...because it will always use Socialism to bail it out." It's a cute quote from Nader. More of a sound bite since there's no facts in it, but is sure expresses my feelings on each school of thought.

So now that I've read some more specific support of this plan in Washington I am no more convinced than I was before, maybe less. Everything I read in support of it before was things like "It's really bad! Disaster! Crisis! Collapse!" Very scary, but more importantly very vague.

It was clear to me what was happening. The Bush administration had one more bit of fearmongering left before they headed out. Then I heard Secretary Paulson's plan. "Give $700 billion to me and the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. You may have no oversight and I can't even tell you what I plan to do with it. If you don't give it to us right now, we are all paupers."

Personally I would have thrown these two men directly into prisonl for even asking that question during a time of panic.

Again it was clear what was happening. Bush and Co. were using a great panic to rob the middle class and the poor and give the money to their best friends. It was 9/11 all over again, except corrupt banks and government puppets were flying the plane and the target was Wall Street.

It was another example of what happens when you mix the 2 disastrous forces that are socialism and capitalism. The profits are privatized and the losses are socialized. Trickle down economics works as long as it's the losses that trickle down.

All the experts say this money is the only answer. But is it truly our economy that fails if we don't do this? I think we have the means to weather this storm. I think we need to let the market weed out the people who thought they could just invent money and rob the poor.

I think Wall Street needs a wake-up call of this magnitude. It would hurt for a while, but we would certainly recover. If we just build a new glass house on top of the one we have that's falling apart, it'll just make the fall that much more painful.

I know it's a little weak to not post ever then post a brag, but I just had to.

Check out this coverage of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Pay particular attention to the gorgeous hunk of man that Vanessa Russo is hitting on about 4:31 in.

I do my blogging these days on MySpace. I have a new one up, it's pretty sweet. Click here to check it out!

This is just a draft. I am having trouble thinking of a lot of my favorites. I haven't decided how long I want the list to be so I hope some of you can throw some ideas out there for movies I can add. There is currently no order to the list:

Fight Club
American Beauty
Clue
A League of Their Own
Office Space
Biug Lebowski
Garden State
Batman Begins
Sin City
Breakfast Club
Ghostbusters
Caddyshack
Beetlejuice
The Hudsucker Proxy
The Shawshank Redemption
Misery
Dusk 'til Dawn
Resevoir Dogs
Memento
Se7en
Goodfellas
American History X
Planes, Trains, and Automobiles
Love Actually
Moulin Rouge!
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Requiem for a Dream
Donnie Darko
Brazil
Life of Brian
V for Vendetta
Children of Men
Jackass Number 2
Borat
Groundhog Day
Magnolia
Shaun of the Dead
Hot Fuzz
The Rules of Attraction
Remember the Titans
Pee-Wee's Big Adventure
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Team America: World Police
South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut
American Splendor
Lady in the Water
Old School
Bowling for Columbine
Best in Show
A Clockwork Orange

I've had a variety of different jobs. In each of them there has always been an employee which completely defied reason. How could this person be working ANYWHERE let alone in an otherwise well run organization like this?

My first experience was likely the most baffling. The person in question was the head of the program. She was a devout Catholic and had no problems preaching daily. Now this would be pretty gross in any venue, but she ran a youth theater program for ages 5-18. I find this criminal. A true form of child abuse. But the abuse didn't end there. On top of that she would play favorites with children, casting the same people over and over in lead roles. If it were a real theater company this obviously would not be a problem, but she sold the program as a theater school of sorts. What kind of education in theater can a kid get if year after year they are girl #2 while watching the prettiest girls and biggest personalities always get everything. It was sickening to watch.

The first game store I worked at had an employee who cheated when he played, cheated when he ran tournaments, and skimmed off the customers by ripping them off in trades and then selling his spoils to the store. While this isn't that different from the way normal dealers conduct business, to do it in an atmosphere where customers expect a level of trust is bad. He would also make false claims to knowledge about games, rules, etc. and not hear any dissenting opinions (unless it was from me b/c of my success on the PT ONLY).

I lucked out with the first movie theater I worked at. Everyone there was relatively competent and nice as I recall. We were all a bunch of stoners, but we knew how to be courteous and thorough. Mistakes were made as we were young kids making minimum or near minimum wage, but there was no one it was intolerable to work with as I recall.

Then it was on to 2nd game store. Our boss was a complete megalomaniac as well as a compulsive liar and cheater. He also had completely unreasonable expectations of all his employees. To his credit, when the chips were down he was there for you, but his day to day interactions could only be described as tyrannical and sociopathic.

