looking to the future

Why did I spend the last two full days at work doing nothing but thinking

about why I don't want to be an architect for the rest of my life?



I absolutely love architecture, I'm just not happy with my place in the

profession at this point.  Paying dues is a MF.  But I look at people my age

(or younger) working less than me making 3 times as much, I'm thinking I

need to be working smarter, not harder.  I understand it is the nature of

the profession I chose, but that's some bullshit.



So in the last 48 hours I've devised a new masterplan.  For the last 3-4

years I've created 3 lifetime goals.  1. To be licensed by the time I'm 30

and I'm on pace to complete that goal.  2. To be a millionare by the age of

40.  3. To retire by the age of 55.



So I'm looking at my 2nd and 3rd goals and quickly realize that architecture

is not going to get me there.  Now I'm at a point where I have to decide to

either change my goals, or figure out a different way to reach them.  One

the one hand I think: I have so much more than my parents had and what many

others have at my age, I should be thankful and quit trying to be greedy. 

On the other hand I'm thinking: Shit, these mother fuckers are half as smart

as I am, younger than I am, working less hours then I am, making 3 times as

much as me... I'm doing something wrong!



The internal struggle of whether or not to be 'thankful and not greedy' or

accepting the fact that 'having ambition and drive and a will to succeed' is

not at all being greedy and it's okay to feel that way.



So, how do I get there?  I figure I have to get licensed first, before I try

to make any sort of move.  Then I have to take some classes in Calculus,

statistics, economics, accounting, ace the GMAT, then go get an MBA.  I

figure if I'm going to do it, there is no point in going anywhere other than

a top tier school (harvard, stanford, yale, etc...).  OR, I could go to

school in Spain and live in Barcelona for 2 years... that way I could get in

with some sort of international company that would allow me to travel, gain

some client contacts, then after I've made more money than I know what to do

with, I can go back to architecture and finally do it on my own terms.



... it's just a thought.



-c

Osama who?

I figured out why I had my panties in a bundle over 9/11.  It’s not that I

felt we didn’t have a reason to reflect and mourn the dead, it’s watching so

many people just rise up and join the, ‘lets get’um and get’um good’ parade

against Iraq.  My problem is that people aren’t critically discussing the

issues and rationally thinking about the situation.



For example, I just saw my main man Colin Powell on Meet the Press this

weekend and he’s stating that inspections aren’t the issue because even with

inspections we can’t be sure that he’s not hiding weapons.  So how in the

hell at can we at the same time say that we are very sure that weapons

exist, when we haven’t inspected to find out?



Second, no one has been able to draw any conclusion between the attacks on

the United States and Iraq, but it is clearly known that like 13-15 of the

hijackers came from Saudi Arabia, and none came from Iraq.  And now, all the

al-Qaeda people escaped over to Pakistan, but we’re still buddy buddy with

them.



And why didn’t we go after India when they made nuclear weapons?  India and

Pakistan were on the brink of Nuclear war earlier this year, and we didn’t

fuck with them at all did we?



What no one seems to give a fuck about is why we got attacked.  We were

attacked because people everywhere else in the world hate us for our foreign

policies and the way we pick and choose who to help and hurt all for our own

best interests.  In my opinion, an attack on Iraq would only justify to the

rest of the Arab world what Bin Laden has been spouting all this time in the

first place!!  To me, an attack on Iraq, would only make Bin Laden’s

position even more accurate to the Arab world.



There is no moral reasoning behind attacking a country that hasn’t shown any

aggression towards us and doesn’t seem to have the capabilities to do so. 

If we attack Iraq, then we’re taking thousands of people that could be used

to track down the people involved in the 9/11 attacks, and allocating them

towards attacking a country that haven’t done anything to the U.S.  It

doesn’t make sense to me.



I see a huge flaw in how most people are thinking about these attacks and

how it is being framed in the media and this is why I am so bothered about

everything I’ve been seeing for the past week.  This whole thing is being

presented to us like we got attacked for no reason, and what we are doing in

Afghanistan is a REACTION to what happened on 9/11.  This can’t be farther

from the truth.  What happened on 9/11 was the REACTION!  It is a reaction

to our policies in Israel, our sanctions against Iraq that have caused

thousands of people to die because they don’t have access to medical

supplies that we won’t let anyone bring them into their country.



