You know what makes me happy?

This makes me happy.

“Censorship And Secrecy May Potentially Be Turned On Ourselves As A Weapon Of Self-Destruction,” Court Says

NEW YORK – Saying that “democracy abhors undue secrecy,” a federal court today struck down an entire Patriot Act provision that gives the government unchecked authority to issue “National Security Letters” to obtain sensitive customer records from Internet Service Providers and other businesses without judicial oversight. The court also found a broad gag provision in the law to be an “unconstitutional prior restraint” on free speech.

It makes me very, very happy indeed.

Oh, and as Atrios says: Reward good behavior.

I’m glad to have gotten decent feedback on my entry about having a sort of fit or meltdown or whatever you want to call it. Like I said, there’s a lot missing, and re-reading it now, I can see the more problematic omssions very clearly.

I don’t know what to do with it, either. I want to talk about it, but there’s no one to talk about it *with.* There are good friends and family I could tell about it, but there’s really no common ground for understanding it. I know some of them would worry (and probably are worried right now). If there had been someone around when it happened, they wouldn’t have understood, and I might have ended up in an ambulance. Then again, the fact that no one was around brings to mind some unpleasant notions about possible outcomes.

This is the particular kind of loneliness I have in my life. I want a certain life for myself, but I’m ill-equipped to pursue it. I want people around me, but that’s the same as asking them to be around a guy who might have a panic attack, or end up on the floor in a bizarre fetal position for a couple hours. Or, more practically, live with a guy who will never be comfortable in his own skin. Makes it kind of hard to interview for housemates, eh?

I want a dog, the kind you can train to help you through a seizure or similar, but I need a house and a yard for that. Also enough income for kibbles and vet bills.

I want a house, a big one. A Craftsman with a big porch and a big front room for hosting salons and meetings. An upstairs where I’ll live and a downstairs where friends can come and go, read my books, watch my movies, listen to my CDs, and I can kick them out if I need to. Cleaning service. Organic produce delivered. WiFi for the neighborhood. Potlach and intense political discussion once a week.

Or alone in Lake City rolled up on the floor in a meltdown. Gawd, it’s so pathetic.

Via Bruce Sterling, we get to:

This page about a Czechoslovakian rock band from the late ’60s called The Plastic People Of The Universe.

The story is really fascinating, and it’s one of those stories that you’re sure you would have heard by now. I mean, how can I not have known about this? I knew there was a Zappa/Lou Reed/Vaclav Havel connection, but nothing like this….

Six months later, the trial of the Plastic People and the other arrested artists began. The majority of the Plastic People were released due to international protests. However, four musicians including Vratislav Brabenec and Ivan Jirous from the Plastics, as well as Pavel Zajicek from the Plastics’ sister band DG 307, and singer Svatopluk Karasek, were held for disturbing the peace.

On that day, September 21, 1976, as the four defendants sat handcuffed in the dock, rock and roll went on trial. [..]

In the months that followed, these sympathizers gathered in solidarity with the hippies and rallied around the Plastic People. They dared to establish a human rights organization and released a statement of principles on January 1, 1977, naming their organization after the charter, Charter 77. Havel said that the Plastics were defending “life’s intrinsic desire to express itself freely, in its own authentic and sovereign way”, which is as close to a perfect definition of both democracy and rock and roll as has ever been stated. Charter 77 evolved into a world-famous human rights petition that eventually landed Havel in jail, and was a precursor to the national revolution that occurred 12 years later.

If you know anyone who thinks that rock and roll will ruin our way of life, then you should pass this link along to them.

I’ve been trying for the past couple of days to figure out how to write about something that happened to me recently.

Most of you are aware that I’m autistic (by some measures), and that I have a diagnosis of Asperger’s Syndrome. I mention this because the thing that happened to me was that I had a sort of melt-down that only makes sense in that context.

It’s disingenuous to say that ‘something happened to me’ and that it was a meltdown. It’s not entirely true on either count: The thing didn’t happen to me, I happened it to myself. And it wasn’t really a meltdown as much as it was a sort of fit or… Well, it’s not all that easy to describe what it was. Those words are easy stand-ins, but they don’t really fit, and they’re the kind of words that would make a reader think it was a negative experience.

It really wasn’t negative. I mean, it wasn’t happy and pretty and nifty and swell, but it was important and worthwhile. And while I don’t really feel comfortable talking about *all* of the circumstance, it’s something I want to write about because that’s how I process a lot of this. So there are gaps that might not seem obvious to someone reading this, but which are there nonetheless. Make assumptions at your own peril. There’s a lot missing. In other words: When you’re done reading this, you might think I’m nuts. Which may or may not be true.

An early part of it was that I’d been having trouble sleeping. I had been up for something like 22 hours, I hadn’t had much to eat, and, for whatever reasons, I was revisiting some dark psychic places in my life’s history.

I got nauseus, and started sobbing. I got dizzy, felt awful. I went into the bathroom and curled up sobbing uncontrollably. All the defenses were down, so it just flowed and flowed, for somewhere close to an hour.

I got up and wandered into the kitchen for some water. I drank, and then spiraled down again, ending up in a fetal position in the hallway floor, sobbing and.. whatever.. for another forty five minutes. (It’s always nice when you can cut fifteen minutes off the time requirement…)

Eventually I got up and washed my face and drank more water, and went to bed and fell instantly to sleep. I felt like crap the next day, in total receptive mode. I staggered around, in a near-stupor.

