What Does Any Of This Have To Do With Henry Ford Or With Big Oil?

My Sister with her Easter Basket

Back in town sooner than I had intended – things simply wore out and I got tired – it became just another routine after a while. And my tent is not going to survive another tornado, it might not even survive a gentle breeze – it leaks, and the poles are cracked and patched with duct tape – the tie downs are ripping off, the floor is full of holes – the dog is clawing gaps in the insect screen . If I can find another – I might continue to camp for several more nights – but I didn’t and drove straight back here instead. A well-designed consumer good falls to pieces all at one time. If one competent outlasts the rest it is over engineered by definition. Consumer goods are simply replaced – one by another one. Bricolage is oh so passé even under warrenty they just replace the broken item rather than fixing it (though you can ge rebuilt automobile parts). Henry Ford sent out one of his managers to inspect Model Ts in junkyards. He reported on the parts he found to be most commonly still usable. Henry had the specifications for those parts lowered – why waste money making parts that outlast their utility. Thanks Henry for causing my trip to terminate sooner than I had intended. Next trip – the Florida beaches to inspect the damage from BP (and I had once worked for them to design their campaign to to show what a green company they were   – Yes I did research that led their adoption of that green sun logo - BP an eco-friendly concern - anyonw want to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?).  It's a long long way to Tipparrary. God, do I want to go home.

‘Focused’ intensity encompasses not just the ability to exclude a multiplicity of potential distractions but also a concentrated openness for something unexpected – Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – In Praise of Athletic Beauty, 200 p52

The US recycling industry generates $236 billion annually

In the African desert / The giraffes want to swallow the moon / You mustn’t look / behind walls / curiosity will make your neck long – Vicente Huidobro – The Selected Poetry of, 1981 p11

The mortgage delinquency rate on one-to-four unit homes was 14% as of March 31, up from 12% a year ago. The 30 to 60 day over due rate declined to 3.45% from 3.77% a year earlier. 2.6 million households are over 90 days overdue but not yet in the foreclosure process. About 153,000 borrowers were 18 months or more overdue and still waiting the start of foreclosure proceedings as of April 30. Homeowners typically can stay 9-12 months without making any payment

The essential character of money power for most manual workers is that it comes to them not individually, but collectively – Richard Sennett – The Hidden Injuries of Class, 1972 p36

We should never applaud ourselves for being less malicious than  we could have been or are tempted to be.

While it may be insulting to white America to suggest that they respond more favorably to a politician who looks and sounds like they do, it’s hardly racist, let alone false – Jonathan Chait – The New Republic (Feb 4, 2010) p2

Some not so self-evident truths according to Julian Simon (and he claims economics is common sense): It is possible to have ‘too little’ exposure to radiation – The Ultimate Resource 2, 1996 p207; The supply of effective agricultural land can be expanded without limit – p135; This increase in the price of people’s services is a clear indications that people are becoming more scarce even though there are more of us – p135

The contemporary world is riddled with… anarchic spaces, and the more successful they are, the less likely, we are to hear about them. It’s only if such a space breaks down into violence that there’s any chance outsiders will ever find out that it exists – Graeber p34 – or if drug lords or pirates or Al Quida occupy such spaces then we know from the news when our troops have been deployed or a information regarding a drone attack is released.

Curlews or plovers on the mudflats of India Basin pick at the invertebrate life teeming in the soup. Vietnamese fish for crab off the power plant out-take. A ripped off wallet has been discarded. . Flowers bloom in profession - yellow, orange and purple. The dominate color of flowers change with the season.

This Egyptian tea in the fog cut though my groggy brain like a chain saw in reverse. http://www.clutter.com/
 it can be found under mental illness . A woman at church paid $3,000 to a clutter expert - Iranians are culturally trained to sweet talk. I don’t want to see him for a while. I’ll follow up with the clutter thing…Really…I can’t have you over… I’d be so ashamed… Thirty days to change the locks… We only get as much as we can handle…I must not be street smart to let it go on that long. .. See you sweetheart.

