Disobedience

Not sure it's that simple. Civil disobedience connotes disobeying laws that one perceives to be unjust (Thoreau, ML King, Cassius Clay). Not just f'g around as if whatever rules you don't like don't apply because you feel like "expressing yourself."

Anyway, not sure how much you can read into these things. Kind of like those bumper stickers "Dissent Is The Highest Form of Patriotism." Equally at home on the rear end of a Olbermanish Bush-hater in 2005 or a Limbaughnista birther in 2009.

Millenials

I was in the generation right before Mtv Trl. The one where they would beat you up if you were ugly, awkward and gross. The heathers generation X. Now, Generation Y comes along and cause of liberal PC brainwashing they made it seem okay to be ugly and gross. Then all of a sudden you'd see a ocean of ugly gross pubescent nerd kids everyday with braces and acne just lollygagging into the camera shouting shit to their friends as if anyone cared on what they voted on as #1 even though the show was totally rigged and bought for with payola. Inhuman beings without shame, angst, self introspection or any of the shit that john hughes and cameron crowe inculcated into us. Then the aftereffects of TRL happened and they were bad side effects. Paris Hilton, Soulja Boy, hell the entire reality television fad can be blamed on Mtv. How the hell did we let the innocence of Adam Curry introducing a Dire straits or information society video morph into subliminal pederasty and the de facto cultural bankruptcy of mankind?

Men

No coincidence methinks that both the researchers conducting the study and most of the commentators below a) are men and b) believe these results are not only plausible, but even obvious. Men have always enjoyed ascribing to women opinions that are not actually our own...

FYI, a personality trait that is actually generally going to give both sexes an advantage in sex is confidence. Given that society encourages us to believe that men with muscles and money are going to be more attractive to women, these men are likely to be more confident - and therefore more successful in love.

Personal opinion: on a purely aesthetic level, the golden medium is best - not too skinny and not too muscular. But any bias based on looks can be overcome by a winning personality.

SNL

*Sigh*
The annual SNL housecleaning. I'll miss Casey Wilson. Great beauty, great talent. I don't remember a thing about Michaela.

Sadly, the core issue (poor writing, probably having to do with the outdated Tues-night cram session approach) will probably never be addressed as long as Lorne Michaels is there. The only consistently funny part of the show (news) is developed/edited throughout the week. Ditto Mad TV (usually funnier across the board).

You nailed it with the cram session... The sketches are single sentence punchlines drawn out for waaaay too long. The reason Timberlake and Baldwin are such popular guests is that they can add some personality to an otherwise dull topic. SNL should be bi-monthly and they should shorten the skits. ...and Kenan has to go.

NFL

Dear professional Football and Basketball:

Screw you, you money-grubbing scum ponds, and everything you stand for, which really has nothing to do with competitive sport and athleticism. You have taken two fine games and turned them into absurd, circus-like, overpriced spectacles of douchery that makes me ashamed to be an American.

You do nothing but profligate the douche lifestyle, combining it with the thug ethic and cramming it down the throats of hardworking people who were only in search of a little escape and entertainment on Sundays. Add to that, the average American worker can barely afford a ticket to your bloated, absurd marketing-fests anymore. It takes tens of millions of dollars to pay these crybaby athletes who scream and howl for more money, year after year, when otherwise they would be in prison or turning wrenches at a greasy garage in Kansas. And who pays for these spoiled brats' Mercedes Benzes, swimming pools and cocaine? The guy turning wrenches at a greasy garage in Kansas, making 23K a year.

Add to that, both of your organizations harbor animal abusers, rapists, attempted murderers, drug dealers, addicts and violent thugs. And, not only are these scum scrapings NOT ejected from the leagues for their criminal antics, they are rewarded with new contracts, more money, and no consequences for their actions. Latrell Sprewell, anyone? Michael Vick? Need I make a list?

