Tonight I had drinks with my good Buddy Lance from the office. spent most of the night talking about business. I will miss him. business is a fascinating concept. It is an utterly worthless adventure were it not for the necessity to earn a living. And yet even when we are absolutely floating in cash the talk of business is still quite intoxicating.

I have been a self employed man of business since I was in my teens for the most part. My first real successful company having been started when I was 21 as I have recounted numerous times here. lance on the other hand has always been more of a school man. Straight a student, then college, then law school, and now a happy and content lawyer. I recounted my adventures in business over the last ten years to him as he listened intently. How I have made and lost millions many times over in the course of my short career.

We determined that the differences in our choices in life were two-fold, one because I was raised by parents who were both business people, and he was raised by parents who were academics. And two, because he grew up in a modest middle class household, and I grew up rather well to do until my late teens when my parents lost their modest fortune to their seven year divorce that cost us all millions. So all I could think of from that point on was getting that money back so I could live the life I was used to once again.

I am watching the debates from a live feed on my laptop. I have spent four years protesting and lamenting gw. But there is an inevitability about him… it is deeper, more fated than anything of us can recognize consciously. I can feel it when I am watching him speak. He stutters, he stops short, he pauses and goes blank for ten seconds at a time. but there is just something underneath it all, a certain power that seems almost unstoppable. I believe at this point that he has a good chance of winning; that Kerry, for better or worse, is not as charismatic a character. He makes more sense. Certainly more honorable and honored of a man. More accomplished. More respected. More in charge of himself it seems. But just very serious. None of the handsome devilish swagger that worked so well for Clinton and gw.

Honestly I don’t even know what to believe anymore. Or who to vote for. I will continue to support the democratic side and promote the cause to my own little constituency, because at the least I believe them. I believe that Kerry and Edwards are honest men; as honest as politicians can be at this juncture in the American political system.

but honestly it isn’t an easy call after seeing the beheadings now.

Bas asks me in the car today why I wanted to watch them. ‘because I wanted to feel what they felt. I want to be there with those men. Those men just as easily could have been us. those were American guys just like us. and instead of us it was them. and that sucks for them and their families and I wanted to be there with them and see what they went through and I wanted to experience it as much as I could. That’s the heaviest shit going on anywhere on the planet. Period. Right there in those little fucking white rooms with those evil masked men cutting peoples heads off. That’s it man. It doesn’t get more human and inhuman as that. and I believe that it is important for all of us to experience it.

‘but why should other people watch that? we already know what’s going on,’ he says. ‘no man,’ I answer, ‘most people don’t know what’s going on. They hear about it and it goes in one ear and out the other. its just a little soundbite on CNN. The American people are not getting the news now because it is too homogenized and cleaned up and fastpaced and glossy. CNN has ruined the news. they have all ruined the news. they have turned the news into “the news,” instead of what it really is. ‘what is it?” “its fucking real life man. Its real shit happening to real people. and we don’t get that from the news anymore. We get a really cleaned up glossed over fancy high tech three second reading of fifty things in an hour. on the top they have a dressed up smiling puppet head talking about some stuff and on the bottom they run a marquise talking about other stuff. each item gets less than a minute. So it becomes a haze of meaningless data. Logged in, logged out. if you ask me, its bullshit.’

‘this shit that’s happening in the world right now is more important than three seconds on top while three seconds on bottom talk about who just hit 700 home runs. So I want to be there really feeling it with that guy. I think everyone should. For two reasons dude. Number one. so everyone can see what we started by going over there in the first place. we all need to not just know but to see and hear and smell and taste what invading Iraq has done. And two, because we need to be with those men at their deaths, we need to be with them in consciousness to help comfort their souls.

O.k. onto matters related but entirely different. Still studying the history of Israel every day. I read a page or two each morning and evening to really soak it in. basically the history of mankind. The history of the Jewish people has shaped all of our lives more than most realize.