Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Josh's LiveJournal:

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Wednesday, November 14th, 2001
1:34 pm	Medievalism is Alive CNN Europe carried a report (not carried on CNN America) about the arrest and trial of 53 men arrested at a gay sex party being held on a boat on the Nile River in Egypt. 23 of the men were convict on charges of debauchery, contempt of religion, falsely interpreting religious texts, and promotion of deviant ideas. I found the charges incredible. Clearly the average goth would be guilty of several of these. Sometime I just forget what the rest of the world is like. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 23rd, 2001
3:31 pm	Goth Test I AM 54% GOTH. Oh My Goth! You Goth, Girl. There is a good chance I am bi. Freakiness pumps through my viens, but I can still laugh at myself. Take the GOTH Test at Fuali.com! (Comment on this)
2:02 pm	Geek Test I thought that I would score higher on this, but not really too dissapointed that I didn't. I AM 46% GEEK. I probably work in computers, or a history deptartment at a college. I never really fit in with the "normal" crowd. But I have friends, and this is a good thing. Take the GEEK Test at Fuali.com! (Comment on this)
Friday, October 19th, 2001
12:40 pm	a short history of sport in america I watched most of the mariners' game yesterday. Six innings of baseball being the most that I have ever seen. During the game I saw the MLB commercial spot that starts off with "Baseball doesn't mean anything ... but sometimes it can" or something to that effect. The point was somehow patriotic or something. I don't know it was lost on me I think. Anyway, it made me think about the fact that one can easily argue that organized sports, and primarily baseball, helped America develop the relatively harmonious domestic position that it currently enjoys. Now this is hard to admit, because I am not a fan of athletics and loathe professional sports entirely. However, I believe, with most historians, that sports prevented America from becoming a war torn and strife ridden country like many other ethnically diverse nations in the world. To understand how this is one needs to go back to the turn of the century. At this time thousands of eastern european immigrants were entering the US every year. Many of these immigrants brought with them long standing grudges against ethnicities from the old world. Progressivists at the time recognized that packing thousands of poor, over worked, under fed, immigrants into cities with other people that they hated was powder keg. So in addition to pushing for programs that would better the immigrants' standard of living, the progressivists proposed organizing ethnic neighborhoods into sports leagues that could play against each other on saturdays. The idea was if these groups could work out all their animosity on a playing field and shake afterward they were much less likely to kill each other later. Another part of the theory was that many people have an innate need to identity with a group based on its animosity with other groups. They saw that in nearly every community people created ways to make "us and them" divisions. Usually it is on the basis of ethnicity, culture, or religion, but even in homogeneous communities distinctions arose over class, education, etc. So the progressivists proposed creating a totally superficial object of people's identification. In local sports teams people could create a sense of "clan loyalty" and engage regularly in conflict with other clans. And because sporting was so superficial and defined it was unlikely that the sporting conflicts would turn into real conflicts. So today, nearly 100 years after the first discussions of sport as social peacemaker, we see a society obsessed with sporting events and relatively peaceful considering all the divisions that potentially exist. One other thing, though, that the progessivists believed was that people would develop out of sport. Sports were seen as social training wheels that would be abandoned once people learned to live together without creating unnecessary divisions. However, what the progressivists didn't realize was that people would come along that would exploit the power of sport for vast financial gains. So today, I believe that our society could exist peacefully without the reliance on community subsidized sports, but there are too many people with financial interests in maintaining it. Today professional athletics has become one of the most exploitative systems in America. The average working class family spends an incredible percentage of their income on televisions, satellite and cable, sports clothing, and tickets all of which is funneled into multi-million dollar athlete contracts and their billionaire financiers. The feeling of identity and conflict in sports replacing the natural urge to identify with their fellow workers and to rise up against an oppressive social system. Sports are the true opiate of the masses. But that's a discussion for another post. (Comment on this)
Saturday, October 13th, 2001
