My head hurts
Current mood: nihilistic

Well, I got assaulted tonight.

Car's in the shop, it's a beautiful night and I need to take pictures for a show at Wesleyan. It's just over a mile away -- why take a cab? I've got this cool photography backpack that will carry everything I need, so I have a nice walk over, take some shots, and walk back around 10 pm.

So I come up on 5 or 6 punk-ass kids, all full of themselves, and I step off on the street side of the sidewalk to let them have the whole thing to themselves. I hear them joking about how I must be a tourist or some kind of Lord of the Rings guy (which, of course, I would normally take as a compliment), so I just chuckled politely and kept walking.

Took three steps and... WHAM.

Something hit me really hard on the back of my head, right behind the ear. Staggered me a few steps, and I whirled, but couldn't tell which of them had done it (or what they had hit me with -- a fist, or something else). I really wanted to do... something. But reason told me that taking on that many of them (and they seemed to have some more friends at the other end of the block) wasn't very smart.

So I called 911 just in case they meant to do more -- they were already sauntering off.

Just hitting a guy in the back of the head for entertainment. Who does that?

I can already feel the lump forming.

My head hurts.

Currently listening : Sweet Baby James By James Taylor Release date: 25 October, 1990

6:49 PM - 11 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Jerry Falwell is dead

If there is a god, may s/he show Mr. Falwell precisely as much compassion as he showed others during his lifetime.

[via]

4:21 PM - 4 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

...to tell me that there is something ugly, vile, vulgar about me somewhere, somehow, someway
Current mood: irritated

Can I say just how much I despise small-minded busybodies who think that they have been given a personal dispensation from God Almighty to decide what I and others should do with our bodies or with our artistic expression, or what we can "write, speak, talk and sing"?

I have lived my entire life refusing to subordinate who I am to their petty tyranny and nothing will change my resolve. They can never hurt me more than the harm of capitulation.

Every now and then, however, one of these contemptible slugs rears its slimy head in such a way as to force me to acknowledge and deal with it, as if I somehow owe an explanation for something that is none of their fucking business.

You don't know the people involved in the current situation. Hell, I don't even know who the people are in the current situation. It's also not even remotely a serious threat, so don't get concerned.

I just wanted to vent.

That is all.

Currently listening : 'Til We Outnumber 'Em: Woody Guthrie By Various Artists Release date: 30 May, 2000

4:08 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Myspace is making me despise sexy women
Current mood: contemplative

What a strange site.

I don't know if everyone gets these, or just males, or just straight males, or... but I keep getting friend requests and Myspace mail from identities with a sexy female picture that are nothing but various spam schemes. You know the kind of thing I'm talking about -- the vapid airhead text and the why-don't-you-check out-my-pictures-and-videos tease. Sometimes I'll get four of them that are identical except for the sexy female pictures.

Now I understand spam... I'm not naive. But here's what's happening....

I log onto Myspace and am greeted with "New Messages!" "New Friend Requests!" and I'm excited until I see the picture and my reaction is "Oh, crap, a sexy female." Worse yet, I have to actually check, because I have many female friends who are, in fact, very sexy -- it could be a real person, but no...

So now I find myself hoping that I'll see the picture of a homely person when I open my mail.

Add to that all the annoying sexy women in the glut of ads on the first two pages you have to click through to get to your home page (again -- women, do you get sexy women in your ads, or are those targeted?)

Is Myspace poised to change societal views of beauty by simply making everyone annoyed by sexiness?

Interesting.

Currently listening : The Who's Tommy: Original Cast Recording (1992 Broadway Revival) By The Who Release date: 13 July, 1993

8:50 PM - 5 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

This is not a blog
Current mood: annoyed
Category: Blogging

Let me say it again: This is not a blog.

Yes, I just clicked on a Myspace link that said "Post New Blog," but that's only because Myspace was saving space and left out the word "Entry."

So to be clear, this is not a blog -- it's a blog entry or a post. When writing it, I am blogging. And the combined chronologically arranged series of entries or posts is, in fact, a blog.

I have another blog -- drugwarrant.com -- and in it I have written 2,192 blog entries. I do not have 2,192 blogs.

If you write 5 times in your diary, you don't have 5 diaries. You have one diary with 5 entries. Same with a journal. Same with a blog.

So stop telling me to read the new blog you just wrote.

I mean it. Or I'll have to blog about you again.

6:13 PM - 3 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I voted

That's right. I voted.

Every single vote I made on that ballot lost. Yeah, every one. Even the unopposed races (I wasn't about to vote for those idiots so I wrote in "None of the Above" for the unopposed races).

And yet, I'm proud that I voted. And I feel good about my vote.

There's a dangerous element in this country that has been claiming that to criticize the government is to somehow be unpatriotic. On the contrary. Criticizing the government when it acts contrary to the constitution and the rights of individuals is every citizen's right patriotic duty. And voting is just one of the ways of criticizing. It's probably the easiest one (you can also write a blog, a letter to the editor, talk to your friends, run for office...).

