Mike Cohen

JMS on “It Can’t Happen Here”. As pointed out by several weblogs yesterday, this business of a “Citizen’s Corps” reminds people of second-string baddie President Clark’s “NightWatch” on Bablyon 5.

We are talking about at TV show here, but it did a great job of playing with myth (considering it was a near-direct port of LoTR from Fantasy to Science Fiction), and Clark’s brownshirts are classic 20th Century (CE) bad guys.Why do they scare us? The Lurker’s Guide to B5 quotes the show’s creator J. Michael Straczynski:

Could it happen right here, right now? No, because the surrounding climate isn’t right. Could it happen if the conditions *were* right? Of course it could. We’re not genetically or evolutionarily different from the Germans or the Russians or the Cubans or the Iraquis. If we think we’d never fall for that, we place ourselves in *exactly* the position of guaranteeing that we *will* fall for it. Because we won’t recognize it when it happens. We can justify and rationalize it as something else. [More Like This WebLog]

How can anyone not be scared shitless by the prospect of citizen spies? This sounds like something you would see in Nazi Germany, not the US. I’m afraid that American freedom as we always knew it is on its deathbed. It looks like the terrorists have already won. They don’t need to do anything else – we’re headed to a totalitarian society thanks to blind fear.

Fran Lebowitz. “I must take issue with the term ‘a mere child,’ for it has been my invariable experience that the company of a mere child is infinitely preferable to that of a mere adult.” [Quotes of the Day]

My Radio Userland weblog can also be seen at http://www.mc-development.com/weblog, which is a bit easier to remember than http://radio.weblogs.com/0100097.

While I was outside I saw a few iguanas. Unfortunately they left before I could get my camera.

NOTE TO ANYONE COMMENTING OR ASKING QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS: I am merely linking to an article someone else wrote at a different site which I have nothing to do with. I know nnothing about the subject beyond what’s in the article. I wrote this entry when I was at a very low point in my life feeling burned out and looking for a change. I was toying with the idea as a possible way out of my slump.

To Work in Korea, Part I. In an attempt to add some adventure to my life, as well as preventing myself from totally wasting my summer in some loser job, I found myself an English teaching position for the summer in South Korea with no teaching credentials. I have been keeping regular diary entries of my adventures which have received a lot of positive feedback. Under suggestion, I have written this as a guide and introduction to life in Korea. The first of two parts is a HOWTO on employment in Korea. The second will cover Korean culture and lifestyle. [kuro5hin.org]

Hmm… this sounds very interesting. I’m getting pretty disgusted with the US, and this sounds like something I would enjoy.

MacMegasite just reached hit #54000.

Our Bodies, Ourselves – The New War of Independence. “Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.”- J.S.Mill In several US states, gay-rights activists are working to overturn antiquated sodomy laws. In many countries, organizations like NORML are attempting to decriminalize marijuana. The news has been filled recently with families battling with the state (and each other) to preserve the dead in ways other than internment or cremation. Internationally, AIDS and cancer sufferers seek to fast-track experimental drug trials, offering themselves as human guinea pigs, while euthanasia activists attempt to legitimize assisted suicide. Neo-tribal devotees are changing society’s attitudes to piercing, tattooing, and other forms of body modification simply by being publicly visible. While very different in intention, all of these groups have one thing in common – they seek to claim the individual’s rights of the body back from the state. [kuro5hin.org]

So long as she is over the age of consent, it is the sane individual’s right to make an informed decision to do with her body whatever she wishes, so long as those actions do not infringe on the rights of others.

This is the essence of my libertarian beliefs and why I believe the war on drugs should end, even though I don’t personally condone the use of drugs.

I haven’t updated to Toast 5.1.4 and I don’t intend to do so as long as 5.1.3 continues to work for me. Roxio’s updated license agreement says:

Content providers are using the digital rights management technology contained in this Software to protect the integrity of their content so that their intellectual property, including copyright, in such content is not misappropriated. Owners of such Secure Content may, from time to time, request Roxio or its suppliers to provide security related updates to the digital rights management components of the Software that may affect your ability to copy, display and/or play Secure Content through the Software or other applications that utilize the Software.

F*** them! We’re coming closer to end users having no rights at all. When I buy a CD, I should have the right to use it as I see fit. I’m not selling pirated copies of that CD – I just want to burn music mix CDs with a collection of tracks from various CDs that I own, since most of my CDs have tracks I don’t like and I would prefer to listen to a mix of tracks from several CDs.

Remember the scene in Network where everyone opened their windows and shouted “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore”? It’s time for us to send that message to the recording industry.

Is It Time for Drug Policy Reform in the US?. The time has come for the United States to shed its antiquated and puritanical drug laws. Regardless of one’s own personal preference regarding the use of intoxicating substances, at the most fundamental level, what right does the government have to tell an adult which chemicals they may put into their own body? Certainly, engaging in activities such as driving a car or operating machinery while intoxicated endanger others and should not be permissible. In the privacy of one’s own home, however, how does the government have the right to determine which substances may be consumend, and which may not? [kuro5hin.org]

Even though I personally don’t condone the use of drugs, I feel very strongly that we should end the war on drugs. It’s clear by now that we’re losing that war badly and are just throwing away lots of money.

Furthermore, those anti-drug TV ads are just plain ridiculous. It’s our drug policy and the war on drugs itself that supports dictators & terrorists. The government has no right to tell citizens what chemicals they’re allowed to put in their body, as long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Of course there still needs to be strict laws against driving, flying aircraft, or operating other machinery while under the influence of drugs.

“From Justice Scalia, a Chilling Vision of Religion’s Authority in America” [Daypop Top 40]

The great 17th-century dissenter Roger Williams declared that government derived no authority whatsoever from God, but was “merely human and civil.” Thomas Jefferson put matters bluntly in 1779: “[O]ur civil rights have no dependence on our religious opinions any more than on opinions in physics or geometry.”