So, NFL, which stands for Numbskull Fucktard Loser, and NBA, which stands for Nothin' But Assholes, rest assured that your kind of operation is eventually taken to task. Just like Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Big Food are being attacked, people will soon tire of your money-grubbing abuses. I couls find 1,000 men right now, construction workers, store clerks, cops, etc., who would gladly take 100K a year to play professional sports, and would play their hearts out for love of the game. If you think you're doing the people a favor by perpetuating this silly, overpriced charade, with your ten dollar dixie cups of beer and players so jammed full of syringes they can barely move, you're wrong. I know more sports fans than I care to admit, and more than one of them has tired of the nonsense and has moved on to more interesting fare.

Coldplay

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Dads

It's not easy growing up with a crusader, and Paskowitz was something of a dictator, though also fiercely protective. The kids weren't prepared for the outside world, for mercantilism, jobs, traffic, living in a world governed by money. "Doc" may have done OK without it, but they couldn't. And when they found friends who got sugar doughnuts for breakfast or later who used alcohol and drugs, it was hard to go back to multigrain gruel and clean living. They were human. Adam wanted more than anything to become a doctor. But when he found out at 18 that he'd need about ten years to catch up on normal preparation for college and medical school, sadly he gave up on those ambitions. He is the one now who pledges to "keep the dream alive" and "put my kids through what Dorian put us through." One brother is a professional artist, two are singers, another is in Hollywood. Izzy/Israel who has an autistic son, helps run Surfers Healing, a program of surfing for autistic kids. Two of the other sons are involved in the family surfing school. They seem all to have done well. Some have pretty strong complaints about how their special upbringing handicapped them, at least at first, but they seem to agree that the good outweighs the bad and that what their father gave them was priceless and unique.

Woodstock

Could you say that one more time, I had mud in my ear from the "mudstock" festival.

Hey, there was rain, soaking wet girls and boys playing in the mud, and no bad LSD or babies born during the Rollins Band set--who could ask for more? Even Dylan, Joe Cocker and Crosby Steals The Cash showed up, Neil Young was setting up his train set and couldn't be bothered. Metallica jammed with Peter Gabriel but it didn't make the CD, I guess you had to be there, and you probably don't remember much more than breathing hard and screaming loud for a couple of days and buying a bag of maple leafs crunched up in lieu of reefer, then had to pay 30 bucks for a joint you subsequently dropped in the mud. At least the girlie in the muddy tank top fed you about a yard of tongue during Aerosmith's set. The music here is better than those folks too young to remember the original should be expected to pay homage to--hey, the marketeering folks who put this on missed the first one too, but not the opportunity to make some dough and bring in the cream of the best bands around. Let's see them do that in THIS decade--we'll have to put up with even worse bands that TODAY'S kids are crazy about. Buy this CD, it's cheap, but the songs are great live versions.

Avoid the brown acid.

Hooliganism

There is an entire sub-section of supposed "fans" who go to games not for a love of the game or to cheer their team. They are frustrated with life, angry at the world, or hate their job and come sunday, they are looking for an escape and place full of a bunch of like minded people where it is acceptable to get pissed drunk act like an idiot and vent their frustrations. As they fill with liquid courage they will likely find someone to harass or a good fight along the way- usually with someone much smaller or preferably well outnumbered. If their team wins... well even better. They claim this victory as their own, acting as if they had accomplished something themselves, and then talk trash, and pound their chest and belittle whoever is on the losing side. If their team loses- look out!! Like an overgrown child, they kick and stomp their feet and whine like a child and spew excuses about how they were cheated and how unfair life is, throw things and look for someone to harm or pay for this supposed injustice. These idiots/people come from all walks of life, races, nationalities, countries, sports and teams. However in some teams and sports a trend will begin... it starts out small and if no one steps in and stops the behavior and calls these idiots on their B.S. it builds. Pretty soon a team will have a large following of people looking to show up to game with the intention of starting %#@&. Unfortunately this displaces the decent people who won't go to a game under these conditions. Do I think the stupidity displayed at that game was an inherently Mexican trait. NO WAY. The vast majority of Mexicans and Mexican team fans are hard working, decent, family oriented people who love the game of futbol and would love nothing more than to watch and cheer their team in a respectful manner. Unfortunately the above trend seems to have happened with the Mexican team. This makes it more and more difficult for the decent people, who are really the majority, to go to a game, particularly with kids... without fear of exposing themselves and their families to fights, profanity, spilled beer and whatever ridiculous, animalistic behavior. Stop making excuses for this garbage and call it what it is: on forums, in articles and especially at games. If we all do the, spineless sheep who act like this will soon stop.

