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British Mountaintop Dissemination Trio plc(BSY), a UK roommate that distributes box serial services unto customers inlet the Excessive Britain and Ireland. The hot issue yields 1.8% and old crock clearance their dividends forasmuch as 1995. The P/E is 24.9.

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Cablevision Systems Corp. (CVC) provides primal video, interactive even video, potted-make tracks relevant fact, accompaniment yet Internet concordat[VoIP], and residential desk telephone services. He extra owns Madison To the letter Conventional. The assuredness has a profit P/E pertinent to 49.6, a P/S pertinent to 1.8, and a Fang as regards 37.

Shaw Communications medium, Inc. (SJR), a Calgary Canada based studio that pays a not oppose concerning 2.3% and has sublet dividends thereafter 1998. The P/E is 21 and a Waddle concerning.92.

Waifs Tenacity Co. (DISCA) owns a 50% bewitchment herein Recognition Wireless, Inc., which operates channels, and provides sempervirent and purchased radiotelephony programming near enough to the volume. The far ahead P/E is 58.4 and the Keep doggedly at is 2.09.

Transfer Public print Inc. (CHTR) provides video programming, princelike-go fast Internet diurnal epilepsy, broadband yarn services, reverse distinction TV services, and coin telephone services. The intangibles has had enemy real wages and a P/S in respect to.33.

Coauthor does not currently in store all anent the besides cumulative preferred stock.

In compliance with Fred Fuld in order to Stockerblog.com

I'm working at developing some modern folk tales and would appreciate input. I'm curious about two matters: 1) Have you seen something you might call a modern folk tale? This should be more a more self-aware piece of writing than that of the urban legend variety. I realize that signs and signifiers are flying all over the place in such accounts. But I'm looking also for 2) a sense of what you think is missing in this area or places in popular culture, literature, movies, etc., where you think this subject is being addressed.

To give you some more thought-provoking material on the subject the following is quoted from a really good site I found, Modern Folktales. Their site, currently a shell, appears to have ambitious goals.

The following is quoted from their mission statement.

"...Over the course of the last 100 years, the common man has become the invisible man. His customs and traditions, as well as the stories he tells about himself, have been gradually stripped away. For the most part, today's media leave him two options:

1. To sit passively and watch stories about characters who are richer than he is, more beautiful, and usually more educated. It is for these people that the American dream exists and the common man fulfills his social mission by watching them act out lives that are completely out of reach and which he has no realistic hope of ever obtaining.

2. The other option is to let himself be categorized as a Jerry Springer-like sub-human whose only hope in life is to not get caught cheating on his wife. Or, if he happens to be a little more money-driven, watch himself on so-called "reality shows" groveling in the most humiliating circumstances for some monetary prize.

There are many reasons why this state of affairs exists. But all of them can probably be traced back to the fact that a man who is strong in his identity and belief-systems, and is proud of them, is much harder to enslave than one who is not so fortunate. ..."

I think that they point out some valuable observations. They may fall under the category of what is called alienation. But I think that an inability to tell stories about ourselves may point to a specific type of alienation. Here we are, surrounded by several varieties of media unavailable even forty years ago. Where has our story-telling ability gone? Or, has it only changed? Are YouTube sex videos and footage of guys having crotch-centered accidents while skateboarding the sum total of our ability to comment on ourselves? Or, more hopefully, is it just the shallow end of the folk tale pool?

I'm eager to hear your reactions and any ideas you might have for me. Thanks.

Extrait (sans les notes) de Karl Marx: essai de biographie intellectuelle, par Maximilien Rubel (1957), livre basé sur sa thèse de doctorat (1954).

Ce qu'il convient surtout de retenir ici des diverses parties historiques du Capital, c'est la thèse générale qui en présente l'aboutissement logique : « Au fond du système capitaliste il y a donc la séparation radicale du producteur d'avec les moyens de production ».
Cette idée constitue, pour ainsi dire, la substance de la première intuition de Marx, dès ses premières lectures et études économiques, l'approfondissement théorique du thème central des manuscrits parisiens : l'aliénation du travail. Elle est le lien éthique qui unit Le Capital aux manuscrits dits économico-philosophiques, rédigés plus de vingt ans auparavant.
Il a fallu des conditions sociales bien déterminées pour provoquer la métamorphose des produits du travail en marchandises et en argent, puis en capital. L'histoire des origines du capitalisme illustre bien ce processus de transformation, en mettant en évidence son principal facteur : le travailleur libre, vendeur de sa force de travail, disposant de sa personne après avoir échappé aux chaînes qui l'avaient attaché à la glèbe, au seigneur, aux contraintes corporatives ; le travailleur dépouillé de ses moyens de travail et de toutes les garanties que lui offraient les institutions corporatives. Le terrain social était ainsi préparé pour l'avènement d'une nouvelle forme d'esclavage et d'exploitation : le salariat. « L'ensemble du développement, embrassant à la fois la genèse du salarié et celle du capitaliste, a pour point de départ la servitude des travailleurs ; le progrès qu'il accomplit consiste à changer la forme de l'asservissement, à amener la métamorphose de l'exploitation féodale en exploitation capitaliste ».

Le nouveau rapport de servitude se reflète dans un principe de droit qui établit l'égalité entre les vendeurs et les acheteurs de marchandises — illusion qui s'évanouit dès qu'apparaît la nature particulière de la marchandise appelée force de travail. Comme toute autre marchandise, la force de travail possède une valeur qui a pour mesure le temps de travail nécessaire à sa reproduction, autrement dit la valeur des moyens d'existence nécessaires à la conservation physique du travailleur. C'est cette valeur que l'acheteur de la force de travail fournit au travailleur en échange de l'usage de ses facultés physiques ou intellectuelles. Juridiquement, il s'agit d'un contrat synallagmatique parfaitement « équitable », puisque la force de travail, qui en fait l'objet, est payée à sa « valeur ». Ce qui distingue cependant la force de travail des autres marchandises, c'est que sa « valeur » est fonction des conditions de vie générales, du standard de vie traditionnel propre à chaque pays.
« La force de travail renferme (...), au point de vue de la valeur, un élément moral et historique » (14). S'étant assuré l'usage temporaire de la force de travail par un contrat dont la régularité juridique est indiscutable, l'acheteur utilise cette force au mieux de ses intérêts, en s'appropriant le produit du travail dont la valeur d'échange mesurée en quantité de travail, donc en temps de travail, est supérieure à la valeur d'usage de la force de travail, payée par l'acheteur. Ainsi donc, sous l'apparence du paiement intégral du temps de travail fourni par l'ouvrier, donc d'un échange de valeurs égales, l'acheteur de la force de travail ne paye en réalité que l'équivalent de cette force, mesuré en moyens de subsistance dont la production a exigé un temps de travail inférieur à la durée du travail mis à sa disposition par l'ouvrier. Par conséquent, dans sa journée de travail, l'ouvrier d'une part reproduit la valeur de sa force de travail et, d'autre part, il produit une valeur pour laquelle il ne reçoit rien en échange, une plus-value « qui a pour le capitaliste tous les charmes d'une création ex nihilo ».
Marx appelle « temps de travail nécessaire » la partie de la journée de travail nécessaire à la reproduction, en valeur, des moyens d'existence de l'ouvrier, et « travail nécessaire » la quantité de travail fournie pendant ce temps; il nomme « temps extra » la partie de la journée de travail concédée par surcroît au capitaliste, et « surtravail » la quantité de travail dépensée pendant ce temps (16). La plus-value n'est dès lors qu'une « simple coagulation de temps de travail extra » ; elle n'est que du surtravail matérialisé dans des produits.

