Category Archives: LiveJournal Imports

Jairus Kaya

I’ve been spending some time with my family from my father’s side, recently. Mostly siblings and cousins, mostly around my age. It’s fairly stressful for everyone involved, I think. We were never taught how to trust each other.

…

I keep writing and erasing things. I don’t know how to divorce the people from the circumstances.

Everything you never wanted to know about living on the street

Two years ago, I made a post on an internet forum about homelessness, offering to answer questions on the subject, given that the overwhelming majority of people on the forum (like the overwhelming majority of people in the real world) were fairly misinformed on the subject.

Much to my surprise, this thread quickly became very active and popular. People asked questions and instead of arguing, they paid attention to the answers. Leslie and Charles joined to talk about their experiences and field questions, and there was a surprising amount of press involved in the whole thing. (Several times over the next year, I would find threads and forums elsewhere where libertarians and other such creatures attempted to discredit my opinions and experiences.)

Countless people posted or messaged to say that they had gone out of their way to give money to a person they usually walk by, bought a street kid mittens and a meal, or volunteered at a soup kitchen. Posts by activists and advocates on the internet are a dime a dozen, but this one actually made a difference to a few cold and hungry people around the world. I didn’t think much about it when I started the thread, but by the end of it I was floored at the impact it had on people.

Every now and then, I’ll get an email or message out of the blue from someone who read the thread. Today is one of those days.

While wandering around in the forums, I stumbled upon a thread asking about homeless people. In this thread, someone linked to another one in the archives. I’m sure you know what I’m about to say; it was yours.

Now, if it had just been a good read, I wouldn’t bother you. Good threads aren’t hard to find. But your thread didn’t entertain me, it changed me. I know it sounds cheesy, like something you’d hear on an infomercial about a revolutionary abs machine, but it’s true.

I’ve taken the Montreal Subway for 5 years now, and I’ve always looked at the homeless people with, at best, disgust, and at worst, hatred. Even worse, I don’t know why. I guess I was convinced that being homeless was a result of laziness… Deep inside, I knew it wasn’t, but I didn’t care enough to look for another reason, so I convinced myself it was.

Your thread from 2005 really opened my eyes, and will definitely change the way I look at homeless people, and more importantly, act with them. I thought you deserved to know that I feel like you enlightened me, like I’m sure you did for a lot of people here.

Thank you for teaching things you don’t learn in school.

762

My Texan Friends,

We regret to inform you that on 4/20, Ad·ver·sary will be performing at The Gallery in Dallas. This will be followed by a DJ set, which will then be followed by a lot of alcohol, and perhaps also a drunken trip to Mexico.

Our apologies for the inconvenience. We will do everything in our power to help you through this difficult time.

Yours in Christ,
Me.

Trauma Center

…and so ends Jairus’s Albertan Teaching Adventures – class wrapped up today. Jairus’s Albertan Hotel Adventures will continue for another couple of days.

Class was good. The students are all pretty fun and friendly, so it wasn’t too tough. Mostly people I’d end up hanging out with outside class, if I lived in ALBERTALAND. The oldest student is sixty, but he’s easily the most fun. His daughter is a professional snowboarder, his son is an actor (Dead Like Me, Final Destination 3), and he loves industrial music. I might’ve sold him on coming to COMA in April.

In other news, I stumbled upon a Wii. It is sitting in a shiny white box, waiting to be loved upon my return to Ottawa – and loved it shall be.

I had more delicious burgers today, but paid the ultimate price for them: Hiccups. As the wise Siddhartha knew, life is suffering.

Delicious beefy suffering.

755

Jairus’s Space Journal of the Future, Stardate 60586.4.

One of my students (the kind who is always looking to impress) did some self-assigned ‘homework’ and took it upon himself to thoroughly Google me.

…which, rather surprisingly, only left him with the impression that I’m very well-known in my field, and that I write insane music.

This will do.

I made my way down to another “best of” diner today, and had some delicious Alberta buffalo. The diner itself was all fucked up and weirdly modern-retro, if that makes any sense at all. I’ve never seen a greasy spoon so completely polished and money-soaked.

I then proceeded to get stranded outside on the side of the street for an hour, dialing and redialing the cab number I had, only to be met with the unforgiving tones of a busy signal. I still can’t feel my feet.

…in other news, I had lunch in this beautiful indoor garden with a pond full of Koi. Calgary’s got this downtown dealie they call “+15” (the first time I saw the signs I thought it was an ad for a RPG store), where all the buildings downtown provide 2nd floor pedestrian access and glass bridges from building to building. This building in particular had dedicated its entire 2nd floor to this garden. A tropical oasis, in the middle of corporate Calgary.