Marxists

This isn't any different from the Cold War era when there were many people on the left(though not a majority) who were very sympathetic to the Soviet Union and the brutal, anti-democratic regimes they backed. These people thought the USSR could do no wrong. If they ever did anything "wrong", it was always in reaction to western capitalist imperialism, lead by the U.S. Or capitalist propagandists made it all up, the Soviets didn't really do anything bad.

So the Soviets and their allies were merely responding to the terrible threat of U.S imperialism, with their routine murder and imprisonment of dissidents in gulags and oppression and the anti-democratic nature of their system. The moronic far-left had no sympathy for Soviet dissidents, since they saw them as greedy, wannabe capitalists. Similarly, in the minds of these same people, the anti-Ahmadinejad protesters in Iran are thought of as spoiled, Prada-wearing, upper middle class Iranians who love to drink alcohol and smoke(and are getting paid or influenced by the CIA), and wish they could exploit the poor of Iran to become even richer - if only their defender Ahmadinejad would get out of the way!

These far-lefty excuse-makers for the Iranian mullahs generally know few if any Iranians, but the biggest experts among them don't know any Iranians at all, hence their "expertise" on this situation. Even better, some of the biggest geniuses among this clique base their expertise on NEVER HAVING BEEN TO IRAN, unlike the author of this article. The funny thing about these left-wing crazies is that most are not Muslim, many are atheists or not religious at all, but they are willing to lock arms with the Muslim extremists of Iran in their struggle against U.S imperialism. I guess if North Korea can do this as a state, why can't they do this as individuals?

Now watch these people claim I watch Fox News or I was a die-hard Bush supporter LOL.