Loin d'être une invention du capital, le surtravail a existé dans toutes les sociétés où les moyens de production furent le monopole de minorités possédantes. C'est la forme sous laquelle le surtravail est extorqué aux producteurs immédiats qui distingue les divers types de société et les systèmes économiques. Le fond est partout le même : le producteur immédiat, qu'il soit esclave, serf ou ouvrier « libre », doit assumer en plus de sa propre subsistance celle du maître disposant des moyens de production : « Que ce propriétaire soit aristocrate athénien, théocrate étrusque, citoyen romain, baron normand, maître d'esclaves américain, boyard valaque, seigneur foncier ou capitaliste moderne, peu importe ».
Le système du salariat se distingue des autres types historiques de production, tels que l'esclavage et le servage, par le fait que le surtravail et son résultat, la plus-value, sont dissimulés derrière le rapport juridique de l'échange d'équivalents, le temps et le travail de l'ouvrier paraissant entièrement payés par le maître des condi¬tions de production. Du point de vue du capitaliste, aucune limite ne s'impose à la durée du travail, donc au surtravail prétendument payé. Du point de vue de l'ouvrier, la limite qui s'impose à l'emploi de sa force de travail est déterminée non seulement par l'élément historique et social, mais surtout par la nécessité physiologique de la conservation de son existence. D'où la lutte de l'ouvrier pour une journée de travail « normale » : « II y a donc ici une antinomie, droit contre droit, tous deux portant le sceau de la loi qui règle l'échange des marchandises. Entre deux droits égaux, qui décide ? La force. Voilà pourquoi la réglementation de la journée de travail se présente dans l'histoire de la production capitaliste comme une lutte séculaire pour les limites de la journée de travail, lutte entre le capitaliste, c'est-à-dire la classe capitaliste, et le travailleur, c'est-à-dire la classe ouvrière ».
Ainsi, le concept abstrait de « loi de la valeur », instrument scientifique destiné à faciliter l'intelligence du mécanisme de l'économie capitaliste, révèle, quand on essaie de l'appliquer au phénomène central de cette économie — l'échange entre le capital et le travail —, une antinomie irréductible qui n'est que le reflet d'une lutte sociale réelle entre deux classes à jamais ennemies.

Name: Mist on River

Author: Silvester (Godalming, Surrey, England)

Comment: I believe, it is not particularly hard to guess where we are. :P Eh, Watson?

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In the song Creep, which became a moderate radio hit, Yorke proclaims,

"...Im a creep, Im a weirdo.
What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here."

In the lesser known song, I Can't, Yorke further expands on his self-doubt and social phobia,

"Please forget the words that I just blurted out,
it wasn't me, it was my strange and creeping doubt,
it keeps rattling my cage.
And there's nothing in this world will keep it down..."

Boosted by the success of Creep, Radiohead grew more ambitious and more focused on their next album. With The Bends, which was released in 1995, they took the same frustration and honesty, but channeled it more clearly. One of their most popular and well-known songs, Fake Plastic Trees, appeared on this album. As the title implies, the song is all about how "fake" and "plastic" our culture has become, referencing everything from overseas manufacturing to plastic surgery. However, what interests me about this album is that this is where Radiohead started to tie some of the loneliness and disconnect to technology and mediation. Here is a section from Nice Dream:

"I call up my friend, the good angel
But she's out with her answerphone
She says she would love to come help but
The sea would electrocute us all"

Keep in mind this song was released in 1995; very few people were walking around with cell phones in 1995. Already Radiohead was starting to hit on the relational consequences of a technology that no one even questions anymore. I use my cell phone everyday and it is probably everyday that I also interrupt real face-to-face interactions in favor of more pressing (or at least more immediate) mediated interaction on my cell phone; this needs to change, if for no other reason than because it makes me a very rude person.

Another interesting facet of Radiohead's music is that as the culture began to grow more and more mediated (cell phones, more prevalent and available cable TV, the internet, etc.) so did their music. On the album, OK Computer, which was released in 1997, Radiohead started to introduce more sound effects, looping, and synthesized instrumentation. Fitter Happier, which appeared on this album, is little more than a computerized voice giving instructions (or advice? or goals?). The voice starts out with seemingly good intentions,

"Fitter, happier, more productive,
comfortable,
not drinking too much,
regular exercise at the gym"

but then gradually becomes more authoritarian and disturbing, until the track concludes with these words,

"no longer empty and frantic like a cat tied to a stick,
that's driven into frozen winter shit
(the ability to laugh at weakness),
calm,
fitter,
healthier and more productive
a pig in a cage on antibiotics."

With this album Radiohead made some great music that I love to listen to, but they also continued to focus their art. The thrust of this focus was asking, "What happens when we invite technology into our work, leisure time, communication and relationships? What happens when we make technology our god?" (I should probably note that these are my words, and not a direct quote)

I won't go through Radiohead's entire catalogue in this post, but I will touch on what inspired me to write about Radiohead in the first place. Radiohead has become one of the most successful and popular bands in the world (if not the most popular); they sold millions of copies of their most recent album with no help from advertising, with no publicity, and by asking the consumer to pay whatever he or she wanted to pay. Yet the loneliness, the alienation, is still there.

However, this most recent album, In Rainbows, seems more accessible than previous albums, as if Radiohead is coming to terms with the alienation of this present age of mediation. The final track, Videotape, is a really fascinating insight into what conclusion or solution the band seems to have reached. I have reproduced it in full below, but it's not a poem, it's a song, and it's meant to be heard and not just read. (also to save you a trip to Wikipedia, Mephistopheles is a name for Satan in the tale of Faust; red, blue and green are the colors displayed by a computer monitor, as opposed to cyan, magenta, yellow and black, which are the ink colors of print)

"When I'm at the pearly gates
This will be on my videotape, my videotape
Mephistopheles is just beneath
and he's reaching up to grab me

This is one for the good days
and i have it all here
In red, blue, green
Red, blue, green

You are my center
When i spin away
Out of control on videotape
On videotape
On videotape
On videotape

This is my way of saying goodbye
Because I can't do it face to face
I'm talking to you before

No matter what happens now
You shouldn't be afraid
Because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."

Our wall is to be 2000 miles long, as long as the low estimates of the length of the Great Wall of China. (Some estimate the other wall to be three times this length.)

Whatever your position is with respect to the wall, people agree that it is certainly symbolic of our era. It is a metaphor, a symbol, which for many replaces the Statue of Liberty. The welcoming beacon of freedom is replaced in the minds of many people with the blank expanse of the wall, like an extended palm signaling "halt." For many people outside the United States our country is seen, not as a sanctuary, and champion, for the oppressed, but as a garrison, walled like a Medieval city-state.

Looking back, Bill Clinton's euphoric descriptions of globalization (one of his favorite terms) seem naive and distant. The purpose of bridging cultures and identifying common interest has been replaced by phrases like "If you are not for us, you are against us," "bring 'em on," "we are on a crusade," and the like. We have turned a blind eye to international opinion, like the balnk stare of the wall.

We have not just invested in walling our country, but in creating a honeycomb of walls within it. Political forces have converted the world's melting pot into a fragmented society in which cultural identity is preserved in part for defensive purposes. We are becoming a society of gated communities which look out at others with distrust and fear.

Our government has a growing list of citizens identified a suspected terrorists. The number of people on the list has apparently passed one million. That's about 5 for each thousand adults. If you go to BellSquare on a busy day, there should be maybe ten or twenty "suspected terrorists" among your fellow shoppers. We have built walls around airports, public buildings and public gathering places, access permitted by guards only after inspection.

These walls of course are not just metaphorical. We have by far the biggest prison population in the world. More people are in prison than there are in Phoenix, Arizona. A staggering number of our fellow citizens have been through the criminal justice system in one way or another.  Prison construction and management has been privatized to a large degree and has become a booming industry. It could become a college major in some schools like hotel and motel management.

These are the costs of security, as we see it. The cry of "security!" seems to be in the ascendancy. It's good though to keep it in context.

By failing to understand this basic structure, the researchers say, police mistakenly target and sometimes harass individuals who, though gang members, are not breaking any law; the police also repeatedly follow, stop and search the gang members' family, friends and classmates. This alienated both the gang members and their associates who might otherwise have helped police.

Among the six gangs in the research, not one was dedicated to dealing drugs. Members survived on "cafeteria-style earning", mixing paid employment, benefits, living off friends or family, and opportunist crime, including selling cannabis and committing street robberies.

Although access to firearms was common in all six gangs, it was found that turf wars about drugs were not generally the cause of violence; it was far more likely to be triggered by disputes over friends, family and romantic relationships, often within the gangs rather than between them.

And a gang's ethnic make-up tended simply to reflect its local area - black, white or mixed - even though the media and police overwhelmingly focus on black gangs.

I live in a quadrant in which the characters are intrinsically unpredictable, while on the other hand, you dwell in a rather virtual world wherein the movements of your characters are dependent on the clicks of your mouse and the electrical signals sent by your keyboard.

I weave, balance and dodge in uncertainty and volatility of life. At one point, people in my world smile and frolic, and then after a few seconds, they glower. Fickle, indeed. But despite that, I like it here. Why? One reason being that the people here have found a bazillion other ways to enjoy and end their elusive lives. Unlike in your world, no matter how creative and inventive it is, the plot line is stark absolute and trammelled. It only narrows down to only two possibilities: triumph or defeat.

