Egoism
Individualism
Sovereignty
Splendor

(These ideas are explicated in this sloppy manifesto)

Friday, July 23, 2004
 
Attn. NRA: Laws are enforced by criminals with guns...

Linda Ronstadtism is hardly confined to the left. Consider this from the NRA's legislative action site:
Self-defense took a big blow this week when the Utah Supreme Court upheld the right of America Online (AOL), America`s largest on-line service provider, to fire three employees whose firearms were stored in the trunks of their cars in the parking lot of an AOL call center in Ogden, Utah. In a decision that diminishes rights guaranteed under both the Utah and the U.S. Constitution, the court acknowledged the individual right to keep and bear arms, but said the right of a business to regulate its own property is more important!

Complying with this decision could potentially cost an employee his or her life--violent criminals certainly aren`t going to obey such a ban. It may also diminish employees` abilities to hunt or target shoot after work.

The issue is becoming a hot legislative topic in the states. This year Oklahoma passed HB 2122 ensuring that employees with guns in their cars were not fired or harassed, and it was debated in several other states.
It's the same damn issue as the Aladdin, the right of the owners of a property to control what happens on that property. In a sane society, you could yell anything you wanted to in your own damn theater. You could store anything you wanted to in your own damn garage. But if you agree voluntarily to conditions of employment on another man's property, then run to the legislature to coerce that man and break your agreement--then you are the bad guy from whom people should seek to defend themselves.


Monday, July 19, 2004
 
BetterVegas: Memo to Elton John

This is not censorship. This is freedom. The freedom of a surly drunk to make an ass of herself in public. The freedom of her audience to object to her behavior. And the freedom of her employer to put her out in the street. They practice the same flavor of freedom up the street at Caesar's Palace and all over Las Vegas, particularly, and it seems likely that Linda Ronstadt has delivered an extremely lucrative message to all manner of famous future has-beens. Elton John doesn't need Las Vegas nearly as badly as Linda Ronstadt does--or did, that is; she's blown that opportunity for good--but, even so, I'll bet he's capable of catching a clue.


Sunday, July 18, 2004
 
Love among the INTJs...

John Kennedy at No Treason asked a talk radio question about the Briggs Meyers make-up of the core cadre of NT usual suspects. (I came out INTJ there, my lifelong norm, where I am ESTJ on the test version cited here.) The project ended up raising some interesting questions, which it could be I'll get to if time ever permits. But in the mean time it got me thinking about INTJs as a species, about their charming peculiarities. In the car I've been listening (and listening and listening) to Steely Dan's Gold collection, and, of course, Steely Dan is the world's first and so far only INTJ rock band--witty and cerebral, aloof if not enitrely insectile, always hiding behind the joke. The song quoted below is one Donald Fagen contributed to the (awful) film Bright Lights, Big City. Very New Yorky, like the film, but the line "She's a concept more or less" is the ultimate statement of young INTJ love.

Truly, I think Western culture, ultimately, is the triumph of the INTJs, who in every other human culture are martyred for daring to have a brain. But I don't forget for a moment how funny they--we--I--can be at times.
Century's End

Words and by Donald Fagen and Timothy
Mayer, music by Donald Fagen

Those trucks in the street
Is it really Monday
Time to find some trouble again
Make a bid for romance
While the dollar stands a chance
Dumb love in the city
At century's end

We tap to this line
Dancing on a mirror
There's no disbelief to suspend
It's the dance, it's the dress
She's a concept more or less
Dumb love in the city
At century's end

At century's end
Nobody's holding out for heaven
It's not for creatures here below
We just suit up for a game
The name of which we used to know
It might be careless rapture

This kid's got the eye
Call it pirate radar
Scoping out the room for some trend
But there's nobody new
So she zeroes in on you
Dumb love in the city
At century's end

At century's end
Nobody's holding out for heaven
It's not for creatures here below
We just suit up for a game
The name of which we used to know
By now it's second nature

Scratch the cab
We can grab the local
Let's get to the love scene, my friend
Which means look, maybe touch
But beyond that not too much
Dumb love in the city
At century's end
Dumb love in the city

Love in the city
At century's end





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