photo credit: Eustaquio Santimano

I think often of Adam and Eve. I consider myself a Christian, though not in the traditional sense of the word. Don’t believe in the scriptures literally, and believe that the concept of sin isn’t a paternalistic damnation, but a caution from our Creator of certain actions whose consequences are the murder of our own souls.

A mainstay of my belief and religious philosophy is that I believe that anything not prescribed as the word of God is left to interpretation, and may be out of the context of the time period it is written (outside the first five books of the Bible, which the Bible code makes it hard to believe are not of some significance). I also believe that it’s possible but not probable that man mis-translated words given to him divinely, for a purpose only our Creator would know.

Hell. Maybe He/She/Cylon enjoys double entendres.

So when I read the story of Eve and examine the way women are referenced in the Bible, it’s hard for me to believe that a divine being, intelligent enough to create us, a living machine whose day to day functions are independent of itself, would create womankind to be inherently flawed and evil.

The very word “evil” is a reference to Eve. And I think that we received her whole story out of context, at best, incompletely.

It is well known that the story of Adam and Eve was modeled after the Egyptian story of creation. (I like to believe that all the various religions are an attempt to tell the exact same story, rather than the idea that Egyptian, Greeks, Romans, Christians, Israelites, Moslems are all worshiping different Gods. Same Spirit, different contextual interpretations – makes more sense to me.)

Lesser known is the story of Atum, the first God in Egyption mythology. He is the one becoming in the Kepera passage my poem is based on.

So in the Bible, he’s the first man. In the Book of the Dead, he’s the first god. In the Bible he is created by a divine presence, our Creator. In the Book of the Dead he is self created via becoming self aware.

Another interesting idea I found gave me a possible alternate interpretation of the Fall of Eden. Atum usually appeared as a man, but sometimes showed up as a serpent.

Eve was cleaved to man, and tempted by the serpent.

What if one of the foundational ideas that paints women in the Bible, and hence in Christian culture as lesser creations is simply incomplete?

What if Eve is being tempted by Adam/Atum in his serpent form?

I like things to make sense. And it would reconcile the idea that somehow, Eve, a derivative of Adam is a more flawed, lesser incarnation. Because it doesn’t make sense that Adam would be this nearly perfect creation, and the 2.0 model would be worse than the initial.

Eve’s not a copy – she’s the fully formed successor model, sprung full from the seedling.

Anyway. I’m thinking of playing out this idea in the dreams of the main character in my novel.

By THOSE Relatives, I mean the ones you want to share a finger or two with.

photo credit: BigPilou

Here are your options:

1- A few tokes of weed just before hand. Limit to two or three if you have problems with lah. For medicinal purposes, of course, for those with prescriptions only. #allegedly

2- have just enough of a light liquor to be bordering on tipsy.

3- Meet them in a noisy place where they can’t talk to you.

4- If they’re not the type to talk during a show meet them for a movie or play, then leave or arrange to be accosted by friends afterward.

5- If they’re cousin-types who are single: Set them up on a blind date with someone you’re not that close to, then leave early to give them some time “to be alone”.

6- Fuck em. Give them a phone call and be on your way.

7- Leave town right after Christmas, by train, somewhere close, and visit some people you Really like. Call it a New Year’s trip and don’t come back until the second.

8- Hide in your house.

So it all boils down to avoid, distract, or deflect – sometimes a combination of the two. Merry Christmas. You’re welcome.

I find that statement untrue, and the title misleading. Here’s my reasoning:

The title is misleading – this is a survey the article said measures for SELF-assessment of ambition. In the US, there’s a cultural stigma attached to ambition in many sub-cultures.

Now, in terms of self-assessment and the statistics they gave for how much more Brazilian women are more integrated in the business world, I get that.

That’s not surprising, and I have my own theories about that, just from observing my own cultural background, and those women friends I have who may be American by birth but grew up immersed in their alternate cultural background.

Brazilian culture isn’t perfect, but it’s a lot more accepting of all shapes sizes hues etc of women’s beauty, there isn’t just one or two standards that all are aspiring to.

And in every culture where I see that, I also see that having that issue off the table has women more likely to be confident, etc – I think that has an affect on how much women tend to be proud of ALL their talents including intelligence and leadership.

Because the characters are ugly inside – so many people have that ugly, selfish side to them and you don’t see that taken to hyperbole much on television, not across the board in every character. Doing so is, in my opinion, brilliant. It’s an examination of a common human trait taken to its extreme, a different way to understand character.