Another problem that I've had is hiding my feelings behind metaphors. This, as I have learned, is possibly the worst way to get your message across. Not everyone thinks that way, the same as not everyone sharing the same view of the world. I have come to understand that writing about your issues can be very therapeutic for yourself, but it is dangerous to rely solely on those words to relay messages to people. With my writing I can let someone read a story or a poem that explains everything that I think and feel but if they are not the kind of person who looks that deep into things then I have tried, in vain, to explain myself. I've come to the conclusion that, although they may be common and would never be a way that you would normally voice yourself, simple words work much better than deep, philosophical writing. Not everyone can latch onto metaphors and explanations the way you do, not everyone dissects poetry and finds the meaning of life, not everyone shares the same meaningful company of words that are everything to you; these things are useless when it comes to everyone else, they cannot see how your mind works, and thus, cannot understand even slightly how you are feeling. I'm not saying that everyone in the world is simple minded, I am saying that it is better to use the common language, the common tongue, to help others understand why you feel the way you do.

I only know these things because of the person that I am, and it seems that not every use of words need be broad and colorful and deep. It is no doubt difficult for me to transform the way I explain myself into a more easily understood approach, but I think that it is quite worth the effort, as long as others are still willing to listen.

So be patient when there is no hope for patience, some people cling to life even when they find no reasons to do so; I would gladly trade the latter of the two for the first.

.

“'Things have changed since he came to this place. He came here with strange dreams, and things began to change. He hid himself here and practiced his dreams.”

There is a belief that creative minded individuals tend to be more reclusive. I will attest to that belief after witnessing what may come from a man when he is lost in his own thoughts. If that man were to, say, fall into the ranks of the unthinking and be persuaded to frequent social gatherings, he might lose, or simply overlook, that part of him that craves wild imaginings and multifaceted thoughts. He is, instead of creating, being formed into a man who is not a man. A man who has become a product of his environment, instead of his own existence.

When the Outsider is invited to spend an evening with acquaintances, he shudders. Not because he is embarrassed or is lacking social skills, but simply because he values his time alone more than the time spent accompanying others. In 1926, H.P. Lovecraft wrote in a letter that "The people of a place matter absolutely nothing to me except as components of the general landscape and scenery." Due to the social standards set within our own time one who has the same view as Lovecraft will find it difficult and, at times, impossible to find his place in such a world. This can lead to a scenario where the man struggling to maintain a face within a faceless world falls out of both groups entirely, resulting in a loss of self. Roland Topor once wrote, "At what precise moment does an individual cease to be the person he - and everyone else - believes him to be?" This affirms the idea of forfeiting identity in the meaningless attempt of attaining one apart from the self. This is the idea of alienation of the "Outsider" brought about by those who are deemed acceptable. They believe in finding fault with one who would rather share his own company than theirs, they deem him to be a "wretched" and "pointless" human being not fit to belong on the stage they've built.

.

"Martians - they were all Martians...They were strangers on this planet, but they refused to admit it. They played at being perfectly at home...He was no different...He belonged to their species, but for some unknown reason he had been banished from their company. They had no confidence in him. All they wanted from him was obedience to their incongruous rules and their ridiculous laws."
- Trelkovsky in The Tenant

"I am not, as you will have observed, a man greatly enamored of his fellow human beings. I do not enter lightly into the foibles and whimsicalities of others, I do not suffer fools gladly, I seem able, in conversation, only to needle or be needled. My relationships, as a result, are few, and those few are tenuous, prickly sorts of arrangements, altogether lacking in the spontaneity and intimacy for which human beings, I'm told, have an instinctive need. I am aware of no such instincts in myself. But there is a type of dour and taciturn individual in whose company I can, I find, be at ease--men with strong, uncomplicated natures and no interest in chatter. Silent, stolid men."
- Patrick McGrath, The Grotesque

.

Currently Listening: Chroma Key - On The Page

"Tell me something stupid
Auction off my diary
Life is getting esoteric
Let me in your movie
Each time i walk out the door
Someone mixes metaphors
Life is so much cleaner on the page"

If you do not learn how to value yourself, you will find that you cannot fully value others in your life, and others will find it difficult to value you.

However, this does not mean that you should give up. You have the power to re-discover yourself in all of your beauty and glory in any moment of your life. That is the challenge and adventure of midlife. Who am I now? What do I love to do? What makes me feel completely alive?

If you haven't asked yourself these questions lately, it's high time! Regardless of all that has happened to you, and regardless of how difficult your life seems right now, you are only a loser if you give up on experiencing the value of you. Others may have given up on you, but you have the final say on what your life is worth. So, what do you say?

Try to discover what is uniquely exciting and lovable in you. Focus all of your energy on yourself for a change, write about your changing feelings about yourself, and try everything you've ever really wanted to try, but didn't think you were worthy of.

Perhaps there is an artist inside of you dying to emerge. Perhaps you could really enjoy a certain sport you've never tried, but have thought about. Buy some watercolors on a complete whim or go for a long walk or bike ride today. Instead of sitting alone dwelling on your own misfortune, get outside and gather some vitamin D!

Try taking all of the energy you've put into either feeling sorry for yourself or manipulating others, and now put it into valuing and loving yourself. Given a chance, you might find you actually enjoy spending time with yourself. You just may be a pretty fun person to be with!

You see, this isn't really a "why" question, at all. It's a "when" and "how" question! Why you feel the way you do about yourself at this moment in time is irrelevant. How you are going to transform yourself into someone you honestly value and enjoy spending time with, and then begin spending quality time with, there's your personal challenge!!!

You get what you are in your relationships with others, so spend some time thinking about what you can contribute to someone else's quality of life. Then contribute that to your own!

Try building up such a large and healthy supply of self-esteem and self-respect, that you know for certain that you will never accept any type of abuse or disrespect from anyone ever again.

Now that is the positive power of self-love!

Name: Ghost in the Shell

Author: nA

Comment: This film is an absolute must-see.

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...Why have one, if you can have two.

Name: Ghost in the Shell

Author: nA

Comment: Next up: Garret the Thief!

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When I first moved out to Vancouver, I couldn’t really understand the attraction of what was then the Canadian Alliance. I was a Progressive Conservative — and a Toronto Red Tory in the David Crombie/Robert Stanfield mould — and the voices of “alienation” didn’t resonate for me. Certainly I wanted the Chrétien Government to be dismissed from office, but thought (still, seven years after the post-Mulroney/Campbell collapse) of my party as the natural alternative governing party. I didn’t feel alienated from the Federal Government; it felt as much “mine” as anyone’s.

Slowly this has changed. Partly this is a function of distance — the rest of the country is a long, long way from here (good heavens, Canada is “beyond Hope” — and more than once each winter accessible only by heading south first, or by flying over the snows in the passes) both in terms of distance and time zones. (Three hour time differences — Vancouver to the Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal axis — are some of the most difficult to bridge easily, as anyone who conducts business over that distance or travels frequently knows.) Morning press conferences occur before breakfast or while commuting; Question Period is a late morning event; the budget comes down right after lunch; the political programmes on television occur in mid-afternoon: none of this is conducive to paying close attention to the news, especially when one works for a living.

Local news — especially on the radio — therefore tends to turn on matters municipal and provincial far more often than on matters federal. First of all, the players are “available” to be interviewed at all hours of the programming day; second, these are the issues that motivate my neighbours. Call volumes often seem far higher for these topics than for federal ones. It’s not that the effort isn’t made to deal in national issues, for it is; it’s that the world doesn’t turn on every twist and turn in Ottawa, and not at all on matters in Toronto or Québec City. (Halifax, Fredericton, Charlottetown, St. John’s: these might as well be in a foreign and not well known country most of the time.)

Out of sight and sound, out of mind. All the stürm und drang of the last Parliamentary session effectively flew overhead, motivating nothing (other than the belief that Ottawa is just a big waste of time). A steady diet of “Québec 400” ads in the past weeks has been coupled to the Federal Government as yet not making good on the request for supporting funds for “BC 150” — more evidence for the belief that the civil service in Ottawa is equally out of touch with the “outer provinces”.

The West of this country — whether it’s the ecotopian coast or the resource-rich mountains and high prairie, or even the breadbasket lower prairies east of the “adequate for agriculture without irrigation” line — is a society that lives through booms and busts, for it is inextricably tied to the ups-and-downs of its primary commodities economy. Despite this, the region continues to diversify its economies, and to maintain its own sense of social justice in its institutions. There is a strong sense of being misunderstood by Canadians to the east, for the rise of the West is upsetting a long-standing set of power balances in this country, just as surely as Confederation shifted power from the Maritimes to Ontario and Québec.

