Even this too, well, let's just go RAND!!!

And it's...it's...it's The Rand Show!!!!

So much Rand-ness, so little time.

(Note I did not use Randiness, because that's prone to misinterpretations, and I have enough misinterpretable words in my sessions as it is)

Anywho, I've talked about my future plans quite a bit in this forum. If it's a bit tiresome, you can always post a comment about it (you silly bums!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). It is tad tiresome for me myself, but then again, my mind is a-buzzing with thoughts of my career nowadays and one of the primary reasons for this webpost is that I want to expose the wonders of the universe of my thoughts to the rest of the world. So it is and so it shall be.

But the reason my mind is a-buzzing with thoughts of my future and the like is because, well, there's graduation in 4 months. This May, I, the great and glorious Rand will be out of college, quite a momentous event, don't you think so? Yet with May 2008 so close I am forced to think, to really think and not just wonder and fantasize, about my job plans. And so the thoughts inevitably are stuck in my head, and for what it's worth they're not all grim, but there's an uncertain mix of hope and despair which is spinning around in my skull, giving me an uneasiness, which while common to me, is uncomfortable.

Now I've talked about all this is an irritatingly general matter, let me be a bit more specific. As one might guess from my 100+ sessions in The Rand Show (according to mySpace it's over 300, and according to blogger.com it's close to 200, but both of those count the mini-posts and I think mySpace counts even some of the times I edit posts), I'd like to be a writer. In addition to my skills at webposting, I think I have a decent talent for poetry and story-telling. I also wouldn't mind writing news-reports or reviews and the like. So basically, yeah, I want to write.

But writing isn't exactly what you'd call an in-demand field, right now, or really ever.

Writers are a dime-a-dozen and places that really need professional writers are rare. So that is my conundrum.

If I went strictly for creative writing, then my career future would be a long-shot gamble, so I'm not going to do that. Somewhat more stable, however, is journalism. Journalists get regular opportunities to write and get published and they build the connections necessary for publishing someday say a novel or book of poems. But even journalism, is well, it's not an impossible field to break into or even a long-shot gamble like creative writing, rather it's simply hard to get into journalism. So I suppose the direction then is to work hard. And make contingencies.

My contingencies are based working in fields which while more stable than journalism are not too far away. This will allow me to build experience that can be used for journalism, but it will also give me credentials that can help me get a job as a journalist, especially if lack of credentials is what's stopping me from getting a job in the first place. Good options are things like technical writing, proof-reading, or editing work.

But with all those contingencies and compromises, I always am afraid I'm going to lose the Rand-ness of Rand. And beyond that, what is the Rand-ness of Rand really that I'm trying to keep and which hopefully should be my dream job. I think it's story telling, but is it really... or am I just playing the foolity fool.

It's hard to tell. It's hard to tell any of this, I have these plans, but that's all they are plans. And moreover many of these plans are means to an end (working as a writer), can I be sure that they won't end up being the entire end of my existence...

And where in all this does my personal life factor in...

All questions. Some good, some bad, some paranoid and stupid. But they're still there, and I doubt they'll ever leave. A lifetime is a long time and for plans that span a lifetime, well there's got to be some uncertainty built into them. But that's okay, this may be an uncertain world, but in me is a spark of the divine, and that is constant and certain. And more certain than anything is the grand Divine that watches from above. And I think if I try in good faith all these plans and ideas, perhaps then chaos will fall, but even so I'll be alright.

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Economic growth and terrorism

Ok, I made a massive comment at the Becker-Posner Webpost and since it was session sized and I haven't talked of politics for a while, here's the comment.

It's based on a post by the Becker-Posner Webpost:

Here's the Becker part (it was the original post)

Here's the Posner part

I agree that grievances (not poverty) are at the core of terrorism, but the relationship between grievances and economic growth I think is complex and contradictory, ultimately I think economic growth and political freedom undermines terrorist impulses in the long term, but in the short term the effects are uncertain.

Take for example on result of economic growth that Becker noted, the reduction of the extended family. The reduction of the extended family is actually greater than Posner suggested because economic growth tends to increase migration as the ability to become mobile arises before a local job market capable of satisfying the population growth of local youth becomes possible (if it ever becomes possible as some areas are good for raising populations but bad for jobs (for example suburbs and cities)). When the young move away, extended families become weaker, they tend not to disappear as they did with migrants of earlier eras since the mobility allows people to go both ways, but still there's never the same grip to extended families as there were in previous years.