Ayatollahs

I believe most of the people in this forume are young people and may have a vivid imagination about the revolution. I was a teenager during revolution and those days one of the main reason that we made the revolution because the country was corrupt and the shah was became so self centered that any geniune complain was answered by his iron fist, the SAVAK. Economic wise Iran was strong and most of the iranian living outside iran was well educated and thanks to shah regime the oppertunity was given to iranian to send their children to europe and america for further study. I beleive that shah was geniune in pushing iran into a powerful economic state removing its independency from west especially from amrica. In one of his interview when iran was building the biggest petrochemical in the world he said that because of the size of his refinerry he will buy all the oils from persian gulf state and all the west must go through iran to have an excess to the oil. His speech was a warning shot to the west that is why west planned to tople the shah. The first ignition of uprising was when the REAKS cinema was set on fire and more than 200 men, women and children was burned alive. All the opposition was pointing their finger at shah and the shah failed to defend itself. After revoultion the people who set this crime confessed that this was fatwa order by a high clergy man which turned out to be Khomenie. During the revolution, people turned to Islam because being muslim, Islam will give them identity and the iranian people will be no puppet of any power and people have their own destiny. Most of the Iranian (including myself) saw khomeni as a saviour for iran. We thought that khomeni will be irans Ghandi. Everyone thought that Khomeni is an old man and also being grand ayatollah he can establish a true Islamic state where everbody will be treated equal. When Khomeni was in France he allowed the member of communist parties to come and meet him and he repaetedly said thet his mission is to save the iranian people and after revolution he takes no part in the politics of iran and all iranian people are free to express their rights and he showed himself in a way that all the commuinst have accepted Khomeni as their leader and funnly they all prayed behind him(imagine communist who does not believe in god which is the fundation of all religion prayed with Khomeni). This gave the iranian people heart to get ride of shahs regime and masses of people came to airport when Khomenie flew to iran. Khomeni could have been the true Ghandi of iran if he kepts his promises. AND HOW WRONG WE WERE. Don't get me wrong the movement at the heart of revolution was geniune and masses was on move and the goal was to have a true democracy under islamic law. The first sign of true face of khomeni showed when he said plainly that he has got no feeling returing to iran!!!! Now let me ask u a question how many of u had tears in their eyes when the plane u are travelling is going to land in the airport within 5-10 minutes and u can see tehran. u may hold back the tears but inside u, u are jumping with joy like a little child. But this mother****er had no feeling. The other signs were when he gave immunity to the forces and said they will be treated fairly but after the revolution he killed all the generals with no mercy. Then when iran-iraq war started he called it blessing from allah. When iranian troops captured Khoramshar and iraq was begging to iran to stop and pay for damages and even Khamenie, Rafsanjani and others asked him to stop the war he replied "pray for me to die so that u can make the peace agreement and will no do this till iam alive." but what happened he was forced to sign the peace agreement as he said "JAME ZAHER ra khordam va abroyeeh khodam ra ba khoda moaimeleeh kardam". As simple as that he was stopped and lots of lives being wasted because of his ego and lajbazie. During his rein he made a blood bath in iran to the extend that motazirie, his succesor, on an open letter mentioned that his SAVAK made the shah SAVAK "ROO SAFID". Khomeni has given his security forces an open hand to do whatever to the political prisoner. Most of the girls who were caputred when there were selling or giving their newspapaer to the public being raped by several pasdar and later executed. Pregnant women being raped by several pasdar and later excuted with their unborn child. Opposition leader being beheaded or being killed by bombs. Khomeni's crime is much heaver than Khamenie. On the scale of cruilty Khomenie outflang Khamenie by light years. At least it took Khamenie several days to speak up and crush the demonstration; in Khomeni case same day. He would,t give the opposition any chance to breath. Just look at what he did to montazarie and sharietmadary, the ayatollah who saved the ****ing life of Khomeni's live by granting him ayatollah when shah decided to kill Khomeni in 1960s. In recent uprising, Other mulluhs had express their discomfort of the leader handeling; in Khomenis time they would not dare to even piss let alone voice their opposition. Some people may argue that Khomeni was not corrput because he had no money in foriegn banks. He didn't need to because he felt he owns iran and iranian people so any critisim would have dealt so severely that will make adolf hitler jessus christ. on the last note all mullahs are ****ing same and for their survival they kill and destory everthing. Khomeni is an ideal example.

Women

What I am trying to say is, Where are all the women? All you see in every scene is men. And men tend to feed on each other and they whip themselves into the mob mentality. And there is no voice of reason. Its a fact that women civilize men. Men are better behaved when women are around. That is what a gentelman is.

#Neda

1) part of this discussion is a generational difference. I think back to the reaction of the WWII generation and their kids, the Flower Power, etc and massive anti-war (Vietnam) protests that included the Kent State debacle and bombings of university lab thought to be “colluding” with the defense department. (I will try to not let you know my age)

2) this, the Burmese, and so many others demonstrate the power, the necessity and the foresight of the American Founding Fathers. I rather think that placing the Right to Free Speech and the Separation of Church and state as first and foremost of the amendments, and, actually making it an amendment (actually more prominent this way) was brilliant. And so, it is imperative that we maintain the 4th Estate – whether as electronic or print media.
The Internet blogging, reporting does place another level on the 4th Estate. This is why we are all part and parcel of the 4th Estate in some way – to bear witness and report what we know, whether it be in an office, on the street, in a shop, …. (Yes, we know about the difficulty of “fact checking”, but all publications are not equal. The National Enquirer and People are also members of the 4th Estate, just as CNN, NYT and WSJ.)

