In Peru, Christmas lights stay up year around.  So it’s exactly like my house in at least one way.

Ok, time to move on to somewhere else for a while…

PERU!!!!!

In 1932, Albert Einstein, already world famous for his work in physics and mathematics, wrote a letter to another distinguished thinker, Sigmund Freud.  Einstein was deeply troubled by the memory of World War I, which had ended only fourteen years before.  Ten million men had died on the battlefields of Europe, for reasons that no one could logically explain.  Like many others who had lived through that war, Einstein was horrified by the thought that human life could be destroyed on such a massive scale and worried that there might be another war.  He considered that Freud, the world’s leading psychologist, might throw light on the question ‘Why do men make war?’

“Dear Professor Freud,” he wrote.  “Is there any way of delivering mankind from the menace of war?”  Einstein spoke of “that small but determined group, active in every nation, composed of individuals who …  regard warfare, the manufacture and sale of arms, simply as an occasion to advance their personal interests and enlarge their personal authority.”  And then he asked, “How is it possible for this small clique to bend the will of the majority, who stand to lose and suffer by a state of war, to the service of their ambitions?”

Einstein volunteered an answer, “Because man has within him a lust for hatred and destruction.”  And then he put his final question to Freud, “Is it possible to control a man’s mental evolution so as to make him proof against the psychoses of hate and destructiveness?”

Freud responded, “You surmise that man has in him an active instinct for hatred and destruction, amenable to such stimulations.  I entirely agree with you …. The most casual glance at world-history will show an unending series of conflicts between one community and another.”  Freud pointed to two fundamental instincts in human beings: the erotic, or love, instinct and its opposite, the destructive instinct.  But the only hope he could hold for the erotic triumphing over the destructive was in the cultural development of the human race, including “a strengthening of the intellect, which tends to master our instinctive life.”

But what is Freud’s evidence for the existence of such an instinct?  There is something curious in his argument.  He offers no proof from the field of his expertise, psychology.  His evidence is in “the most casual glance at world-history.”

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

Using the atomic bombs on populated cities was justified in moral terms by American political leaders.  Henry Stimson, whose Interim Committee had the job of deciding whether or not to use the atomic bomb, said later it was done “to end the war in victory with the least possible cost in the lives of the men of the armies.”  This was based on the assumption that without atomic bombs, an invasion of Japan would be necessary, which would cost many American lives.

- Howard Zinn – Declarations of Independence

Wondering what has changed? Read about it here.

A girl prepares to get roofied by some random d-bag at the Power & Light District by loading up on petty cash.

In honor of several weeks of not drinking, purple lights on a silver bucket….

In my mind, the most difficult jobs in the world are surrounded by things that are supposed to be considered the happiest times – wedding hair-do’er, wedding dress maker & wedding photographer.  If you screw up any of those, you have a flock of irrational over-emotional assholes up in your grill for a long time.

Janay does amazing work with her custom hand made dresses.  I believe she made one once out of a bag of aquarium rocks and a pipe cleaner.  That’s some skill.

Head over to my links section to see more local artists, musicians and designers!

LucasHutmacher Links

You would think this lady would be old enough to know that you shouldnt be using a modified cigarrette lighter to fuel a hot-air balloon made out of paper.

Turns out she wasnt.

These hippies keep showing up all around the city, blockin off perfectly good parking lots and lighting stuff on fire to juggle & swing and whatnot.

It’s not all bad, but they just seem to take it very seriously.  I guess they are playing with fire, but still.  DONT PLAY WITH FIRE AND GET HIGH!!

Like a gunner in a plane, I attempt to track a bird across a parking lot in Houston.  It was the highlight of the conference.