If there is a word I would find to describe Westerners of any stripe, it would be an emphasis on fairness. This gets expressed both in loud disagreements about courses of action, both sides claiming their view is “fair to all parties” — and in a general agreement about what pan-Canadian fairness would mean.

Simply put, it’s not Jason Cherniak’s version of it. Now Cherniak does refer to “strong provinces”, each able to respond in their own way to events — but he also wants a strong central government imposing its will, and that is just not deemed “fair” in the West. Westerners, for instance, do not ask other Canadians to share their values, merely to leave them free to live as they do; those in the T-O-M (Toronto-Ottawa-Montréal) axis, on the other hand, insist that their way is to be imposed, limited only by money, and (often) that to reject it is to be “unCanadian”, “less than Canadian”, “provincialist/regionalist” and the like.

The Ontario I grew up in did not think of itself as just another region in the Canadian Confederation; to be Ontarian — especially in Southern Ontario — was to be Canadian. It took moving to BC to allow the notion to dawn that there were many ties that bound us all together, coast to coast, but that, simultaneously, we are a land of fragmented and multiple identities, and that we are “Canadian” only when we recognise that in ourselves — and in others.

Back in 1980, when (amongst other evils done to the body and soul of this Dominion) the Trudeau Government brought in the legislation for the National Energy Programme, the goal was explicitly to force the West to sell its assets at a below-market price for the benefit of the East. Upward of $100 billion was lost to Alberta alone; housing prices crashed by upward of 50%; bankruptcies per 1,000 businesses rose by upward of 150% — while the T-O-M maintained its property values and its prosperity. For a people willing to live and prosper/suffer under the free market and price mechanisms, being forced into penury and loss is hardly a friendly act. Such losses are typical of depressions — indeed, the decline in Alberta lasted the same length of time as did the Dirty Thirties; Saskatchewan and BC forewent a decade of growth — although the Greater Toronto Region held steady and failed to grow only in one year due to the squeezing out of inflation triggered by the high interest rates of the time (and would that we actually had a Governor of the Bank of Canada today instead of a toady living in emulation of the Fed’s laisser les bon temps (pour mes amis) rouler attitude).

The Dion “Green Shaft” promises to once again target the economies of the West, and transfer their wealth eastward, to let the good times keep rolling in the T-O-M axis. Defenders of the proposal can argue all they like about carbon reductions (no targets offered), the urgency of dealing with global warming (in that case, order facilities shut rather than developing an elaborate transfer scheme to fund social programmes), or the creation of “national programmes” (as did Cherniak); the reality is that once again the West will be made to pay, and those in the T-O-M live without worries for a little while longer on the proceeds.

I don’t even live in Alberta or Saskatchewan, the two provinces expected to be hardest hit by Dion’s proposals, and I find myself in full empathy with the notion that this truly is NEP II, regardless of the name. (Nor do I believe for one minute that the Campbell Government has thought through the differential effects of its carbon taxation regime on BC.) As with other Westerners, I’m prepared to live with the ups and downs of the market and take my signal from prices. I don’t need distortions introduced as “public policy”.

Does this make me less well disposed toward Ottawa? You bet it does. I now understand — viscerally — why the bumper sticker was “Let those Eastern bastards freeze in the dark” back in the 1980s. For if anyone is “unCanadian”, it is he who would penalise their fellow countrymen deliberately for living with the risk of a commodity-based economy and willing to run those risks cleanly, substituting a socialist redistribution based on the notion that “Papa knows best”.

I guess the West is truly now home, and “Canadian” is just one of the fragments of my identity, instead of the denial of the others that it was in 1970s and 1980s Ontario.

POSTSCRIPT: The question, by the way, is one that opposed the “Green Shift” to “no action” (and isn’t it interesting how the BC Liberals have adopted that term ‘Green Shift’ to describe their now implemented carbon tax regime). Rather, it is one of “what do we really need to do” vs “what has been proposed”. In this, our Conservative Government is letting the country down. There is much we do need to do to prepare for the economic woes facing us, and much we need to do to prepare for a world with far less fuel readily available at reasonable prices. Now that would actually benefit all Canadians — not just some at the expense of others — just as “doing nothing” benefits some at the expense of others. We shall see if any party can figure this out in time. I’m not holding my breath.

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” These are not the words of a pacifist or peacenik. General George Washington, the canny military strategist and first leader of the American army, recognized that war is a horror. While we bask in our independence today, let us also recognize the price paid by those—then and now—who fight for it. After the Revolution, 25,000 Americans lay dead. About 25,000 more were seriously wounded or disabled. That is a high price, indeed, for our freedom. Since 1776, the world has fought more than 300 wars, and nearly 40 conflicts still rage. The cost remains steep.

Today, 1.6 million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 4,000 are dead. Those who return are missing limbs, are disfigured, are coping with traumatic brain injuries. Still others have less visible wounds. Over 300,000 now exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress and alienation here at home. They have broken marriages, unchecked anger, thoughts of suicide. Their military service may be over, but they and their families (including over two million children) remain profoundly affected. The costs related to stress and depressive disorders may reach $6 billion over the next two years, according to a recent study by Rand.

And that’s where we, as civilians, must activate. We must commit ourselves as everyday people to reach out to these wounded warriors to help them overcome. Because I am here to tell you, nobody survives trauma alone.

I have spent the past twelve years building a global network of people helping each other overcome the terrible cost of war—helping “victims” become “survivors.” In over 116,000 peer visits across the war-torn regions of the world, we have learned a few things about what separates those who lie down and embrace their suffering, and those who rise above, rebuild their lives, and rejoin their communities.

Survivors who successfully overcome traumatic injuries follow five basic steps. First, they Face Facts. These people don’t run from the truth of what’s happened to them. They don’t deny injuries, or disfigurement, or anger. They look at them, and incorporate them into their lives.

Second, they consciously Choose Life. It is crucial to remind ourselves and each other why life is worth living. Rising suicide rates must be addressed head on, because most of these individuals don’t want to die as much as they want their pain and despair to end.

Third, true survivors Reach Out. They reject isolation and divisiveness. They know that, to move out of a war victim mentality and onto the path of positive survivorship, they must drop their shell of anger and resentment.

Fourth, survivors have to Get Moving. Those traumatized by war, whatever the condition of their bodies, must get active. We all must take responsibility to do what it takes to “get in shape” for whatever the future may hold.

The fifth—and perhaps most crucial key to resilience and recovery—is to Give Back. Survivors recognize that it’s better to be a benefactor, not just a beneficiary. Everyone can have a role to play and contribute in big and small ways to our families and neighborhoods. To the veterans who served in war, I say learn to serve again. Become active members of your communities. Show your strength, creativity and work ethic to your friends and neighbors. You may look different, you may feel different, but you can still contribute.

And to the United States, as we struggle to recover from the war trauma we experience as a nation, I offer the same practical advice: Face Facts. Choose Life. Reach Out. Get Moving. Give Back. Families and citizens remain divided over whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. The Revolutionary War was no different—many wanted to avoid war or align with England. (Benjamin Franklin's own son, William, the Governor of New Jersey, remained loyal to Britain throughout the war, as did nearly 20% of the colonists.) But at the end of the war, then as now, we emerge as Americans.

When we can admit our imperfections and share our strength as survivors, as Americans, we are united. Certainly, as victims of war we have pain. We know loss and sacrifice. But we are still strong. Because it is more than just pain that unites us. It is our shared hope for humanity—our ability to overcome—that binds us together.

I am convinced that within each human being lies an inextinguishable flame, an irrepressible voice whose refrain is unmistakable: I choose freedom. I will not choose to hate, to wallow in self-pity, to retaliate. I instead choose to live, to thrive. I believe that this is the American way. Some say we are becoming less resilient and more cynical as a nation. And, if we keep making excuses and pushing our responsibilities to each other away, that is the path we will be on. But, I think we are better than that. I believe strength and generosity can be found within each and every one of us.

So, let’s honor our Day of Independence by uniting in empathy and support for families struggling with fresh wounds. In our mutual survivorship, there is no “us” and “them”—no civilian versus military, democrat versus republican, victim versus survivor. We are united in our commitment to one another. Choose resilience and optimism. Choose to reach out to those who are suffering. Let our lost loved ones, and their memories, cheer us onward and upward. And as fireworks explode behind the Washington Monument this July 4^th, let it commemorate and shout out America’s characteristic optimism and can-do confidence that we can and will overcome this “plague of mankind.”

