Journal Archive - November, 2006

last night i played some music at the jonathan ames' variety show at mo pitkin's.
and the woman upon whom i played percussion(ok, it's a long story. very innocent. audience was watching. nothing untoward)also had been at the tonic show.
i wanted to say thank you to her for being such a good sport, for both the interview and the percussion experiment.
and happy birthday!
moby

my 'the conservative religious right in america have an agenda that is egregiously, almost comprehensively, contrary to the teachings of christ' seems to have touched a nerve with some people.
allow me to try to explain a bit.
see, i really love the teachings and character of christ.
the teachings are actually pretty simple on many levels.
be humble. be forgiving. be compassionate. be non-violent. be non-judgemental.
and more.
if you read the 4 gospels(matthew, mark, luke, and crazy john)you'll find a lot of remarkable teachings.
teachings on forgiveness(to paraphrase: forgive everyone, regardless of how they've wronged you).
teachings on judgementalism(simple: judge not unless you want to be judged, and no one can really hold up under judgement).
and so on.
what you WON'T(again, to be clear, what you WILL NOT) find in the 4 aforementioned gospels:
1-teachings compelling people to pray in public.
2-anything regarding homosexuality.
3-anything defending 'the family'.
4-anything about evolution.
5-anything promoting war(quite the opposite, actually).
6-anything about abortion.
7-anything about amassing wealth(again, christ seems to be kind of anti the whole 'let's get rich' ethos. this is a difficult one for me, to be honest, but i wrestle with it the way i wrestle with many difficult teachings).
8-anything encouraging hate(again, quite the opposite).

like i said, my issue is with right-wing american christianity, which seems to have absolutely no foundation in the actual teachings of christ.
my presumptuous belief is that if christ walked into a right-wing mega-church and started preaching he would either be beaten up or shot.
republicans call themselves christians, but the next time you encounter a republican
christian just ask them what part of their agenda is based on the teachings of christ.
just try it, it's fun. they get all flustered and practice this double speak that would be infuriating if it wasn't so absurd(some of the best right-wing republican justifications of their 'christian' agenda: 'well, jesus wrote the bible'. and 'we focus on the letters of paul', and so on).

-moby

p.s-oh, just for the record, as far as we know, jesus didn't write the bible. well, if by 'write' you mean 'put pen(or stylus) to paper(or papyrus)'. jesus didn't even write his gospels. he was more of an executive, with his followers doing the transcribing.

p.p.s-again, if you want to have fun with a right-wing, republican christian just ask them:
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to start wars?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to oppose the theory of evolution?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to condemn homosexuals?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to obey men?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to amass wealth?
where in the teachings of christ does he compel his followers to judge others?

the only truthful answer to any of those questions is 'nowhere'.

so now if you're so inclined you can hear one of the punk rock songs that i recorded with daron and scott last year.
it's downloadable, so feel free to download it and listen to it on the portable digital music player of your choosing...
is 'downloadable' a real word?
now it's a real word.
or, rather, here it's a real word.
like misunderestimated and truthiness.
if you want more i'll put up more of the punk rock songs.
maybe i'll put out the punk rock record for 1 week in iceland, or something.
i've never been to iceland.
i hear it's nice.
greenland, too.
moby

a woman in a suburb of denver put up a peace sign on the outside of her home.
her neighborhood association(right wing christian republicans) are suing her to have it taken down, as they believe that the peace sign is 'offensive' and 'possibly a sign of satan'.
dear god, what the hell is wrong with people?
christians who are anti-peace and pro-war?
the truth is that contemporary right-wing christianity in the united states could not possibly be further from the actual teachings of christ.
christ compelled his followers to be forgiving and pacifistic. contemporary right-wing christians are pro-war and pro-death penalty.
christ compelled his followers to have no posessions. contemporary right-wing christians are fiercely pro-capitalist.
christ compelled his followers to pray in private. contemporary right-wing christians believe that prayer should be done in public.
christ never mentioned: homosexuality, evolution, abortion, but these 3 issues are central to the right-wing christian agenda.
really, what the hell is wrong with contemporary right-wing christians in america?
there seems to be absolutely no foundation for the right wing christian agenda in the actual teachings of christ.
to be a pro-war, pro-capitalist, pro-prayer in school, anti-gay, anti-evolution, anti-peace christian is like being a vegan who eats pork chops and hamburgers and runs an animal testing label in his basement.
i can't believe that christian republicans in colorado are suing a woman for displaying a peace sign on the front of her home.
that is truly insane.
moby

