America

America

by Allen Ginsberg

America I've given you all and now I'm nothing.
America two dollars and twentyseven cents January
17, 1956.
I can't stand my own mind.
America when will we end the human war?
Go fuck yourself with your atom bomb.
I don't feel good don't bother me.
I won't write my poem till I'm in my right mind.
America when will you be angelic?
When will you take off your clothes?
When will you look at yourself through the grave?
When will you be worthy of your million Trotskyites?
America why are your libraries full of tears?
America when will you send your eggs to India?
I'm sick of your insane demands.
When can I go into the supermarket and buy what I
need with my good looks?
America after all it is you and I who are perfect not
the next world.
Your machinery is too much for me.
You made me want to be a saint.
There must be some other way to settle this argument.
Burroughs is in Tangiers I don't think he'll come back
it's sinister.
Are you being sinister or is this some form of practical
joke?
I'm trying to come to the point.
I refuse to give up my obsession.
America stop pushing I know what I'm doing.
America the plum blossoms are falling.
I haven't read the newspapers for months, everyday
somebody goes on trial for murder.
America I feel sentimental about the Wobblies.
America I used to be a communist when I was a kid
I'm not sorry.
I smoke marijuana every chance I get.
I sit in my house for days on end and stare at the roses
in the closet.
When I go to Chinatown I get drunk and never get laid.
My mind is made up there's going to be trouble.
You should have seen me reading Marx.
My psychoanalyst thinks I'm perfectly right.
I won't say the Lord's Prayer.
I have mystical visions and cosmic vibrations.
America I still haven't told you what you did to Uncle
Max after he came over from Russia.

I'm addressing you.
Are you going to let your emotional life be run by
Time Magazine?
I'm obsessed by Time Magazine.
I read it every week.
Its cover stares at me every time I slink past the corner
candystore.
I read it in the basement of the Berkeley Public Library.
It's always telling me about responsibility. Business-
men are serious. Movie producers are serious.
Everybody's serious but me.
It occurs to me that I am America.
I am talking to myself again.

Asia is rising against me.
I haven't got a chinaman's chance.
I'd better consider my national resources.
My national resources consist of two joints of
marijuana millions of genitals an unpublishable
private literature that goes 1400 miles an hour
and twenty-five-thousand mental institutions.
I say nothing about my prisons nor the millions of
underprivileged who live in my flowerpots
under the light of five hundred suns.
I have abolished the whorehouses of France, Tangiers
is the next to go.
My ambition is to be President despite the fact that
I'm a Catholic.
America how can I write a holy litany in your silly
mood?
I will continue like Henry Ford my strophes are as
individual as his automobiles more so they're
all different sexes.
America I will sell you strophes $2500 apiece $500
down on your old strophe
America free Tom Mooney
America save the Spanish Loyalists
America Sacco & Vanzetti must not die
America I am the Scottsboro boys.
America when I was seven momma took me to Com-
munist Cell meetings they sold us garbanzos a
handful per ticket a ticket costs a nickel and the
speeches were free everybody was angelic and
sentimental about the workers it was all so sin-
cere you have no idea what a good thing the
party was in 1835 Scott Nearing was a grand
old man a real mensch Mother Bloor made me
cry I once saw Israel Amter plain. Everybody
must have been a spy.
America you don't really want to go to war.
America it's them bad Russians.
Them Russians them Russians and them Chinamen.
And them Russians.
The Russia wants to eat us alive. The Russia's power
mad. She wants to take our cars from out our
garages.
Her wants to grab Chicago. Her needs a Red Readers'
Digest. Her wants our auto plants in Siberia.
Him big bureaucracy running our fillingsta-
tions.
That no good. Ugh. Him make Indians learn read.
Him need big black niggers. Hah. Her make us
all work sixteen hours a day. Help.
America this is quite serious.
America this is the impression I get from looking in
the television set.
America is this correct?
I'd better get right down to the job.
It's true I don't want to join the Army or turn lathes
in precision parts factories, I'm nearsighted and
psychopathic anyway.
America I'm putting my queer shoulder to the wheel.

