Americans Love Themselves and Treaten Assassins with Waterboarding

The tragedy of the utopia of a self-regulating market is that the state became the protector of capital rather then of man and no one gave a damn about the land

But a rational administration must be humane. Can inhumanity be rational? – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2007 p81

The latest Pew research: Only Kenyans have a more favorable view of Americans than do Americans have of themselves. Among most Muslim populations modest levels of approval for Obama have begun to erode – in Pakistan confidence has gone from 13% to 8%. And while the residents of most countries have a favorable view of the United States and its President, they view the US as still acting unilaterally.

I call from memory an image of  The Rene Magaritte's Painting which I think is entitled “Menacing the Assassin”: It depicts an interior space with an outside scene of a landscape seen through a window. Thee are three persons seen though a doorway in the back of an alcove which is the centered in the frame. At the back of this space are two men with black bowler hats standing with  club like weapons in their hands to both the left and to the right of the alcove. In the alcove is a nude female figure is stretched out on a gurney and a man in a suit talking into the horn of a gramophone. There is a wainscoting running along the walls. The floor is constructed of very wide wooden planks.

I look up an image of the painting. It is actually titled - The Menaced Assassin (I almost got it right). Outside the interior space is a balcony over which three male heads appear. Behind the three men is a mountainous landscape.. Behind the three men is a mountainous landscape. Only one of the bowler hated gentlemen has a club, the other one to his right has a net which he is holding with both hands. The woman is not on a gurney but a sofa. There is a chair in the foreground just inside the alcove with a long coat draped over the back and a brimmed man’s hat lying on its seat . Behind the chair is an overnight suitcase. The gramophone sits on a draped table in the fore right corner of the alcove, There is a light source originating on the upper left side of the picture. So it seems that I don't have a photographic memory - not that I ever thought that I did.

The only thing that must remain officially foreign to a nation’s leader are tears, desperate suffering the most human of human things… - Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2007 p126

If waterboarding is done by foreign countries then the US press will generally call it torture (85% of the articles mentioning waterboarding in non-American contexts) but if it is performed by the United States they will not associate it with the concept of torture (the associations of the two terms occur in only 8% of such articles).

Were there is an anguish and hunger, silence is more eloquent. It wastes less breath and its safer – Victor Serge – The Unforgiving Years, 2007 p161

A slice is a simplification
Of the whole
(A Poincare section)
When sliced through
It yields it’s full
Quasi-causal component


And also the entire set
Of attractors defining each system
Although it cannot be done mathematically

Either debt ridden consumers return to the trenches of greater spending or we will be forced to shoot a few for cowardness in the face of the enemy. Only by this means will we succeed with a frontal assault on recession – only by such means can we impose discipline on this mess.

Remember us to the shop girls. / Say we have seen no legs better than theirs, / we have the sea to stare at, its treason, copiousness, tedium – Basil Bunting – Collected poems, 2003 p117

Not so ‘strangely naïve and ultimately perplexing” after all - we do it all the time with commodities

I bought some little girls on the bus pink and yellow balloon flowers. They had no money and were enraptured by the women who had just come from a children’s party at a bourgeoisie residence in a better part of town. The balloon lady said “May you get five hundred times the return on your gift.” I suspected that she didn’t make much money doing children’s birthday parties. Their little brother got a blue sword. Then two more little girls cried for balloon flowers and their mothers paid. Hey Pinkie!  Hey its Pinkie the Clown.

To manifest:  "positive thinking" terminology for charging items to maxed out credit cards that are desired but not needed in order to enhance one’s self-esteem

If you were to interview a hypothetical intelligent fish and inquire as to the nature of its environment, you would probably hear “It is very wet down here.” – David P Barash – How Women Got Their Curves – 2009 p2

The quality of a tavern is not to be judged by how many beers they have on tap, but if they have any porter and an IPA among them (the best tavern will also have an ESP too).