And the stories are “half-baked” because the Schemes are half-baked, I’ve always read that as intentional. It’s a comedy, it’s supposed to be light. And these people are shallow so their stories need to be lighter. It’s the kind of things those characters would do, which makes it more authentic, a hard balance to strike when you’re exploring the extreme of a character.

It’s inappropriate, it’s harsh, it may have no other redeeming value to my life other than making me laugh, character examination and making me feel like I’m not that much of a loser in my darker moments. But to each his own – there’s plenty of shows other people watch that I just don’t get. But a show not being for me and not being a good show are two different things.

The query, from my favorite secret Facebook group: “Serious question: Is the idea of whites becoming a minority in America disturbing to you (be honest)?” My answer, edited for clarity, is below.

I don’t want whites to disappear, though I identify strongly with what [redacted] said about the current empowered patriarchy achieving fear through power. What I’d like to see is a shift in the conversation to one of economies, at the same time that we’re having the discussion about embracing our cultural differences as strengths.

Because that’s where the real conversation is, money. Blacks, Latinos and other US minorities may show visible signs of being better off, but those of us who make it to middle class who have generations rooted in this nation’s history are still mostly poor. As cultural groups, integration has only made us 2% better off. There’s a several hundred year gap in the passing on of familial wealth.

In the meantime, our obsession with race in this country has robbed impoverished white people of their standing in the conversation. I don’t mean people who feel self-righteous because they’ve had no material wealth for a generation or so, though I still feel some empathy for them.

I mean we have people growing up in generations of poverty with no real resources for advancement. In taking government assistance they become enslaved to it and can’t move forward without a huge gap in resources. People like the Appalachian poor, the motor-home poor – no wonder some of them lash out angrily at poor people of another race. Who else listens to their pain.

Racism, sexism, all the isms, these are serious, complex issues, yes. But a lot of the issues that make them serious are tied up in the unfairness of impoverished people caught in cyclic economies of maintenance instead of advancement. If we could transform those economies to ones of advancement, even through entrepreneurship, it would benefit us all, and we wouldn’t have so much to have conflict over.

Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth

• NPR coverage
• Washington Post

At the time, I’d just come back online after trying to sleep for hours. So I heard both pieces of news about an hour apart. Was just sitting there thinking whether I’d even be able to go into a store to buy an iPad/Pod/Phone at the time… had Reverend Shuttlesworth and Dr. King not lived.

I mean, I don’t think there is anything amiss in the way Steve Jobs is being celebrated. Even friends who hated Apple feverishly admit that at worst his leadership at Apple demanded other companies up their game.

And in a way, the world the Civil Rights movement was trying to make was one in which Civil Rights issues weren’t major enough to make headlines. So it’s not that I’m bitter that the world isn’t stopping for the Reverend the way the world is stopping for Jobs.

It’s just that the two things happening so close together, and so many people around me feeling so many emotions made me have to retreat for a minute and get my bearings. It’s like all I could hear was the world sobbing at varying pitches of sadness.

An acquaintance disclosed that he cried upon reading the word “was” on Steve Jobs Wikipedia page. I said:

I feel you. No comparison to losing a family member or anything like that. But Apple’s stuff just got so entwined with so many major emotional moments of my life.

I cried too. Love him or hate him, he absolutely changed the world. Even if you hate Apple… what computer company had fans before him? The first time I saw the backlit keyboard on the MacBook Pro, I felt like I had some kind of spiritual awakening. I was broke at the time…. had just come out of recovery from an illness that all but killed me and my company.

And I worked around the clock for three months, dreaming of the day I would go pick up two of those babies for me and my business partner. Still have it. Only laptop I’ve ever had that’s lasted more than 6 months.

I remember before I got an iPod, when my father showed me how he bought one and how he could broadcast music to different rooms… and thinking ; MY FATHER has an iPod. I have to explain EMAIL to my father and he has an iPod. Before me!

So many memories. I’ll remember Steve Jobs with fondness, as a visionary, on so many levels.

To which I responded:

Um, it’s not hiring you if it’s free. Where’s that “will you work for free” infographic?

What I do with people who ask me that is ask them for something free of equivalent value.

“No, you can’t have my motorcyle/ big screen TV/ iPad / Laptop for free!” – is how they respond.

To which I say “exactly”.

And it’s not just for practical reasons – if you can’t afford the services you want, your business isn’t mature enough to reap the benefits.

I am, however, still in the “discount for friends” mode. The referral is usually valuable enough to meet the shortfall if the friend realizes three things.

• If you want full speed, pay full price.
• If I have expenses, you have to pay them – there is a real cost beyond that of my time and it has to be shouldered by someone.
• The instant our interaction is no longer friendly, we must mutually agree to quit. No business is worth friendship. (No business under $2.5 million, anyway.)