Let's make a deal

Let's Make a Deal

by Diane Blue

You forgive me for liking you too much,

And I'll forgive you for not liking me enough.

You forgive me for missing you so,

And I'll forgive you for being so cold.

You forgive me for the loud racing of my heart,

And I'll forgive you for not hearing it.

You forgive me for playing your games,

And I'll forgive you for toying with my emotions.

You forgive me for finding you so attractive,

And I'll forgive you for not noticing.

You forgive me for raising you up so high,

And I'll forgive you for bringing me down so low.

You forgive me for wanting to be with you,

And I'll forgive you for avoiding me.

You forgive me for being so pathetic,

And I'll forgive you for taking advantage of it.

You forgive me for not being able to let go,

And I'll forgive you for never having latched on.

You forgive me for having hopes and dreams,

And I'll forgive you for crushing them.

Forgiveness brings inner peace.

Do we have a deal?

Silence

Silence

by Jessica Sills

As you sit in silence,

Wondering why

I'll be your shoulder to cry on

Until your tears run dry.

When you've been hurt,

And can't believe what they've done

If you need someone to talk to

I'll be the one.

If a close friend hurts you,

And you don't understand

Remember I'm here,

I'll lend a helping hand.

Burdens are lighter when carried by two,

And I just want you to know

I'm here for you.

Life is a prison

Life is a prison by Puff Life is a prison, Oh God let me out. No one to listen, To hear when you shout. Climb the walls of insanity, Ride the waves of despair. If you fall it don't matter, There's no one to care. Used to wish for a window, To see birds, trees and sky, But you're better without one - Stops you aiming too high. Watching freedom is painful, For those locked away. Seeing joy, love and happiness, Another price that you pay. Strong is good, weak is bad. Be it false, be it true. Your mind makes the choice, And enforces it too. Cell walls built by society, With rules to adhere. If you breach the acceptable, You had better beware. Hide the pain, carry on, Routine is the key. Don't let on that you're not, What you're pretending to be. Lock it all up inside you, How badly that bodes. Look out for that one day, When it all just explodes. Leaving naught but a shell, Base functionality too. But killing all else, That was uniquely you. So how do you grow, With a timebomb inside? Or how to defuse it, Without destroying its ride? You can't.

We wear the mask

We Wear the Mask

by Paul Laurence Dunbar

We wear the mask that grins and lies,


It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes,--


This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile,


And mouth with myriad subtleties.

Why should the world be overwise,


In counting all our tears and sighs?


Nay, let them only see us, while


We wear the mask.

We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries


To thee from tortured souls arise.


We sing, but oh the clay is vile


Beneath our feet, and long the mile;


But let the world dream otherwise,


We wear the mask!

We all wear masks. Its just apart of our nature to hide certain things from different people. We show how we want others to perceive us. This isn't deception, it is merely a tactic to save face. Smiles hide sorrow, laughs hide cries, joy hides pain. At the end of the day, the only person we are being 100% honest with is ourself. As we get closer to those in our lives, layers of the walls we have up come down, but the mask stays on always. Is it possible to fully remove it? Only when we look in the mirror do we see our true self.

No Tomorrow

No Tomorrow

by Angel Towe

I am going to die tomorrow,
But yet I haven't been born.
My mother shows no sorrow,
For I am a product of love torn.

I will never see the light of day,
I will never smell a flower,
I will never walk along a waters bay,
Or feel the drop of an Aprils shower.

It hurts for no one to show me love,
I will never be hugged or kissed,
When I have gone to the heavens above,
I wonder if I will be missed.

Today is my last day to live,
My last thought, my last breath.
Just think of all I could give,
But tomorrow I'll be put to rest.

I'm not sure how you feel about abortion and choice, (I'm not even sure how I feel) but this poem gets down to reality nonetheless. Without someone to ever love him/her, this poem touches the very soul of the controversial act of abortion by giving us the perspective of the child. Of course no one can speak for the child, but Angel Towe paints a picture of what she thinks is going on in the mind of a child that never gets the chance to live yet dies a sudden death. There are many things that we all debate about; whether pro-choice is right or pro-life. No matter the stance, there is still a baby that has no choice at all.