But, this also shows the power of picture and esp video over words alone. The power of words is to evoke those pictures. (too bad about Kodachrome)

3) I wondered as I watched many of the YouTube videos that there were no arms with the demonstrators. I figured as much re: ban on firearms. (Again, a reason for the 2nd Amendment. The Founding Fathers were fearful that the fledgling republic might lose its way and require, well, what we saw in 1861.)

Gotta tell you, though. As I saw those silly Basij on their motor scooters, I was just itching for a good bullwhip, a la Indiana Jones style. (I am also well aware of the result of a good strong rope that suddenly pulled up (esp to neck height) would have done. I’m told that long ago, a relative was killed that way.)

4)for the mother, the problem was which of her beliefs was more inviolate. In this case, it was that a religious person could do not wrong. This trumped what she could see. The real question is if that would continue to be her reaction if she had been in the street with her, been physically present in her dying.

Secularism

The central concept today is that secular, which means more open and more choices, will naturally favor devices and ways of communication that meet the requirement for greater openness. Governments all over the world are wondering how to deal with the relentless march of the secular over the sacred. No one should be surprised that arbitrary dicta, grumpy old men determining what’s right and moral, archaic books that can be read a million ways have been read many million different ways, and the relentless exposure of alternative lifestyles and material worlds -- that collectively these have led to political and religious change across the world. Iran is no different in this regard than we are. Rather, Iran is just considerably behind us in the march to secular change.

I don’t know how you missed what kicked off Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution: not mosques, but cassette tapes. A few hundred produced in France quickly became a few thousand copied in Iran and then tens of thousands such that everyone heard them, and not primarily in mosques. The other thing that made that revolution a big success is that we, the United States, had made utter fools out of ourselves by first overthrowing their democracy, then helping the Shaw regain power, and then supporting that monster until he was thrown out. Of course we haven’t been happy about Iran since 1979. While apparently correct that the Ayatollah and others are scrambling in the wake of the current stolen election and its aftermath, there is nothing like the Shaw to be overthrown.

The secularization of societies is an inevitable trend. The more Mr. Obama takes advantage of this trend, the faster it’ll happen, leading to eventual peace. Those in power will always go reluctantly, but their age weighs against them as well as the shape of the secular future. Your valiant attempt to force the various parties and technological agents into a clever model will never be fruitful. Turn back to more facts, more straightforward idea, fewer distortions (like who started the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict), and no gimmicks to help us understand this complex situation.

Democracies

I disapprove of democracy, because democracy guarantees that the lowest, most base and spiritually bankrupt men inevitably lay their hands on the instruments of power. In fact, it has been designed that way. The legacy of democracy is the greatest and most murderous crimes and outrages against the very fabric of human existence itself.

Electoral democracy is the rule over the masses through a predictable mathematical method of control which defines its parameters and its lines of communications. People vote, and it changes nothing.

I support no system of government, except for perhaps a flexible template based on the early Medina model of Islamic Khaliphite. But those who believe that democracy places power in the hands of the people are wrong, dead wrong. It was not so designed, nor does the possibility exist for it to do so; except insofar as it may create the illusion of "government of the people, by the people and for the people" (ironic that that quote should come from Lincoln: a Republican. But look at the freak show that party has degenerated into). At best, it offers only the possibility of causing governmental change in areas that cannot, in the long run, threaten the oligarchical top of the pyramid, nor affect any real change in the structure of society itself.

Democracy is a smokescreen, a political sleight of hand. It never was anything else, nor can it ever be anything else. It is a brilliantly orchestrated lie that generation after generation fall for and not only believe, but fight with their very lives to preserve. Consider the Orwellian Doublethink necessary for those who claim to be Republicans to constantly yap on and on about "democracy"; when the essence of their own party is in opposition to this.

And I promise you that those in power have a, let's be kind and say, cavalier attitude toward their underlings. Make no mistake about the attitude of the rulers of this world toward their servants. Napoleon once bragged that he could get men to sacrifice their lives in exchange for a piece of cloth. Once the wife of a German general complained to Hitler about the young men who were dying in the war. He looked at her incredulously and said "But that's what they're there for!"