So as much as our government and our media outlets are making it appear as

if we just got attacked out of the fucking blue because these people just

hate us and hate our democracy, the reality is not quite as absurd.  But

these misconception is what is fueling all of the anti-arab rage around the

country, and it is getting on my nerves to hear these MF’s I work with talk

like Babu from the Simpsons every time anything Arab gets mentioned.  Babu

was from fucking INDIA, he’s not even Arab!!!    It’s the ignorance that I

just can’t take anymore.  …. And folks wonder why I’ve got my headphones on

all damn day.  I’m tired of all the Bush is an idiot talk, when people sound

just as idiotic if not worse than he does!



….. to be continued.



-c



CD of the moment: Ani DiFranco - "So much Shouting, So much laughter"

you can do NAYTHING at all..

headphones/speakers a must



http://www.zombo.com/

9-11, a year later

I had started to write out a big thing for 9.11, but became so frustrated

half way through that I stopped.  I find it very difficult to talk about the

tragedy that is 9.11 without talking about the 'why' of 9.11.  Inevitably, I

can't help but come to the conclusion that we (our government, our country)

brought it all upon ourselves and the same people that caused the attackers

to hate us in the first place are only making it worse.  So rather than

focus on the tragedy, I want to look at the impact of what happenned on our

what's going on now.

I can't explain it as well as others, so here ya go.  The article below is

from www.commondreams.org.



enjoy.



-c





As Terror War Expands, Failures Multiply

by William D. Hartung



Are you safer now than you were a year ago? If public safety were a function

of dollars spent and promises made, the answer would have to be a resounding

yes.

Within days of the September 11th attacks, President Bush and Congressional

leaders authorized $40 billion in emergency anti-terror spending. Within two

weeks, President Bush had declared war on "terror networks of global reach,"

warning friends and foes alike that "you're either with us or against us" in

this new international campaign.



Within less than a month, the U.S. and a few close allies had launched a

major air war in Afghanistan that deposed the ruling Taliban movement and

sent them and their Al Qaeda associates fleeing into the mountains.



As the dollars continue to flow, the scale of the anti-terror effort has

been growing along with it. U.S. arms, training, and military personnel have

been dispatched not only to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan,

Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, the Philippines, and Yemen.



Forward bases for U.S. forces have been established or expanded at thirteen

sites in nine countries, and administration policymakers are now taking aim

at a new adversary, Iraq.



Although there is no credible evidence that Saddam Hussein's regime provided

support for the September 11th attackers, and little to suggest that Baghdad

is currently in a position to attack the United States with nuclear,

chemical, or biological weapons, the "whack Iraq" faction in Washington

supports U.S. military action to overthrow him nonetheless.



The stated rationale for going to war against a nation that poses no

immediate threat to the United States or its allies is provided by a new

doctrine of "pre-emption" which argues that if a nation or organization

might pose a threat to the United States at some unknown future date, that

assumption alone justifies U.S. military intervention, with or without the

approval of Congress or the United Nations.



Meanwhile, on the home front, steps have been taken to federalize airport

security, round up citizens and immigrants suspected of terrorist ties or

knowledge of terrorist activities, and create a vast new department of

Homeland Security to coordinate the protection of U.S. territory.

Fundamental democratic rights, from the right to legal counsel to freedom of

speech, have been jeopardized in the process.



In short, in the name of fighting terrorism, the Bush administration has

been waging an undeclared war on international law and the United States

Constitution.



It would be one thing if the administration's war on terrorism was working.

If Al Qaeda and other global terror networks were being systematically

dismantled and policies were being put into place that would make future

attacks less likely and far more difficult to carry out, many Americans

might conclude that the expenditure of vast sums and the (hopefully

temporary) restrictions on basic freedoms were worth the cost. Instead, by

emphasizing a militarized approach to fighting terrorism tied to a

constantly expanding definition of who the enemy is, the Bush administration

has crafted a policy that promises minimal success at maximum cost.



