Bitch. bitch, bitch

Now this is making up controversy.

I guess since Obama has become somewhat Teflon in the media it makes sense that the "liberal" CNN should begin again taking its cues from Fox and Drudge with this inane and ridiculous story.

Yes he just made a sweeping statement about governmental transparency and yes it was genuine. So why shut the visual media out of a second swearing in ceremony? Well you know the first one went so damn well in front of God and everybody, has anyone simply come to the conclusion that both he and Roberts may have been, well....nervous? What could possibly be worse than flubbing the lines to the Oath of Office than doing so a second time? After all, neither of them had done this before, and to fuck it up so terribly (personally I thought it was rather funny, the nation really does have a sense of humor you know, as well as a sense of what is important and not).

I would hardly pose that the re-swearing in was a case of national security, nor would I put forward the notion that keeping the cameras out was any great reversal of that notion of transparency. What I would pose is that the networks suck it up and move on, it isn't a story anymore than it was when you weren't invited to it.

Quit bitching and go find some real news.

Less is not more...

Been hitting a bit of a writing slump lately, my focus has been on the less creative aspects of my life and the more practical. There is a sea change afoot, and I'm not sure where its leading. I guess the correct analogy is more like trade winds blowing rather than a sea change. Or maybe I just don't know what the hell I'm talking about.

I have some time to myself finally, be careful what you wish for.

The holiday season has always been either go, go or hurry up and wait, now that its over I'm wondering what all the fuss was about in the first place. My family, both immediate and extended have all been feeling this, like a major shifting of tectonic plates is occurring and no one knows when it will stop, or what the landscape will look like when its over.

I know they say "just write" and I am trying that approach, but it isn't nearly as easy as it sounds especially when the hits come so fast you never have time to recognize all of them let alone comment on them.

Three real things that will help fix the economy

1. Forgive ALL government insured student loans
2. The US government should pay off ALL mortgages held by those making less than 100k a year at a discounted rate, take it or leave it.
3. All unsold new homes should be raffled off to anyone who can afford the taxes, no credit check required. State by state, residents first.

If we are going to give billions to those who only mismanage the economy back into the ground, we might as well give the general public the same opportunity to fuck up. I wonder who would manage it better, those who have so much to lose or those who would maybe suffer their home in the Hamptons to stab a poor person in the back to steal the fat out of their pork and beans. Anyone venture a guess?

Angry week

Lots of bleed.

I love the swings though, the salt and sweet, the vinegar and honey.

Work has been busting my ass, the world feels like its going to hell in a fruit basket but I still have so many joys in my life. Hearing about the overturned law in Cali, seeing the state get bitch-slapped for overstepping and watching the sun come up another day, seeing my son smile, being a friend and a lover. Consoling and being consoled, reaching out and pulling back. Yin and yang, happiness is a warm front before the storm, the storm itself and the cool breeze that follows. Hope.

Undersatnding, a vent....

Do I dwell? Really?

I don't think so, but that involves thinking. Dwelling? Is it possible not to dwell, at least for a little while, to figure out beyond the animal instinct why? Is that not why we are above the beasts?

My life is not perfect, but I love it. Would never give it up without a fight. Its not all flowers and candy but why should it be. If I cut my finger or stub my toe should I not say "ouch," remember how I did it and try not to do it again? Or even try and find a new way to do what I was doing during the accident and avoid injury. Does pain not teach you something other than that it hurts?

I just rediscover things about people and places that clue me in to things I have experienced, give me peace. Is this not right? Not the process?

Well it is mine. I examine things in a much more casual way now, but no less intensely. Apparently this intensity is something only a few select people can handle. Through me being me I have now whittled my list of friends down three more in the past year. I wish them all well but I cannot help but see the utter and complete isolation an unexamined life must offer. But I don't live their lives, I don't have the intense hurts they have, the disappointments they have had. I don't understand, nor do I want to. After a point I guess it is best to let go. Let go of the things that mean so much to me in those attachments as they are concerned.

I refuse to go quietly though, flatly refuse. Even with my last dying breath I will fight to understand the world, the people and the places that mean so much to me. Even with the contrivance of "forget," I can't not forgive,it just isn't my way. I seek balance, and I find it in so many ways, but I do not seek numbness. Never numbness.

I reexamine, that's what I do. I can't forgive without knowing what hurt me in the first place. Sorry world, fuck you if you can't take a thought.

...that was nice...I feel so much better now :)

Wesley Clark VP?

For Obama an interesting choice, one of the only choices that may solidify the white collar/military vote. That is, assuming he wins the nomination, and Mr Clark is interested in the position. We shall see....

Too little, to late

I have this habit, no it isn't smoking or drugs, sex or gambling (although some or all of the above in moderation can be fun). No, it isn't something as interesting as all that, it's something far more mundane. I give advice.

I thought I had kicked it, licked it, stuck it deep in the closet it belongs. I traded it for merely listening, not talking as much, just hearing and feeling the words coming out of others mouths. But I am off the wagon again.

As I have grown older I have also grown less tolerant of stupidity. The ignorant have become less pitiful and more annoying. I feel the same amount of empathy but very little patience. You have one shot to take what I offer and then it is hastily and angrily withdrawn. I think I may have finally grown up, and you know what? I like it.