But the effect of the reduction of extended families is uncertain on terrorism. Families often provide the recruitment network for terrorists and supply safe grounds (notice the interplay of tribe loyalties and terrorist networks in Iraq). Family deaths also provide for motivations for terrorism and motivation for the support of terrorism or at least for the apathy to anti-terrorist efforts. Strong family ties also reduce individualism and increase the chances of someone taking up collective grievances.

But on the other hand, the lack of a strong family grip reduces the in-built ideologies of a society and opens the grounds for radical ideologies. Take for example Muslim youths in Britan who tend to be more radical than their immigrant parents. The reduction of family ties also sends youth searching out for authority figures and thus more likely to be taken by charismatic radicals.

Thus there is a mixed picture.

However, other effects of economic growth further complicate the picture. Economic growth tends to progress unevenly, either in terms of pure money or in terms of the power acquired by the government and its officials through economic growth. This tends to breed grievances based on people realizing how much better life could be and perceptions of unfairness.

However lack of economic growth also helps terrorism. To manage in the modern world, every country requires an intellectual class, and without sufficient economic growth this intellectual class is often idle or their partially educated children are idle and likely somewhat unemployed, and thus ripe for radicalism. Also, lack of economic growth tends to support the idea that the nation has fallen behind as a great power. People always like to feel like their part of a great power and economic growth makes people feel like if they are not part of a great power they are becoming part of one. Much of the discontent in the Muslim world is from the idea that the Muslim world has fallen behind the West and thus it must become a great power by any means necessarily.

However, ultimately, I think economic growth and political freedom tend to undermine the radical grievances that spawn terrorism by providing avenues for moderate grievances to be satisfied (unsatisfied moderate grievances have a tendency to breed radicalism, for example, the demands of early 19th century Russian radicals were largely moderate liberal ideas, but left unsatisfied they either reversed themselves into radical conservatism or they concluded that change required society overthrow so they turned to radicalism). Furthermore, economic growth tends to A. keep people busy by giving more jobs and more stuff to do, and B. allow more materialism to spread (materialism can spawn terrorism if unsatisfied, take for example gangs, but in an environment where society allows material improvement, materialists support stability because it protects their economic opportunity, take for example many businessmen in coastal China).

I could go on more, but I think it's not that economic growth has no effect on terrorism, but rather it has mixed effects, although ultimately it undermines terrorism. It's hard to prove such a claim though, since long term can be 100+ years, and historical examples may have key differences from the modern world, but if I were to try to prove it I would probably trace the historical amount of terrorism in currently rich countries in comparison to their historical economic growth (as a case study (which is not a conclusive proof by any means) take the United States, the US only achieved massively widespread economic growth in the '50's, the radical change in society and new intellectual class which often lacked opportunities or sense of belonging (especially amoung minorities) took to arms in the 60's achieving some minor support among lower classes, however over time this amount of terrorism died down, although there still are terrorists most of their demands are society related rather than economic related (cultural reform, inequality rather than poverty, ultra-nationalism, non-economic political issues (such as abortion))).

Sorry for the long comment, I got carried away.

The Donut Hole

For those of you who don't know, and seeing as many of the phrases that I use commonly seem to not be known by other people (my brother didn't know what it mean to "dot your i's and cross your t's"! Zuh!), the donut hole is simply a general term for a missing center, since all donuts have a hole in the center (although I think they're supposed to be that way due to the baking process).

So on this vacation, one of my goals has been to up my writingness to at least 2 pg.s daily, and maybe up to 3 (this is actually a pretty hard goal and will require a lot of time scrounging). Most importantly, one of my goals has been to write at least 1 pg. of creative fiction a day. Because of this goal I find I have been forcing myself to be rather creative, and I must say my mind is abuzz with story ideas except...

Well, there are a couple excepts here, but writing is always difficult. Yet let me underline one except that is particularly bugging me right now. During my time in India I was playing with a concept of a certain type of magical creature and its interaction with humans. It wasn't fully a setting per-say but rather it was an idea, what about a conflict between two completely separate species of intelligent creatures, and the two types could only barely understand each other superficially, but perhaps in deeper terms understood each other in ways that all those having intelligence and emotions (although I could have made them creatures without emotions, but I decided not to) tend to. Moreover, I decided to play a game with the idea that the other species felt closer to nature than humans. It was a pretty neat idea, certainly not revolutionary, but it helped prompt a story.