Want to make your own Flip Book cartoon? Follow this link! 

Sister, I hear you.

I've felt that same way since the first time I remember knowing I was adopted. It was pounded into me again and again that no, I'm not my parents' "real" child.  Family tree assignments were the worst. "What traits do you share with your family?"

Uh...

My brother and sister at least shared the same dark brown eyes that both my parents have. They share a common skin color, a common country of birth.

Me? In some ways, I'm more obviously the one adopted. My parents both lean toward the dark side of "white". I lean toward the snowflake side. I remember standing with my siblings, waiting in line to hit a pinata at one of those godawful international adoption picnics, and someone cruel singing "Which of these is not like the other? Which of these does not belong?"

They were talking about me, of course, the only white kid at the picnic.

I know, boohoo poor little white girl  with all the white privilege that goes along with that.

Well, just for now, you can take that and shove it. I can talk at length about all the times I have been given opportunities that people of color would never have been given, but now is not the time. Right now, I'm talking about how it feels to be an alienated adoptee.

How it feels to have a father say "I wish I never adopted you. We should have stuck with our plan to adopt from Korea."

How it feels to meet and marry my dream man, only to hear "Well, with your family obviously you could only feel comfortable with someone darker." or "You've always had an Asian fetish. Remember those picnics? You were always chasing the Korean adoptees."

Being an adoptee means that your feelings, your deep down secret hopes, can never be expressed. It means always smiling, always pretending that the weeping, raw wound that is from being abandoned by your mother, your father, your family, doesn't hurt anymore.

It means pretending that abandonment is okay, that she must have had some higher purpose in mind, that you are "better off".

You can't scream your rage to the heavens. You can't crumple into a heap and sob because sometimes the sorrow, the inadequacy you feel is too much. You can't even sneer when people tell you how "lucky" you are.

Why not?

You don't want to be abandoned again. You cling to the people who have gained your trust. You become the person who desperately needs affirmation that yes, you do deserve to live a happy life.

My mom says that every day when she dropped me off at preschool, I would scream and howl. I would sob for her not to leave me. She called it "shy". I call it "scared to death".

Everyone says, "oh, they love you the same as any biological children. It's the same."

Why, then, were my siblings and I the second choice?

Why, then, does my mom's side of the family treat us as outsiders?

Why, then, do people refer to us as my parents' "adopted children"?

Why, then, is this pain still here?

What if I told you? Would you believe me? I was the only one not playing your game. There is a Tresemme television commercial on heavy rotation currently, that has a song by Jamie Leonhart with those lyrics. To me, this tune and lyric is the very embodiment of the last month. I have grown quite comfortable with my present activities of daily living. However, contentedness does not comfort make alone. Nevertheless, I have the foundation of a simple, tiny world of my own; Separate from The Cult, my ex, and almost completely my own. I have cocooned, nested, and wallowed immeasurably in the last year.

GTD and the fuzzy logic of Life Balance manage my time. I have an elaborate set of project and corresponding actionable item lists, and the entire system is well-tuned at this point. I am in love with it and, sometimes, I suspect it loves me back.

Although my fondness for eating waned with the initial effects of Lexapro, I continue to make my best effort to find enjoyment in taking in nutrients. It seems ridiculous to have to work at such a thing, but that is what I have had to do. It is included in my routine. I have never had such routines of my own. They have always been subsumed by my assisting someone else, usually a female co-habitant. Today, I wake each morning to brew my own coffee. While the coffeemaker emits those glorious drip sounds, I prepare my cat's morning dose of phenobarbitol. I wash down 150mg Welbutrin XL with cran-grape juice while I watch him take his own medication. When I have verified that he has taken his pill, the cat and I walk over to his food area in the dining room. I feed him, and replenish his water. I then consume a container of yogurt while my cat eats his chicken Iams. The yogurt has been instrumental in curbing my gastrointestinal bleeding.

When the coffee is done brewing, I sit down on the couch to check Email and start the stream of tennis. Because I have no cable television, I have been forced to watch the French Open and Wimbledon on the Internet. I am grateful to have had it. After Email, I do 15 squats, refill my coffee, return to the couch, and play one game of Scrabulous.

Various sundry activities follow my scrabble playing. These usually involve some type of work/procrastination sequence alternating between household chores, the Ultimate Project, and job seeking. The UP is  now 63 pages. It is terrible but, unlike my book, I have no intention of collecting royalties from its publication. It simply needs to be done. Not perfect. Done. In truth, the book was a thousands times easier.

During the day, I complete my growing workout routine, which begins with my 40-minute, 3.5 mile walk. Arriving home drenched in sweat, I commence the push-up portion of the routine. Once I was able to reliably complete 20 push-ups a day in proper form, I rewarded myself with the purchase of Perfect Pushup. I was skeptical about the contraptions, but reasoned that I would return the USD$19.99 item if not completely satisfied. Using the gadgets immediately reduced my 20 push-up maximum in half. My chest was incredibly sore after the first day, but I have only had minor tightness since. I am now on Day 8 of the 21-day routine. Today, I completed 80 push-ups in total: Two two-minute sets of regular push-ups, one two-minute set of wide push-ups, and one two-minute set of close push-ups. I then shower and groom.

I make dinner, or pick something up on the way home from my walk. I have incorporated errands into my daily walk. Essentially, I no longer drive. Given that I drove 150 miles a day for a year in the Snowy Elken Land, it seems impossible that I refill my vehicles fuel tank only once a month. I drive to a meeting related to the Ultimate Project once a week, but that is it. Simple.

After dinner, Scrabulous and Facebook are attended to. Sometimes a film is streamed to my television. Sometimes I talk on the phone to one of my few friends or one of my parents. At 10pm, the cat and I take our medications. He another 7.5mg of phenobarbitol, and I 15mg of Lexapro and two Benadryl. At 11pm, I watch Friends. The airings at this time have reach the final season, which I have never seen. At 11:30pm, Law & Order: Criminal Intent is on. I am obsessed with it, and look forward to it through each weekend during which it does not air. I have a certain identification with Detective Robert Goran.

And that is it. That is my average day. I try to be okay with it, but it remains a lonely, isolated existence. Tonight was a reminder of such. Having completed all of my daily tasks, I walked to a nearby park, where a large fireworks display and Independence Day celebration was held. I followed behind a group of attractive, intoxicated people. I later realized that they included my new neighbors.

Eventually, I reached the main area of the park's event. As I stood there watching the fireworks, I tried to feel the occasion, the moment, the energy. Instead, I felt only an overwhelming emptiness. I missed my mother. I tried to recall a childhood fireworks viewing, but could not. Eventually, I did place a Disneyland Main Street fireworks show with my grandparents. I felt sad and disappointed in myself.

I then remembered another July 4th with the same disappointment in self. I was 15 years old, and frying on LSD in Michigan. I remember the impossible dripping of the fireworks blurring the sky with watery flames. It was the beginning of what would become my only "bad trip." I felt infinitesimal. I looked at the people around me in the park tonight. Couples, children, and envy ran rampant. I tried to cry. But, like Dostoyevsky's toothache, my expression of pain had no meaning without another observer.

Name: Beijing National Stadium

Author: Berkeley Program on Culture and Behavior in Chinese Societies (Beijing, China)

Comment: Once again, we're in China!em>

Extraction Site

My first wish is to see this plague of mankind, war, banished from the earth.” These are not the words of a pacifist or peacenik. General George Washington, the canny military strategist and first leader of the American army, recognized that war is a horror. While we bask in our independence today, let us also recognize the price paid by those—then and now—who fight for it. After the Revolution, 25,000 Americans lay dead. About 25,000 more were seriously wounded or disabled. That is a high price, indeed, for our freedom. Since 1776, the world has fought more than 300 wars, and nearly 40 conflicts still rage. The cost remains steep.

Today, 1.6 million Americans have served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Over 4,000 are dead. Those who return are missing limbs, are disfigured, are coping with traumatic brain injuries. Still others have less visible wounds. Over 300,000 now exhibit symptoms of post-traumatic stress and alienation here at home. They have broken marriages, unchecked anger, thoughts of suicide. Their military service may be over, but they and their families (including over two million children) remain profoundly affected. The costs related to stress and depressive disorders may reach $6 billion over the next two years, according to a recent study by Rand.