Unfiltered

There's this site called LiveLeak.com. It is a site filled with extraordinary videos that are unfiltered and not censored by anyone. It is a popular website that is famed from its uncut videos. Categories of videos include politics, middle east, celebrities, citizen journalism, etc. It is a viable resource for the latest news and issues as well as a site to see videos not found anywhere else.

What got me interested in this interesting site is the middle east section. This section mostly covers the violence going on in multiple countries in the middle east. There are videos coming from news sources, citizens, and even soldiers from all sides of the conflicts. Soldiers posting videos of their exploits and daily experiences gives the conflicts a new side to understand. By seeing what they see, the videos give the conflicts a new face as we see first hand the results of war. The victims of war are clearly portrayed, showing just how gruesome war is.

War is different when one only hears about it and sees videos of it through censored news sources. A clear picture is portrayed through newspapers and news channels. But when videos of the same conflict are posted and fully bypass the bias restrictions of the media, a new picture is painted.

In a way, a source of news like this is beneficial since all sides can be covered. It gives us the ability to view the conflict directly from the front lines. The other side has somewhat of a moral dilemma to it. Yes, it sheds light to the atrocities and is an outlet to see just how bad things get, but posting videos of people dying on tape creates an interesting topic. I wonder how the families of the dead feel that their deaths are on tape available for anyone to see. It brings up a moral issue and I'm not too sure how I feel about it. The Internet is a place for unbiased material, but where is the line drawn for the content of things posted. Is there a line for death? Not at the moment. So when is it too much?

Outside experience

As friends and I sat outside one day, an experience like none other came upon us. Here is the account:

The first things that were experienced outside of the classroom were sound, sight, and touch. My first sensations were the sounds nearest to me which consisted of my breathing and the bugs in my ears. Annoying bugs they were, but I quickly got over them as they left my personal space. Quickly followed were the sounds of the construction going on next to us. It is such a unique sound and fully not usually apart of the BC campus, but today these sounds were loud and apparent. There are also far off sounds such as cars driving by, people talking and walking past us, but the construction sound was by far the most notable.

Touch was the proceeding sensation that overwhelmed me in a unique way. I don’t know about the other’s experiences, but I was quickly bit by a bug upon arrival and therefore it affected me throughout my experience. The grass running through my fingers, the wind on my face, the sun beating down upon me; they were all overshadowed by this one bug bite which itched like none other. This also added to my feeling as I wasn’t feeling much else other than this itch. Sitting outside was a good idea until this happened.

We soon realized that sitting outside was no longer enjoyable so we decided to do something more productive for it is a Sunday and there is plenty of homework to be done.

Side effect could be death

With its many capabilities, the cell phone has been the most prominent distracter of drivers on the road. Many of these distractions are caused by the inability for drivers to multitask while operating a motor vehicle. “The US Department of Transportation estimated that 25% of the 6.3 million crashes each year involve some degree of driver distraction or inattention." With the number of things drivers have to focus on, by removing the cell phone out of the picture, there will be less of a distraction. “While multitasking may seem to be saving time, psychologists, neurologists and others are finding that it can put us under a great deal of stress and actually make us less efficient”

In their study, Joel M Cooper and David L. Strayer investigated the effects of cell phone distracted driving and simulator practice. The study observed drivers while using a cell phone and requiring them to drive in a simulated driving experience. “In the study, a passenger acted as another set of eyes for the driver in the test and even stopped or started talking depending on the difficulty of conditions outside of the car. Meanwhile, half the drivers talking on a hands-free phone failed, bypassing the rest area he test had called for them to stop at. It was also found that while talking on the phone, it impaired the driver’s ability to engage the braking system of the vehicle; the reaction time was considerably lower than those not on the phone. This is what causes accidents in the real-world and what can be prevented.