Oddly enough, although I had several other story ideas, I found this one was perhaps the easiest to write, despite being fairly new to my mind. And so I find myself with several pages of it already written with only the final climax and then the resolution left and it all seems to be coming together and yet... and yet there's a donut hole.

The story feels like its missing something. This might be because the story is sad and I'm a guy who likes happy endings, but I also feel it's missing some essential quality that all stories, even sad stories should have. I feel like its missing a need to be read. As it stands if I completed the story chances are it would be pretty good. And if this same story was in a short story book I would probably read it. Yet chances are I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It's unlikely the story would stick with me in a heavy sort of way, maybe just in the back of my mind. The story seems good, yet it's not that the story simply isn't great, it doesn't even really have a spark of greatness. I suppose all good things and all things that have within them concentrated effort have some primordial spark of greatness, but let's put all that aside and admit that some works are great and some works are not. But even some works that aren't great have flashes of greatness in their plot, in their setting, in their characters, or maybe just in some odd detail or other. But I see none of that in here really, and I'm not sure why.

Perhaps though that's okay. Maybe it's alright to write a good story that's fun (even if it is sad, there's a certain fun to reading that's inevitable, usually, well then again there's books like Night) and interesting to read. Moreover, perhaps because this story does not have that spark of greatness or at least an obvious spark of greatness, it might be easier to write and easier to edit and complete. And while I'm working hard on my masterworks, maybe this story and other stories like it can be sent off to see if they can be published. Maybe. But while I'm okay writing stories like this (at least rationally I'm okay with it, emotionally, well, okay, let me say overall I'm still ambivalent), I wouldn't want to write stories without any sparks of greatness for all of my life (even if the stories were overall bad but had sparks of real genius in them, as the works of Ed Wood are said to).

But the whole matter still leaves me uneasy. Now I'm not just working on that story. Obviously I'm also working on my webpost, I have several other stories in the pipeline, I have several stories I'm editing, I'm preparing a number of new strips of my comic (I might even be able to make it a truly regular affair), and there's a bunch of other stuff that is still in the planning stages, and a lot of all that has those sparks of greatness, but... but still this whole donut hole thing is making me uneasy. I very well could be making a big deal out of nothing or misinterpreting my own feelings (the idea that you can truly and fully know yourself is, in my view at least, wrong), but still it makes me uneasy, and that's actually delayed my finishing of the story. But I've been uneasy before and I've pushed through and I suppose that's what I'll have to do.

I just need to walk on into the uncertain future, not knowing whether triumph or defeat awaits me, even not knowing what triumph and defeat really are in this world of mystery. But still heck, I'm Rand, so I know no matter what happens:

I'M STILL GOING TO BE ROCKING IN THE FREE WORLD (although at some point I might move into an unfree country, no government can take away the freedom granted to me by God and so in God's world I'll be free)!!!!

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Arting upwards and onwards or my review of the San Francisco Asian Art Museum

So San Francisco is continuing to be awesome. Now basically while I've been on vacation I've been accumulating sessions to post up in the future, and so I have far, far more than I could possibly actually put up. So... Also, I've been thinking about things and such and making plans and such, so... Well, let me put that all aside for a moment and talk about the San Francisco Asian Art Museum (since I visited it today)

Let me hit up just a few main points because I am sleepy:

First of all: The museum is awesome. That's just how it is.

Also:

- There's a massive amount and diversity of cool stuff

- There's a large regional variety (well, let's say there's a large number of art belonging to several distinct regions: China, Japan, Tibetan Buddhist areas, Southeast Asia, and India), and there's even a decent subregional variety (I got to give credit to the fact that the museum makes a distinction between North India and South India).

- Nice thing about Asian art: colors and details (if that seems like an extremely vague description, well, Asia's an extremely big continent).

- Cool building too, the ceilings are often highly decorated and give a nice atmosphere to the whole museum.

