entombed in the shrine of zeroes and ones

• Emily Bazelon interviews Ruth Bader Ginsburg about Sonia Sotomayor, women on the Supreme Court and in law, and feminism.
• The concept of software engineering is dead, only 10 years too late.  Now its shambling animated corpse will play out the string.
• Tim Kreider writes about outrage and separating it from more productive urges.
• Laura Blumenfend writes about the training that prospective Secret Service agents undergo.

Whenever i try to write up what currently passes for my personal philosophy, it starts looking suspiciously like i'm trying to reinvent Taoism.

Even though Kim's gone for a shorter period of time than i was in India, it feels completely different.  In India, i was a fish out of water, so my attitude was one of pure efficiency: take care of self, take care of work, tour if possible.  I missed home, but it wasn't something that depressed me.  But now i'm the one left at home, and i feel wholly adrift.  Going to work is perfunctory; i come home and i'm bereft.  I'm pathetic and it disgusts me.  And yet it's only for a couple of days more, so really, what the hell am i whining about?

I swore i'd never make the by-now cliché "i'm sorry i haven't been blogging" update to my journal.  I also had a snappy putdown for myself in my mind this morning when i was thinking about writing it, but a day of resetting firewalls and building bookcases and Pilsner Urquell means that i've forgotten my clever phrase.  But never mind that.  The point is, i don't owe you, the reader, anything; this is my fucking journal and i'll write in it when i write in it about whatever it is i'm writing about.  No, wait, that's completely wrong.  If i didn't owe you, the reader, anything, then i should just shutter the whole operation and write my journal on paper in elegant longhand and store it under lock and key (as opposed to under lock with no key, because then i'd never be able to get it out).  Anyway, "Fuck me, fuck you, fuck everyone," as that great patriot Al Jourgensen once said.

I think the World Cup recaps were a little draining, albeit not nearly as draining as actually getting up to watch nearly every early game.  Work has been a busy affair, what with getting familiar, actual tasks, and moving my workspace twice in two months (and top that off with an impending trip to Bangalore).  To compound that, my workspace at home was also disrupted, specifically by a CPU failure.  So not only have i been too busy to sit down and be creative, but when i have sat down, it hasn't been in a place where i felt comfortable.  So all you've gotten from me since the Cup ended has been soccer reports, link dumps, cheap one-liners, and anti-Semitic crap bad sports analogies.

I've had the next part of E&TG sitting on the hard drive of my (now fully operational battle station) workstation, and gods has it been so long since i've worked on the damn story, and i just want to finish the damn thing.

There's lots of detritus and debris in my head of things i wanted to write about.  I know i have some empty wine bottles kicking around the house that are waiting to be written about while the memory of their flavor is still present.  I have to write a book report of Eco's The Name of the Rose for my dad.  I also want to review a couple of movies.  We'll see how it goes, but at least now i can get on with it.  My journal: confessional booth or bathroom stall?  You, the reader: priest or creepy voyeur?  I think i'm done.  Am i done?  Yeah, i'm done.

The problem with being comfortable with your sins is that you keep committing them.  Then suddenly you cross a threshold and you're uncomfortable.  So is the frequency or the count the problem?  No, dummy, it's called a sin for a reason.  But it's a sin you've rationalized away long ago, so it must be reëxamined.

I must be sterner with myself.  I need to change.  I am at stake.

Instead of merely posting the results of that quiz that's making the rounds (which was 40% scientific, 40% reasoning, which classifies me as an Agnostic), i'd rather talk about about why i'm an agnostic.

I moved to agnosticism from atheism because i realized that atheism is an affirmation of the non-existence of something that i can't prove doesn't exist.  Atheism also essentially derides the faith of others (which is something it shares with most religions), and i've spent the last 10 or so years trying to be less of a jerk.

That's a lie.  I love being a jerk, and i clutch my head every day at some of the shit people will believe for the most idiotic reasons, excuses, pretenses, whatever.

No, no, see, that's completely unempathetic.  I can't put myself in the shoes of others; i can only work with my own experiences.  I shouldn't even have any contempt for the faith of others because that would make me contemptuous of my own past as a Catholic.

Wait now, i might have been a Catholic once in name, but (unless i've already rewritten my memories with my own idealized childhood) i can't recall ever truly believing in God, Jesus, etc.  Eucharist was just a wafer.  Confession never made me feel better.  Attending Mass never gave me a fuzzy warm feeling inside.  When i turned away from religion within a year of my Confirmation, i wasn't really rejecting anything i held.  I was on the field, but i never played ball.

OK, now, i was going to talk about why i'm an agnostic.  I don't think i've addressed that at all so far.  Well, maybe i won't.  Fuck it.  What do you care, anyway?  It doesn't make a difference in your life, eh?  I'm not going to tell you that the only way to be saved is to let go of your puny faith and embrace the nothingness in every moment of every day, thus hugging yourself and keeping yourself warm.

Never mind that.  I'm obsessed with the fact that religion and spirituality is a huge shadowplay.  It's inane.  God doesn't matter.  The spiritual world doesn't matter.  They're just metaphors.  As that great humanist Ren Höek once said, "THEY'RE NOT REAL, NOT FLESH AND BLOOD LIKE WEEEEEE!"  The only thing that truly matters is people, how we get along, how we move along into the future.

God matters.  The spiritual world matters.  They are woven into human nature and to dismiss them out of hand is folly.  We cannot progress as a race, we cannot ascend, without détente between religions, between believers and non-believers.

Why are we wasting time on cultivating a lasting and rewarding relationship with God while we barely understand ourselves and each other?  Wouldn't the latter be easier and more practical?  Is that precisely why it doesn't happen?  What the hell is so interesting about God, anyway?  The cosmos is interesting.  Life is interesting.  The human race isn't ready to tackle a real relationship with God, were he to exist.  Let's solve our real problems first.