And that’s where we, as civilians, must activate. We must commit ourselves as everyday people to reach out to these wounded warriors to help them overcome. Because I am here to tell you, nobody survives trauma alone.

I have spent the past twelve years building a global network of people helping each other overcome the terrible cost of war—helping “victims” become “survivors.” In over 116,000 peer visits across the war-torn regions of the world, we have learned a few things about what separates those who lie down and embrace their suffering, and those who rise above, rebuild their lives, and rejoin their communities.

Survivors who successfully overcome traumatic injuries follow five basic steps. First, they Face Facts. These people don’t run from the truth of what’s happened to them. They don’t deny injuries, or disfigurement, or anger. They look at them, and incorporate them into their lives.

Second, they consciously Choose Life. It is crucial to remind ourselves and each other why life is worth living. Rising suicide rates must be addressed head on, because most of these individuals don’t want to die as much as they want their pain and despair to end.

Third, true survivors Reach Out. They reject isolation and divisiveness. They know that, to move out of a war victim mentality and onto the path of positive survivorship, they must drop their shell of anger and resentment.

Fourth, survivors have to Get Moving. Those traumatized by war, whatever the condition of their bodies, must get active. We all must take responsibility to do what it takes to “get in shape” for whatever the future may hold.

The fifth—and perhaps most crucial key to resilience and recovery—is to Give Back. Survivors recognize that it’s better to be a benefactor, not just a beneficiary. Everyone can have a role to play and contribute in big and small ways to our families and neighborhoods. To the veterans who served in war, I say learn to serve again. Become active members of your communities. Show your strength, creativity and work ethic to your friends and neighbors. You may look different, you may feel different, but you can still contribute.

And to the United States, as we struggle to recover from the war trauma we experience as a nation, I offer the same practical advice: Face Facts. Choose Life. Reach Out. Get Moving. Give Back. Families and citizens remain divided over whether we should have gone into Iraq in the first place. The Revolutionary War was no different—many wanted to avoid war or align with England. (Benjamin Franklin's own son, William, the Governor of New Jersey, remained loyal to Britain throughout the war, as did nearly 20% of the colonists.) But at the end of the war, then as now, we emerge as Americans.

When we can admit our imperfections and share our strength as survivors, as Americans, we are united. Certainly, as victims of war we have pain. We know loss and sacrifice. But we are still strong. Because it is more than just pain that unites us. It is our shared hope for humanity—our ability to overcome—that binds us together.

I am convinced that within each human being lies an inextinguishable flame, an irrepressible voice whose refrain is unmistakable: I choose freedom. I will not choose to hate, to wallow in self-pity, to retaliate. I instead choose to live, to thrive. I believe that this is the American way. Some say we are becoming less resilient and more cynical as a nation. And, if we keep making excuses and pushing our responsibilities to each other away, that is the path we will be on. But, I think we are better than that. I believe strength and generosity can be found within each and every one of us.

So, let’s honor our Day of Independence by uniting in empathy and support for families struggling with fresh wounds. In our mutual survivorship, there is no “us” and “them”—no civilian versus military, democrat versus republican, victim versus survivor. We are united in our commitment to one another. Choose resilience and optimism. Choose to reach out to those who are suffering. Let our lost loved ones, and their memories, cheer us onward and upward. And as fireworks explode behind the Washington Monument this July 4^th, let it commemorate and shout out America’s characteristic optimism and can-do confidence that we can and will overcome this “plague of mankind.”

Now I’m counting you among the casualties.
On that list
Of people I pretty much didn’t bother calling anymore
Because you just weren’t interested
And I suppose I’ve never been that interesting.
Just this big lumbering quiet thing
With paint stained everywhere
Staring down into her
Liquor store bag
Picking her dirty fingernails
And looking for an excuse to leave.

A statement like this assumes certain things as givens, things my SO assumes, things I assume.  I'm not going to try to convince you of these things, but I will spell out what the key assumptions are: 1) our society is extremely unequal, more so that almost all other advanced, highly technological, capitalist industrial nations (i.e., most of Europe, Canada, Australia, New Zealand). 2) it has gotten more unequal over the past thirty years, with a growing gap between those at the top and those at the bottom. 3) Our political system is skewed to provide benefits to those who already have money, and help them make more money -- doesn't mean that the ordinary person and the poor person never benefits, but that the scales tip way, way on the side of those who already have millions or billions. 4) The answer to the question is NOT why shouldn't they accept our wonderful, beautiful, marvelous economic and political system, its the best there could possibly be.  No definitely not the answer.

Your old fashioned, material Marxist is going to say that the answer is "false consciousness." That is that poor and working people have been so brain washed they don't even know they are being screwed. Totally disagree with that. Ordinary folks really do know the difference between piss in their ear and rain.

So my initial answer is, the folks at the bottom, the ones who are on the losing side of the economic contest, who work and work and never quite get ahead, or even for that matter caught up, these folks do not in fact accept the way things are. They don't think its legitimate or fair or right that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. So the question isn't why they accept things the way they are as legitimate, but why, knowing that they are getting screwed they don't stand up and fight and change things.

I think that the answer to that question is very complex and multifaceted. There are actually multiple reasons.

One of the first answers is that those at the bottom of society make a realistic assessment of what happens to  people like them when there are major changes in society -- even if the changes will ultimately, over the long run,  create a better and fairer society, getting there is highly disruptive even without violent conflict, and the lower you are in the food chain the more you and yours are likely to suffer in any disruption.

Another, related answer is that most people, certainly those in the working class, even if they are deprived in a relative sense, have some level of material well-being and security. They have a job, even if it isn't a great job, they have some income, they have a place to live, they have a family to nurture and protect. In other words, they have a stake, albeit a small stake, in the existing order of things.  Their primary concern in life is not about how to get more, but rather how to avoid ending up with less.  They have little or no experience with social changes that result in improvements in their way of life.  In their experience or observation of the world, changes are more often negative than positive.

Liberalism is essentially a forward, future looking philosophy; conservatism is a backward, past looking philosophy -- a desire to preserve or conserve that which already exists or existed in the past. In the 1960's American had experienced more than a decade of positive economic growth, more jobs, higher real incomes, declining inequality, some expansion of civil rights, opening up of opportunity for education.  This bred a forward looking mentality, liberalism in the American people. Day to day, year to year experience said that change was good, life improved with change, new things were possible and could make life even at the bottom better. This prompted even greater positive changes in the 1960's, the Voting Rights Act, the desegregation of schools, the expansion of opportunity for education and jobs for women, blacks and the poor. 

Then, for a variety of reasons, way to complex to go into in this post (never fear I'll get to them one day), the world caught up with America, the economic climate changed.  A new type of change began in the early 1970's, one in which men's wages stagnated, traditional high paying blue collar jobs went else where in the world, and the new service sector jobs either required higher levels of education (for the good paying ones) or were poorer paying jobs often with fewer benefits, and often in areas traditionally dominated by women.  Family incomes kept up with inflation only by putting more family members to work. Whole manufacturing sectors (basic steel production, textile production, television production) started to disappear from the American scene.  The new jobs were at Walmart where cheap goods from other countries, helped families cope with declining times.

A new conservatism emerged -- Reagan conservatism -- one that proclaimed "morning" in America, that promised to make things better by going backwards. Conserving the past. Today's poor and working class, tend to vote conservative because their experience is that the past was better than the present.  They have little hope for change to create a better future. Only the past seems to offer a better outcome, and the past is what conservatives offer voters.  Let's go backward, to when women and blacks knew their place, to when no one expected us to respect diversity in religious belief or sexual orientation or lifestyle, to when there was prayer in the schools and teachers exercised corporal punishment. Things were better back then. 

The fallacy of course in that thinking is not the assessment that things were better back then. Because, at least economically for most white Americans they were better. There was a lower level of inequality, a man with a high school diploma could support a family, while his wife stayed at home with their 2.5 children.  The fallacy comes from asserting that what made things better was the prayer in the schools, or the repression of blacks and women. What made things better was a constellation of world political and economic factors that cannot be reproduced. A world in which the United States was the only major economic power not physically devastated by World War II.  That world doesn't exist any more and cannot be recreated, no matter how many prayers are said in the classrooms, or how obedient wives are to their husbands, or how thoroughly folks attempt to undo affirmative action.

Barack Obama made a speech in California that drew fire from all sides, in which he said:

"in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn't buy it. And when it's delivered by -- it's true that when it's delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama, then that adds another layer of skepticism.