- You can just barely take it all in within a day but that if you do your mind will most likely explode (yeah, that happened to me)

- A lot of the highly detailed works lend themselves to repeat viewing, especially the Indian sculptures and Chinese paintings

However:

- The Southwest Asian and Persian Art section (which for some reason includes Muslim Central Asia) is tiny (one very small room), out of the way (I missed it in my first time around), and there's some nice pieces, but only enough to show they really need to expand this section massively.

- The history stuff is kind of weak, some of it is interesting, but most is superficial and some of it is misleading, however that might just be my history snobbery (I'm actually thinking of creating a separate history webpost so I can post more about history, but I'll cover some of my general complaints, which to be fair I have about most popular histories, in another session).

- Mongolia's gets very little love in the Himalayan and Tibetan Buddhist section

- Laos gets no love (although I didn't read all the labels so there might have been some Laotian art) in the Southeast Asia section

- The area's a little ghetto so try to leave there a decent amount before nightfall

Overall pretty awesome stuff. Really gets the brain juices flowing (maybe to the point of overloading) but forget utilitarian arguments the art is just beautiful (especially cool is the jade art exhibits (there's at least both Chinese and Japanese jade art), those exhibits might be temporary though, although they might be permenant, basically I'm not sure on that point. Also, obviously, Indian (or if you want to be politically correct South Asian (which I think, in disagreement with the museum, should include Sri Lanka) Art rocks!!!!)

There's more I could say, but again I'm sleepy so simply: Dude, you should go, dude. Dude.

Anywho, take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Parallel Rand

So I'm back in the US!!!!!!!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!
But India rocked!!!!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!
And now I'm in California!!!!!!
Woo!!!!!!!!

As you can see I'm busy saying Woo!!!!!! So let me just post a little something I'm working on.

As a prelude let me give you a concert video of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Parallel Universe
And for more prelude here's an AMV of Parallel Universe with Gunslinger Girl (an anime I haven't watch but seems either interesting or overly-pretentious)

Finally here's the Lyrics

Finally you're ready for my version of the song:
Dravidian King

(This goes out to all you South Asians, especially you South South Asians and the Brahui and other N. Drav.s, you know who you are)


Deep inside of a parallel universe
(India's like a parallel universe really, but that would take too long to elaborate on)
It's getting harder and harder
To tell what came first
(Dravidians came first, then Aryans you stupid Hindu nationalists!)

Under water where thoughts can breate Easily

Far away you were made in a sea
Just like me
(So why aren't you rocking harder!)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
(Indians are everywhere around the world and we've got a big gross population too, so don't piss us off)
It's everything

Staring straight up into the sky
(Yeah, Indian's are good at that, we've got mad ancient astronomy skills, what!)
Oh my my a solar system that fits
In your eye Microcosm

You could die but your never dead spider web
Take a look at the stars in
Your head fields of space kid
(My father helped build the Indian space program and now they're letting the Chinese overtake them, what's with that?)

Christ
(Let me just point out for a sec that Christians have been in India since the 1st century AD so don't think of us as a religion of foreigners you damn RSS)
I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(And what if Christianity was a religion of foreigners, we're everywhere around the world so aren't we entitled to take the best of everything from every continent)

Christ I'm a sidewinder
(Damn straight I'm a sidewinder, don't you stereotype us brown folk!)
I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything

Psychic changes are born in your heart
Entertain
(Although not all Indians have Eastern mysticism, a term that ignores the diversity of Chinese philosophical thought and the vast and seperate Indian philosophical schools, still we got a awesomely deep spiritual tradition, represent!)
A nervous breakthrough that makes us the
same
Bless your heart girl
(Bless you all really, people are good folk, or can be if they give it a shot)

Kill the pressure it's raining on
(Watch out for monsoons man)
Salty cheeks
When you hear the beloved song
I am with you
(Dravidian men know how to treat a lady)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(Rock it!)

Christ I'm a sidewinder I'm a
Dravidian King
(Oh yeah!)
I swear it's everywhere
It's everything
(Rock on South Asians!)

And if all that seems like insane nonsense, well it is, but that's the way the cookie crumbles, and since I'm immensely busy with tons of crazy Cali. stuff, that's all you're going to get for right now. But someday, someday soon, you will find there's much more to this Dravidian King.

So take it to your head, take it to your heart and remember Rand rocks. Goodnight Folks!