remember gw bush standing on the flight deck of the aircraft carrier in may of 2003 with the 'mission accomplished' sign behind him?
remember?
remember dick cheney saying 'i think that the iraqii's will greet us as liberators'?
donald rumsfeld saying 'we know where the weapons of mass destruction are'?
these people are inept idiots who deserve to be fired.
oops, rumsfeld's been fired.
so how do we fire the rest of them?
if they worked at kinko's they would've been fired 3 years ago.
funny how we have lower employment standards for presidents and vice-presidents than we do for people who make wedding invitiations at kinko's.

$1,000,000,000,000.00 of taxpayers money spent so far in iraq.
thousands of u.s military dead due to bad war planning.
tens of thousands of u.s military maimed due to bad war planning.
over 500,000 iraqi citizens dead as a result of the war.
the entire middle east a quagmire of chaos and instability.

bush and cheney will go down as the worst president/vice-president in the history of the united states.
the enormity of their ineptitude and disastrous management will only sink in as time passes and we have the ability to look at their track record objectively.
this will be my last political journal entry for a while.
i know, i've been laying it on kind of thick lately.
-moby

so, regarding countries 'devolving' from a larger state... when pakistan, bangladesh, afghanistan, east timor, kazakhstan, ukraine, georgia, croatia, slovenia, montenegro, latvia, lithuania, bosnia, czech republic, slovakia, hungary, to name a few, decided to go their own autonomous ways the u.s gave it's active or tacit support/approval.
so there's, uh, precedence, right?
i mean some countries even go so far as to draft a declaration of independence when they feel the need to, uh, declare their independence.
moby

ok, maybe not 'funny' per se. but, uh, interesting?
gwb(not 'george washington bridge' but our current lame duck president)often stresses the virtues of democracy in the middle east.
so...how about we let the people who live in iraq decide for themselves what should be done with their country?
how about a simple vote?

dear iraqi's, choose one of the following:

a-iraq as it currently is, a 'nation state' with no internal boundaries.

b-iraq as a loose federation of 3 seperate states, kurdish, shi'ite, and sunni.

c-no more iraq. replace it with 3 autonomous states, kurdish, shi'ite and sunni.

wouldn't this be a pretty good place to start as far as letting the iraqi's
assume democratic control over their own country?
there is a degree of tragic irony in a country like the united states(which was formed in an attempt to throw off democratic restrictions being imposed from a few thousand miles away) trying to impose democratic restrictions on a country a few thousand miles away(and having our troops tragically decimated in the process).
why not let iraqi's have a simple vote in the basic make-up of their country?
i mean, call me crazy, but when a country is being defined shouldn't the inhabitants of the country be allowed to determine what basic form the country actually takes?
moby

having some issues with the music on my myspace page.
punk rock song(and the songs that were up there already)to be put up soon.
sorry.
moby

we talk about global events from a western, political, and oftentimes partisan, perspective.
we discuss the war in iraq usually from a symbolic perspective, i.e 'the republicans are idiots', 'it's the front-line on the war on terror', 'cut and run', etc.
but yesterday iraq moved even closer to an all out civil war between shi'ites and sunni's.
the civilian death toll has been growing steadily from month to month, and the american
troops in iraq aren't able to do anything about it.
i really do hope that the democrats and republicans will be able to put aside their partisan differences and come up with a solution to the seemingly intractable disaster that is iraq.
the democrats need to stop laying on the blame, as we all know that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the bush administration hurled the country into a war for which they weren't prepared.
and the republicans need to stop calling the war in iraq a 'success' or 'the front line in the war on terror' or 'the path to democracy in the middle east', as it's none of those things.
right now the situation in iraq is just a complete disaster, and using it as a partisan football is becomingly increasingly irresponsible on everyone's part.
personally i think that it's going to end up being a loose, federal state with 3 partitioned
areas: kurdish, shi'ite, and sunni.
iraq as a conventionallly integrated nation-state just won't work, as the sunni's and the shi'ites hate each other too much to ever really live and work together.
i hope, for the sake of the iraqi's and for the sake of the troops serving in iraq and for the sake of stability in the middle east, that the politicians in d.c will be able to muster the courage and resolve to come up with a workable solution to the situation in iraq.
moby