This is a weird little town, and everything in it reminds me of things I really don’t want to be reminded of. Is it time to come home yet?

Authorities will be in contact shortly for appropriate reeducation.

Holy shit. There’s a whole AI-style alternate universe all over the net about the new NIN album. Behold the new tour shirt:

The highlighted letters spell ‘I am trying to believe’.

…which brings us to iamtryingtobelieve.com, which then leads us to all kinds of crazy audio files and fucked up and awesome websites.

I don’t know what to feel anymore, Trent. I am trying to believe. :(

white cowboys, red meat, and coloured help

Some content, perhaps.

The trip started well. I touched down around noon after a slightly-delayed (but mostly boring) flight, and proceeded directly to pay Telus far too much money for wireless access that consisted of a “System error, try again later” page. (This is what happens when you forget to setup your ICMP VPN tunnel before you leave home.)

The hotel is alright, but the internet costs more than Telus’s, and the food is seven kinds of terrible. I have vowed to never eat here again, regardless of how convenient it is.

So, in search of delicious diner food, I scanned the ‘best of’ list of the local alterna-weekly (which has a 2/3 page ad for a darkrave/powernoise party “dedicated entirely to the harshest beats” on the evening I’m leaving), and found a seemingly delicious diner. Upon arriving at said delicious diner, however, I discovered a hole in the wall with a lineup of trendy indie rockers half-way down the block.

I then cheesed it to a nearby brew pub, which had burgers of such deliciousness as to defy description.

The first day of class went mostly okay today, although there are some technical issues to be worked out with the PCs. And they forgot to order the courseware for one of the students. Also they forgot mine.

I have discovered that my anti-discrimination hat, while indeed having the reverse effect here in Albertaland, does not cause nearly as much scorn and malice as learning that I’m from Ottawa does. I get the impression that they believe me to be some sort of comically evil landlord tax-man, delivered straight from the belly of the beast so that I can garnish their wages more effectively. Or something. I couldn’t really understand what they were trying to communicate through all the talk about oil revenue and housing booms.

In the end, I built a bridge of trust through the time-tested tradition of trash-talking Toronto, and was accepted into their tribe. We then engaged in celebratory ritual consumption of sate chicken at a Vietnamese submarine shop(!) downtown.

Now, to numb my mind with hotel television.

an open letter to mr. self destruct

New NIN album finished? Contains zero with-a-teeth-a leftover songs? “Conceptual and noisy”?

You’re suddenly playing awesome songs live? Songs you’ve never played live before?

…what is this emotion I am feeling… could it be… hope?

Oh, Trent. Even after that last flaming pile of poop you called an album, I can’t stay mad at you.

Just promise me it won’t hurt anymore. I know you were broke, and you needed a retirement fund – now you have it, right? I, being poor, have only my dreams. I have spread my dreams under your feet, Michael Trent; tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.

:(

I ran across this site which is trying to make an archive of every 120 Minutes playlist ever aired on MTV, and I was completely floored by how fantastic they are. I know how much music television and radio sucks now compared to ten or fifteen years ago, but actually seeing how bad things have gotten makes me want to curl up and die.

Remember when you could watch TV and find out about great new music?

January 24, 1988
Sinead O’ Connor-Mandinka
Siouxsie and the Banshees-Dear Prudence
The Church-Under the Milky Way
Midnight Oil-Beds are Burning
X-Fourth of July
Lemonheads-Second Chance
Screaming Blue Messiahs- I Wanna Be a Flintstone
Public Image Ltd-Body
The English Beat-Save It For Later
The dB’s-Working for Somebody Else
Leather Nun-I Can Smell Your Thoughts
Depeche Mode-Never Let Me Down Again
The Cult-Love Removal Machine
Jane’s Addiction-Trip Away
Aztec Camera-Deep & Wide & Tall
The Petrol Emotion-Genius Move
Echo & The Bunnymen-Lips Like Sugar
The Bears-Trust
Flesh For Lulu-Postcards From Paradise
The Cure-Lovecats
Angry Samoans-Time Has Come Today
Julian Cope-Trampoline
The Bolshoi-TV Man

