Meditation and apology.

I have a problem with punctuality. It stems from my early childhood, and a resistance to adult tyranny, as it happens, but that's not what this post is about. It makes trouble for me at work, in school, and in my friendships. In particular, it's been a recurring problem between me and filthyassistant.

She's complained about it for years, and told me that it told her that I didn't really respect her, that I didn't really care. I didn't see it that way, but after a lot of recent reflection, I have to admit that she's right. It IS about saying 'fuck you' to people I perceive as a ttempting to control me, and it's a very passive-aggressive way of dealing with things, and now that I see that, I don't like it.

Because of that, a couple of weeks ago, I was late meeting her because I went to dinner with some other folks, and I didn't even call to fill her in, because I couldn't deal withe the double-think involved in being proactive and upfront about my passive-aggressiveness. That was wrong of me, and here and now I apologize for my rudeness, as per her request.

FA and I used to live together, and one of the reasons I asked her to move in with me is that I wanted to work on some of interpersonal issues, the problems I have being a social person, without having to actually acknowledge those problems or admit what they are. That's really unfair.

I think an important source of my bad behavior is that, as a young person, I was often conscious of grown-ups expressing disappointment with me for not meeting their expectations in some way. I didn't deal with this in a healthy way, by developing a more positive self-image and strong boundaries which would have allowed me to distinguish how other people saw me from how I saw myself. Instead, I left unchallenged the validity of other people's feelings, and instead cultivated a deliberate obliviousness to them. After a third of a century, I find that to have been a very unhelpful choice. I am attempting to make it anew. I'd like to thank all of my friends for their patience with me over the years, and for their help in turning over new leaves. (In particular, I'd like to thank Lefty for not firing my ass, FA for giving me another chance, and M, as always.)

Yay for human ingenuity

Successful trials of artificial blood! (read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3207291.stm)

New drug that might help alleviate spread of drug-resistant microbes! (read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3204831.stm)

I like it when people invent new things that can improve lives. It's the positive face of science.

Read em and weep.

The BBC recently ran a piece on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and then opened the floor to comments. A lot of people from all over the planet sounded off, including a bunch of folks form the USA. Sadly, most of my fellow Americans see no problems with imprisonning people in Cuba for years without trial in this instance, though I wonder how many would give Castro a similar pass. (Read the BBC piece: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/talking_point/3180424.stm)

The BBC didn't use my comment, which was to the effect of:

By holding people in this fashion, without trial, without representation, without formal charges of any kind, we are denying them the basic human rights enshrined in our Constitution. The great shame of this is that, in so doing, we reject what we hold most sacred and become our own worst enemies, whether we defeat al-Qaeda or not.


What I'll add here, because it's my journal is this:

The issue isn't the complicity of these people in terrorism (important as that is), it is that our government wields its power openly. This matters because, whether one agrees with our laws or not, they do provide limits to our government's power, limits which protect all of us, Americans and foreigners alike. The CIA, FBI, and various police departments in the US have all made serious mistakes at one time or another. This happens in any human endeavor. The real problem is that these organizations often lie to cover up their mistakes, or to achieve the selfish ends of leaders such as J. Edgar Hoover. Open trials, with charges, evidence, lawyers and all the other trappings of law, for all their flaws and limits, ensure that somebody outside of these privileged circles gets to check the evidence, poke holes in logic and ask the embarassing questions. I have, I must admit, confidence in our cops and our spooks to do their jobs well most of the time, and generally be right when they finger someone as a terrorist or a murderer, and I wish that Bush and co would share that faith and let these prisoners meet with lawyers and go to trial. The fact that, for more than a year now, our government won't do this leads me to suspect, along with other skeptics around the world, that we don't really have a good reason for holding these people, and that, maybe, we're just the biggest damn hypocrites in the world. Since I really don't like feeling that way, I'm pretty angry with Bush et al, and I long for the day when I can vote them out of office. Perhaps next time democracy will even work.

and finally...

I must go and do reading for school (Shapin and Shaffer's the Leviathan and the Airpump--mmm, tasty), but I had some important stuff to post here, so I have taken some time to do that. Before I logged off, I was struck by the urge to look over my calendar view and see if I could spot any patterns in my postings, as it feels to me that I go for long periods with nothing and then have bursts of posts. On a quick examination, that seems pretty accurate, especially since some of my posts are just notes on readings that I wanted online in case I forgot my computer or something. What I didn't expect was the fact that I hardly ever post on weekends. Over the past two years, over 241 entries, perhaps a score were posted on a weekend. I don't see any significance to this, and I suppose that this whole post is just a waste of your time and mine, but as a compulsive narcissist I found too interesting not to post about.

And, if nothing else, the post is now over. :)