Gmail Motion made reality

"If you happened upon the Internet Friday, you would have been faced with what has now become an annual tradition online: Technology companies trying to one-up each other with April Fool's jokes posted online. Google, for one, takes its April Fool's gags very seriously. This year was no exception. Users of Gmail, Google's e-mail service, were told about a new product, Gmail Motion, which would allow people to "control Gmail with your body!"

This exerpt from an article found in The New York Times shows to what extent companies go in order to play into the spirit of the 'holiday' April Fools. There is no telling just how many people would believe a claim such as this. Even though it is a viable company that has plenty of influence, and even has its own trustworthy search engine, who would possibly believe that Gmail could be controlled with the body?

The company made a full mock video on how on how their new product, Gmail Motion would work. Filled with phony hand gestures and body movements, these new ways to send e-mails would save the user time and effort. Google made its new product a web page as well explaining all of its new 'motion guide' and testimonies from specialists in different fields from movement specialists to paralanguage experts.

After seeing the hoax, hackers at the University of Southern California Institute for Creative Technologies made it into a reality. Using sensors from Microsoft Kinect and some created software, they successfully made it work. With all of the motions that Google created, this group of hackers created an exact replica of the phony product. When there is a will, there is a way as they say.

Here is the link to the original article:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/04/04/hackers-turn-a-gmail-april-fools-joke-into-a-reality/?ref=technology

Nature trumps technology

"In a new study, researchers report that bumblebees were able to figure out the most efficient routes among several computer-controlled 'flowers,' quickly solving a complex problem that even stumps supercomputers. We already know bees are pretty good at facial recognition, and researchers have shown they can also be effective air-quality monitors."

In this study done at Queen Mary University of London, bees found the shortest distance between man-made flowers. This task seems extremely simple for a bee and even us, but it took supercomputers days to figure this out. It's pretty amazing how our latest technology cannot match a bee when it comes to this act. This task is called the "traveling salesman" and has been an ongoing problem in computer science. It can be applied to other practical uses such as finding the shortest route between cities while visiting each city only once. The thought that supercomputers are having trouble with a practical problem baffles the mind. No matter how advanced our technology is, or our computing power of the latest computers, bees can still do things that these super computers cannot.

To test bee problem-solving, researchers Lars Chittka and Mathieu Lihoreau tested bees’ response to computer-controlled artificial flowers. They wanted to see whether the bees would go after the flowers in the order in which they were discovered, or if they would figure out the shortest route among all the flowers even as new ones were added. The bees explored the locations of the flowers and quickly figured out the shortest paths among them, according to a Queen Mary news release.

Here is a link to the article:

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/10/bees-solve-complex-problems-faster-than-supercomputers.html

Not a drop to drink

So much water, and not a drop to drink..

"Of the 6 billion people in the world today in one of the hundreds of the countries that control the landmasses, this only spans about 30 percent. The other 70 percent of the earth is comprised of water; it is water that shapes the makeup of the earth's surface." Water is a precious, natural source of life on Earth. There is a plentiful amount of water in the world, but not everyone has the same privileges to an available source of clean water. "Despite the fact that the majority of the earth is covered in water, 97 percent of it is salty and the majority of the fresh water is stored in glaciers or underground aquifers; meaning the remaining available freshwater is less than 1 percent of the water on earth."

With all people in the world, there is not enough water distributed equally to the entire population. There is a water crises around the world are affecting large populations everyday. Clean water is unavailable to over 1.3 billion people due to multiple circumstances including lack of access, pollution, and scarcity. This exists on all corners of the globe. "With these causes, nearly 6,000 people will die from drinking unclean water in the next 24 hours. At this staggering rate, situations are not getting better to billions of people.

Luckily, there is something the rest of us not affected can do to help. A few companies such as PUR and Procter & Gamble have a few ways to aid people that do not have the resources to help themselves. The PUR Purifier of Water is a powder that when applied to tainted water kills viruses and bacteria making the water safe to drink. With each purchase of a PUR product the company says that 'for every product sold, 10 liters of clean water will be donated'. Another product is the LifeStraw made by Rotary International. This is a device that is about the size of a straw that filters water as someone drinks from it. It claims to provide clean water for up to 700 liters of water. That is around 1 year of clean drinking water. LifeStraw is only $6.50 for each straw.