Let's keep our eyes on the goal, though.

You know how a song's lyric will rattle around in your head, but you only heard it two or three times on the radio so you don't know who did it or what it's called, and you've meant to look it up online for years but haven't, until the lyric fades away, but then it pops up several years later, and you look it up and find the song's title and, lo and behold, iTunes has it for sale?

I seem to think that everyone should be more like me in many ways.  People should definitely not be like me in that i'm a master procrastinator, or that i can be quickly irritated.  But i do seem to be in love with my attitude towards the world and my fellow man, and perhaps even with my rationalization skills, which i feel are well-developed and not cheap or shoddy.

I've come a far way from the uncertainty i felt about myself at a younger age, even as i realized the burgeoning ability and potential within me.  I think that a lot of it has come as i move away from extreme opinions; as a child i was (rather inexplicably) a rabid male chauvinist, as a teenager i was very patriotic and went to college under the impression i wanted to join the Air Force ROTC, as a collegian i engaged in frothy, militant atheism.  Everything was of dire importance and urgency.

Nowadays, i pride myself on my moderation, even though 'moderation' is clearly a matter of opinion.  I like to think things through, even though i sometimes lack the time (and, sadly, occasionally the inclination) to give the matter at hand a good enough shake to satisfy my own sense of proper research.  I fake things often; as a result, i've realized that i've become a rather competent faker.  I don't do it out of malice (well, maybe a teeny tiny bit), and i don't even think it's laziness; it's a matter of priorities.  Frankly, why should i devote hours of research into a topic that isn't either a hobby or a profession?

Ahh, but how many hours of research DO i devote to topics that are germane to my hobbies or my profession?  Not enough; remember, i'm a master procrastinator.  We're back to faking; i feel like i am faking my way through my job and my favorite pasttimes.  In my userinfo's bio, i say that i have a singular devotion, and even there i feel i could do better, although i am certain that being a husband is the one aspect where i do my best job.  And i suspect that this is the case only because it comes so naturally to me, and therefore the lion's share of credit should go to Kim.

Therefore, when i think people should be more like me, i'm probably trying to fake myself out.  And i think i'm succeeding.  BOW DOWN!  OBEY ME!  That is all.

As i just now return from Rasputin with a 500-CD pine rack, i realize that i've developed a weird habit for rushing off to a store just before they close.  Today this failed me when i found out that the reverse-osmosis joint where i get our bottled water has started closing at 17:00 on Saturdays, instead of 18:00.  This is separate from my unfortunate penchant for being late, but it seems to go hand-in-hand with my well-developed procrastination skills.  In any case, it seems to be a cheap thrill, in the same category as beating out a yellow light.

1: Given that you don't have a purely US-centric point of view, and given the sometimes "eccentric" kinds of things that happened in your home country of Ecuador (your brother once told me an uncle of yours is a politician, and was shot in the behind while in a house of congress), how do you view the continuing faux-religiousizing and right wing swinging of the United States? Furthermore, what do you really think anybody can do about it?

Damn, i don't remember hearing that story.  I do know that one of my mom's cousins was, until last year's purge, a member of the Supreme Court.

I view the current attempt to turn the US into Jesusland as just that — an attempt.  I find a lot of the complaints i've read a tad hysterical.  However, there is no doubt that the attitude is utterly wrongheaded, misguided, and won't work, even if they nominally succeed in what they're trying to do.

What can anybody do about it?  What anyone does when faced with unpleasant political activity: initiate opposing political activity.  Vote, volunteer, write, start a campaign, run for office.

2: What was your most embarrasing moment while naked?

I honestly can't think of any embarrassing moments while naked, but that might be because i'm not embarrassed easily.  Kim's kids often just walked into my room early in the relationship because they were used to it and encountered me in the nude, but they seemed to be more embarrassed by that than i was.  "Rooonnnnn!!" "Hey, don't like it?  KNOCK NEXT TIME."

3: Certain science fiction pundits posit the concept of "The Singularity" — a moment where technology and culture will advance beyond the capacity of today's humanity to conceive of, let alone grasp. Given your somewhat advanced technical qualifications, how far ahead do you see such a moment being?

Perhaps it's because i haven't really read any Singularity books, but i regard the notion of the Singularity as hooey.  Machines are still effectively as stupid as they were 20 years ago.  It's great to speculate what'll happen when we have giant AIs... but the way these guys are trying to predict stuff based on past events makes me wonder how many of them are problem gamblers.  One caveat: this probably will change once we map the human brain.  But i'd say that's a very long way away.

4: Follow-up question to #1: What kinds of effects do the rampant adventurism and imperial leanings of US foreign policy have in seemingly peripheral countries like Ecuador?

I honestly can't answer such a complex question.  I know Ecuador has announced it's not interested in renewing the lease that allows the US to have a naval base in Manta, which it claims to use in the War on Drugs.  Beyond that, it seems to me that American policy has barely touched Ecuador.  Whether that's an accurate assessment is up to someone with a greater understanding of economics (which is, by far, my weakest subject).

5: When I last saw you, you were (in your own words) "pretty messed up." You seem to have come a long way and gotten your life back on track. To what do you attribute this transition, and what steps do you take to insure that things don't go off the rails again?

I grew up.  When i flunked out of college, i was still in denial about it.  After that, i went to Seattle, had a relationship fall apart, lost my job, and went broke.  When i returned to Miami, where my mom welcomed the chance to bail me out, i almost magically seemed to have grown a clue about my priorities.  I don't expect to go off the rails again any more than i could forget how to drive.