and was frustrating to see Fox News encouraging them on all day long.

There's a reason why countries that have more government-funded social programs and higher taxes consistently rank much higher than the United States on the Human Development Index. Instead of protesting taxes, we should be protesting how the money is being spent, and also how the money is being given to us in the first place.

Progress in Latin America as measured by the HDI and Gini index make me really sad for the USA. We're doing absolutely horrible by some aspects. Then again, to be clear, the USA ranks 15th on the HDI as of December 2008, which really isn't too bad. That ranking is still above the UK, Germany, Spain, and others. But, just because we're doing better than other countries that are arguably within the same system of Government as ours is not necessarily a good thing.


There's an incredibly strong correlation that as a country increases its GDP per capita, the two will meet up. As this graph shows, currently the US is the anomoly to this rule.

We've all heard that we're today getting paid less for the same amount of work, but it's actually quite different. Today, we're getting paid the same as we did in the 1970s for exponentially more work.

The post-war boom led to a great increase in productivity and real wages. Documented evidence showed that our economy was strong, the lower classes were actually moving up, and inequality was shrinking in our country. Then good ol' Reaganomics came in. For a time, productivity continued to rise, even faster than before, and real wages actually fell. Think about that. Things like that should not happen. That's like your boss saying that if you manage to be more productive, I'll pay you less. No wonder our poor are in need of help from the government--the poor's wages are simply not sufficient to move up the class ladder. Not even close.

One could argue that real wages are low because globalization drove the mean wage for industrial workers down, which in turn keeps our wages stagnant. That may be true, but whose fault is that? Certainly not the American workers' fault. What caused globalization was an insatiable need to bring home profit to shareholders, even when that meant shipping U.S. jobs overseas. If this means a rising level of unemployment at home and lower wages for the jobs that continue to stay behind in the U.S., then so be it. This is only a partisan issue insofar as different parties have different solutions, but as I gather, no one with any real power has yet to fully acknowledge the scope of this problem. Until it is fully realized, 'solutions' put out by both parties will be woefully inadequate. This isn't just Bush's fault, nor Obama's. The blame goes far deeper and is much more spread out.

Gini index graph from Visualizing Economics.com and the Wages vs. Productivity graph was from The Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

There's Something About This Man Dancing in His Underpants

...that I find absolutely hypnotic.

Whether the Weather

We're knee-deep into springtime, and only recently is it not absolutely freezing anymore. It's been raining almost daily for the past week. I hope it never ends. Anyways, recently Charleston has actually become somewhat of a musical city. Touring bands that don't sound like Garth Brooks & Dunn are finally coming down here.

Case in point:
FUCKING DINOSAUR JR MOTHERFUCKERS!!!!
For all of you that don't know, I'm completely obsessed with these guys. I'm going to be like a little schoolgirl when I see Mr. Mascis up on stage. One tip, though: bring earplugs. Trust me.
Oh. And freakin' Mike Watt is playing with him.
Make sure you buy your tickets now




Here's a list of some upcoming concerts:

• 4.09 Mystery show @ 89 Columbus (bring donations!!)
• 4.15 Kulture Klash @ Charleston Naval Base
• 4.24 Crazyhorse reading and concert @ Kudu Coffee
  
• 4.25 Dinosaur Jr/ w Mike Watt
• 4.28 Against Me!/ w Off With Their Heads and the 33's
• 5.01 Height with Friends/ w Ed Schrader @ 255 Ashley (bring donations!!)
• 5.10 Kings of Leon
• 5.13 Caw! Caw!/ w TBA @ 255 Ashley (bring donations!!)
• 5.14 MC Chris @ the Pour House
• 5.15 The Thermals w/ Shaky Hands and Point Juncture, WA
• 5.22 The Wailers @ Veranda
• 7.11 Very Disco: A Daft Punk Tribute @ Pour House

just a little shameless self-promotion

Hey guys, I thought I would drop in and let you know about my collection of poetry and prose on Writer's Cafe. Just take a little time outta your day and look it over, possibly over some red wine.
My writingses
Henceforward, you can access my writings by clicking on the handsome bearded fellow to the right of these posts.
Sniff ya later.

I'm starting to hate nerds

This is a long time coming. I am growing tired of nerds. This is also an act of self-loathing so don't go all jumping down my throat for being a hypocrite. I know I am.

I am growing sick of nerds and nerd culture and it's not because of my lack of nerdish interests. I love computers, the internet, and video games as much as the next recluse. No, I am growing to dislike nerds because of the way nerds interact with the world and their general outlook on life.