The costs of the terror war are mounting rapidly. In its 21 months in

office, the administration has already sought more than $150 billion in new

military spending, while funding for homeland security has more than

doubled, from $18 billion to $38 billion. While only about one out of every

four dollars in new military spending has been expressly targeted towards

equipment or operations related to fighting terrorism, the Bush

administration's increasingly expansive, intellectually undisciplined view

of the problem has led to a situation in which virtually any military

expenditure is now being rationalized as a contribution to the war on

terror.



But even as expenditures rise, the effectiveness of the military campaign is

diminishing. In Afghanistan, U.S. "search and destroy" missions aimed at

capturing or killing remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda have faltered, and

top Al Qaeda operatives remain at large. To make matters worse, the U.S.

policy of financing and arming Afghan factions in exchange for assistance in

hunting down Taliban and Al Qaeda threatens to undermine the already fragile

coalition government of Hamid Karzai, plunging Afghanistan back into the

state of armed chaos that made it an attractive base for terror groups in

the first place.



While the military effort against terrorism has reached a stalemate, the

administration has made minimal headway in forging the kinds of intelligence

and law enforcement cooperation that will be needed to cut off political and

financial support for Al Qaeda. Efforts on this broader front are likely to

be far more effective in undermining Al Qaeda's ability to operate than a

series of hit-and-run military operations guided by questionable

intelligence information. In fact, the administration's unilateralist

approach to foreign policy, as evidenced by its opposition to the

International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, and efforts

to strengthen the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions - not to

mention its go-it-alone policy on intervention in Iraq - has undermined the

possibilities for enthusiastic international cooperation in de-funding and

politically isolating terror networks like Al Qaeda.



For all the Pentagon's talk of waging a "new kind of war" in the wake of

September 11th, its emphasis on high tech military prowess, expensive

weaponry and search and destroy efforts comes straight out of the Cold War

playbook. Non-military tools, from strengthening international

non-proliferation agreements to dramatically increasing foreign aid in an

effort to reduce the number of "failing states" that are available to host

terrorist cells, have been rejected out of hand by the conservative

ideologues who hold the balance of power within the Bush foreign policy

team. And U.S. diplomatic initiatives to resolve longstanding tensions in

regions that are at the epicenter of terrorist ferment, from Kashmir to the

Israeli-Palestinian conflict, have been reduced to meaningless gestures

designed to distract public attention from these dangerous confrontations

long enough to launch the next stage in the Bush administration's war

without end - the invasion of Iraq.



The recent wave of high profile criticism of the Bush foreign policy - from

Democratic presidential contenders like John Kerry, respected Republican

elders like James Baker and Brent Scowcroft, and substantial numbers of

active and retired military officers - has served to slow the momentum of

the war planners in Washington for the moment. But unless the debate shifts

from the significant but secondary question of how to prepare for war to the

fundamental issue of whether war and preparation for war should be the

centerpiece of United States global policy, the political, financial, and

security costs of the war on terrorism will continue to distort our foreign

relations and undermine our democracy for many years to come.

Sometimes, I ask myself why I work hard despite the fact that other mother

fuckers spend their day going golfing, and when they’re in the office, they

play miniature golf on the computer!  These folks roll in here at 9:30, take

90 minute lunches, and leave at 5:00 and put 40 hours on their time sheets. 

At times it gets frustrating, but at the end of the day yesterday three

people got fired.



I don’t wish this on anyone, especially now during this depressed ass job

market.  But if you’ve got a job, you’ve got to realize that people don’t

pay you to play miniature golf!!



Hey, I’m not completely innocent, I have my internet days from time to time,

but I get my work done.  So, as a friend, I’m telling everyone I know to

step it up a notch today, because these mf’s ain’t playing.  We all could

get fired today (except for you lifetime student types).  It has nothing to

do with how nice you are, how well you ran the softball league, or anything

like that.  You’ve got to produce and make the man some money.  If he ain’t

making any money off of you, then you are wasting his space, his time, his

money, and you can only do that for so long.



Everyone dig in and bust your ass today.



The man is watching.



-c



CD of the moment: N'Dambi - "Little Lost Girls" (this is Erykah Badu's

sister)