To which I said:

I haven’t commented on this, because I know I’m not going to respond to follow up comments, whether they agree with me or not.

But in light of what Judge Mathis said, and because of what a good friend you are, I feel compelled to respond.

I’m against the death penalty for two reasons. Neither has to do with whether or not I feel it’s a just punishment.

1- You can’t take killing someone back. There’s no margin for error.

2- I don’t believe death is an end or even if it is, that it’s something to fear – for all we know death is a reward for life, and I don’t mean that in a religious sense. (I’m currently a Christian, though I’ve been an atheist and a spiritualist too.)

We only know for sure that there is suffering in life, and if a person IS guilty of murder, I think death gets them off too easily, given that we have no idea what happens to the thing that makes us human after we die.

OK. Now I’ve dropped the microphone and walked off stage…

This comment was in answer to a friend and peer’s observation that there have been a lot of changes recently:

Some of them are kind of wack. Where was subscribe back in 2007 when everyone was asking for that instead of Pages? I understand that not letting Pages directly interact with Profiles is partly spam prevention, and partly profit-related.

But the implementation of a Page can be different for an entrepreneur, public figure, or small business owner who has a profile. People whose business seeps into other areas of their lives may have been better off using their Profile one way and Pages another.

My lists don’t quite work, probably because of how many people I have as friends. But I opted for open two-way communication before Pages and communicating with peers, clients and customers through FB, even with the changes over the years, has been helpful in allowing me to serve, inform, and understand my clientele better than erecting the additional boundary of Pages.

However, to the extent that they do work, it’s helped me reconnect with people who were lost to me when the feed began to automatically prioritize certain people.

And here is my response.

I read the each and every entire plan on Obama’s site before I voted, and all the information I could get about McCain. Before McCain changed boats in 2006, I would have voted for him over anyone in the country.

Can’t see how Anyone can be either a democrat or a republican – they’ve both been fooling the entire country with these nearly non-existent differences since before I was born. Before the 60s, the republican party was more like the democratic party than the democrats themselves. Freedom from slavery and integration parties didn’t come out of the democratic party, though after the 70s, it was the democrats who upheld them.

I became an independent due to what I was taught by my critical thinking professor in college “Most of the population of the United States, if they are being taught by our educational system, is being taught what to think, not how to think.”

Your guys, my guys, the differences between the two political parties is minor when you look purely from a policy standpoint – Obama is pretty much a moderate 90s Republican and I’m not the first to say so. But I can’t agree that it’s anyone else’s fault but my own when I don’t know the candidates. The information is out there. I preferred the wolf to the fox this last election, I always have. But aside from being sexier this last time, and actually checking off more boxes on his campaign promises (some of which were admittedly vague), we’ve had the same president for almost four decades.

But being that I’ve spent sometimes $10k a month for my health care under the pre-existing condition nonsense, I can’t say that the whole change thing was a complete snow job, as my life will actually change from that.

I agree with _____. I had to say that because I have a rhyming tic today. Anyway… I’d say mobile and the subscription model. I think monthly subscriptions at a low level could be the answer to getting nonprofits properly funded.

You sell the customer once, and they stay subscribed forever. I am subscribed to so many $1 – $5 memberships that are just not worth the fuss of unsubscribing just because I only use them once per quarter. If it was for non-profits, at least I’d be able to feel my subscription addiction was for a good cause.

The second part was a bit off course for the question, but wouldn’t it be great if you could just send The UN Refugee Agency $2 a month every month, and just text to increase your monthly amount when there was a tragedy? I really believe they should combine the shortcode fundraising with a subscription model. When you sign up to help with a crisis situation, you could donate $10 and then have an option to donate $1 – $5 a month, some amount that you probably wouldn’t miss.

At the end of the year? Tax write off! You could even get help figuring out how much to donate each month according to your income, to get the best tax benefits.

My soul takes it personally when it sees people suffer, just as it rejoices in the joy of others. When I take a mate, I can often feel his emotions, and if I’m not careful, be led by them.

To this day, I can feel it when certain friends and family members are in distress. It’s like a magnified version of intuition.

Because of this, days like 9/11 are especially difficult for me. The sadness of the world hits me like a wave when it peaks. It’s hard to explain to people who think that September 11 is just this thing that happened. It wasn’t.

It was the rape of one of the most free times in American history.

Our generation had not truly known  war – we watched The Gulf Wars on TV, and they were over before we really came to grips with what we were watching. We were coming out of the 90s with this period of creativity surging us forward. We were headed towards a true artistic peak in spoken word, hip-hop, alternative music – the world was changing and it always starts in the arts. The challenges to the status quo were even seeping into television.