Over the next couple of days my emotional state bouyed with good meals and some companionship with friends.

Now, the reason I want to write about this is because that’s me. A falling-down-crying lump of pathos is me. In fact, that might be the most valuable aspect of myself. It might be the most important ability I have. I don’t know how that would work, but the point here is that I have to identify with it, or it’ll rip me apart.

Usually, when I have an emotional outburst, or when I have an anxiety attack, there’s an observer-self. There’s the intense feeling, and then there’s an observer consciousness who essentially adds color commentary. So I’ll be pissed, or hurting, or whatever, and there’ll be this part of me that is, more often than not, critical of how the emotional state is proceeding. Sometimes it serves a more practical role of directing me towards what I need. Usually, though, it serves as a sort of choke on the big explosion of feelings, directing them.

But there was none of that this time.. It was deeeeep. It was biiiiig. The critical rational mind tried to navigate the rough waters for a while, but was engulfed before too long. Man overboard, no life raft. “Wilson! I’m sorry!” (Apologies to Tom Hanks.)

There’s a second observer, too. This is the real one. This is the one that hears the cynical comments of the rational mind, and feels the coursing of the emotion through my mind and body. This is the one that sat with what was going on and recorded it to memory. This is the one that isn’t troubled with language or a need to know, it simply observes.

This second observer watched my midbrain light up like a Christmas tree, and watched as the critical mind struggled, only managing to make my vocal cords say, “I can’t do it…” over and over. For half an hour or so. My rational mind had decided that I was upset over something I’m going to leave out of this ‘blog, and was trying to tell the world that I couldn’t do that thing. How delightfully naive is the logical mind.

These are the things that happen to me as my mind attempts to make sense of the chaos of the world. I haven’t had an episode this intense, ever, but I have had acute anxiety and panic attacks before. There’s probably a clinical name for what happened, but I don’t know it, and I really don’t care to know it.

That’s the thing: I want to learn how this works. It’s me. I don’t plan on repeat performances, but the truth is that I lived through it, and fear of this kind of episode is now officially not an issue.

Billionaires For Bush, playin’ it straight, keepin’ it real.

I just wanted to point out something that at least one of my readers will be interested in learning:

There is now a copy of ‘Energy Plan For The Western Man: Joseph Beuys In America’ available on Amazon.com for the low, low price of $23.77.

@

It seems like not so long ago that I was interested in books like this one. I never really got into it, since it’s supposed to be something you’re indoctrinated into. It’s all artifice, which is why it’s useful to the people it’s useful to.

But the reason I’m mentioning a book like ‘Thee Psychick Bible’ is because I own a copy I found at a used book store long, long ago, back when the whole Burroughs/Gysin/P-Orrige/visionary-literary-heroin-junkie nexus was interesting to me. And if you look at the Amazon.com listing for it, the value to collectors seems to have appreciated considerably since then. To say the least.

Now I’m scared to list it! Could I sell it instantly at any three-figure price below, say, $400? Is that price listing a joke?

I can’t find anything on the ‘net about this book, other than the Amazon listing, or articles that link to the listing. Frustrating.

Today’s award for most evocative random subject line in an unsolicited email goes to:

for Lizy! .. (the thoughts of dwelling with beasts or devils, to whose )

Not only does this entry give the appearance of being literate, it was sent to me by someone called Gutteral R. Puddings. Gutteral, you are a genius!

Note also the increasing frequency of subjects like ‘George Bush Is A Liar,’ which turn out to be ads for Xanax. A small irony which I duly appreciate.

Previous ‘winners:’

Re: Gavel Uterus

And:

Millard, How Could You Do This?

Via boingboing:

A very cool project called SkyEar, which is a cluster of helium balloons with on-board electronics to monitor local wireless-band radiation. The balloons have LEDs that light up in different colors, depending on the signals they find.

Basically: Stand near it, make a cell phone call, it changes color, demonstrating the ‘local hertzian culture.’

Today, I will move slowly. I won’t have a choice. I went to sleep on the couch while watching ‘Russian Ark,’ and woke up three hours later, unable to get back to sleep. Since then, I’ve been moving around the house like molasses on a cold morning.

Last night, before ‘Russian Ark,’ I watched Margaret Cho’s ‘Revolution’ show. Her comedy is all about what naturally comes out of the mouth of someone who is ‘difficult.’ Like she says in her act: She goes there, despite social convention. I think her act isn’t an act, and this is just her. If she were to come over for BBQ, she’d say shit like this.

Which is great. She manages to, for instance, tie women’s media-fed negative self-image to an all-persimmon diet she was on in order to look slimmer, to an episode of pooping in her pants while driving around. Funny as hell, and just enough preachy spin (and self-deprecating self-defecation).

But meanwhile, I’m bleary-eyed and unable to fully wake up or go to sleep. Sometimes when I’m in a state like this, I feel as though I’m in solidarity with the rest of you Earth humans. From the look of things, many of you out there are wandering around like zombies, even after coffee, so moments like this are a rare glimpse into the inner workings of the typical mind.

He said. Har.