well, everybody who celebrates thanksgiving.
ok, does anyone really 'celebrate' thanksgiving?
it's more a quiet 'stay home and eat and talk to friends and family' holiday.
not really a celebration.
well, happy thanksgiving.
last year i recorded a bunch of punk rock songs with my friends scott and daron(scott on drums, daron on 'yelling in the background').
one of my favorites is called 'just great', and i've put it up on myspace if you want to listen to it.
i might've put it up on myspace before.
i dunno, my memory's not so good these days what with the in-breeding and whatnot.
ok, happy punk rock thanksgiving.
-moby

oh, p.s-charlie rangel stating that he supports a return to the draft was just plain dumb, even if his intentions were good.
i believe that what he was trying to say was:
a-u.s troops are stretched dangerously thin in iraq and afghanistan and the u.s military is over-extended and not capable of dealing with other problems that might arise.
and
b-the military is primarily comprised of lower income minorities, and that if the military looked more like america then perhaps americans(and politicians) might not be so keen to send troops into harms way.

both are good points, good points delivered in an egregiously clumsy way.
i'm happy to criticize democrats when democrats do dumb things.
it's just that the 'dumb things' department has been kind of monopolized by the republicans for the last 6 years.
hopefully these little embarassments(charlie rangel advocating a return to the draft, unnecessary internecine battles for house majority leader, etc)will remind the democrats of the old 'united we stand, divided we fall' credo.
the democrats do need to remember that they were only elected because the republicans were doing such a bad job running the government.
the democrats weren't elected on the strength of their platform, they were elected on the back of republican scandals and ineptitude and deceit, and the democrats would do really well to remember that.
hopefully they'll(the democrats)get the stupidity out of their system and govern responsibly
come january and the new session.
-moby

yesterday(or the day before. or at some point recently)bill o'reilly said:

"I don’t own an iPod. I would never wear an iPod… If this is your primary focus in life - the machines… it’s going to have a staggeringly negative effect, all of this, for America… did you ever talk to these computer geeks? I mean, can you carry on a conversation with them?"

well, that's good.
certainly don't want bill o'reilly to compromise himself by wearing an ipod.
personally i love wearing ipods.
i have these ipod socks that i'm really fond of. they're not so comfortable, but they're
great on long hikes.
and i might get an ipod sweater as it's getting cold outside, and nothing says 'new england
practicality' like wearing in ipod sweater.
but if bill o'reilly chooses not to wear an ipod(or, uh, live in the 21st century)well, that's
just fine.
and also, in the 21st century, what defines a 'computer geek'?
someone who spends a few hours a day on their computer?
someone who uses their computer for work and entertainment?
someone who knows how to install and re-install software?
oh, you mean 98% of the people under the age of 50 living in the western world?
yeah, it sure is hard to carry on a conversation with the 98% of the people in the western
world who use computers.
bill o'reilly must be very lonely, only being able to carry on conversations with the 2% of
people in the western world who don't use computers for their work and entertainment.
poor bill o'reilly, he's angry and crazy, kind of like grampa simpson('there are too many
states, please remove 2').
-moby

ok, here's a little aside.
a letter i sent to some friends.