And then. This.

The following is a comment in answer to my colleague, Mark Story, who was able to articulate a bit better than me, his memory of the events of September 11, 2011.

I had an experience similar to yours. I worked at 1900 Pennsylvania Avenue at the time. I can’t explain why I called in to work that day.

I also saw it happen, on television, and wished I could un-see it. I still do. I am lucky not to have lost a loved one, but I have loved ones who did. I still remember the world before that, and feeling a sort of innocence flow out of America. The loss is like a scar that healed over a bit of shrapnel or a lodged bullet.

It’ll always ache.

Well said, Kevin. My niece turned 8 on September 11, 2001. I remember trying to avoid the subject when I called to wish her a happy birthday. And I recall just how her voice sounded when she brought it up. I was luckily not directly impacted by the tragedy, through circumstance and coincidenc­e. Still I wonder what it’s like to grow up in this version of America, especially for kids who share their birthday with a national scar that’s still tender to the touch…

The comment below eventually turned into a rant because I tried to leave a much shorter version at Netflix, only to find THE WORD NETFLIX was not allowed. Seriously?

The service on Netflix is going downhill. Star Trek, The Next Generation finally gets to Instant Streaming.

I start watching it from the beginning.

This is the whole point for me, of having services like Netflix. You don’t often get to experience a show from the first episode when it debuts. In fact you might not get into a show until Season 2 or even 4. And back before DVD and VHS collections, back before TV stations would run marathons of a season from the beginning, you just caught what you could and hoped for reruns.

And instead of downloading a season that will just take up real estate on my hard drive after I’ve bought it, or get deleted, streaming seems like such a great answer. Plus, I can watch it on my TV with my current hookup. And I can go back to an earlier episode when I notice something I didn’t catch. Man I could go on forever about how great it is to be able to stream my old favorite shows…

So I’m watching it, and wondering what happened to Yar when she was head of security and where she went. And thinking about how Worf became head of security. And whether Deanna Troi and Will Riker knew each other before the Enterprise. Everything is going great. Episodes I’ve seen before I notice new things about. Ones I haven’t fill in the blank.

Great holiday weekend, and I’m getting some work done, everything is Melody, as an old friend of mine would say.

And what do you think happens? The same BS that keeps happening at Netflix. Unexplained disruptions with the worst timing possible.

Suddenly the season finale episode is not available while I’m watching the episode before it. No warning, no explanation. And on my Roku, it suddenly jumped forward to the third season, third episode, even though the page says I’m watching the 25th episode in the season (also not the one I wanted – the 1st season finale is episode 26, as the first episode was actually two parts combined.)

This may seem like a lot of fuss over a movie service. BUT I AM PAYING FOR IT. I pay for Netflix monthly even when I don’t use it. So when I do use it, I expect it to work. If I go to MdDonald’s, pay for a meal, get home and open the chicken nuggets box only to find a half-eaten burger, should I be less upset because the meal is only $5?

Maybe in comparison to buying what you think is a good car and ending up with a lemon it’s comparatively less important, however in both cases – I’m paying for a service that I’m increasingly NOT getting. It’s beyond frustrating. I left Netflix before because of things like this and was gone for YEARS.

I came back because I kept hearing how much better the selection was.  I stayed with Netflix the 2nd time I was going to quit, because of Starz.

Then certain Starz movies get blocked. I stayed, even though my first instinct was to cancel both Netflix and Starz on my cable service at home.

I mean for upwards of $50 a month, am I not better off just buying the programs I want on iTunes and the DVDs I rent from Redbox, instead of streaming them, if the cost is the same and the results are much better when I download or get in my car?

Then the price hike. I heard a reasonable explanation for why I should pay MORE money, getting less service. I stayed again.

But this is the last reason I have decided to stay with Netflix, being able to watch the entire series of my favorite shows from the beginning and understand the full nuance of things. I understand that licensing issues and other stuff comes up, but WHY isn’t there some channel to alert us? There can’t be some kind of notification system in the sidebar telinig us when there are problems? And if and when they will be resolved?

What was a five star program is now 3 at best. Very disappointing. I hope it gets fixed soon. But who knows if I’ll be around to see it if it does.

Here was my response:

Like you, I don’t know if it’ll work, but especially as an Independent, I’m glad they’re trying. It may not work, but  even if it doesn’t, if it sparks or continues a conversation that in 100 years will help change the way our political system works for the better, it’s a good thing. Like anyone else, I have instant gratification issues, and would like to see something change right now, today.