You predicted that I would marry Osan, and its not true. Your predictions have messed up my life. I’m not going to hook up with Osan. He told me that he was only using me for citizenship….But the thing is sweetheart that you predicted that he would marry me and it is not true. The thing is I don’t want to ever see him again…Ok, but I don’t think Osan would ever call me back…OK sweetheart, Ok.

Once the mimetic has sprung into being, a terrifically ambiguous power is established; there is born the power to represent the world, yet that same power is the power to falsify; mask and pose, The two powers are inseparable – Michael Taussig – Mimesis and Alterity: a partucular history of the senses, 1993

I feel like flying, swimming, yelping, bellowing, howling. I’d like to have wings, carapace, a rind, to breath out smoke, wave my trunk, twist my body, divide myself up, to be inside everything, to drift away with odors, develop as plants do, flow like water, vibrate like sound, gleam like light, to curl myself up into every shape, to penetrate each atom, to get down to the depth of matter - to be matter - Gustave Flubert - The Temptation of Saint Anthony

Magic potions and marriage proposals flash across the globe in a web of deceit and hope, but they do not nourish nature. The succubus of prediction is white and fluffy but bits like an asp, to lull you asleep and to awaken you screaming

The magician infers that he can produce any effect he desires merely by imitating it - James George Frazer

Stalin rules by staring down from his photo on the wall and through the eyes of his statutes that follow passers by on the streets. It is a red hot glare that causes death if not obeyed. Whose magic is represented by the automobile?

Blah blah blah eu cecelair…fumilar chocolate, avou ah mar mali …diesa … par Anglai

Old ladies trying to look young make a mess of it, stretched back wrinkle free seamless faces and wigs with humpbacked osteoporosis.

Positional Goods: goods and services inherently in scarce supply because their attractiveness derives from their relative scarcity –(1) it is impossible for supply to keep up with demand, by definition and (2) there will always be other positional goods that are even more exclusive and valuable

The gambler has something at stake, but he has no influence on the outcome of the event in question – Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – In Praise of Athletic Beauty, 2006 p208

What you do unto the least of my brethren, you do unto me – unless it is done for security reasons. Now they are talking of making exceptions to Miranda Rights (but only for certain classes). We are introducing the principle into law that universal rights can be selectively applied – which of course is OK (right!) when we are talking about him over there (after all why would it affect me, I have nothing to fear – I am a patriotic law-abiding citizen). What does it matter – it only applies to the guilty – why should it concern me? The problem is by definition universal rights apply to everyone otherwise they are arbitrary. Then the Supreme Cout decides that being silent is waveing your rights to be silent and that your right to an attorney expires (they allow you fifteeen days to envoke it - why not a minute - gone in 6o seconds?). To envoke the color and  formaility of law is the tool of tyrants (The Romans raped young girls  - case in point Sirjanus's daughter - so that they could be executed without breaking the law - you see it was illegal to execute virgins - no I don't know why, why that it is it was illegal to execute them but not to rape them).

There’s little human reality to the philosophic resignation with which a man would ‘understand’ that his feelings of alienation are caused by external limits on his freedom – Richard Sennett – The Hidden Injuries of Class, 1972 p95

A minnow or a tuna
Aswim in the briny Body
      Without Organs (BWO)
Seeing only what is near
Which for any organism
       Is sufficient
Until they get caught
       In a net
Trying to take flight with a
      Nomadic leap
Only to land on factory
      Floor
Just one more cog
     Of a standing-reserve

We think of the crowd as having very little, if any, analytical focus. The thing that fans seem to enjoy most… is being in communion with other enthusiastic fans – Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht – In Praise of Athletic Beauty, 2006 t p206

The typical teenage girl spends and receives 80 text messages a day (for boy it is less that half of that, 30 a day). 59% of the girls will send a text message “just to say hello” several times a day. I mentioned these numbers to my nephew and he said he only sent 40. That's both sending and recieveing, I said. Then I guess I'm a girl. He also admited to  frequently send a mesage to just say hello.

Neil says that the they recruit policemen from those bars that have no windows

How much of a copy does a copy have to be to have an effect on what it is a copy of – Michael Taussig – Mimesis and Alterity: a partucular history of the senses, 1993