"as an aside, do you guys know the story of chilean sea bass?
it's actually not chilean, nor is it bass.
it's original name is 'patagonian toothfish'.
but some people realized that the market for 'patagonian toothfish' is
pretty limited so they renamed it 'chilean sea bass'.
and the rest is history.
i like that story.
someone should rename 'crotch'.
nice part of the body, terrible word.
moby"

i used to be very diligent(or, uh, 'dilligent', i'm, uh, ,not, uh, so, well, 'good', at the, er, uh, 'spell', 'check', as you, uh, ,mightve, um, 'noticed')about putting up lots of random photos on moby.com.
then i became less dilligent(or diligent, i don't know).
but i do upon occasion put up odd and random photos that i've taken.
on moby.com.
and i just put up a bunch.
weird architectural photos that i like but which i don't really expect anyone else to like but i like them and maybe someone else will like them, who knows.
there's also an odd photo of john stewart imitating bat-boy from weekly world news.
that's a decidedly un-linear, non-architectural photo.
the otheres are pretty linear and architectural.
what can i say, i like lines and boxes.
pictures of people are sort of interesting.
but everyone takes pictures of people.
i like to take pictures of lines and boxes and empty hallways.
i don't know, it makes sense to me.
i sure do use 'i don't know' a lot in my updates.
notice i didn't write 'in my blogs'.
fuck, 'blog' always makes me queasy.
what a queasy-inducing word.
i know, i rail against 'blog' far too often.
you'll also notice that i haven't written anything about politics in this update.
well, apart from just now.
but let's pretend that didn't happen.
the 'when i wrote about politics to say that i haven't written about politics' part of this update(aka-blog, aka-disgusting word that sounds like expectorating something you'd find in a backed up drain).
i believe i've said all that i have to say for this update.
g'night.
moby

"Americans had elected us(republicans) to change government, and they rejected us because they believed government had changed us," the four-term senator said. "We must spend the next two years reacquainting the public and ourselves with the reason we came to office in the first place: to serve a cause greater than our self-interest."

"Hypocrisy, my friends, is the most obvious of political sins. And the people will punish it," McCain said, explaining that while Republicans were elected to reduce the size of government, they ended up increasing it "in the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office."

it's funny how most of the criticism of the gop these days is coming from the gop...
it's all stuff that progressives and democrats have been saying for years, but it definitely
takes on more weight when coming from republicans themselves.
moby

i think that this is a really nice letter.
moby

A Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives

November 14th, 2006

To My Conservative Brothers and Sisters,

I know you are dismayed and disheartened at the results of last week's election. You're worried that the country is heading toward a very bad place you don't want it to go. Your 12-year Republican Revolution has ended with so much yet to do, so many promises left unfulfilled. You are in a funk, and I understand.

Well, cheer up, my friends! Do not despair. I have good news for you. I, and the millions of others who are now in charge with our Democratic Congress, have a pledge we would like to make to you, a list of promises that we offer you because we value you as our fellow Americans. You deserve to know what we plan to do with our newfound power -- and, to be specific, what we will do to you and for you.

Thus, here is our Liberal's Pledge to Disheartened Conservatives:

Dear Conservatives and Republicans,

I, and my fellow signatories, hereby make these promises to you:

1. We will always respect you for your conservative beliefs. We will never, ever, call you "unpatriotic" simply because you disagree with us. In fact, we encourage you to dissent and disagree with us.

2. We will let you marry whomever you want, even when some of us consider your behavior to be "different" or "immoral." Who you marry is none of our business. Love and be in love -- it's a wonderful gift.

3. We will not spend your grandchildren's money on our personal whims or to enrich our friends. It's your checkbook, too, and we will balance it for you.

4. When we soon bring our sons and daughters home from Iraq, we will bring your sons and daughters home, too. They deserve to live. We promise never to send your kids off to war based on either a mistake or a lie.

5. When we make America the last Western democracy to have universal health coverage, and all Americans are able to get help when they fall ill, we promise that you, too, will be able to see a doctor, regardless of your ability to pay. And when stem cell research delivers treatments and cures for diseases that affect you and your loved ones, we'll make sure those advances are available to you and your family, too.

