Urban Arson

I lost a friend today.

I don’t speak about the dead in hushed tones nor do I attribute unjustified characteristics to them due to their passing. So when I say that, his name was Paulo Emanuele and he was one of the coolest, nicest dudes I’ve ever met. You know that I’m not telling any tales. 

My friend Todd introduced me to him and Paulo gave me my first paying gig out here in LA. He was cool as ice and mellow to the core. He will be missed.

Paulo was the General Manager of www.airliners.net and one of the guys who sold off MySpace to Rupert Murdoch. 

(From airliners.net)

It is with the deepest sorrow that we let know Paulo Emanuele, General Manager of Airliners.net died this evening in a tragic plane crash. His plane took off out of Santa Monica Airport around 5:00 PM and lost power. Paulo attempted to return to the airport, but did not make it. Paulo loved Airliners and everything it stands for.

He will be remembered for his passion, his kindness, and his love for life.

Paulo was an amazing pilot, an amazing photographer, an amazing friend, and an amazing father. He will be deeply missed.

Thank you Paulo for the time we had with you…We know you will be smiling down on us.

One of the most surreal things is I’ve actually flown in (and flown for 15 seconds) N688C, the airplane which crashed. This was officially my worst birthday ever.

My heart goes out to his daughter and girlfriend, family and friends. Paulo Emanuele was a stand up guy. It was a pleasure to have known you sir.

Today was my 24th birthday. Nothing supremely special, but this is the year that I will remember as my starting point. This is my year.

Here is an article written by one of my new heroes, Dr. Anne Wortham. Dr. Wortham’s an Associate Professor of Sociology at Illinois State University and continuing Visiting Scholar at Stanford University ’s Hoover Institution. She’s black, voted for Ron Paul, reads Ayn Rand, and holds liberty and objectivism as ideals of the highest order. My friends Todd and Liz simultaneously sent me emails containing this article, which perfectly illustrates my feelings as a human who happens to be of black heritage. This woman is a champion of liberty.

No He Can’t

By Anne Wortham

Fellow Americans,

 Please know: I am black; I grew up in the segregated South. I did not vote for Barack Obama; I wrote in Ron Paul’s name as my choice for president. Most importantly, I am not race conscious. I do not require a black president to know that I am a person of worth, and that life is worth living. I do not require a black president to love the ideal of America .

 I cannot join you in your celebration. I feel no elation. There is no smile on my face. I am not jumping with joy. There are no tears of triumph in my eyes. For such emotions and behavior to come from me, I would have to deny all that I know about the requirements of human flourishing and survival, – all that I know about the history of the United States of America, all that I know about American race relations, and all that I know about Barack Obama as a politician. I would have to deny the nature of the “change” that Obama asserts has come to America . Most importantly, I would have to abnegate my certain understanding that you have chosen to sprint down the road to serfdom that we have been on for over a century. I would have to pretend that individual liberty has no value for the success of a human life. I would have to evade your rejection of the slender reed of capitalism on which your success and mine depend. I would have to think it somehow rational that 94 percent of the 12 million blacks in this country voted for a man because he looks like them (that blacks are permitted to play the race card), and that they were joined by self-declared “progressive” whites who voted for him because he doesn’t look like them. I would have to wipe my mind clean of all that I know about the kind of people who have advised and taught Barack Obama and will fill posts in his administration, – political intellectuals like my former colleagues at the Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government.

 I would have to believe that “fairness” is the equivalent of justice. I would have to believe that man who asks me to “go forward in a new spirit of service, in a new service of sacrifice” is speaking in my interest. I would have to accept the premise of a man that economic prosperity comes from the “bottom up,” and who arrogantly believes that he can will it into existence by the use of government force. I would have to admire a man who thinks the standard of living of the masses can be improved by destroying the most productive and the generators of wealth.