10:19 am	Jumping Late on the Bandwagon Things you never wanted to know about me... 1. I went to 12 different schools and lived in six different cities in four different states between the age of 6 and 16. 2. I dropped out of high school at 16, middle of my junior year, and have never finished. That same year I started taking classes at the local university toward a Bachelor's degree in History, but dropped out in my fourth year, 3 classes short of my degree. 3. I joined the Revolutionary Communist Workers Party when I was 15. The same year I read Mary Daly's "Gyna-ecology: The Meta-Ethics of Radical Feminism" and the Marx's "Communist Manifesto" and became a vegan. 4. My younger sister works for the DEA now after working for the Secret Service and maintains the highest security clearance in the government. My father and two uncles both had the same level of clearance. 5. My family lived below the poverty level from the time I was born until I was 17 and we were homeless for a year when I was 11. 6. I was a nationally ranked in speech and debate in high school and traveled all over the country competing for three years. 7. I and some other debaters secretly published a regular anarchist newsletter that we widely distributed on our high school campus. The newsletter made tv news once when we attached condoms to the paper after the local school board voted not to distribute condoms on campus. 8. I won't kill insects. 9. At one point in time I had a reading knowledge of 8 different languages. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 9th, 2001
2:14 pm	IQ and IQ Tests I took the test that I saw on maxmin's located here. I have taken a number of these online tests and ones from books. Like all the rest that I have taken, I think that it scores too high. It says that my score was 155. While some of the people who took it responding to Maxmin felt that this was one of the more accurate tests, since it corresponded closely with "real tests" they had taken, others accurately pointed out that these test test your ability to take the tests more than anything else. It is amazing to me how much emphasis is put on IQ and the concept of IQ. I don't believe that most people understand the history of IQ and it philosophical underpinnings. IQ, or the Intelligence Quotient, is a concept developed primarily in the 1920's. It was part of a broader attempt by scientists and philosophers to construct utopianistic progressive societies. IQ was determined to measure the intellectual capacity of a person. The hope of the people that developed this system was that tests could be given to children before they started school that would measure their IQ. Based on their score educators would know how much to expect from them. If they scored average schools would just teach them what they needed to function in the world. If they scored low, schools would know not to waste their time and focus most of their time and money on those with high scores. Avoiding the obvious ethical implications, even from a practical perspective this is flawed concept. The fact is, there is no way to measure different types of intelligence or to separate social and cultural issues from the scores. Current tests focus, as they have from the beginning, on broad pattern recognition ability. While being good at this is helpful for learning, it clearly does not establish a persons total ability to do well in school or the world. But the most disturbing part of these tests are their connection to socio-economic issues. In order to establish the broadest possible test questions, some reliance must be made on previous knowledge. What types of knowledge, especially children, develop is largely based on their socio-economic background. An example of this is an IQ test I took in the late 80's that asked which of the following cheeses do not belong with rest. Clearly someone coming from a disadvantaged socio-economic class could not identify the differences and similarities of Brie vs. Feta. IQ tests, especially early ones, scored wealthy and socially advantaged children (read white) higher than others. It is time that we let this concept die. The philosophy that spawned these tests and scales has long since been abandoned as horribly unethical. Yet in schools and psychological facilities IQ is still relied on to establish intellectual ability and propensity to success in school and in life. I think that any system that tries to quantify human beings is wrong and will only lead to inevitable injustices. (Comment on this)
Friday, October 5th, 2001
12:11 am	The Onion - Well put as always Story here. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, October 3rd, 2001
2:33 pm	What I Learned from watching Buffy Last night I saw Buffy for the first time. It taught me a lot, and confirmed many previous assumptions. First, I learned that girls who are not descendant of "ancient mystical warrior traditions" are easily confused and have a difficult time figuring out what to do. Therefore, it is best if they rely on boys to figure things for them. Also, girls must always follow the boys' instructions closely or they're bound to get themselves into trouble. Second, I learned that, from the encounter with the only african-american making an appearance in the program, that african-americans are "big, slow, and stupid, just the way we like them." And finally, the show confirmed the assumption that many males seem to share. If young women are close friends or live together, there must be a lesbian relationship going on. Is this show always so informative? (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, September 27th, 2001