First off, things are different than they purport exactly to be. Language and reality are flexible. There are no hard and fast rules in anything. People created math to give the world hard and fast rules so they could make sense of it. This is something a lot of nerds just can't handle. There are errors, problems, and flaws in everything human beings do, say, and observe. We move forward by realizing our errors and the errors of those that came before us and working out new solutions that are most likely flawed in some other way. That is the nature of being human.

Now introduce the rest of the world to the issue.

Bringing up the fact that you can clearly see Luke miss the storm trooper with his kick or that car in Lord of the Rings or the gas tank on the bottom of the chariot in Gladiator is completely irrelevant to any conversation about anything other than movie trivia. I'm using films as an example, but you all know what I mean. I once said AMD processors had a reputation for being more sturdy when overclocked than Intel chips. A bunch of hardware nerds jumped all over me for using the word sturdy. Any idiot with a little bit of vision could tell that I meant reliable, dependable, and predictable. Perhaps Intel chips are just as sturdy as AMD chips - it doesn't matter in this context. What I'm saying is that someone took something minor and missed the point in order to point out semantics and completely missed the semiotics.

Learn semiotics, people. Meaning is an agreement between the person speaking or writing the language and those who read or hear the language. Do not be a prick about it. Learn to understand the world as a collection of adjectives and adverbs rather than categories of things. Nerds like to create categories and hierarchies of everything. Best to worst, top 10, stupid people, etc. Everyone falls under a certain label. Hipsters, slackers, geeks, emo faggots, etc. I've heard nerd kids argue the difference between nerd, geek, dweeb, doofus and dork. The conversation got heated. The difference is irrelevant. That girl will still call you whatever comes to her mind and it will still mean the same thing.

What I'm saying is be flexible. Obsessive categorization only works to hurt you. Experience things primarily and categorize them secondarily so that you can express your experiences to other people. Don't let your categories, your taxonomies, determine how you will experience the world. So many people don't try things because they have set arbitrary rules in their lives that prohibit them from experiencing before tossing something into a mental pile.

"Yuck. Why would I want to try that? I don't eat any kind of seafood/vegetable/whatever."

"Most Christians are idiots; Religion is just superstition"

"Look at that guy, he's such a hipster faggot."

The people who create the things you love are people who have vision enough to look beyond the ledger - beyond the encyclopedic and look at they gray space that remains undefined. These people can imagine what that yet unknown world, idea, or whatever is like and then use that inspiration - that conceptual experience of their vision to make it real, work it out, and explain it to those around them. Only then does it get a name and a placeholder.

So much of this life is experiential. I know it's en vogue to represent life as a series of choices that one has to make and to some extent it's true, but choices are rarely a selection of constants and there is always another option. There is no pin point solution to any problem that one encounters outside the clean lines of science. Everything we speak is myth, analogy, anecdote, and at best a dirty copy of our experiences. Remember that and understand that when you're quick to tell someone what to do.

Logic and reason do not always apply.

Judge, but judge slowly and carefully. Stretch things out and poke them and prod them until you know exactly what they'll do. Let things ebb and flow. Stop being so goddamn nerdish.

edit: NERD - A person who obsessively worries about categorization or organization in a way that significantly interferes with HIS ABILITY TO GET THE POINT YOU FUCKING NERD.

Now we know where Russia got it from

When my grandfather starts to talk of the good old days, when sodapop still came in a bottle, everyone said 'please' and 'thank you', and the women could be classy and cheap, I can't help but get a little jealous of the old man.

Deacon in the Dark

Dan Deacon

Bromst- Carpark

Dan Deacon must be fun to hang out with. His previous album, Spiderman of the Rings, was the musical equivalent of snorting a line of pixy-stix before hanging out at a theme-park with your five-year old cousin. It certainly wasn't the most musically profound or invigorating album of 2007, but it succeeded where more serious-minded musicians' records had failed, creating an inviting sonic landscape that felt at once crowded and ecstatic. Bromst, Deacon's new album, seems to be all too self-aware of this--it's denser, moodier, and larger in scope than its predecessor. Yes, the same blips and bleeps that made up the first album are still there, as are the overwhelming uses of organs and synth. Yes, there as many samples of Woody Woodpecker here as there were in the last album. Yes, he still dances like a less inhibited David Byrne. Yet this time the Deacon relies on live instrumentation to create his signature sound. It's easy to see Deacon as a goofy throwaway, and to forget his conservatory-trained roots. However, once you give the album a serious listen, the music's seemingly cheesy elements begin to branch off upwards towards the sublime.

When not in the studio, Dan enjoys freaking out the local news.

All for you, my ninnies...