 Finally, Americans, I would have to erase from my consciousness the scene of 125,000 screaming, crying, cheering people in Grant Park, Chicago irrationally chanting “Yes We Can!” Finally, I would have to wipe all memory of all the times I have heard politicians, pundits, journalists, editorialists, bloggers and intellectuals declare that capitalism is dead – and no one, including especially Alan Greenspan, objected to their assumption that the particular version of the anti-capitalistic mentality that they want to replace with their own version of anti-capitalism is anything remotely equivalent to capitalism.

 So you have made history, Americans. You and your children have elected a black man to the office of the president of the United States, the wounded giant of the world. The battle between John Wayne and Jane Fonda is over – and that Fonda won. Eugene McCarthy and George McGovern must be very happy men. Jimmie Carter, too. And the Kennedys have at last gotten their Kennedy look-a-like. The self-righteous welfare statists in the suburbs can feel warm moments of satisfaction for having elected a black person. So, toast yourselves: 60s countercultural radicals, 80s yuppies and 90s bourgeois bohemians. Toast yourselves, Black America . Shout your glee Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Duke, Stanford, and Berkeley. You have elected not an individual who is qualified to be president, but a black man who, like the pragmatist Franklin Roosevelt, promises to – Do Something! You now have someone who has picked up the baton of Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society. But you have also foolishly traded your freedom and mine, – what little there is left, – for the chance to feel good. There is nothing in me that can share your happy obliviousness.

Steve Jobs unveiled the Macintosh on January 24, 1984; 25 years ago today.

With it’s revolutionary Graphical User Interface, mouse, and compact size, it was the computer that changed the game forever. 

This is propaganda plain and simple. It’s reminiscent of that jolly old German slogan “Arbeit macht Frei ” or “Freedom through Work” which graced the rust ridden iron gates of the Nazi concentration camp known as Auschwitz.

After watching this video, I can’t help wishing horrible things would befall all of these people. I’m not a fan of Barack Obama, one look at my site will tell you that. I wasn’t a fan of his predecessor nor his predecessor’s predecessors. I’m not a fan of the federal govenment period. Hearing well intentioned, yet willfully misguided Hollywood fools tell me that I need to become a servant of the President and my fellow man pisses me off to no end. Do any of you know how this country started or what its prosperity depends on!? It’s the key to your wealth and fame!

This Union isn’t a monarchy, oligarchy nor a dictatorship. It’s a Constitutional Republic where the President is an elected official and therefore a SERVANT by and for the people; not the other way around! I for one do not want his servitude, I expect him to simply clean up the mess made by his Constitution violating mildly retarded forerunner then lessen his executive power to the Constitutionally appropriate levels which he swore to preserve (protect, and defend) not once but twice on Tuesday. I know there is no way this is going to happen, but let a brotha dream.

The way I see it, the only person that you can depend on and control 100% of the time is yourself. So instead of getting other people to give you hand outs, live by this simple motto:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

If we all depend on ourselves then we will never have anyone else to blame for our problems. Live by your own code. Don’t expect me to come down on my white horse to save you from yourself and I won’t expect the same in return. 

As a follow up to my Atlas Shrugged Review, I came to a conclusion as I tried to fall asleep at 5 am (I’m an insomniac).

After you are provided with the information which will shape your future self; advice which you feel in your heart of hearts is irrefutable, is there a moral obligation to follow that guidance?

This has happened to me a few times throughout the years and I’ve always gone along with it. After crossing the paths of successful people I tend to follow in their footsteps, making a concerted effort to remain in stride with the actions which brought them success. After a while I either choose to adopt their secrets as part of my own regimen or let them fall by the wayside. These are only actions which can help you achieve your goals and may not work for you because everyone is different. You can easily allow the actions of others to come and go in your life without risk to your moral clarity.

But if you are stricken by an idea so rational, logical, irrefutable, and universally applicable to myriad situations that you stand in awe of its genius, I believe morally it must be adhered to with the strongest of convictions. You must dedicate your life to living within its bounds and continue to elaborate on it when you feel you have a proper grasp of its immense scope. If after reading a book like Atlas Shrugged you feel a twinge of guilt for a wasted moment or a partially fulfilled life then by all means follow through with its teachings or risk the toil of regret and eventual moral bankruptcy.