Now it was on to the 2nd movie theater I worked at. The only thing more painful to watch than an employee with no idea what she is doing is when that employee NEVER takes responsibility for their errors. Particularly when that employee was an assistant manager. This person was also found in the parking lot canoodling with one of our contractors. This is certainly their business...as long as it isn't happening publicly on the property! (also a jesus freak I believe)

For my first cubicle job, it was as if the woman from the 2nd movie theater had been transported there just to remind me how awful some people could be. This woman delegated every stitch of work she had despite not being a very high level employee. This was good in a way as she was a complete retard with absolutely no clue what was going on around her. I could, however, understand that she needed time in her day to come up with new excuses of why she screwed up. This truly could be a full time job in itself. Yet another woman who felt the workplace was a great place to talk about her god. I imagine she had a really strong upper body, because she spent most days throwing people under buses. Anything she did "accomplish" was so horribly wrong that it took more work to correct than it would have to do from scratch.

Now is probably the worst situation yet, only because I work from home now and the co-worker in question is a ubiquitous house guest. We have a group here that is working together, playing poker on a shared bankroll. This person is a complete moron. Easily the least intelligent person I have met since coming down here. I haven't watched him play much poker (mostly out of fear) but watching him play Magic is so horrifying I can't imagine how he could play poker properly. On top of that, I don't trust him as far as I could throw Manhattan. He has time and again proven himself to be a gamer of his friends cooking up stories and angles to get small benefits. You know what the worst thing an idiot scumbag can do? Talk. And he talks non-stop. Everything he says is so stupid it hurts my brain, and when I realize that in addition to being stupid that it's also scummy, I start to lose it.

I don't believe in sayings like "I guess that's life." People create these situations for themselves and find it difficult to extract themselves from it. Or maybe I am too hard on people, I'm not sure. But considering at each job there was only a maximum of 1 person who was prohibitively bad, I don't think it's me. I have never felt it was my place to make a play against these people. I don't like office drama or politics, but I often get frustrated that people can't see what's right in front of them.

I am consumed lately by a flaw I was hoping to be rid of by now. The flaw of expectation.

When you expect things of people it's very hard not to be let down. As much as we like to believe there's a right and wrong way to be, none of has anything more than theories. There's nothing in nature (other than our apparent tendencies as a group) to indicate what proper morality is. Likely it simply doesn't exist.

In any event, people are all different. They obseve the world differently, they parse their data differently, and they have been programmed with theories and surrounded by different variables. This means that what we expect of them with be dependent on their biological makeup and their experiences, both of which differ from ours in significant ways.

I think my biggest downfall is hope. I'd like to think that there are people out there who think like me. Not that I don't realize that my life view could be completely off, just that I'd like it to be right and I'd like others to see it too. So when I find someone who is of like mind as me I get pretty excited.

The problem with progessive thinkers is we are a very small minority. This means that everything we see and encounter is telling us that we are wrong. The weaker of will you are, the more these factors will influence you.

Not caring about money is nice, but when push comes to shove it's a hard thing to do. Even if you want to live poor in the US it still takes more money than most people in the world earn. If you are rich you can give your money to charity and to friends, but the way we were all raised we expect something in return. No matter how benevolent an act may seem, there seems to be this little trigger that goes off expecting a reward or at least payback.

I wonder what would happen to me if I were rich. I don't like to think about it. I don't want to be rich. I want to be peaceful.

I have never seen money do any good. Not once. The atmosphere created in the world now is one of constant competition/survival of the fittest. Only we aren't competing against our environment, not really. We are competing against each other. And we justify everything we do in this great competition by comparing it to the other guy. But when the other guy is being destructive, what kind of example is that to follow?

The people hungry for money and power must at some point realize how fleeting both are, how pointless it is to acquire, how many people, animals, communities, ecosystems, and whatever else they destroy on their way.

I assume it's too late for humanity. Even if the desire to change grows enough it doesn't seem possible that it can overcome individual ambition. it's just a shame, we had so much potential.

30 down, 20 to go...



create your own visited states map

This is an issue I've been struggling with. Before I discovered the Tao form myself, I was a devout materialist. I was convinced there was nothing beyond the physical world and we should all be working at that. Girlfriend, property, gadgets, any sort of conspicuous consuption, I was behind it. While this drive faded with age, I never really considered any sort of spirtual world.

Then I saw the movie "What the Bleep Do We Know?" It became very apparent to me that there was in fact more to the universe than what we could see.

When I quit my job and my "money" was swiftly drying up, I became more and more spiritual. I focused on that part of my life and life in general like never before. In fact I had completely convinced myself that the physical world was nothing, just some stop over on the road of eternity.