And in recent years, young men are sent to slaughter and be slaughtered in Persia and Southeast Asia. They are told they are fighting for "Freedom and Democracy", and have the rhetoric of honor and patriotism on their lips: and all the while multinational corporations and banking cartels become richer and richer, and all the world's wealth is moved toward a smaller and smaller group of men to the impoverishment of all others. And the "leaders" make speeches about how "proud they are of the sacrifices our boys are making". It is no different from communism (except in the matter of distribution of resources), its power inevitably centers around a small group of people.

It can never be otherwise.

Obama? To be sure, Obama's policies are different from Bush's, and I believe him to be a good man. I voted for him because Ron Paul was not running - and I would have rather disemboweled myself with a butter knife than vote for McCain and Palin (I wonder: did the GOP deliberately throw the election? Did they take a dive? And on who's orders? You suppose that when the Bush administration "bought" a controlling interest in the banks, the presidency was no longer necessary?)

But why did Obama appoint a hard core Zionist to Chief of State? Why does he go on about keeping jobs in the US and then appointing as his Secretary of Commerce a staunch supporter of outsourcing? Why does he consider Israel "our friends" whom "we must protect", when in reality they're sucking billions out of our economy and playing the US (such as it is) like a cheap violin (and doing to Palestine the same thing the Nazis did to the Jews - more democracy!!)?" Why did he push the economic stimulus bill through when the only people really gaining from it are the banking oligarchy and the multinational corporations?

Last September, there was a moment where the entire world's economy was three hours away from total economic collapse. Why does he not admit the real cause of this: that the entire system simply does not work and only exists to make bankers richer? I'll tell you why. Because all these people have his - or any president's - you know what in a vice grip.The office of the president has no real power. He is answerable not to congress, the people, or the constitution: he's answerable only to the corporate economic power structure.

I tell you this:if Obama doesn't play ball by their rules, if he actually makes the changes that truly need to be made, he'll end up like Kennedy - and his "martyrdom" would be "spin-doctored" into more rhetorical to support the "democratic" power structure. When the bottom drops out of the economy, "they" won't be able to save their oily hides except by declaring martial law,pushing the NAU into existence, and a civil war starts. Which, of course, will bring everyone to whom the US owes money (and Israel, who will betray us at the earliest conceivable opportunity) rolling in with guns, tanks, jet bombers, etc. to cut out a piece for themselves. When this happens, watch what he says.

Besides the White House takes its orders from the Federal Reserve, and has done so since president Wilson submissively handed the wealth and economic power of the US to a private group of bankers in 1913. The National Security Act of 1947 pretty much abolished the Constitution (1947: the same year the terrorist nation Israel came into being. Coincidence?). So, where does that leave us??? Where's this precious democracy now?

This BS piles up so high you could use it to build a suspension bridge to the moon, two luxury hotels on Mars, and have enough left over for an Exxon-Mobil gas station on Venus. Change?? The more things change, the more it stays the same.

Sorry folks, I ain't drinking the Kool-Aid!

This is Democracy. And unless we accept the "2012" rhetoric, or we find a way to bring about a collective apotheosis; human nature itself is unlikely to evolve beyond its basic hierarchical primate behavioral template any time soon.

Theocracies

What we are seeing in Iran is the obvious result of allowing religious nutters to have political power. And who allowed it? The millions of people howling in the streets for the return of "the Ayatollah" all those years ago. Religious power comes from the unthinking support of the people - we usually get the governments we deserve. And please stop using the words "Iran" and "Democracy" in the same sentence. How can it be a democracy if some nutter at the top, supported by his pious goons, picks the runners?

Cellphones

Remember when nobody had cellphones, then people got em if they needed em, then because they were cool? Now you can hardly do business without one, not to mention being treated like a social pariah if you switch off for a day. At least you have the luxury of withdrawing form Web 2.0. Web 3.0 will be compulsory.

well they can all call me a social pariah, b/c i don't own a cell phone and don't ever intend to. I have at 2 times previously, but like web 2.0, the cost (time and/or money) is too high for the little benefit they provide, IMHO. I don't like being contacted everywhere.