I have received a gift in the form of Ayn Rand’s words which have set me forth on a quest to achieve my own greatness. To ignore them now would be vile phlegm spat in the face of morality. What is read can never be unread. What is learned can never be unlearned. What is taught can never be untaught.

I will one day be a Dagny Taggert, a Midas Mulligan, a Richard Halley, an Ellis Wyatt, a Kay Ludlow, a Hugh Akston, a Hank Rearden, a Francisco d’Anconia, a Ragnar Danneskjöld, a John Galt. A person pure of thought, worthy of entry into “Galt’s Gulch.” The Mount Olympus of the Mind; the Valhalla of an Intellectual Spirit.

If you ever receive exceptionally profound advice, take heed, immediately apply it to your everyday life, and continue to maintain and update it for your remainder.

Part 1/6

John Stossel of 20/20 fame is probably the most important investigative reporter of all time. He’s my favorite journalist ever and after watching this series called Greed, you’ll see why. This ties in perfectly with my Atlas Shrugged Review. The rest are after the break.

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Here’s a really interesting story from England. A black man and his white wife produced twins with different skin colors. Its not uncommon for a black couple to have both dark and light skinned kids but this is something I’ve never seen before. As a person of mixed heredity I’ve always found stories like this fascinating. My father is black and my mother is hispanic with a light complexion, so rather than being one or the other I came out as an exact combination, coffee with cream if you will.

As bigotry beings to die off with the eldest generation, people’s genetics will continue to mix. In 500 years everyone will look like me with asian eyes. You can look down in Brazil for an approximation of this.

Read all about it.

Some people jokingly claim to have been raised by television but in my case it’s the stone cold truth. I was one of those kids who would sit 2 feet from the screen absorbing every pixel as if they were going to tell me the secret of life. In many ways those pixels did give me life lessons which I still adhere to today. I got to see first hand the mistakes of television characters while not having to actually go through the experiences myself. You can experience an entire lifestyle without ever having to leave the comfort of your living room.

I consider television, even more than film (when done right) to be the highest form of art. It’s a collaborative art form which combines some of the greatest artists and minds this world has to offer, all of them coming together to put out 12 to 24 contiguous episodes in a 4 month period which each have a beginning, middle and an end, talk about pressure. 

 Television is fascinating. It wasn’t until I turned about twenty that I realized just how much it has shaped me. Everything from F-Troop to I Love Lucy, Get Smart, The Brady Bunch and The Wonder Years impacted me significantly. I was raised by the television, or Bill as I used to call him. Nick at Nite and I were best friends. My family moved a lot when I was a kid and my home life was dreadful, I didn’t have any friends at my new schools so Nick at Nite was my only constant, the way to escape the monotony. I’d sit in a dark room staring at that glowing box for hours until I konked out around 02:00 Just before the infomercials came on. This was a nightly occurrence, weekends, holidays, birthdays, and school nights. It didn’t matter what was going on George Jefferson was going to get pissed at someone and take it out on his beloved Weezy; Carl Winslow was gonna tell Steve Urkel to go home after he destroyed the kitchen with his homemade tornado machine; and Bob Newhart was going to crack some jokes so dry they wouldn’t get wet in a swimming pool. It was those inevitabilities that kept me sane during the nightmare that were my 1990’s.

To this day I watch more television than anyone I know, I’ve seen everything on the big four networks (except CBS because I don’t need 15 flavors of CSI (The Unit rules because it’s Mamet)), and everything on the cable networks. On Showtime alone I can say that Californication is the rebirth of Duchovny as someone other than Fox Mulder, Dexter is freaking genius, and Weeds is perfection. I could go down the list of some shows that I think are awesome, so I’ll do that now.

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