December 6, 1992
Nine Inch Nails “Wish”
Lemonheads ” Mrs. Robinson”
Jane’s Addiction “Been Caught Stealing”
Red Hot Chili Peppers “Behind The Sun”
Daniel Ash “Get Out Of Control”
Nirvana “In Bloom” (version 2)
Rollins Band “Tearing”
Gene Loves Jezebel “Josephinia”
Sonic Youth “100 %”
R.E.M. “Drive”
Mudhoney “Suck You Dry”
Beastie Boys “Time For Livin’ ”
Big Audio Dynamite II “Rush”
Rollins Band “Low Self-Opinion”
Depeche Mode “Everything Counts”
The Sundays “Love”
Tom Waits “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up”
Aztec Camera “Oblivious”
EMF “They’re Here”
Meat Beat Manifesto “Edge Of No Control”

August 20, 1995
Soul Asylum – Just Like Anyone
Goo Goo Dolls – Name
Presidents Of The USA – Lump
The Clash – Campdown
Garbage – Vow
Hole – Softer, Softest (Unplugged)
Filter – Dose
Tripping Daisy – Blown Away
Knapsack – Cellophane
Jewel – Who Will Save Your Soul
White Zombie – Electric Head
Tripping Daisy – I Got a Girl
Pretty and Twisted – Ride
CIV – Can’t Wait One Minute More
Heather Nova – Walk This World
Beastie Boys – Gratitude
Faith No More – Evidence
The Young Gods – Kissing the Sun

748

Whenever we fight, I feel like I’m dying. My chest is bound and tight, my stomach a bundle of raw nerves. I can’t focus on anything, I can’t think about anything else, and the world becomes cardboard and hollow.

I love her so much.

what?

Today’s LiveJournal interest explained: Qualia.

Qualia is the experience of something. Look at this:

You are seeing red in front of you. You are having an experience of redness. What does that mean, exactly? Is this the same experience other people have when they look at it? Why can’t you describe the experience of redness? That is qualia. Qualia is a very slippery thing, but it exists. It is a product that exists entirely within the conscious mind, but it is a product with real properties.

The classic thought experiment is as follows:

Mary was born and raised in a black and white room. All her books are black and white, her clothes are black and white, her skin is black and white (because of magic light bulbs), and her only view of the outside world is through a black and white TV. However, Mary is a brilliant woman, and a scientist. Not just any scientist, mind you, but a scientist who studies colour. She knows everything there is to know about the physics of colour, she’s interviewed countless people over the phone about their subjective experiences with colour, she knows what neurons talk to other neurons when people are exposed to colour, she knows what colours are complimentary and what colours clash — she’s just never seen colour.

But when we bring a red apple into the room, Mary will say ‘holy fuck’. We’ve taught Mary something. We’ve taught her the experience of redness.

If Mary knew everything there was to know about the physical properties of colour, but she still learned something new when we gave her an apple, then what she learned cannot be described or explained through physical means. Which means that physicalism (the belief that all things which exist have physical properties) is clearly wrong, and a non-physical property (the qualia of redness) caused a physical reaction (Holy fuck!)

Consider: If we had painted the apple blue before we give it to her, is it possible she would have said “You tried to fool me, this is blue”?

Qualia fucks me up.

Why I hate reading the news

So we have this little thing called the HIV/AIDS Policy and Law Review. It’s a think tank to provide analysis, review, and solutions for HIV/AIDS issues in our country. As you may know, one of the ways that people in Canada contract HIV is through drug usage. Resultingly, the Policy and Law Review studies our drug policies to see how effective they are at their stated goals.

The new report says the same thing our Auditor-General said five years ago: Law enforcement is not a workable solution to the drug problem. Let’s look at the report:

The federal government continues to invest heavily in policies and practices that have repeatedly been shown in the scientific literature to be ineffective or harmful:

The drug strategy’s $245-million budget breakdown:

  • Law enforcement: 73%
  • Treatment: 14%
  • Research: 7%
  • Addiction prevention: 3%
  • Harm reduction: 3%

The overwhelming emphasis continues to be on conventional enforcement-based approaches which are costly and often exacerbate, rather than reduce, drug-related harm.


Pretty heavy stuff. As all the literature and science shows, law enforcement doesn’t deal with the issue. Luckily, we have a new government which has vowed to solve this problem, right? And clearly, the Liberal strategy of an overwhelming focus on law enforcement isn’t working. Let’s ask the office of the Health Minister for his reaction!

“Our own national drug strategy is in the works. It’s something we’ve actually been working on for some time. The previous government took its own approach, which we happen to disagree with.

In every poll, when Canadians are asked whether they want more law enforcement or less, they want more. So the bottom line is that Canada’s new government will be taking a different approach.”

You heard it right, folks! The Conservatives disagree with the failed Liberal policy of overwhelming law enforcement. They have a different approach to solve this problem, which they’ve been working on for some time: More law enforcement!

…

Can we have an election now, please?