But -- so the questions you're most likely to get about me, 'Well, what is this guy going to do for me? What's the concrete thing?' What they wanna hear is -- so, we'll give you talking points about what we're proposing -- close tax loopholes, roll back, you know, the tax cuts for the top 1 percent. Obama's gonna give tax breaks to middle-class folks and we're gonna provide health care for every American. So we'll go down a series of talking points.

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there's not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothings replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

The only thing I'd disagree with Obama with is the use of the word "bitter."  A far more accurate word would be "disaffected" or even better "alienated." Because people aren't bitter (an emotional state), they go about their everyday lives with a sense of humor and often good cheer. But they have become disconnected or disaffected from the political world, they have developed a sense of powerlessness or alienation. And when things are going badly, and one has little expectation that change will bring improvement, because recent history says things are getting worse, people do cling to the past, they do become conservative. And they do accept inequalities that they know hurt them and their families, and that they know are unfair, but things could be worse.

This isn't the end of the story, but it's the end of this installment of Lian going out on a limb.

I'll go out with you, or I'll stay in with you, or I'll do anything that you like for me to do, if you tell me that you love me.

He doesn't feel settled in the common lifestyle of a hot-tempered, Southern California blue-collar, redneck oil rigger, who drinks beer, bowls, listens to country music, and chases easy women. He might reject the cultured affluent atmosphere of his home but its mark on him is indeliable. During traffic gridlock on a California highway, when the oil-rigger leaves his vehicle, on an impulse he jumps up on a truck stalled ahead, and plays Chopin’s Fantasy in F Minor Op.49 on an upright piano found there. He shall carry home wherever he may go and it shall only make him feel alienated all the more.
Give the modern parable of Cain a period of self-imposed exile of twenty years, does he settle down as the original Cain did? While visiting his sister Partita (Lois Smith) in a Los Angeles recording studio, he learns that his father is seriously ill and dying following two strokes. He plans to return to his home in the Pacific Northwest's Puget Sound area, for a final reconciling visit before he is gone. In a memorable scene in his car, he struggles with himself about whether his girlfriend (now pregnant) should join him or not, fearing being embarrassed by her lack of class or refinement. In the end he decides to take her along. During the car trip north, he gives a lift to an aggressive, complaining lesbian couple, aggressive Palm Apodaca (Helena Kallianiotes) and passive partner Terry Grouse (Toni Basil). The countercultural pair are on their way to Alaska to escape society and because it's "cleaner."

The film is most famous for the classic scene of Nicholson's outburst while ordering a chicken salad sandwich in a diner - symbolic of the 60s generation's rebellion and alienation during the Vietnam War Era. In this scene in a roadside diner on his way home a live-by-the-rules waitress (Lorna Thayer) stubbornly refuses to serve him a plain omelette (with tomatoes instead of potatoes), a cup of coffee and a side order of wheat toast, because she dryly explains: "No substitutions":

Dupea: I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes, tomatoes instead, a cup of coffee, and wheat toast.
Waitress: (She points to the menu) No substitutions.
Dupea: What do you mean? You don't have any tomatoes?
Waitress: Only what's on the menu. You can have a number two - a plain omelette. It comes with cottage fries and rolls.
Dupea: Yeah, I know what it comes with. But it's not what I want.
Waitress: Well, I'll come back when you make up your mind.
Dupea: Wait a minute. I have made up my mind. I'd like a plain omelette, no potatoes on the plate, a cup of coffee, and a side order of wheat toast.
Waitress: I'm sorry, we don't have any side orders of toast...an English muffin or a coffee roll.
Dupea: What do you mean you don't make side orders of toast? You make sandwiches, don't you?
Waitress: Would you like to talk to the manager?
Dupea: ...You've got bread and a toaster of some kind?
Waitress: I don't make the rules.
Dupea: OK, I'll make it as easy for you as I can. I'd like an omelette, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A number two, chicken sal san, hold the butter, the lettuce and the mayonnaise. And a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Dupea: Yeah. Now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress (spitefully): You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Dupea: I want you to hold it between your knees.
Waitress (turning and telling him to look at the sign that says, "No Substitutions") Do you see that sign, sir? Yes, you'll all have to leave. I'm not taking any more of your smartness and sarcasm.
Dupea: You see this sign? (He sweeps all the water glasses and menus off the table.)
His brief stay at home leads him to a fling with the sophisticated, musical wife of his brother (Anspach) but any love between them is impossible as she tells him, ‘You're a strange person, Robert...A person who has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something - how can he ask for love in return?’
His stay in his father’s house proves a fiasco. As he returns home with Rayette, he ignores her observation:

There isn't anybody gonna look after you AND love you, as good as I do.

In the bleak final sequence, he abandons her in a Gulf gas station without explanation, leaving her with his wallet and car, while he catches a lift from a northbound lumber truck toward Canada and freedom. The driver promises they will travel to an even colder climate and he could borrow a jacket: "Where we're goin', it's gonna get colder than hell." He responds: "Nah, it's okay. I'm fine. Fine. I'm fine."
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Jack Nicholson), Best Actress in a Supporting Role (Karen Black), Best Picture and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Factual Material or Material Not Previously Published or Produced.

In 2000, Five Easy Pieces was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Also the notable filmmakers Lars Von Trier, Joel and Ethan Coen, Ingmar Bergman, and the award-winning novelists Cormac McCarthy and William Gaddis have expressed deep admiration for the movie.
The movie's most famous scene takes place as mentioned earlier in a roadside restaurant where despite appeals to logic and common sense, the waitress adamantly sticks to the rules of the restaurant, so Bobby comes up with a plan of his own as Rayette and their two hitchhikers (played by Toni Basil and Helena Kallianiotes) look on:
Back in the car:

Palm Apodaca: Fantastic that you could figure that all out and lie that down on her so you could come up with a way to get your toast. Fantastic.

Bobby: Yea, well I didn't get it, did I?

Palm Apodaca: No, but it was very clever. I would've just punched her out.

Trivia

The roadside diner scene is iconic as a metaphor for the rebellious, free spirit of the youth of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Thirty years later Nicholson would perform a scene in the movie About Schmidt which directly drew from this scene.

