A Graduate Thesis

This is the perfect description of how I remember the university. And totally spot on about how my thesis came about.

I am sooo´bored

i am so bored that it hurts - and yes i am on work - there is a lot of paperwork, administration and development to do but i am sooo lazy - ahhhh so bored, i hate my life.

My hangover made me a better worker.

Yesterday I had a friend visiting. We drank some wine and some beers, smoked some cigarettes. It was all good.

Today at work I had a slight hangover - no headache, just that feeling of being zombie-fied… the funny thing was that it actually increased my productivity. My hangover helped me focus single-mindedly on work, and actually I got a lot more done than I expected on a day with hangovers.

It was however still a hellish day, and I can’t wait till it gets to be weekend.

Update on the Muhammad Crisis…

Just a quick update, from the sewers of the Danish news-media.

1. Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist behind the world-famous muhammad-with-a-bomb-in-his-turban cartoon, is trying to get the court to prevent an organisation called “stop the islamisation of Denmark” to use it on posters an in a rally to be held this saturday. The cartoonist explains that he did not make his cartoon with a specific political purpose, and does not want any political group to hi-jack his cartoon advancing their own agenda. The group plans to march in a Danish city (Aalborg - 3rd biggest city) with posters of the cartoon saying “if you don’t like this picture - GET OUT” (approximation of the Danish slogan). In my opinion - fair enough. The cartoonist should have the copyright/intellectual property rights of his own drawing.

2. According to Danish state television, a new “crisis” is underway. In several middle-eastern countries huge demonstrations against Denmark are being held, and the Danish farming (actually dairy - milk, cheese & butter) industry is starting to feel the effect of a boycot. It seems fashionable to dislike Denmark and not buy Danish products.

3. An exhibition of the Danish “art group” (their kind of art makes me throw up mentally) surrend (surrend.org) have been closed down in Berlin due to threats - the exhibition contained an image of the kabalah with the words “dummer stein” (stupid stone” printed on it. The exhibition also contained among other things a picture of a traditional Jewish hat with the words “dummer hut” (stupid hat) printed. In my eyes this is in no way fit to be called art - some people are apparently provoked - personally I find the whole set-up totally disturbingly stupid, and the fact that the exhibition was shown, clearly shows that the modern concept of art has run it’s course.

Work is still hell…

Midway through the working week (approximately) and work still sucks… I feel totally drained from Monday and Tuesday, the rest of this week will be really hard.

I sometimes wonder why there are so many school - shootings, and so few work-shootings -  of course there are the disgruntled heroes from the post office, but those guys mainly SNAP after they’ve been fired?

But still - school is so much better than work, how come no disgruntled guy in a suit and tie has ever tried to make the ultimate statement, bringing an AK47 and some  banana clips to work, ready to do what was necessary? How come noone has gotten the great idea of walking into their bosses office, saying “you can’t fire me because I quit” and then BLAM!

Maybe workers in general are simply too socialized after many years of schooling and taking in the demands of society, few people really admit how much they hate their work…

I don’t get it. But of course, every trend needs to be started somewhere…

Virginia - hmm - what to say ??

(CNN) — Six West Virginians charged with kidnapping, torturing and sexually assaulting a woman for at least a week may also face hate crime charges, Logan County Sheriff’s officials said Tuesday. Danny Combs and Alisha Burton were charged in the West Virginia case. 1 of 3 The victim, 20-year-old Megan Williams, is black; those charged are white.

CNN does not normally identify the victim in sexual assault cases, but in this case, Williams’ family said they want the public to know what happened. The suspects include a mother and son, a mother and daughter, and two men.

According to criminal complaints filed in the county, Williams was sexually assaulted, stabbed in the left leg, choked and beaten. The victim said one of the suspects cut her ankle with a knife while saying, “That’s what we do to [racial slur] around here,” police records show. She also allegedly was forced to eat rat and dog feces, lick up blood and drink from the toilet. The criminal complaints say the suspects threatened to kill the victim if she left the house where she was being held. Logan County Prosecutor Brian Abraham said he planned to meet with local police, FBI and a federal attorney at 4 p.m. ET to determine whether hate crime charges should be filed. The six are charged with kidnapping, sexual assault, malicious wounding and battery.

Kidnapping is punishable by up to life in prison. The penalty for first-degree sexual assault is 15 to 35 years. Abraham said the charges could be modified as the investigation continues. Williams was discovered Saturday after sheriff’s deputies received an anonymous tip that a woman was being held against her will at a home in Big Creek, West Virginia. As the deputies spoke with a woman on the front porch, “a female inside the residence limped toward the door with her arms held out, saying ‘Help me,’ ” according to a news release from the Sheriff’s Department.

The woman had stab wounds on her left leg and bruises around her eyes, the statement said. Her wounds were determined to be about a week old. “Deputies found her with two black eyes, part of her hair had been pulled out, she had lacerations on her neck and she had been physically, mentally and sexually abused,” said Sheriff W.E. Hunter.

