“Enthusiastic.” That’s really the only word to describe how I feel about going back to work today. Seriously. I just can’t wait to go start coding. Fortunately, I’m well-rested and not in the least hung over, so I’m confident that I’ll be able to reach my full potential. If only there was some sort of legal stimulant I could ingest. Not that I need it, of course. I just want to give it my all.
Speaking of being enthusiastic and giving it my all, I saw this job posting on one of my online thingies:
We’re looking for ColdFusion developers for our Amsterdam office. Hottub, office pug & unlimited coffee, beers and lunches are included! We work for blue-chips and cool start-ups.
I don’t know wtf the “office pug” is all about, but otherwise I’m in. Unlimited coffee and beer is pretty much all I need, but seeing as it’s in Amsterdam, I reckon an occasional (no more than three times a day) visit to a Cannabis Coffee Bar would also be in order.
Didn’t watch much football yesterday, but I did catch some of that Broncos game. So, maybe there’s something to all this Jesus shit after all. I mean, some of those passes looked like a dying duck in a thunderstorm (don’t ask; it’s a German thing), and yet Jesus gently laid them into the arms of Denver receivers. So, God bless.
God also blessed the Giants yesterday, so that’s good. I’m not a huge Giants fan, but since their coach is from Waterloo, NY (birthplace of Memorial day, a mere 30 miles from where I live, and even whiter than New Hampshire) and played for SU with Larry Csonka and Floyd Little (speaking of the Broncos), I have to pull for them.
Oh well, enough of this dilly-dallying. I’ve got web shit to do!
Nice!
Newtie doesn’t like Romney or at least his “independent” PAC doesn’t.
Newt’s PAC did that piece??? Nice Job. Slick. :nixon:
Your turn, Mittens. Come out with a nice piece like that on Newtie — he deserves every bit as honest an exposure as that gave. Plenty of material there. đź‘ż
You can’t make this stuff up. :slap:
Jessica Murray/MotherSky speaks :bow: :
Dead Giants
Monday, January 9, 2012
Astrologers have been talking about the Uranus-Pluto square for so long that we risk forgetting to be amazed when its energies play out the way they have. The momentous uprisings and financial turbulence with which the transit expressed itself in 2011 were such exact illustrations of the planetary energies as to match our wildest predictive metaphors. The epochal clash between the corrupt old (Pluto) and the revolutionary new (Uranus) is acting itself out in front of our eyes.
We are living in a thrilling moment in history. As 2012 hits the ground running, deep-structure change is in the air.
Pluto, the planet that shows us the mortality of all things, is strengthened during the month of January by the Sun’s passage through Capricorn, the sign of economic theories and political structures. There are reminders everywhere that even those institutions we tend to see as eternal are merely temporary constructs. Pluto asks one question of the systems governed by its resident sign: Are they promoting the healthy functioning of human beings and other living things? If not, they must go the way of everything else in decay. If a social institution has started to turn against the people it was set up to serve, it’s dustbin-of-history time.
Capitalism is one of these systems. In its current state it is rotting from within. Despite the fact that most of us Westerners alive today were brought up to equate capitalism with civilization itself, from the cosmic point of view it’s no more immortal than anything else under the Sun. Under skies galvanized by the Longest Arm of the Cross, everywhere we look we see “free market” capitalism in its death throes.
Capitalism’s cheerleaders don’t talk much about the dubious effects of the capitalist flood that swept over Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, nor about the environmental and cultural desecration wrought by China’s voracious entry into the GDP sweepstakes. As for Uncle Sam, king of capitalism for the last two centuries, he is finding himself smack dab in the middle of the Uranus-Pluto square (America’s natal aspects become a full-on Grand Cross when the transit is factored in). Given that its whole self-image revolves around material wealth, America is now going through not just a financial trauma but a breakdown on the level of core identity (Pluto opposite US Sun). The notion of being “the richest country in the world” is so central to the nation’s view of itself that it has not occurred to many Americans that now, in 2012, the only thing the US economy leads in is military might and people in prisons.
In many ways, of course, robber-baron-style capitalism has been wildly successful. It has generated untold amounts of wealth for a tiny sector of humanity, and has established networks of profit that have undermined whole governments – as, for example, the donor-lobbyist-representative axis in Washington that has undermined U.S. democracy. Follow the logic of capitalism along its natural trajectory and you get the immensely profitable business of trafficking selling illegal drugs, which constitutes what is perhaps the most stunning financial success stories of our era (worldwide, it is thought to be a four-hundred-billion-dollar-a-year industry), ranking it right up there with the oil companies and the arms trade.
But under skies like these, visionaries are challenging even the most entrenched and the least questioned of Capricorn operations. Uranus, the planet of people power, is capable of transforming the plutocratic trajectory (Pluto) capitalism is on. An example of this is the entry into the public discussion of indie capitalism, a radical challenge to business as usual, in every sense of the phrase.
Indie capitalism is based not on trading old value, but on creating new value. It is not globally but locally oriented. It is concerned not with quantity but quality; and its modus operandi is sharing rather than exploiting.
Consider Kickstarter, the internet creative funding phenomenon whereby people invest and observe the growth of products that mean something to them personally. In this model, says proponent Bruce Nussbaum, consumer, investor, audience, fan, helper, and producer conflate. People find and prepare their food the same way they find and prepare their music. And then they share it all.
The courage to challenge (Uranus) and reformulate (Pluto) even such a powerful phenomenon as big global capitalism may seem like a David and Goliath battle. But tackling huge power differentials like these is exactly what this transit is about. Giants are big, but they are mortal, and not exempt from Plutonian law. The symbolism in the skies suggests that when entities such as these start to putrefy, we should collectively grab our shovels and bury them.
:nod: