Friday, July 30, 2010  In Which We See How Self-Awareness May Be
Evolutionarily Disadvantageous  chutz·pah [khoot-spuh, hoot-]
noun Slang.  1. unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall.  2.
audacity; nerve.   Hey, that's always a fun game! Let's see how
many names we can substitute for "Mr. Assange" in this sentence
without lessening the accuracy of it. What about...Admiral
Mullen? Too easy? Okay, how about...Barack Obama? Rick Stengel?
Or maybe...  Actually, you know what? This game isn't very fun
after all. It just never ends.  Thursday, July 29, 2010  Become
Who You Are  One of the most thoroughly useless, idiotic pieces
of advice any of us got while attempting to navigate the
labyrinth of adolescence was to not worry about what others do
or think, "just be yourself". A friend of mine back then
unwittingly refuted this platitude with a plaintive question:
"But what if wanting other people to like me and approve of me
is part of who I am?" Exactly. That was the whole issue, wasn't
it? We didn't know who we