Personality Test

Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving
by Joe Butt

Profile: INFP
Revision: 3.0
Date of Revision: 26 Feb 2005

"I remember the first albatross I ever saw. ... At intervals, it arched forth its vast archangel wings, as if to embrace some holy ark. Wondrous flutterings and throbbings shook it. Though bodily unharmed, it uttered cries, as some king's ghost in super natural distress. Through its inexpressible, strange eyes, methought I peeped to secrets not below the heavens. As Abraham before the angels, I bowed myself..." --(Herman Melville, Moby Dick)

INFPs never seem to lose their sense of wonder. One might say they see life through rose-colored glasses. It's as though they live at the edge of a looking-glass world where mundane objects come to life, where flora and fauna take on near-human qualities.

INFP children often exhibit this in a 'Calvin and Hobbes' fashion, switching from reality to fantasy and back again. With few exceptions, it is the NF child who readily develops imaginary playmates (as with Anne of Green Gables's "bookcase girlfriend"--her own reflection) and whose stuffed animals come to life like the Velveteen Rabbit and the Skin Horse:

"...Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand..." (the Skin Horse)

INFPs have the ability to see good in almost anyone or anything. Even for the most unlovable the INFP is wont to have pity.

Rest you, my enemy,
Slain without fault,
Life smacks but tastelessly
Lacking your salt!
Stuck in a bog whence naught
May catapult me,
Come from the grave, long-sought,
Come and insult me!
--(Steven Vincent Benet, Elegy for an Enemy)

Their extreme depth of feeling is often hidden, even from themselves, until circumstances evoke an impassioned response:

"I say, Queequeg! Why don't you speak? It's I--Ishmael." But all remained still as before. ... Something must have happened. Apoplexy!
... And running up after me, she caught me as I was again trying to force open the door. ... "Have to burst it open," said I, and was running down the entry a little, for a good start, when the landlady caught me, again vowing I should not break down her premises; but I tore from her, and with a sudden bodily rush dashed myself full against the mark.--(Melville, Moby Dick)

Of course, not all of life is rosy, and INFPs are not exempt from the same disappointments and frustrations common to humanity. As INTPs tend to have a sense of failed competence, INFPs struggle with the issue of their own ethical perfection, e.g., perfo rmance of duty for the greater cause. An INFP friend describes the inner conflict as not good versus bad, but on a grand scale, Good vs. Evil. Luke Skywalker in Star Wars depicts this conflict in his struggle between the two sides of "The Force." Although the dark side must be reckoned with, the INFP believes that good ultimately triumphs.

Some INFPs have a gift for taking technical information and putting it into layman's terms. Brendan Kehoe's Zen and the Art of the Internet is one example of this "de-jargoning" talent in action.

Functional Analysis:
Introverted Feeling

INFPs live primarily in a rich inner world of introverted Feeling. Being inward-turning, the natural attraction is away from world and toward essence and ideal. This introversion of dominant Feeling, receiving its data from extraverted intuition, must be the source of the quixotic nature of these usually gentle beings. Feeling is caught in the approach- avoidance bind between concern both for people and for All Creatures Great and Small, and a psycho-magnetic repulsion from the same. The "object," be it homo sapiens or a mere representation of an organism, is valued only to the degree that the object contains some measure of the inner Essence or greater Good. Doing a good deed, for example, may provide intrinsic satisfaction which is only secondary to the greater good of striking a blow against Man's Inhumanity to Mankind.
Extraverted iNtuition

Extraverted intuition faces outward, greeting the world on behalf of Feeling. What the observer usually sees is creativity with implied good will. Intuition spawns this type's philosophical bent and strengthens pattern perception. It combines as auxiliary with introverted Feeling and gives rise to unusual skill in both character development and fluency with language--a sound basis for the development of literary facility. If INTPs aspire to word mechanics, INFPs would be verbal artists.
Introverted Sensing

Sensing is introverted and often invisible. This stealth function in the third position gives INFPs a natural inclination toward absent- mindedness and other-worldliness, however, Feeling's strong people awareness provides a balancing, mitigating effect. This introverted Sensing is somewhat categorical, a subdued version of SJ sensing. In the third position, however, it is easily overridden by the stronger functions.
Extraverted Thinking

The INFP may turn to inferior extraverted Thinking for help in focusing on externals and for closure. INFPs can even masquerade in their ESTJ business suit, but not without expending considerable energy. The inferior, problematic nature of Extraverted Thinking is its lack of context and proportion. Single impersonal facts may loom large or attain higher priority than more salient principles which are all but overlooked.
Famous INFPs:

Homer
Virgil
Mary, mother of Jesus
St. John, the beloved disciple
St. Luke; physician, disciple, author
William Shakespeare, bard of Avon
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Evangeline)
A. A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie)
Helen Keller, deaf and blind author
Carl Rogers, reflective psychologist, counselor
Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
Dick Clark (American Bandstand)
Donna Reed, actor (It's a Wonderful Life)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis
Neil Diamond, vocalist
Tom Brokaw, news anchor
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small)
Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
James Taylor, vocalist
Julia Roberts, actor (Conspiracy Theory, Pretty Woman)
Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap)
Terri Gross (PBS's "Fresh Air")
Amy Tan (author of The Joy-Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife)
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Lisa Kudrow ("Phoebe" of Friends)
Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years")
Fictional INFPs:

Anne (Anne of Green Gables)
Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes)
Deanna Troi (Star Trek - The Next Generation)
Wesley Crusher (Star Trek - The Next Generation)
Doctor Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
Bastian (The Neverending Story)
E.T.: the ExtraTerrestrial
Doug Funny, Doug cartoons
Tommy, Rug Rats cartoons
Rocko, Rocko's Modern Life cartoons
Copyright © 1996-2007 by Joe Butt