Dream

I rarely dream and if I do it's usually of the "oh yea I dreamed last night....what did I dream about?"  I'm left with vagueness.


So when I awoke this morning with a very vivid dream I took note.   This was beyond bizarre.  I was my young 10 year old self but with my current cadre of memories and experience.  I walked over to my piano teacher's house (who was also my neighbor for a while) and knocked the door,  though this wasn't the normal time.  She then took a moment to answer the door and walked out with her husband, but it wasn't her husband.  Y'know somehow in the dream it was her husband but when i awoke and started putting it all together the memory of the husband in the dream didn't match up with the actual husband she has.  They both walked out in their bathrobes and invited me to join them in their back yard.  We then went into their backyard which turned out to be the Amazon and we were all garbed in the gear you see in 1940s movies about jungle crawling.


So that may not seem terribly odd in the retelling but for me it is.   Enjoy.

God laughs at me

I have a bit of a pet peeve of not knowing where I'm going or what I'm doing in regard to life plans.  That means that right now I'm pretty frustrated because nothing has really popped up for me as a viable next step in life.  No grad school, no job in my field, no internship.  I've put in near 150 applications for various jobs, internships, and grad schools hoping something would pop up and nothing has come to fruition.  

I think God is just up there saying "Little boy you are funny running around frantic like that.   Do it some more...."

I'm sure he has something specific planned out for me but it would help relieve a lot of stress if I could but know what it was.

Jesse Ventura

You control our world. You’ve poisoned the air we breathe, contaminated the water we drink, and copyrighted the food we eat. We fight in your wars, die for your causes, and sacrifice our freedoms to protect you. You’ve liquidated our savings, destroyed our middle class, and used our tax dollars to bailout your unending greed. We are slaves to your corporations, zombies to your airwaves, servants to your decadence. You’ve stolen our elections, assassinated our leaders, and abolished our basic rights as human beings. You own our property, shipped away our jobs, and shredded our unions. You’ve profited off of disaster, destabilized our currencies, and raised our cost of living. You’ve monopolized our freedom, stripped away our education, and have almost extinguished our flame. We are hit… we are bleeding… but we ain’t got time to bleed. We will bring the giants to their knees and you will witness our revolution! -Jesse Ventura

I might be in the wrong place.  Today there was a large scale student occupation of admin buildings across CSU system. These students and faculty members unable to handle the cuts to education coming from the state took action.  Notice this didn't have to be violent.  They are in fact planning a sleep over in some of these administration buildings.  

It would seem as if this generation is bucking back as the older generation tries to make up for the spending and outsourcing and absolute wrecking of the economy.  This generation seems unable to stand the idea that they would have a lesser experience due to the actions of others older than them.  Unfortunately this generation will be so racked with debt that when it comes time for them to take care of the older generation they will unable, not for the lack of motivation or the fear of extra responsibility but for the lack of resource and fiscal support from a professional level job. 

On a conspiracy theory level; the less educated the population the easier they are to manipulate and control.

This will be curious to watch and see how it unfolds.  Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?

Nah.....This?....Here?? Really?

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed."  -- 6th Amendment
This seems pretty straightforward, right?  I believe the historical impetus for this addition to the Bill of Rights was the fact that kings and rulers were accusing the people of crimes and convicting them without a trial by jury, without witnesses, without due process of law, essentially without any safeguards or protections whatsoever against corruption and unchecked power.  The founders wisely ensured that if government has the ability to deprive a person of property, freedom, or life (which it does) then the Constitution should require that the government has to submit to certain safeguards against the abuse of that power.  I believe those on both the political right and left can feel good about that.

Of course, America isn't alone in guaranteeing a public jury trial for criminals.  Other countries have such requirements, and stick to them even in cases of terrorist attacks, as Glenn Greenwald outlined:

People in capitals all over the world have hosted trials of high-level terrorist suspects using their normal justice system.  They didn't allow fear to drive them to build island-prisons or create special commissions to depart from their rules of justice.  Spain held an open trial in Madrid for the individuals accused of that country's 2004 train bombings.  The British put those accused of perpetrating the London subway bombings on trial right in their normal courthouse in London.  Indonesia gave public trials using standard court procedures to the individuals who bombed a nightclub in Bali.  India used a Mumbai courtroom to try the sole surviving terrorist who participated in the 2008 massacre of hundreds of residents.  In Argentina, the Israelis captured Adolf Eichmann, one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals, and brought him to Jerusalem to stand trial for his crimes.

But not in America.  In America we are stricken with fear that our criminal justice system is suddenly inadequate and that the safeguards found in the Constitution regarding trials of criminals, which have served us well for a couple hundred years, fall short.  So we have a Democratic administration, which is daily showing itself to be nothing like liberal as to civil liberties, reversing its promise to close Guantanamo Bay and hold criminal trials for Khalid Sheik Mohammad and the 9/11 plotters.  Instead, the administration has decided to hold military tribunals(straight news story here) and eschew our time-tested criminal court system.  Tribunals without a jury, behind closed doors, in a different country.

We are allowing, some even demanding, that the government brush aside the important Constitutional safeguards against abuse for merely political considerations.  We are also setting up a system where different classes of criminals receive different levels of Constitutional protection.  All out of fear, and all backed by "liberal" Pres. Obama.  I like the guy, but his record on civil liberties is appalling.