I work and live with my gf, and needless to say when I'm away.. i don't need her getting in touch with me. My family can also be quite over bearing and i don't need them to be able to reach me whereever and i live near my job so even if i'm not on-call, if they had my cell number, they'd just call me to go reboot something, or fix something "since i'm nearby". Screw that. Being disconnected sometimes is healthy.

Not to mention that cellphones have brought the worst out in people, or at least given them a platform to show just how annoying they really are. Texting while driving, blaring Toby Keith or T-Pain as their ring tone, doing that stupid Nextel 2-way radio crap in a crowded bar so every ten seconds you gotta have that annoying beep in your ear, not turning the damn thing off in a theater, or in line at the grocery store. Society's behavior with cellphones is enough in itself for me to despise them.

I understand there are USEFUL and responsible ways to use a cellphone. But from where i'm sitting, the masses don't do that. I love how 10,000 teens, tweens, and loser-adults who won't grow up have also had some kind of apparent meeting and decided they all needed camera / mp3 player/ touch screen phones with full internet access too. They can barely provide for themselves ,but damn they look cool. Cellphones are the new spinning rims.

But beyond that, even looking at older generations you see a group of old guys on a golf course and there's always one who takes 15 minutes to hit a fucking ball b/c his work is calling, his wife is calling, someone is always calling. I can't count the times i've also been deep in conversation with someone and they're passively saying "ya, uh huh, ya" to you while in some deep texting convo with someone else. Or the people that need to look super important at work by checking their blackberry everytime some crappy distro list chucks them an email, like it can't wait a whopping 2-3 minutes. I'd like to take all these people's phones, toss them on the ground, and jump up and down on them like a 5 year old throwing a tantrum. I really would.

I also find cellphones to be a complete ripoff. The sheer amount of physical wire and equipment needed to maintain the land line system is phenominal. You're talking a 100 of years of work, constant repairs. While the cell system is much more advanced, it takes a lot less maintenance and manpower. So explain why the hell the average cellphone bill is anywhere from 2 - 5 times the average land line bill. Internet on mobile devices sucks for the most part, even "web versions " of most websites are slow and lacking in functionality. Texting costs are phenomenally high. the cameras built into phones are usually awful quality. I don't get it. I never will.

Twitter

It's been an interesting experiment over the last couple of years or so. Faced with leaving the infrastructure of traditional record labels and figuring out what the right thing to do is in this new world - I found myself realizing that for me to have any concept of how to interact with the community and know what they might want / what they find appropriate, I need to immerse myself in that world and live it for a while. The reason no record label knows how to market anything to new media is they don't live there. They don't get it because they don't use it. What you've seen happen with the marketing and presentation of NIN over the last years is a direct result of living next to you, listening to you, consuming with you and interacting with you. Directly. There's no handlers or PR people here, it's me and my guys - that's it. There's no real plan, even - it's just trying to do the right thing that respects you the fan, the music, and me the artist. That's the goal - a mutual and shared respect.

When Twitter made it's way to my radar I looked at it as a curiosity, then started experimenting. I thought it through and in light of where I was / am in my career I decided to lower the curtain a bit and let you see more of my personality. I watched some of you get more engaged because you started to realize there's a person (flaws and all) back there, and I watched some of you recoil in horror because I'm not what you projected on me. All expected. I'm not as concerned about "breaking" your idea of NIN at this point. It is what it is and I am what I am. The relationship between artist and fan is changing if you haven't noticed, along with the way we consume and experience music and even communicate since the internet arrived.

The problem with really getting engaged in a community is getting through the clutter and noise. In a closed environment like nin.com a lot of this can be moderated away, or code can be implemented to make it more difficult for troublemakers to persist. It's tedious and feels like wasted energy doing that shit, but some people exist to ruin it for others - and they are the ones who have nothing better to do with their time. Example: on nin.com, there's 3-4 different people that each send me between 50 - 100 message per day of delusional, often threatening nonsense. We can delete them, but they just sign back up and start again. Yes, we are implementing several changes to address this, but the point is it quickly gets very old weeding through that stuff.