3:03 pm	Religion Selector Test This was also an interesting test, Religious Belief Selector I don't even know anything about Jainism or Sikhism except that they are somehow related to Hinduinsm. I think sort of similar to Buddhism. Now I'll have to find out more. 1. Jainism (100%) 2. Sikhism (99%) 3. Hinduism (88%) 4. Bah?'? Faith (85%) 5. Mahayana Buddhism (82%) 6. Neo-Pagan (77%) 7. Orthodox Judaism (75%) 8. Reform Judaism (74%) 9. Liberal Quakers (72%) 10. Unitarian Universalism (72%) 11. Islam (69%) 12. Theravada Buddhism (69%) 13. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (62%) 14. Orthodox Quaker (61%) 15. New Age (60%) 16. Jehovah's Witness (53%) 17. Taoism (48%) 18. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (47%) 19. Seventh Day Adventist (44%) 20. Eastern Orthodox (38%) 21. Roman Catholic (38%) 22. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (37%) 23. New Thought (35%) 24. Secular Humanism (32%) 25. Scientology (31%) 26. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (25%) 27. Atheists and Agnostics (21%) (Comment on this)
2:41 pm	Ethical Philosphy Test This is a pretty cool test that I got from Maxmin, the ethical philosphy selector. But, hmmm, I've always considered myself pretty Kantian. Your Results: 1. Augustine (100%) 2. Aquinas (90%) 3. Spinoza (71%) 4. Aristotle (67%) 5. Rand (66%) 6. Cynics (65%) 7. Kant (62%) 8. Stoics (62%) 9. Nietzsche (55%) 10. Ockham (55%) 11. Bentham (47%) 12. Epicureans (45%) 13. Plato (44%) 14. Hume (43%) 15. Sartre (42%) 16. Prescriptivism (42%) 17. Mill (41%) 18. Noddings (29%) 19. Hobbes (15%) (Comment on this)
1:17 pm	Terrorist picture's not what I thought The DOJ released the photos of the terrorists on board the planes used in the attack. I was suprised at how much they don't look violent or dangerous. Here are some of the photos. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, September 26th, 2001
2:48 pm	A look at what the conflict will be like Images from the private spy satellite company Ikonos has taken some high detail photos of some of bin Laden's training camps. Global Security has purchased some of these and posted them on their web site. Here you can see an over view of a complex located near the Pakistani border. On closer inspection you can see fortified tunnels going into the mountains and an anti-aircraft observaton post and here you can see defensive trench networks dug into the tops of the mountains giving ambush vantage points to the road below. The construction is known to be of high quality because the CIA built the complex in the mid-80's. It was designed to defeat Soviet military aircraft and bombs, while also making it untouchable by ground based troups. There are hundreds of bases just like this through out Afgahanistan. Some built by the US in the 80's and some built much more recently by bin Laden. It's easy to see why Bush keeps emphasizing that this will be a long conflict. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
1:15 pm	A post-crisis world With all the talk of the long term commitment to the "war on terrorism" I have seen nothing on what the post-crisis world will look like exactly. One thing that history has taught us well is that not putting things back in a stable situation after a conflict only produces larger conflicts down the road. It seem to me that one of the main problems in Afghanistan is the lack of a national government. Afghanistan has no truly national government because it has no national identity. I see the conflict in Afghanistan as having the same cause as the conflicts in central Africa and the Balkans, that is the necessity for people to redefine their nations after centuries of outside influence. The nation of Afghanistan as we know it today has its basis in the 19th century British empire. While Britain was traipsing through this part of the world it thought it best to define some administrative boundaries around these uncivilized people. While Britain was ultimately unable to subdue the tribes of Afghanistan, the international community recognized the borders they set. These borders followed geography more than ethnic and cultural identity. So today there are at least five dominant ethnicities within the boundaries of Afghanistan that consider themselves autonomous. The international community needs to facilitate the redefinition of Afghanistan so that stable national governments can be formed in the region. I think the following is a sane proposal that would add considerable stability to the region, but requires compromise on the part of many people. 1. India allows Pakistan to have the Kashmir districts. These regions are predominantly Muslim and gives Islamabad the geographical buffer that it desires. Also it might make pakistan open to the following sacrifices. 2. Join the predominately Pashtun areas of eastern Pakistan with the Pashtun areas of Afghanistan to form a greater Pashtun national identity. This would remove the entire northwest corner of Pakistan. 3. Grant Pakistan control of the largely uninhabited lands of south and south east Afghanistan. 4. Grant Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan the portions of Afghanistan in which their respective ethnic groups are dominant. While this appears extreme, there are several things to remember. First, it was only about 50 years ago that Pakistan became a country, it is only reasonable that it take some time for borders to solidify. Second, unlike the Balkans and else where, the ethnic groups of Afghanistan have remained fairly separate and are divided from other ethnic groups with natural geographic features. I have no real belief that this will ever be done, but I do believe that it is the only way to bring lasting stability to the region. (Comment on this)
