A sunburned soil, stretching into the sun
Flat, featureless, formless, and full of nothing
But a boy breathing broken breaths, believing
that he travels toward a temple.

Ventura County Star announcement of the library closure

"The proposal could save an initial $250,000 at a time when Ventura County's library system faces a $650,000 budget deficit, largely because of declining property tax revenues."

Normally I would support smaller government, but public libraries should be the last things to go.

Anyone interested in opposing our local government's actions?

"The Ventura City Council is scheduled to consider the closure at its Jan. 26 meeting."

I found this in the introduction of "Free to Choose" by Milton Friedman:

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding." - Justice Brandeis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZFwRAfkV1g

...

Human progress is normally understood to mean the unveiling of a truth to humans as a whole. Truth, of course, is held by many to be a good thing.

One example of human progress is the invention of the printing press. The unveiled truth, so to speak, is that complex ideas can be readily disseminated. The result is that intellectual communication became more commonplace.

The problem with this is: powerful minds, when working with other powerful minds, create tools for the weak minded to destroy each other with.

The most obvious example is the evolution of weaponry before and after the printing press. Up to that invention - through thousands of years of known human history - wars were fought largely with swords, spears and arrows. Since then, weaponry has enable the individual to kill with power of the greatest swordsman or bowman; the AK-47, with proper ammunition, could cut down the 300 Spartans within minutes. Advancing less than one hundred years since that invention, the hydrogen bomb permits on individual to end the lives of millions.

Have these inventions been abused more than the swords and spears and arrows of old? Not yet.

I don't think there is any doubt that humans are, by nature, selfish. We, at our worst moments, will do anything to anyone, in order to get what we want. We have our good moments, and that can't be denied, but every few centuries raises a demon too violent for hell itself. Nero, Attila the Hun, Vlad "the Impaler" Dracula, Ivan the terrible, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, to name the most prominent.

Given that every epoch has its evil despot, it follows that one will come, just as corrupt and selfish as any who has already come. And this is where "Human Progress" becomes most dangerous. Now that we have bombs capable of destroying the world as we know it, it is only a matter of time before a dictator takes the reins of one, as disposes of it.

Not that we should ignore science, because studying is as human as selfishness, but I only mean to dampen fervor surrounding human progress. Because in our daily lives, we generally are anxious for the newest peice of technology, or the newest car with the next best engine. We wish to have more powerful devices to control our life and our actions, but our continual obsession with human progress hastens the end of the relative peace of humanity.

It seems as if whenever I get to accepting the imperfections of humanity, a new reason to hate humanity presents itself.

Maybe one day I will learn to live at peace with imperfections.

You see the world in black and white
No colour or light
You think you'll never get it right
But you know you might.

The sky could fall, could fall on me
The parting of the sea
But you mean more, mean more to me
Than any colour I can see

All you ever wanted was love,
But you never looked hard enough,
It's never gonna give itself up

All you ever wanted to be
Living in perfect symmetry,
Nothing is as down or as up as us

You see the world in black and white
Not painted right
You see no meaning to your life
You should try
You should try

All you ever wanted was love,
But you never looked hard enough,
It's never gonna give itself up

All you ever wanted to be,
Living in perfect symmetry,
Nothing is as down or as up

Don't you want to see it come soon,
Floating in a big white balloon
Come give her your own silver spoon

Don't you want to see it come down?
There for throwing your arms around
And say "You're not a moment too soon."

Cause I feel low, cause I feel low
ooooh...
Yeah I feel low
oh no...oooh
Cause I feel low, cause I feel low
oh...
Yet I feel low
oh no...oooh

5 Cal States:
Sonoma
Humboldt
Northridge
Channel Islands
Long Beach


I'm studying Psychology.