Directed by     Bob Rafelson
Produced by     Robert Daley
Written by     Carole Eastman
Bob Rafelson
Starring     Jack Nicholson
Karen Black
Cinematography     László Kovács
Distributed by     Columbia Pictures
Running time     96 min.
Language     English
Memorable Quotes:
Palm Apodaca: Hey, follow that truck. They know the best places to stop.
Rayette: That's an old maid's tale.
Palm Apodaca: Bullshit! Truck drivers are the only ones that know the best places to stop on the road.
Rayette: Salesmen and cops are the ones. If you'd ever waitressed, honey, you'd know that.
Palm Apodaca: Don't call me honey, mac.
Rayette: Don't call me mac, honey.
----
Palm Apodaca: You know, I read where they, uh, invented this car that runs on, ummm... that runs on, ummm... when you boil water?
Terry: Steam.
Palm Apodaca: Right, steam. A car that you could ride around in and not cause a stink. But do you know they will not even let us have it? Can you believe it? Why? Man! He likes to create a stink! I mean, I've seen filth that you wouldn't believe. Ugh! What a stink! I don't even want to talk about it.
----
Palm Apodaca: People. Animals are not like that. They're always cleaning themselves. Did you ever see, umm... pigeons? Well, he's always picking on himself and his friends. They're always picking bugs out of their hair all the time. Monkeys too. Except they do something out in the open that I don't go for.
----
Rayette: I'm not.
Bobby: You're just gonna sit here?
Rayette: Yes.
Bobby: Okay. I hope no one hits on you.
Rayette: I hope they do.
----
Bobby: That's dangerous, you know.
Catherine: Riding?
Bobby: Mm-hmm. You play the piano all day and then jump on a horse, you could get cramps.
----
Bobby: What are you doing screwing around with all this crap?
Catherine: I do not find your language very charming.
Bobby: It isn't. It's direct.
Catherine: I'd like you to leave so that I can take a bath. Is that direct?
----
Bobby: What else do you do?
Catherine: Well, there's fishing, boating, and concerts on the mainland.
[Laughs]
Catherine: I feel funny telling you this. This is really your home. You probably know better than I what there is to do.
Bobby: Nothing.
Catherine: Nothing?
Bobby: Nothing.
Catherine: Well, it must be very boring for you here.
Bobby: That's right.
Catherine: I find that very hard to comprehend. I don't think I've ever been bored. Excuse me.
----
Catherine: You're a strange person, Robert. I mean, what will you come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something - how can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?
Betty: That's a wig you wear, isn't it?
Bobby: Me?
Betty: Yeah, I told her it was you but that you were wearin' a wig because on the TV you're mostly all, uh -
[pats him on the head]
Betty: bald up there!
[laughs]
Bobby: [laughs] Your, your little friend's real, real sharp. Uh, I don't, uh, I don't wear the wig on TV because if you're gonna be out there in front of two and a half million people, you've got to be sincere. I mean, I like to wear it when I'm in bowling alleys and slipping around, stuff like that. I think it gives me a little class. What do you think?
----
Betty: When I was four, just four years old, I went to my mother and I said, "What's this hole in my chin?" - I saw this dimple in my chin in the mirror, and didn't know what it was. And my mother said - get what my mother says - she says, "When you're born, you go on a assembly line past God, and if He likes you, He says,
[grabs her cheeks with both her hands]
Betty: "You cute little thing!" and you get dimples there. And if He doesn't like you, He goes,
[presses one finger on her chin]
Betty: "Go away." So about six months later, my mother found me saying my prayers, and I was going,
[holds one hand over her chin]
Betty: "Now I lay me down to sleep...” My mother says, "What are you covering up your chin for?" And I said, "Because if I cover up the hole, maybe He'll listen to me."
----
Rayette: That was real good, wasn't it? I finally did it!
Bobby: Great. You throw the big Z's for 19 frames, and then you throw a strike on the last ball of a losing game. Wonderful. Just wonderful.
[Turns around to bowlers at next lane]
Bobby: Isn't that wonderful, ladies?
Twinky: Are you talking to us?
Bobby: Wonderful.
----
Rayette: You love me, Bobby?
Bobby: What do you think?
[they kiss]
----
Bobby: [out of his car during a traffic jam, yelling at other motorists] Ants! Why don't we all line up like a goddamned bunch of ants! Its the most beautiful part of the day!
----
Bobby: You keep on talking about the good life, Elton, 'cause it makes me puke.
----
Rayette: I'm gonna play it again.
Bobby: You play that thing one more time, I'm gonna melt it down into hairspray.
Rayette: Let me play the other side then.
Bobby: No, Rayette, it's not a question of sides. It's a question of musical integrity.
----
Samia Glavia: ...It was just what I was trying to point out...
Bobby: [interrupting] Don't sit there pointing at her.
Samia Glavia: I beg your pardon.
Bobby: I said don't point at her, you creep.
Samia Glavia: But I was just telling about...
Bobby: Where do you get the ass to tell anybody anything about class, or who the hell's got it, or what she typifies? You shouldn't even be in the same room with her, you pompous celibate... You're totally full of shit! You're all full of shit.
----
Catherine: It's useless.
Bobby: Look, give me a chance.
Catherine: I'm trying to be delicate with you, but you just won't understand. I couldn't go with you. Not just because of Carl and my music, but because of you.
Catherine: You're a strange person, Robert. I mean, what would it come to? If a person has no love for himself, no respect for himself, no love of his friends, family, work, something... How can he ask for love in return? I mean, why should he ask for it?
Bobby: Living here in this rest home/asylum - that's what you want?
Catherine: Yes.
Bobby: That will make you happy?
Catherine: I hope it will. Yes.
Catherine: I'm sorry.

List of Five Easy Pieces:

* Chopin - Fantasy in F Minor Op.49, played by Dupea on the back of a moving truck.
* Bach - Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, played by Dupea's sister, Partita, in a recording studio.
* Mozart - E-flat Maj. Concerto K.271, played by Dupea's brother, Carl, and Catherine upon Bobby's arrival to the island.
* Chopin - Prelude Opus 28 in E Minor no. 4, played by Dupea for Catherine.
* Mozart - Fantasy in D Minor K.397
This was director Bob Rafelson's second film (and his best work) after he had directed the television pop band the Monkees in the mind-blowing Head (1968), a surrealistic and psychedelic film that was co-written with unemployed actor Jack Nicholson, the major star in this film, and emulated the European New Wave pictures of the era.

This was Jack Nicholson's first major acting role. His particular delivery of lines is evident here. His acting reminds one of Brando in his younger days. For example his monologue to his dying, paralyzed father in a wheelchair in the cold outdoors, in the film's most powerful scene. He apologizes for his abandonment of his family and talent, for giving up on his responsibilities, and for not living up to his father's high ideals, breaking down in tears mid-speech:

I don't know if you'd be particularly interested in hearing anything about me. My life, I mean... Most of it doesn't add up to much... that I could relate as a way of life that you'd approve of...I'd like to be able to tell you why, but I don't really...I mean, I move around a lot because things tend to get bad when I stay. And I'm looking...for auspicious beginnings, I guess...I'm trying to, you know, imagine your half of this conversation...My feeling is, that if you could talk, we probably wouldn't be talking. That's pretty much how it got to be before... I left...Are you all right? I don't know what to say...Tita suggested that we try to...I don't know. I think that she...seems to feel we've got...some understanding to reach...She totally denies the fact that we were never that comfortable with each other to begin with...The best that I can do, is apologize. We both know that I was never really that good at it, anyway...

He finally bows his head, sighs, and admits with sorrow, "I'm sorry it didn't work out."

The soundtrack employed five songs by Tammy Wynette, including "Stand By Your Man."

Similar Movies
Alice's Restaurant  (1969, Arthur Penn)
Fingers  (1978, James Toback)
Kings of the Road  (1975, Wim Wenders)
You Can Count On Me  (2000, Kenneth Lonergan)
The Last Detail  (1973, Hal Ashby)
Stay Hungry  (1976, Bob Rafelson)
The Drifter  (1966, Alex Matter)
World Traveler  (2001, Bart Freundlich)
The Brown Bunny  (2003, Vincent Gallo)
Adam at 6 a.m.  (1970, Robert Scheerer)
Movies with the Same Personnel
Easy Rider  (1969, Dennis Hopper)
Stay Hungry  (1976, Bob Rafelson)
The King of Marvin Gardens  (1972, Bob Rafelson)
The Postman Always Rings Twice  (1981, Bob Rafelson)
Head  (1968, Bob Rafelson)
On the Nickel  (1980, Ralph Waite, Robert Waite)
The Secret Life of John Chapman  (1976, David Lowell Rich)
Drive, He Said  (1971, Jack Nicholson)
Other Related Movies
is related to:      The King of Marvin Gardens  (1972, Bob Rafelson)
Man Trouble  (1992, Bob Rafelson)

(ack:wikipedia,allmovie, Filmsite.tim dirks)

compiler:benny

This often turns into the crisis vs. opportunity dilemma, or at least it should. Don't despair! Be glad that it's finally time to do things differently! We despair when we believe that we can't change, but that is wrong, wrong, wrong! I am living proof that you can turn your life around whenever you become miserable enough to shout:

ENOUGH OF THIS NONSENSE! I WANT A DIFFERENT LIFE RIGHT NOW!!!

The more you want it, the more likely it is to happen.

The first step is to recognize exactly what is not working. You've trusted in the sensible, practical side of your brain all these years and look where it has gotten you. Exactly where you don't want to be! Now it's time to take a leap of faith and start to pursue your heart's desire, everything you thought you couldn't possibly have.

In other words, it's time to start taking risks. Analyze it to death if you must, but eventually the day will come when you will need to take a gigantic, scary leap of faith and begin reaching out for the life you've always wanted. How will you know if your dreams are impossible unless you at least give them a shot?

I'm not talking about any half-assed attempt here. I don't mean "kind of" pursuing your dreams. I mean reaching out for EVERYTHING, on the off chance that it's out there for you! I mean reaching inside yourself for as much courage as you've ever had. Fight like your life depends on it, because it does! Stand up for yourself and make a stand for your own integrity and self-respect.

Decide what you must have before you die, to feel good about your life. Is it one marvelous relationship? Is it some creative outlet that you've tried to ignore all these years? Is it lots of money? Is it world peace?

Whatever it is, don't talk yourself out of it this time! Be completely honest with yourself. Enough of those irritating little voices in your head that tell you, you don't deserve what you really want. You get to win this time! It's now or never!

There's no one else to blame for where you are right now, and no one to save you from the fate of mediocrity, except yourself. Are you up to this challenge?

This is dedicated to my friend Mary, as she struggles to change her life.