6. Even though you have opposed environmental regulation, when we clean up our air and water, we, the Democratic majority, will let you, too, breathe the cleaner air and drink the purer water.

7. Should a mass murderer ever kill 3,000 people on our soil, we will devote every single resource to tracking him down and bringing him to justice. Immediately. We will protect you.

8. We will never stick our nose in your bedroom or your womb. What you do there as consenting adults is your business. We will continue to count your age from the moment you were born, not the moment you were conceived.

9. We will not take away your hunting guns. If you need an automatic weapon or a handgun to kill a bird or a deer, then you really aren't much of a hunter and you should, perhaps, pick up another sport. We will make our streets and schools as free as we can from these weapons and we will protect your children just as we would protect ours.

10. When we raise the minimum wage, we will pay you -- and your employees -- that new wage, too. When women are finally paid what men make, we will pay conservative women that wage, too.

11. We will respect your religious beliefs, even when you don't put those beliefs into practice. In fact, we will actively seek to promote your most radical religious beliefs ("Blessed are the poor," "Blessed are the peacemakers," "Love your enemies," "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God," and "Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me."). We will let people in other countries know that God doesn't just bless America, he blesses everyone. We will discourage religious intolerance and fanaticism -- starting with the fanaticism here at home, thus setting a good example for the rest of the world.

12. We will not tolerate politicians who are corrupt and who are bought and paid for by the rich. We will go after any elected leader who puts him or herself ahead of the people. And we promise you we will go after the corrupt politicians on our side FIRST. If we fail to do this, we need you to call us on it. Simply because we are in power does not give us the right to turn our heads the other way when our party goes astray. Please perform this important duty as the loyal opposition.

I promise all of the above to you because this is your country, too. You are every bit as American as we are. We are all in this together. We sink or swim as one. Thank you for your years of service to this country and for giving us the opportunity to see if we can make things a bit better for our 300 million fellow Americans -- and for the rest of the world.

Signed,

Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
(Click here to sign the pledge: http://www.petitiononline.com/mmflint/petition.html)
www.michaelmoore.com

i thought that this article was interesting.
moby

Cancer Risk Linked To Red Meat, Study Finds

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 14, 2006; A01

Younger women who regularly eat red meat appear to face an increased risk for a common form of breast cancer, according to a large, well-known Harvard study of women's health.

The study of more than 90,000 women found that the more red meat the women consumed in their 20s, 30s and 40s, the greater their risk for developing breast cancer fueled by hormones in the next 12 years. Those who consumed the most red meat had nearly twice the risk of those who ate red meat infrequently.

The study, published yesterday in the Archives of Internal Medicine, is the first to examine the relationship between consumption of red meat and breast cancer in premenopausal women, and the first to examine the question by type of breast cancer.

Although more research is needed to confirm the association and explore the possible reasons for it, researchers said the findings provide another motivation to limit consumption of red meat, which is already known to increase the risk of colon cancer.

"There are already other reasons to minimize red meat intake," said Eunyoung Cho, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, who led the study. "This just may give women another good reason."

my hotels in spain had odd internet access.
internet access wherein i could look at the fine things on the interweb and receive email but not send email.
i know, makes no sense to me either.
has anyone else been reading the news over and over just because it makes them happy?
for the few days after the election i was reading the same articles over and over again just because:
a-they made me happy
and
b-i couldn't actually believe that the dems won(or, to put it more accurately: the republicans lost).
it really is impressive, especially when you consider that the republicans outspent the democrats by over $100,000,000.00 and the republicans had the benefits of incumbency and gerrymandering.
but enough about politics.
although i don't know that i have anything else to write about.
how about re-fried beans?
i love re-fried beans, but why are they called 're-fried'?
that would imply that they've been fried and re-fried, right?
but when i have re-fried beans they look neither fried nor re-fried, just kind of mushy.
this is a very important question, and i expect it to be taken seriously.
in other news the 'best of' is out all around the world and hopefully people like it.
i can't say if i like it or not cos if i say that i like it then you'll accuse me of being even more of a narcissist and if i say i don't like it then you'll say that i'm just being self-deprecating, right?
so i just keep my mouth shut.
although as i've said a million times i'm utterly stunned that i've ever been able to have a career as a musician. i really never expected to have a record contract. and now 16 years later i still have a record contract(thanks to the fantastic people at mute)and i even get to put out a 'best of'.
i almost wrote 'is nice' but then i realized that the borat phenomenon(as fantastic as it is)might be a bit too ubiquitous. i wish i could do borat's accent.
i've tried. i just can't do it.
i did listen to the soundtrack album from 'borat'.
it's great cos it's not gratuitously padded out with modern rock songs and it contains 'throw the jew down the well'(if you haven't seen the 'throw the jew down the well' performance at the country western bar you should go to youtube and watch it. sascha baron coen is like andy kaufman meets lenny bruch times 10).
-moby