Thursday, September 20th, 2001
7:36 pm	The Unbeatable Army The country of Afghanistan has never been successfully occupied by an invading army in modern times. Not because no one has tried. As the key bridge between the middle east and asia, it has long been the object of empires' desire. The last person to break the Afghan army was Genghis Khan in 1221. Since then Afghanistan has held back Persians, Indians, the British empire, and the full force of the Soviet Union in a war that ended only 12 years ago. What makes the Afghan army so strong? First, geography. Afghanistan is made up of 100,000 sq. mi. of high, rugged mountains. The main range is the Hindu Kush (Hindu Killer). These mountains are laced with hundreds of miles of tunnels and caves naturally formed in bed rock. The Afghans have long ago learned to live in an navigate these natural fortresses. Second, history. The Afghans have been in nearly a constant state of war for the last 300 years. Soviet commanders said that Afghan soldiers have learned to sleep, eat, and live with their weapons. They have never known a life with out enemies trying to kill them. Finally, culture. The Afghan life in one of the most inhospitable places on earth has bred a fierceness and determination no invader has been prepared for. Pictures of the Afghan army are here (Comment on this)
3:05 pm	Some thoughts on bin Ladin's next step I was thinking that if I was bin Ladin, I would know that the US military is not defeated by might but by undermining the political and popular support of its actions. To this extent, my next action would be to move from Afghanistan into northern Pakistan. Here, there is a large base a militant Islamics already ostracized and angry by Pakistan's agreement to accommodate the US military. (Already this was expressed by one north Pakistani leader, "We won't let the Americans use Pakistan to attack Afghanistan. We will fight to the last drop of blood against the enemies of Islam.") Having already vowed to fight against US soldiers and being battle hardened from years of fighting India in the Kashmir, they would be a formidable defense for me If the US did follow me into Pakistan with ground troops, while they were fighting Pakistanis and dealing with the international fallout, I would slip across the boarder again, this time into China. Moving into the sparsely populated region of southwest China along its rugged boarders would be easy. There I would find sympathetic Uygurs who have already been fighting the Chinese government. Here I could be certain that the US would not follow me, and the Chinese military would be totally unprepared to deal with intense guerrilla mountain fighting. If I could not move into China, though, I could also move into Tajikistan. Even though the Russian military has moved heavily into this area and there is not a particularly strong militant Islamic backing, there are some fierce supporters in the south eastern mountains. Also, I could count on the Russian military to not become too heavily involved after a devastating war in Afghanistan just 12 years ago and a very unpopular conflict in Chechnya much more recently. As long as I stayed to the east and away from the wester capital region, I could count on my safety. This would also go a long way in undermining international support. Russia has said that it does not want US ground troops stationed in Tajikistan, but Russia is not equipped to handle the problem themselves. This would successfully create a rift between Russia, Islamic states, the US, and possibly China. Then a few successful terrorist attacks in hedging NATO countries and then, just like that, international coalition disintegrates into international finger pointing and the US is left fighting an impossible and unpopular conflict. Even more, the US will have succeeded in doing for me what I could never have done, unite all the central asian militant muslims into a single group fighting a single cause. Well after this whole affair is over, these groups located in Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, and all of central asia will be united like never before in battling against the US. If I was bin Ladin I would think that the US was my best friend. (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, September 8th, 2001
11:58 pm	more tests The gay test: You are 24% GAY! That's less gay than average for someone of your gender and supposed orientation. The typical straight guy is 39% gay! Here's how you compare: people less gay than you (9%) people just as gay as you (3%) people gayer than you (87%) (Comment on this)
11:47 pm	Following the Crowd Being the social lemming that I am, I'm posting my Spark survey results. Personality test first: MASTERMIND (Submissive Introvert Abstract Thinker ) Like just 9% of the population you are a MASTERMIND (SIAT). You can be silent and withdrawn, but behind your reserved exterior lies an active mind that allows you to analyze situations and come up with creative, unexpected solutions. Normal people call this "scheming." Don't learn German. Anyway, your sense of style and originality are your strengths, and people will respect your judgment once they get to know you. If you learn to be a little more personable, you could be a great leader--you've definitely got the "vision" thing down. Just make sure all the plotting you do behind those eyes of yours is healthy. Famous masterminds in television: Dr. Claw, The Scarecrow and Mrs. King, Montgomery Burns. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, August 28th, 2001