I voted. And I'm pretty pleased with myself.

9:45 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

In the Tribune

Some people couldn't pull today's article up online, so here it is (The flyer itself is available at http://www.DEAtargetsAmerica.com)



War-on-drugs exhibition starts free-speech battle

Museum, activist clash over pamphlets

By John Keilman
Tribune staff reporter

October 5, 2006

Pete Guither's attempt to criticize the war on drugs has become a war of its own.

When an exhibition sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration opened at the Museum of Science and Industry in August, Guither showed up with a sack full of pamphlets denouncing the government's anti-narcotics strategy.

But soon after he began handing the pamphlets out, museum officials confined him to what he said was an almost deserted stretch of sidewalk. Then a lawyer for the Chicago Park District told him the pamphlets were "commercial in nature" and that he needed a permit to distribute them at all.

The Park District says it's just a matter of keeping its facilities running smoothly. But the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which has gotten involved in the dispute, calls it "a classic case of free speech."

"What you have in this instance is a government-sponsored promotion of their viewpoint on a policy issue, and a citizen who wants to express the opposite viewpoint," said ACLU spokesman Ed Yohnka. "... We don't think this is the kind of speech that requires a permit."

The exhibition, aimed at young people, is meant to expose the grim toll of the drug business. It includes a reproduction of a seedy crack house, a gallery of people who died from drug-related causes, and exhibits that link the narcotics trade with terrorism.

"The concept is, by educating people and getting them to realize how dangerous drugs are, the damage it can do, the people it can destroy, hopefully people are smart enough to realize they shouldn't do this," said DEA spokesman Steve Robertson.

Guither, 52, whose day job is assistant dean at Illinois State University, said he has long been a civil-liberties activist. He turned his attention to the drug war with a blog that advocates legalizing marijuana and regulating other narcotics, an alternative to what he calls a futile and destructive policy of prohibition.

When he learned earlier this year that a traveling exhibition sponsored by the DEA would visit the Museum of Science and Industry, Guither said he felt compelled to act.

"I used to practically live in that museum," he said. "I didn't like seeing it perverted into an infomercial for the DEA."

On opening day, Guither went to the museum with leaflets criticizing the exhibition and the DEA. He said he approached security guards before handing out the material, hoping to prevent any problems. After a huddle, officials told him he could distribute them outside.

For about two hours Guither gave pamphlets to people at the entryways facing 57th Street. But then, he said, a security supervisor told him he was allowed only on a sidewalk between the entryways, where Guither said few people ventured.

"We had about 100 an hour before then, maybe one an hour after then," he said.

Museum spokeswoman Lisa Miner, who met with Guither that day, disagreed with his characterization of the space, saying many people walk though there on a typical day.

A few days later Guither contacted officials of the museum and the Chicago Park District, asking that he be allowed to pass out his fliers freely. Park District attorney Timothy King eventually sent this reply:

"Per our conversation, I consider your handout to be commercial in nature and therefore, pursuant to our Code, would require a permit to distribute on our property."

In an interview last week, King said his judgment "was not a matter of content. I didn't even really give [the handout] a good review. Beyond the nature of the flier, I didn't delve into the content.

"This is just a matter of how do we keep our parks open to all, and how do we set people up in a manner so as not to interfere with anyone's use."

Geoffrey Stone, a constitutional scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said the flier clearly was not commercial material. But even if it were, he said, the government cannot regulate commercial pamphleteering in public areas if it doesn't cause problems, such as litter or blocked building entrances.

Yohnka, of the ACLU, said the group hoped to come to an agreement with the Park District that would establish an area where activists could have better access to people arriving at the museum.

He said a similar arrangement has been worked out at McCormick Place, which used to keep activists away from conventioneers.

King said the problem could be solved if Guither would apply for a permit, but Guither said he had no intention of doing that.

"We are not applying to hand out commercial [material]," he said. "It would be like handing out a permit for me to be out on the sidewalk talking."

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jkeilman@tribune.com
Copyright © 2006, Chicago Tribune

2:36 PM - 5 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Home from Europe
Current mood: exhausted

Well, I had an absolutely incredible vacation. Prague, Slovakia, Budapest, Vienna, and more! Too busy catching up with stuff to talk much about it now, but you can see photos if you wish.

11:16 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

I'm in Prague

You can follow along on my trip at http://www.cfa.ilstu.edu/pguithe/trip

10:40 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

So I finally decide to add design to my MySpace page.

I hesitated for a long time, partly because there are so many crappy pages out there, and I hate going to a MySpace profile that starts playing music automatically, or is impossible to view properly in my browser. Or where the design obscures the content.

But I couldn't just keep on with the boring default, so I did a little looking around and modified a design created by Mike Industries.

It feels pretty comfortable to me. It's not particularly daring, but I really wasn't going there. What do you think?

3:24 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment