a liberal libya.

egypt's vote turned out to be pretty disappointing, not that i didn't sort of expect it. (still hoping for the turkish model of a strong military to safeguard liberalism there.)

but i'm still holding out hope for a liberal libya.

I saw an old man with damaged eyesight, who could barely walk, being ushered in by his son. Other voters quickly brought a chair to him so he could rest and then carried him upstairs to vote, chanting "Allahu Akbar", or "God is great".

the national front has my vote.

buxom bosons.

i suppose we can't all be particle physicists. for some of us, it's just way too complicated. i mean... statistically significant observations? what?

Rolf Heuer offered as good a summation as any when he said, "We have observed a new particle that is consistent with a Higgs boson."

dude, rolf, shut up- we discovered the fucking particle. now you're either with us or against us. ugh- liberals. but seriously folks, not sure why i just meandered into a few hours worth of the higgs boson but here's my favorite tidbit:



now here's the editorializing- it gave me crazy perspective watching the now outdated documentary "atom smashers," which basically tracks years of fermilab's search for the boson, now considered discovered by cern. if you're looking to feel like you live in a relevant time, look no further:



the editorial message about funding basic research is pervasive and it definitely got to me: a summary.

a clean bill of health finalized.

"don't get it twisted to mean i'm railing against the bill, all taxes 'force' spending in some form or another. i'm just saying that wherever [the tax/subsidy] break-even point lies is where the equity/efficiency trade-off begins, producing access for those below at the expense of coercion for those above." -a crude reading of john roberts's opinion within my own opinion.

also, did anyone else notice the economist copied my headline?

object permanence.

something you may not know about me: some things you may never know about me.

my mortality is following me, making fun of me, laughing every time i trip on the cracks.

i've been here for years.

years.

yet i'm too above myself to care. i'm a god in a man's body; resigned to taking it all in as entertainment; to pushing every boundary just to see what happens, with a destructive streak that can only come from a profound acceptance of mortality's humor.

...

every once in awhile, you see yourself as all of yourself, typically as a tralfamadorian in transition. it's in those moments that you're still yourself (how am i not myself?) but you cease to identify with yourself, at least in-so-far as you can no longer be upset by upsets or offended by the unjust assumptions that go along with going anywhere.

having nothing to prove can be a major disadvantage, especially when everyone expects you to prove yourself.

maybe now and then little clues give you little clues. you can catch a glimpse of what was a formative experience for all of us, not because we wanted it to be but because it had to be, subtly referenced in every projection, out-of-context and out of reach.

maybe i'm just too damn good at being detached.

yawn.

"traveling is a brutality. it forces you to trust strangers and to lose sight of all that familiar comfort of home and friends. you are constantly off balance. nothing is yours except the essential things: air, sleep, dreams, sea, the sky - all things tending towards the eternal or what we imagine of it." -cesare pavese