8:29 am	Crime Prevention and Freedom More and more communities seem to be pushing for greater crime prevention efforts. Catching a criminal after a crime is considered too little too late. People want police to stop crimes before they occur. Government and police officials have been quick to respond to these demands by daily extending their crime prevention efforts. The problem with crime prevention is that, by definition, it involves police and government intervention into the lives and actions of totally innocent people. Crime prevention mandates that the government take actions to limit or control the activities and behaviors of people that have done nothing wrong. It also requires police to speculate about the the "crime propensity" of people that they encounter. This essentially enables police to indulge in personal and social prejudices. Everyone knows that well-dressed, middle-class, whites don't commit crimes, but who knows about those other people. Additionally, crime prevention efforts are prone to constantly expanding. They start at small levels, but, when a crime is committed anyway, stronger and more invasive measures become justified. Each crime that slips through the prevention measures increase the scope of those measures until people find that they have permitted government intervention into every aspect of their lives. But then again, the people that ask for this type of protection are never the ones that feel its effects. (see later entries on "Class and Policing") (Comment on this)
Friday, August 24th, 2001
10:08 am	"Social Studies" In all the recent discussion on the lack of teachers in public schools and the need to incorporate standardized testing to catch those students failing to master even basic skills, I have observed a surprising paucity of seemingly obvious solutions. Or rather, a surprising lack of acceptance of ostensibly adequate proposals. If one wants to understand the problems facing American schools, one must look no farther than current educational philosophy being taught in teaching colleges. Modern educational philosophy remains rooted in early 20th century Progressivist philosophers like Dewey and Lippmann. They proposed that the public education system has as its primary purpose the shaping of individuals to fulfill productive social roles. On the heals of massive immigration, these philosophers proposed that public education should focus as much, if not more, on social and cultural education as on traditional academic subjects. This concept is at the heart of the American educational crisis. Why is there an teachers shortage, especially at the elementary level? Don't most adults have the essential skills necessary to teach first grade? Well, no, according to the educational elite. Teachers must become familiar with their non-intuitive role of social engineer to be an effective "educator." This is why elementary school teachers, even after fours years of "educational" training are tied to a strict curriculum developed by the education elites. Only those with extensive education and general social enlightenment are able provide direction for the education of first graders. For, the goal of primary education is not reading and math but social indoctrination. Recently the idea of "social promotion" has come under fire from the public. For years schools have continued to consider a student to have satisfactorily completed a grade not if they have mastered the academic subject of that grade but if they have mastered the "social skills" of that grade. It doesn't matter that Johny can't read or add, he knows to stand in line, raise his hand, and wait his turn. He has mastered the curriculum. (Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 22nd, 2001
8:44 am	Medicating the Future I have become increasingly frustrated with the growing role of psycho-active medication in our society. With the now nearly ubiquitous use of medication for treating hyperactivity in children and depression in teens, I have been increasingly wondering whether this is misdirected medicine or subtle social engineering. Society seems to be using medication to shape the attitudes and actions of youth in their development. Youth that fail to conform emotionally are forced into compliance, often with reason that they are "dangerous" to themselves or others. But I believe that most of the youth are not dangerous to anyone or anything except the status quo. Rather than seeing depression as pathogenic, I see it most often being an early warning indicator of social problems. Its like miners who, seeing their canaries dying, want new, "non-defective" birds. LIkewise, hyperactive children may be difficult in the classroom, but history has shown us that these are the children that grow up to make a difference. They are the tireless leaders of society; the inventors and revolutionaries of the future. But change is bothersome, and teachers and parents don't want to deal with difficulties of raising new leaders. Its much easier if they are compliant and "normal." But if all our future leaders are being drugged back into mediocrity, what will the future be? Will the next generation have any "greats" or will the next generation be a single homogeneous mass of chemically controlled functionaries. (1 Comment |Comment on this)