Please.  Next time our conservative friends suggest an aggressive war to install a democratic government, lets remind them of this.  Almost no bloodshed.  Justice clearly on the side of the protesters.

Anthony Tommasini in the New York Times:

HERE goes. This article completes my two-week project to select the top 10 classical music composers in history, not including those still with us.

????

I’m not a composer, but… NO!  uncool.  ‘Lets talk about the greats… no, not you… not you… no, only dead people.’  I’ve spent a lot of time not caring about modern classical music, and this guy’s attitude shoves my own ignorance back in my face.  Maybe I should make an effort to dig through it afterall.

Israel has also been assassinating nuclear scientists.

Its hard to argue that terrorism is some kind of out-of-bounds moral abomination when you’re carbombing scientists and sabotaging research facilities with cyberworms.   This all in the hopes of preventing Iran from getting nukes, which both American and Israel already have and which Israel obtained exactly the same way:  secretly, in defiance of the non-proliferation treaty.

“Iran is a rouge regime” etc.  Sure, but how serious are the US and Israel about preventing Iranian nukes?  Are they really prepared for war?  It seems ridiculous.

Q:  What are nukes really good for?

A:  Second strike capability makes you impervious to invasion and forced ‘regime change.’  In the doomsday scenario when all the Arabs align against Israel at once and box it in on all sides and the West doesn’t intervene… even then, Israel can’t be invaded, can’t be overthrown.  Because its not worth losing Cairo, Mecca, Tehran, Algiers, whatever the fuck the capital of Syria is… all at once.  Which is something Israel could do.  The whole threat of iranian nukes is DEFENSIVE.  They perceive correctly that Israel+the West wants to overthrow them.  I don’t grudge Israel their nukes.  I totally get why they made them.  But still, they’re being hypocrites about it.

What should we think?  I personally think that invading Iran is a terrible idea and we should abandon it.  We should work towards a slow realization by Iran entire rising generation that America is on their side and their parents / leaders are completely full of shit.  A peaceful solution is possible if we wait long enough and we stop acting like assholes now.  Invading is has become absurd in light of iraq and the whole new world where you can’t waste a trillion dollars on a retarded war.  So.  Let them have their fucking nukes.  When the next generation takes power, we’ll slowly move towards an accord with them.  And it won’t be a problem that they have nukes.  Just like its not a problem that fucking China, India, Pakistan, France, Britain, Germany, Russia, and whatever the fuck random former Soviet republics have them.   Iran might be “rouge” and radical islamic, but they’re not bumbling morons.  They know how to keep their nuclear weapons secure and keep them from going off randomly.  Maybe they’ll get on the inspections regime someday.  Russia does.  Whoddathunkthat?

I guess another reaction is just “coool, cyberwar!”  And its us, the good guys, rather than some Chinese or Russian or whatever.  And really slowing down their reactors with a computer worm is about as non-violent as it gets.  (not so the car bombs).  Still, we’re very vulnerable to cyberwar ourselves.  Terrorists are educated, contrary to popular opinion.  They could learn hacking and they’d feel justified because we do it ourselves.  But they can’t build remote missle drones. That one’s ours.

Lenders calculate it by looking at your assets (stuff you own:  houses, cars, stocks, land, companies) and at your earning potential (present job, training, resume, skills, income-from-assets).

Your rating represents where you stand in society.  Stock brokers are more important than teachers.  They are both less important than the founders of Google and are both more important than the the un- or underemployed.  People are for the most part treated accordingly.  Although the basic idea is egalitarian, we hold over the customs of the Middle Ages and treat our economic betters as our social betters as well.

Credit ratings are everywhere.  People and families have them.  Institutions have them.  Harvard has a 27 billion dollar endowment (read: pile of money).  If they put that in a savings account and make .2% interest, that’s 54 million dollars of income every year.  What does harvard do with that?  A: Whatever the fuck they want.  One thing they won’t do with it is endanger their credit ratings.

poor, middle class, rich, super-rich.

Countries have credit ratings too.  When Russia devalued their currency like two years ago (made their exports cheaper so they’ll sell better), my friend Leo who worked at a hedge fund told me that everyone was “selling Russia.”  Its rating was going down.  It was becoming a worse investment so everyone sold.  Maybe rebuy later at a new price, maybe not, but definitely sell now.

The US Treasury is the absolute #1-rated thing on planet earth.  We print dollars, the international currency.  We’re the biggest consumer on earth so everyone wants to do business here.  We’re the richest of the rich.  Highest per capita income by far with the only exceptions being like Norway and the U.A.E. hat have tons of oil and no people.  When the financial crisis happened, everyone on earth bought extremely low-yielding american federal bonds. 30-year treasury notes.  Cuz they’re the absolute safest investment there is.  America will be there tomorrow. that — and our army — are the reason we tell everyone what to do (or try).