here's an odd topic, the air-travel ban on liquids and creams and gels.
in the states(and in many parts of the world)you can no longer bring liquids or creams or gels onto an airplane, ostensibly because liquids/creams/gels could be explosives.
there's a big problem here, and that is that liquids/creams/gels are not metallic.
so a would-be terrorist could just put plastic explosives in his pockets and walk right through a metal detector while the rest of us are throwing away our toothpaste and peanut-butter.

another problem: liquids/creams/gels aren't allowed on flights, but food is. energy bars(clif bars, etc)are allowed on flights. so a terrorist could take semtex or c4 and wrap it in an energy bar rapper and no one at security would stop him/her.

and problem three: the terrorist doesn't need to bring the semtex or c4 onto the plane, they could just put it in their checked baggage and detonate it via a cell-phone or blackberry.

so the ban on liquids/creams/gels is pointless, as any terrorist with an i.q higher than 60 could easily get around it.
it's yet another protective measure that actually serves no purpose other than to annoy air-travelers(similar to the pointless exercise of 'put your shoes through the x-ray').
oh, it also probably helps business for the airport shops, as people then need to buy beauty products and toothpaste after theirs has been thrown away at security.
the terrorists may be awful and evil, but time and time again they've proven that they're not stupid(except for the 'shoe-bomber' guy, who actually looked like jeff spicoli from 'fast times at ridgemont high').

one of the other problems with airport security is that they implement security measures AFTER the terrorists try something and get caught.
for example: a terrorist tries to sneak explosives onto the plane in his shoes, so henceforth we have to put our shoes through the x-ray.
does anyone really think that the terrorists are dumb enough to try something a second time when it didn't work the first time?

so now we have tens of millions of people being annoyed at airport security because
the tsa wants to be seen as doing something.
i'm all in favor of anything that protects people from terrorism, but it's an insult to everyone's intelligence to make people throw away their toothpaste when they get to security at the airport.

-moby

p.s-i'm not trying to scare anyone, i'm just saying that the terrorists are not stupid and any security measures that are predicated on the idea that the terrorists are stupid aren't going to work, and will just annoy air-travellers and waste security officials/employees time.

1-democrats won the house of representatives.
2-democrats appear to have won the senate(when allen in va. concedes).
3-democrats now have a majority of governor-ships.
4-democrats now control a majority of state legislatures.
5-donald rumsfeld was fired today.

is good, right?
here are my hopes for a democratic legislative agenda.

a-a plan to eventually end the war in iraq and bring the troops home. this plan, as everyone has agreed, will need to be bi-partisan.

b-an overhaul of ethics rules in the house and senate in an effort to make government more transparent and less corrupt.

c-a sensible immigration policy that actually reflects the situation as it is.

d-repeal of tax-cuts for the wealthiest americans.

e-legislative movement to increase americas energy independence.

f-federal support for stem-cell research.

g-federal election rule/guidline overhaul. the voting process is a disaster, with no viable federal standards.

h-a health care overhaul that allows the government to bid competitively for pharmaceuticals.

i-investigation into the military contractors in iraq who've been providing shoddy goods and services and grossly overcharging taxpayers.

that would be a good place to begin, right?
moby