But it might take 8 years, or 25 or 70 years to fix what is wrong in DC on any permanent basis. We didn’t get here in 3 months, and we can’t expect it to change that fast. However, every little step in the right direction adds up, as long as we the people are behind it.

We assume that we’re powerless, but if the system didn’t still need the people, we’d simply become a monarchy again, but one that passes through whoever has the most money rather than who was born into power. As recently as 2007, we all thought having a black president was a pipe dream. As we did the belief in a centrist president, and we’re coming pretty close right now – many of his policies are very close versions to what the republican party asked for as recently as the Clinton administration. There was an op-ed in the Post about this just a few months ago.

So, if some of the things democrats want, and some of the things republican wants, are being done under a democratic president with a republican majority congress, well, what’s the problem? Why *can’t* they work together, when on paper, much of the compromise has a foundation?

It’s BS, really. We all need each other to serve our own purposes, and at some point, we’ll have to realize that and get some progress underway. And for the love of all things good, stop bitching when we don’t get 100% of what we asked for – that’s what compromise IS.

Here are the two articles examining the fact that some of President Obama’s conduct in office is like that of a moderate republican:

• Obama revealed: A moderate Republican
• Obama is looking like a 2008 Republican

In the article, the author said:

How Google+ Makes Social Networking More Confusing

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The Google+ approach aims to simplify managing relationships, but ultimately fails because it works against people’s natural behavioral patterns. This is why Google+ faces an uphill challenge to adoption. Google+ allows users to define their own “circles” of contacts, like “High School Classmates,” “Family” or “Classic Car Fans.” The platform seeks to merge distinct interaction groups together into a unified experience. Users spend time creating the circles they want to share with, a tactic that helps push information into your contacts’ streams.

But the system breaks down once you try to consume content from a variety of different sources in your own stream. Suddenly, college roommates are mixed in with professional contacts, or people you’ve never actually met. This requires additional cognitive effort of the user to filter content by relationship, rendering the experience frustrating and confusing.

To which my response was:

Some good insights. On G+ though, it seems like a fixable problem as far as consuming content. They’d just have to give the option of letting the user pick – and be able to change – a default circle to view.

If you’re not familiar with Google+, the way you organize your friends into Circles helps you both discover and publish content just to those sub-groups of people.

The author also said:

For instance, you are not the same person at work as you are among friends on a Friday night. The things you talk about, the vocabulary you use and the friendships you maintain in different contexts are the products of years of learning how to interpret relationships cues. From flirting to non-verbal communication, the way we present ourselves to others is constantly shifting based on whom we are talking to, and why.

To which my response was:

Personally, I don’t feel like my identity is complicated by these networks anymore – all of this prefaced by the fact that I’m at the tail end of the early adopter group.

I did, in the beginning, want to present one self to my family, and one to my coworkers/business partners, and yet another to customers (wouldn’t want my political beliefs or philosophies of life to get in the way of a sale.)

But over time I learned that 2 things solved this – the me at the center of the Venn Diagram of all my various identities is who rules my profiles. I go into each deeper me by choosing the conversations I want to have, and applying a level of privacy to where I have them.

I continued to think about this.  Maybe I’m just an exception to this rule, but most of the people I would call my friends, I meet in some professional context. So many of my friends are peers and pals, to varying degrees. So Facebook is where I have friends and peers and fans. I know I’m not the only one because many of my friends are in the same boat.

Of course, there are parts of me that I keep separate, but not due to identity issues, but out of respect for the privacy of others (my younger sister and her husband don’t want their kids photos freely distributed on the web), or respect for their role in my life.

For example, I write very personal poetry that I was afraid my mother would see at the time and it would upset her (poetry coping with childhood sexual abuse or depression. Plus who wants to read their daughter’s erotica? ew.)

Part of me thinks that the tools are going to mature to address our issues with our identities, and mainstream society is going to get to the place early adopters already are, in thinking that we don’t really need to worry about hiding the many faces of ourselves, but in sorting and funneling what each facet produces to the proper group.

Then, I began to think 3 things.

1. There’s really only one me, with many sides.
2. Technology hasn’t caught up with the true notion of identity yet. Google or Facebook or Diaspora or whoever is eventually going to figure out that we need a more flexible profile, one we can set as default, and several others that we can tie to how we know a person. So if I put someone in Google+ in my Friend circle, whatever is in my sub-identity for Friends is the version of my profile that will appear to that friends.
3. Most of my family doesn’t care about my work or creative life at the level of detail that I think. My mother cares that I am a poet, and she’s proud of me for that. But she’s not going to read anything I don’t bring to her.