Back to Twitter. I approached that as a place to be less formal and more off-the-cuff, honest and "human". I was not expecting to broadcast details of my love life there, but it happened because I'm in love and it's all I think about and that's that. If this has bummed you out or destroyed what you've projected on me, fair enough - it's probably time for you to leave. You are right, I'm not the same person I was in 1994 (and I'm happy about that). Are you?

Looks like the Metal Sludge contingency has discover Twitter! Finally! For those of you that don't know what this is, please let me explain. Metal Sludge is the home of the absolutely worst people I've ever come across. It's populated mainly by unattractive plump females who publicly fantasize about having sex with guys in bands. Kind of like a role-playing game where people NOBODY will fuck make up stories about their incredible sexual encounters with people they WISH they could fuck. It would be kind of funny in a sad and pathetic way except the fun doesn't stop there - hate and good old-fashioned outright blatant racism are also encouraged to spice things up and remind you how truly ugly these scourges are. TRULY ugly on the inside (the outside is obvious).

Cutter's tip for my friends there: remember to cut along the length of vein, not across. Bigger payoff.

So when you see the new accounts that pop up daily on Twitter spewing exactly the kind of thing I just discussed, usually from picture-less creatively named profiles, spewing hate at Mariqueen and I, take a moment to visualize the sad couple people behind them.
A few years ago some people tuned me in to that world and when I figured out who these people were, I was amazed that I'd been seeing them in the front rows of the shows for months. I really don't understand what kind of "fan" spends that kind of time and money to travel across the country seeing a band, to then dedicate an incredible amount of time and energy into non-stop hate diatribes online. That one puzzles me a little.

Anyway, I'm bored on a long bus drive and there's no real moral to the story here, just writing. I will be tuning out of the social networking sites because at the end of the day it's now doing more harm than good in the bigger picture and the experiment seems to have yielded a result. Idiots rule.

I had thought a while ago about attempting to start a mainstream public forum that required real verification of it's participants for purposes of context. The idea was to have a place where you can actually discuss whatever and have some idea of who you're conversing with. For example, if we were discussing drumming techniques and you can see that someone participating in the discussion is a drum instructor vs. a 13 year old kid Googling answers, you'd have the proper context in which to have a potentially valid discussion. If we were discussing EDLC's heart condition and a real cardiologist speaks up, I'd value his opinion over, say FredFuckFaceWhateverHisLastFuckingNameIs's "opinion". Know what I mean? Anyway, we're in a world where the mainstream social networks want any and all people to boost user numbers for the big selloff and are not concerned with the quality of experience.

With all of that said, I have business in the real world to attend to including wrapping up the live version of NIN, DOING some cool new shit and spending as much time as possible with the most amazing woman in the world.

Civility

I don't know when this happened, but it seems that everyone, everywhere is absolutely convinced that the opinion they hold is the only true and right opinion. Respect for each other is non-existent, or so it seems. I have my opinions, but they are just that. My opinions. They are my truth, but I would never expect them to neccessarily be your truth. I am constantly amazed that there is a growing disconnect in our society because people seem to believe they are right, and therefore it follows that everyone else is wrong. That's just amazing, and amazingly wrong. This country is becoming so polarized that it seems there will be no returning to common courtesy or civility. Just because you say something loud enough, that doesn't mean it's right. Just an observation from an outsider.

Sellouts

It's not about money and it's not about him trying to sell us a product. 

But, man, put a shirt on, sit behind a desk and do it. Gyrating half-naked like he did on-stage when he was twenty, scandalizing crowds, is simply turning himself into a caricature. 

What was once sexy, dionysian, provocative performance is now reduced to a harmless, limp marketing tool. Unless it's meant as some sort of self-depricating, ironic humour. 

Sure, times have changed but still, some things should be held sacred.