Why work sucks

Aristotle said, “Man is a social creature.” Humans have always lived in societies, be it small hunter gatherer bands, fabulous Aztec cities or sprawling concrete jungles like NYC. But what makes humans different from animals? Is it because we can communicate using complex languages? Is it because we write music, create art and write literature? Is that what makes humans funadmentally different from animals?

None of these are the fundamental reason that humans are different from animals, though they are symptoms of this fundamental difference. What makes humans fundamentally different from animals is how humans meet their needs.

Engels said (paraphrase) “Man must first eat, drink and find shelter before he can worry about art, religion and politics.” This is why Marx and Engels were materialists, meaning they looked to the material world and its economic base to explain the world of ideas and its political, religious and social superstructure.

Since “Man must first eat, drink and find shelter before” anything else, examining the way people obtain a livelihood is essential. More specifically, since “Man is a social creature”, looking at how things are produced in society as a whole is of the utmost importance to us.

Collective labor is the reason why language developed. How are you supposed to work and get anything done if no one can communicate with one another? In the Bible, God sabotaged man’s dream to build a tower reaching into heaven by making all those involved speak different languages, rendering their collective labor power useless.

Human labor power and the creativity and inventiveness that come with it lie at the heart of human nature. Human labor, given freely, most closely resembles the labor put into a hobby (unless you are one of the lucky few to enjoy their work).

We have already established that labor power, the ability to work, is exploited under capitalism. Labor power is sold by the worker, the proleterian, to someone else because he has no other means to survive. This labor power is sold to the capitalist, the bourgeois, who purchases and by the very act of purchasing it, exploits it.

Labor power is bought, sold and exploited. Labor is alienated from the laborer. The laborer has lost control over his own labor, which he is compelled to sell and so it becomes something that is alien to him. He does not give his labor or perform his task because he wants to, or because he enjoys it or because he knows it would be useful, he performs his task because he has to, or face starvation and ruin. He has no control over whether he wants to work or not, what conditions he works under, how fast the assembly line moves or what is produced. Labor, the expenditure of labor power, is not given freely - it is extracted.

Engels, in a passage of his book the Condition of the English Working Class explains what is sometimes called “wage-slavery” thus:

The only difference as compared with the old,  outspoken slavery is this, that the worker of today seems to  he free because he is not sold once for all, but piecemeal by  the day, the week, the year, and because no one owner sells  him to another, but he is forced to sell himself in this way instead,  being the slave of no particular person, but of the whole property-holding class.

This is why work sucks. Labor that is exploited or usurped is no longer a source of enjoyment. It is de-personalized and turned into boring, soul-grinding drudgery. Work sucks because it alienates the worker from the products and the process of production

Muslim majority in France in 25 years.

I just read “letter to a Christian nation” by Sam Harris over the weekend.

It contained the following (p. 83-84):

The earth is now home to 1.4 billion Muslims, many of whom believe that one day you and I will either convert to Islam, live in subjugation to a Muslim caliphate, or be put to death for our unbelief. Islam is now the fastest growing religion in Europe. The birthrate among European Muslims is about three times that of their non-Muslim neighbours. If current trends continue, France will be a majority-Muslim country in 25 years - and that is if immigration stop tomorrow.

Ha Ha - it might not be in good style to laugh at this, but I find it sort of funny.

Burn, France… Burn.

The horrible reality of weekends…

This is the horrible reality of weekends, that is true for almost every one of my weekends, and almost everyone I know…

Friday On friday you are so destroyed after a hard weeks work, that you really need to get drunk to some degree… At the very least share a few beers with the people at work, but most likely get actually drunk in a more (dinner with friends, drink some wine) or less (meeting up with a strictly male friends, drink some vodka, visit some bars, spend too much money) civilized way. Whichever it is, you really need to drink, to clear your mind of all the stress and troublesome thoughts of work. You drink to forget.

Saturday - is basically destroyed by hangover… you might be doing something, but wont really enjoy it much. Unless you sleep really late in the day, you will need to take a nap later. You might also go out and get drunk on saturday, but by then the fun has worn off. Now you not only drink to forget the past week, but also in denial of the next week of work.

Sunday - sunday starts out okay - you wake up and realize that you have the day off. However as soon as its past noon, your mind will be clouded and worried about work. Simply knowing that you have to go to work the next day is enough to take out most of the enjoyment of a sunday. The only part of a given weekend thats truly mentally restful is the time from you wake up sunday morning, and until around noon. The rest is simply recovering from, or worrying about, work.

There you have it. Work sucks. Weekends suck. Life sucks. Life is hell.

In the words of Al Bundy: Oh Joy.

New Muhammed Cartoons

The cartoonist Kurt Westergaard, who made the famous muhammad-with-a-bomb-in-his-turban cartoon, and has been the target of a foiled assassination plan has made a couple of new cartoons with great potential for sparking debate and protest.

The first one is a cartoon illustrating his own feelings (the hare represents the urge to hide and run away) during the whole muhammad cartoon affair. The cartoonist has labeled this drawing his “official comment” to the whole affair.

This one speaks for itself.

Enjoy!