Why I Watch The Tonight Show with Jay Leno

Just watched the first Tonight Show of the year, also the first episode since the writers strike began. Jay, I believe, could not rely on any of his usual 19 writers for the jokes in the monologue. Yet, it was good to see the Show back on air and it reminded me of many of the reasons why I prefer this over David Letterman or any other tonight shows.

First, Jay you can tell is a genuinely nice guy. One of the reasons he brought the show back was because the Tonight Show has a large behind the scenes crew (160 people). When the writers decided to strike, they were effectively putting all 160 people out of work, and NBC had decided earlier to lay them all off because no one knew how long the negotiations between the Writer's Guild and the networks and studios would last. Leno, like the other show hosts, offered to pay the staffs' weekly salaries, a nice gesture on all their parts. But what makes Leno stand out, is he has fun hosting.

When I flip through the channels and see Letterman, he tries too hard to be funny and sometimes breaks out laughing at his own jokes. Letterman also looks like he is working, flipping through his queue cards or talking to Paul Shaffer, his music director, you see a guy who doesn't look like he cares much about the audience or who isn't enjoying his work.

In tonight's show, Leno, after the monologue, actually opened up the floor to take questions from the audience. And the amazing part is, according to him, the questions are unscreened without preset answers. What convinces me this is true is that the questioners are all seated in the audience and microphones are brought over to them after they raise their hands. This is amazing for any show host to actually do. Leno's answers were funny, down to earth, and feel good. He told stories about when he was younger and mentioned his wife several times. Letterman or the other hosts lack that personal touch, seldom do you hear much about their past or family lives. Talking about personal issues isn't essential to being a great comedian or host, but those who do convince me that they are genuinely better at comedy and are having much more fun. At least they are enjoying themselves.

Finally, at the end of the show, Leno cooked some pepper steak with Emeril, both of them actually filleted two steaks and ate the finished product on air!

Early during the monologue, when one of his jokes bombed, Leno said that the audience should blame his wife because as there were no writers, Jay had to determine whether the things he wrote were funny or not by asking her. I think that's incredibly sweet.

Finally, it's good to see a great program back on air. It's like being able to watch Tiger Woods play another golf tournament, you know you'll be watching one man give it his all. He holds himself to a higher standard than what any viewer or media executive can impose. It's another reason to watch television and I'm still a fan, with or without writers, of the Tonight Show.

Meditating on Meditation

I meditate. Right after I rise in the morning, before I know the day starts, and each evening before return to bed, I sit upright, cross-legged, eyes closed, and listen to my breath, with conscious thought totally excised. I don't meditate because I feel I am unhealthy of body or mind. I would probably live just fine without doing it daily. Also I don't meditate for the sake of doing it without a reason. I find, when I practice consistently, I am much more relaxed and aware of my surroundings. I hear new sounds (like the branches at the top of trees gently clashing into each other when the wind blows) or see what usually is passed over (the moon in the sky during the day time). Most importantly, I am more aware of myself, of my body, where parts of it ache, and of my mind, what thoughts I am thinking and to be able to control those thoughts. I can be lost daydreaming but still pull myself back into reality if I chose. Sometimes I notice I am getting bored, so I think of more lively things.

Meditation, on the one hand, is the practice of breathing, because your lungs moving up and down is usually the only physically moving part about you. During the day while immersed in our activities, we don't consciously think of breathing and it's possible we may breath incorrectly. We can actually forget to take full breathes if we are stressed out emotionally or worry.

On the other hand, meditation is supposed to be devoid of consciousness, mental thinking. It is like listening to the ocean ebb and flow or watching the stars, we are lost in the experience of "living" and the feeling of it. Sitting cross legged and listening to my breath coming in, noticing how I feel with the breath, where I ache, whether my mind is clear, I am absorbed in myself.

It is also a learning experience. Humans are complex and deep. When I meditate, I sometimes learn about images I recurrently think about but don't really control. The sounds of a popular song may come across my mind, I may see someone's face flash, disappearing as soon as it appears. When I meditate, I can see what thoughts I think about and learn of anything that bothers me. There is a sea inside all of us that requires exploration. Most of the time, we direct our eye outward and are consumed by the world. Meditation directs our seeing eye inwards. At first it is darkness as our eyes are closed. Then, I believe, there is understanding.