The official Big Looming Danger is that the US will cease to be the world #1. Our model is big + stable + advanced, but other countries are catching up.  Japan was huge and still is.  Europe is trying to become one big economy and Germany is totally a superstar.  Plus Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRICs). China is 94th in per capita income, but 2nd in income overall (after the US).  Lots of capita.  But they’re becoming more advanced.  As are the others although you hear less about Russia now because its stultifyingly corrupt.

The fear is well-founded.  America’s challenge is to become like a huge Germany.  Super advanced, but also modern and a welfare state and culturally vital.  Not facist bullshit like china.

China has 50 million political prisons who do slave labor.

But I digress.

Value is all about perception.  That’s where it meets Psychology.  Its what people think its worth, or more precisely: what they’ll pay.   Earning potential is a matter of making an educated guess.  Who the fuck knows what’ll really happen.  And its self-reinforcing.  Projecting value ends up getting you jobs, investments, etc and making you more valuable.

Well, not all about perception.  You have to be competent.  But the fact of the matter is, we haven’t evolved to the point where there are THAT many high-level jobs for really smart people.  i feel like a lot of people are overqualified for their jobs.  Business isn’t really about anything too interesting or deep.  Iphones are amazing.  I love a lot of what those guys produce, but still.  Its number crunching and stuff-shuffling with a heavy interpersonal element.  Its not Philosophy, Science, Psychology,  Literature, Art, etc.  Its not high culture.

We’re evolved to want to rise in society.  Ours assigns standing based on creditworthiness, so talented people pursue it.  That ends up leading to great stuff.  But it aint’ so spiritual cuz there’s no value placed, in and of itself, on wisdom or virtuousness or honor or beauty or love or compassion or anything like that.

Those things are valuable in themselves and people will always know that, but this capitalist kind of world is in danger of forgetting de-incentivising them   In come we.   Artists and thinkers and makers of plays, songs, images, objects, and ideas.  The big invention would be a whole new self-sustaining system of looking at life and the world that everyone wants to be a part of it.  But there are lots of smaller inventions on the spiritual front.  Ways of looking at things.  Attitudes.  And they can be conveyed with quality art and personal charm.

2) Its a 13-floor community center. like a YMCA or a JCC. It has a prayer room, but it isn’t really a Mosque. so “Ground Zero Mosque” is an (intentionally) deceptive way of referring to it.

3) Feisal Abdul Rauf is a Sufi, as i just explained. They’re mystics. I probably share more in common with his world-view than I do with hardline Jews. He was asked by George Bush to represent American Muslims in diplomatic missions around Islamic World. Point being, he’s a well-known moderate. He’s as opposed to Al-Queda as we are. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feisal_Abdul_Rauf

4) America is a free country. He bought the land. Its his. Those are our values, the ones Muslims supposedly hate so much.

5) Muslims are not collectively guilty for 9/11. Islam cannot and did not blow up any buildings. The enemy are terrorist extremists. I’m an opponent of Israeli war policies. How fair would it be to say that, because I’m a Jew, I’m guilty of the deaths in Gaza (and a fair target for retribution)?

6) The U.S. Marine Corp built a prayer chapel for Muslims at the site of the attacks at the Pentagon. They’ve been praying there for years. Does that outrage you as well? http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2010/08/ap-pentagon-no-objections-to-muslim-prayers-081810/

To me, its just shameful xenophobia and logical fallacy. These people had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11. Their only connection is that they’re Muslim. We want to make peace with Muslims. This isn’t the way.

Do we really want peace? How are we going to get it if we deny our respect to moderate AMERICAN(!!!!) Muslims?

we drink or break open our veins solely to know
solely to know
solely to know

hunger drives me onward to feel all of the skin
all of the skin
all of the skin

the thrill of the knowing blasts me out of my brain
i want to know
i want to know

into our eyes hundreds of flashes cause us to feel the life in the sky
i want to know
i want to know

[break]

i want to know i want to know i have to know please let me know
solely to know
solely to know

i want to know i want to know i have to know please let me know
solely to know
solely to know

In America, we are guaranteed that our government will uphold our rights, enumerated in the Constitution.  I cannot be thrown in a hole for no reason.  Even if I decide to shoot an old lady in front of witnesses, I will nonetheless the be guaranteed to be protected from vigilantes, given Miranda rights, assigned a lawyer, and given the closest thing possible to a fair trial.   That seems crazy, but its progress.  These rights apply in all cases.  Guaranteeing these rights for others is the price we pay for guaranteeing them for ourselves.

Why would apply these rules to non-Americans?  It seem to me the answer is this:  we think our system is the best possible system.  If we uphold our principles even at the absolute edge, that means we truly believe in them.  I moved here when I was 4.  Its for this categorical insistence on virtue and decency that I love America.  If the terrorists destroy our commitment to our ideals, they win.

I worry about pop and counter-culture music today, but isn’t it certain that this will help music?  All the classics are avaiable to everyone with internet, for free.