I am now earning money again and I feel myself being drawn back into the physical world. While I am not completely convinced that's a bad thing, it does worry me that the mere presence of money may have been the motivator.

I was just wondering how many of you have gone through these internal debates and where you currently stand on them. I'm convinced there's more than the physical world, but I am so uncertain as to the physical world plays.

I was watching the TV show Jericho. For those of you that don't know, the concept of the show is that several major cities in the US have been hit with nukes and Jericho is a small town in kansas that see one of the mushroom clouds in Denver.

One of the main morals of this story is the town coming together for the greater good. There is this constant feeling of "we have to help us/me, we can't help you/them" and of course several character taking the other side.

The scene that inspired me to write this entry was one where several parents have converged on town hall to complain to the mayor and sheriff that they haven't found their kids yet.

It's unreal to me that any 1 person or group of people would complain to anyone about anything at a time like that. Yet that behavior is expected and in some cases encouraged. And it all stems from what I believe to be the biggest problem in civilized society today. Entitlement.

People seem to think they deserve only good and any time something bad happens, someone has wronged them. Then they spend all their energy trying to assign blame for their burden or fiasco. Moreover, they make it a point to shift that burden to anyone they can. As we all know, we all have burdens, we all have disasters. If we could just all move in the same direction. Try imagining what the other guy is feeling. Things like that. Entitlement will destroy us all.

I suppose I was a bit misleading when I said this would be a journal. Most of the ideas I will be posting in this community will be things I'd hope would stir up a discussion. If I'm wrong about the purpose of this community, I apologize.

Today the topic I wanted to broach was that of cultural norms at odds with the tao. I think we've probably all done a level of thinking that has shown us that people's train of thought and most certainly their actions as a result rarely follow that of the tao. People constantly convince themselves of things that simply aren't true as as far as per my belief system(e.g. I can't go on without a significant other).

That example was a selfish one. It's the issue I find the most difficult to deal with when conversing with others. I used to be very clingy and needy in a relationship. Ovetime I've realized that a relationship wouldn't give me what I needed to find peace and happiness. I almost find myself rolling my eyes in frustration when my friends complain about matters of the heart. I wish I weren't so cold about it, but it's hard now that I feel as though I see things so clearly.

A major part of my belief system is that no one knows if their beliefs are correct. I guess my question is, how do y'all find sympathy for things you don't believe to be major issues? I want to be a confidant for my friends, but my frustration in their relationship issues knows no end.

Ah materialism. Perhaps the most misunderstood concept in our world. Only in American could so many materialists walk around condemning materialism. Most people understand materialism to be the stuff we have, but to me it's more about the stuff we are.

This concept is never more obvious than when someone feels they have been wronged by another. The fact of the matter is, no one can hurt you. They can hurt your body, but that's about the worst they can do. If words are hurting you, if action is hurting you, if inaction is hurting you, I believe it's very important to focus on the why. The interesting thing about the question "why." "Why" is the water of the cerebral world. We can answer it anyway we want yet each time we answer it, it begins a new. "Why" conforms to our thought patters, while eating away at some of our most sacred of thoughts.

"Why" is also a powerful calming device. When you feel wronged, try asking yourself why you are feeling the way you do. When you find that out, ask yourself why whatever "caused" you to feel that way is doing so, and so on. You'll find that "why" can destroy almost any negative emotion if you let it.

If this process sounds familiar to you, it's probably because you've spent time with a 5 year old. This is one of my many reasons for believeing we become less and less enlightened as we age, at least in the first half of our lives. This would make sense as birth and death are the closest we are to the non-corporial world, so enlightenment likely looks more like a curve than a single slope. All this has much more detail to it, but I work better in discussion than "lecture."

I suppose this journal shall be the closest to a journal of all my accounts on this site. This will likely be the only journal in which I recount all of my thoughts. I often leave the truly deep thinking off these virtual pages, but frankly I am feeling a bit inbred, thinking my deepest thoughts only to myself. It is my hope that these pages, and the people they find will expand my mind in new ways.

Which brings me to my first topic. Hope. While hope has a very pure feeling to it, I often feel as though I am betraying the way when I am filled with it. In reality, hope is another name for desire. We look to the way we want things to be and yearn for them to become such. But that is not the way. Things are the way they are and will be the way they will be. Hope, while a nice theory, takes us out of the path and leaves us wanting.

I have hope in my heart for all sorts of things. I'm not sure what to do with it. I haven't yet sought to meditate to remove this hope, but it does allow me to accept the transient nature of all things.

This may be old thought to all of you reading this, but I have only discovered the path in the last year.

My name is Ken. This is the first of many of my thoughts.