Efforts such as these can be helpful for many people in parts of the world that are surrounded by harmful drinking water. With each product being so cheap, anyone can donate money to help with this relief. It is up to the international community to aid in every way they can. Each donation will go a long way.

For more information follow these sites:

LifeStraw

http://www.rotarywaterprojects.org/index.html

PUR Purifier of Water

http://www.purwater.com/clean-drinking-water-for-the-world.html

The Last Question

Exerpt from The Last Question by Isaac Asimov

Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken computer ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.

All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.

All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.

But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.

A timeless interval was spent in doing that.

And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.

But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer -- by demonstration -- would take care of that, too.

For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.

The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.

And AC said, "LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was light----

An epic story about the evolution of man's creation to answer all questions he may have; the answer to all problems. First appearing in the form of a collasal device and evolving into smaller, more powerful versions while becoming ever so smaller and faster. The device ends up becoming the very living conciousness that the human mind once was. The story predicts the future of our technology today and its advancement through the ages. An excellent story by Asimov and a must read for anyone.

It can be found here at Multivax.com

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

The Human Evolution

We are all cyborgs now..

This line is Amber Case's main point in her talk on TED.com. She says that as humans become more in tune with the technology we create to help us live our lives, we become more dependent on it. No we're not the cyborgs we see in popular films, not yet anyway. A cyborg is simply defined as "an organism to which exogenous components have been added for the purpose of adapting to new environments." By simply using a computer to complete a task or using a cell phone to communicate with others, for that time we are a cyborg. With the rise of communicative technology, we are becoming more connected in ways never dreamed of 20 years ago. The new environment we are adapting to is a brand new world without the bounds of time and space. Two people can be on opposite ends of the globe and talk to one another without any travelling necessary. This is the most connected we have been in history.

As we become a new type of button-clicking human beings, what it means to be human is inherently changing. Our dynamics are fully changing. We no longer have only our physical self to worry about, but also the maintenance of our digital self. It is just as important since our presence on the Internet will be seen by more people. There is a digital record of what we've been through, our entire electronic history is stored and is on display for the world to see. This is not true in the physical world so it adds a new dynamic to our lives. Self presentation management is active through social websites, blogs, etc.

"It's too bad that everyone who has a solution for everything is at home commenting on the Internet" With society multitasking so much, few stop and focus on tasks as they come.

Here is Amber Case's talk on TED.com http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html

Public Whereabouts

A.Woodbury here..

I came across an article in the New York Times today called 'It's tracking your every move and you may not even know'. It's about a guy, Malte Spitz, that took his cellphone company to court in order to find out how exactly much location information the company had about him. The results were astonishing as the company saved his GPS coordinates more than 35,000 times in a six-month period. This is insane to think about since we do an extraordinarily large amount of things within this time period and to think that a company knows exactly what we're up to is a bit scary.

The idea of sharing our location isn't a completely absurd thing to some people as millions of people do it everyday on convenient apps such as Google Latitude, Foursquare, Facebook, etc. A very large amount of people are comfortable with others. Most of these services have the user's whereabouts shared, but with a few perimeters. First off, a person needs to have the corresponding application in order to view your location. Next, often times someone needs to add you as a friend in order to view exactly where you are. Lastly, and above all, it is up to the user to post the location information in the first place.

This news about the cell phone company is especially shocking because it is not up to the owner of the cell phone to share his/her location, that's fully up to the company. "Every seven seconds or so, the phone company of someone with a working cellphone is determining the nearest tower, so as to most efficiently route calls. And for billing reasons, they track where the call is coming from and how long it has lasted" This explains why, but doesn't explain why if you catch my drift.

Knowing our location helps route our calls, but is this the end of privacy as we know it? Some may say this information isn't being shared by the company so it's all good, but how would we know? Would the company really email us when our location has been shared with an outside source? I think not. Welcome to our future.