Am
putting finishing touches on yet another studio. Hopefully it will
last long enough to actually record something! That doesn't concern
you. Apparently guys like Beethoven could write entire werken in
their heads. Mozart would have his wife play in the background so
the formulated piece in his head would not be altered beyond
recognition. I suggest he wrote much of his stuff while playing
billiards. Anyway
So
it is possible to write about one subject and make your living in
another. A acquaintance from high school wound up teaching Buddhism
and constantly had to remind the students that is was anthropology
and not the revealed word of god that would determine grades.
And
on the long term website, which is in slo mo now the theme there is
the advent of technology in the broadest sense of the word. Tecknos
being the wat one does something it can be applied, as with Lewis
Mumford, to pyramid or city building or as in the case of Jacques
Elule and the French existentialists with the technostate. Lewis
was an American who saw the growth of the American Century and the
French, such as Sartre and Camus who experienced the technostate
first hand as members of the Vichy Republic.
For
the record let it be said that more then one person has remarked that
the number of people who were in the resistance seemed to grow with
every year after the liberation – but the poets, such as Robert
Desnos, kept up the side and went to their graves in far greater
numbers then the rightest “he men” such as DeGaulle.
I
say this because there is a chance that such prognostications as such
as I have made may someday be proven true and it is needed to remind
future readers that it has been a long, cold road since the initial
surrender in 1980. People don't want to hear it.
To
begin with today as I said these are broad, across the board changes
occuring. One can for instance draw parallels between changes in
physics and epistomology, as the bench marks , once so solid,
transform to hypotheticals. The same holds true with both finance and
the law. Both are having to do without the corpus delecti of
yesteryear. As the mathematicians say, “God turns out to be an
equation.”
In
simpler terms gold is replaced by photons in the intercontinental
currency market and likewise the eyewitness of yesteryears crimes is
replaced by the camera and printout of todays computer age.
Lets
say some all knowing entity showed up tomorrow and said, Your justice
system appalls me but I'll tell you what I'll do. I will tell you
who on death row is actually innocent – but you in turn must let a
guilty party go for each innocent I reveal.
What
do you do?
No
to dissappoint the sadists in the crowd, mankind has by and large chosen
to take the deal. Justice Frankfurter went so far as to say it was
better that ten guilty go free then one innocent man be punished. I'm
not here to argue that. My experience in criminal justice lead me to
the conclusion that we prefer to punish the innocent because they
are less trouble to catch!
Now
we come to some salient issues. Much of the opposition to the
privacy advocates can be summed up as “If you're not guilty you
have nothing to worry about.” Nearly all false accusations though
are based on circumstantial evidence. The more you know about someone
the easier it is to concoct some sort of false picture about them.
Along
with that is the fact that it is in the interest of any criminal to
provide the authorities with a substitute target.
In
terms of apprehension one salient phrase, orginated by Lawrence
Lessing, I believe is “The law of code.” The classic example is
when you take out a library book overdue you pay fine but the book is
still readable. When you take out an electronic library book at a
certain point in time it becomes unreadable
What
the law of code does is it heightens the power to say no. It is not
fun. Recently in congress they tried writing legislation that on a
certain date would do certain things and found it difficult to work
with because we cannot tell what the future will bring.
For
instance. I take a heart medication. I take it twice a day and it has
made my life much better. I'll probably take it for the rest of my
life. The catch is if I miss a day or two, I know it and to stop
suddenly is not recommended.
I
go to Rite Aide because several years ago they seemed good. Late
hours, many outlets, selection of other things. I probably don't
have to tell the reader that the US has declared a limited war on
it's citizens. The safety net, as poor as it was in comparison to the
industrialized world is unraveling.
In
practical terms it means my medications cost more, are more difficult
to get and mys income is less. I go to renew a prescription on a
Tueday and they say the computers down. So I have to make another
trip two days later which I do and I discover that the computer
which apparently keeps track of things is still down.
I
come back four days later and I am loaded for bear. I am upset and I
get even more upset when I discover that they had the medication all
along. What they didn't have was the okay from the computer to
dispense it.
This
medication is not a drug – you don't get a high. You don't feel
anything in fact.
Why
the central computer saw fit to deny the script I have no Idea. They
have the numbers calculated .
When
the shit hit the fan in 08 down in Riverhead and they had a
crackpot County Exec out to prove he was a tough guy there were
people living in tents, sleeping rough, veterans, drug addicts sex
offenders ex cons – the whole gamut of the underclass nobody in
the Hamptons gave a fuck. The only place where you could get a free
meal was from the little old church ladies. They are last survivors
of the old America.
It's
making me superstitious.
I
don't know what happened in RiteAide, but once again the little old
lady came through. She pressed a vial of meds into my hand and said.
“Here,
No pay. You don't have to pay for this”
Am
I criminal? By some definition I suppose I am.
When
was the last time you heard a machine cry?