Constu'd to be Good

5 degrees with an expectation of a warming into the mid-twenties later – piles of snow plowed from the parking lot makes maneuvering difficult, one lane paths and a scarcity of spots. Cars sliding around. Confronting each other head to head. Anxious to get that last spot. Tempers flair. Try to be conciliatory.

In a polyphonic conception of narrative, there is no center that dictates meaning, but rather meaning arises only out of the exchanges among all the singularities in dialogue – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p211

As food prices rise – so does rustling – from chain saw attacks on cattle in Wyoming to the disappearance of sheep in England’s Lake District. More than 10,000 sheep were reported stolen last year, a rate more than twice as high as the year before. Most of the theft results in mutton being sold in local off-markets. Farming equipment theft is also on the up rise, supposedly for transhipment to Eastern Europe where agricultural demands outstrip availability of equipment.

Elementary subsistence and security cannot be neglected by any social order; they are political needs, prior to economic needs – Paul & Percival Goodman - Communitas, 1960 p189

Again - just a modest exercise of my finger. I withdraw it for a lingering sniff as if it were a fine wine - which in a way it is. And I almost got an erection recalling it - well as least a burning sensation which is as good as it gets some days - Amen - Let’s hear it again, the Reverend Billy hollers - Amen and we all repeat, Amen - Say it again - Amen. And I just read that there is a similar sentiment express  in the Bible of all places. It’s in one of Soloman’s Songs. The key phrase for the Bible discussion of sex is "the feet" but that the washing of Jesus' feet is a literal description and not an allusion to anything else.

Café Trieste where strawberries are exchanged between middle aged hippies – plopping them into each other’s agape mouths and I enjoy a Cappuccino Grande not having to be weary of having to speak “Starbuckise”

I’m sitting at Sit & Spin (a gay laundromat in the Castro) - well at least I’m not spinning at the Spin & Sit. I promised Michael I would stop by. Michael is working today. It is also a coffee bar. Michael says that the owner of the Edge is sitting him up with a blind date for tonight. Its an AIDS benefit dinner at the Tangerine. I told Michael that maybe we could go together to the Edge. It’s not the type of place that I would be comfortable visiting alone. Nor would I, he replied, it’s a little too leather and bear for me he says. And they are playing the Eagles’ Hotel California and there is a discussion about photography on the patio. Photography is such a remote and distant art requiring much more patience than I have. You wait to see what it was that you thought you had seen only to find out that it wasn’t. Haven’t you shifted to digital yet? All that used to be true but not now. Image production is a ubiquitous process. Images are always destructive of reality.

Not each one
       All of them
Not one at a time
       For all time
       Every time
All of them
       Whether this one
       Or that one
       Even me

Was this a woman’s destiny? Did husband, friends, lovers who once passed through your life, never leave? - Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett – Death Rites, 1996 p94

Between 1929 and 1933 the average value of the American home decreased by 26%. Since 2006 the average value has decreased by 25%.

Much was believed, but little was understood. / And to be dull was constu’d to be good – Alexander Pope – An Essay on Criticism

If you’re allowed to do what you want it’s because what you do is not deemed to be relevant or of any importance

They have been inclined to mistake the mere sharing of a controversial set of premises within their own circle for assurance that those premises have withstood a challenge – Frederick Crews – Follies of the wise, 2006 p73

Joe DiMaggio’s 1950 salary exceeded the mean US family income by a factor of 26. Today Derek Jeter’s salary exceeds the average US family income by 288 times.

The question of whether humanity has a predilection toward the good is preceded by the question whether there exists an event that can be explained in no other way than by that of moral disposition – Friedrich Neitzsche

The US government spent $500,000 last year to simulate an attack by pot growers on the Hoover Dam

In the social… the tendency is to make everything public and thus open to government surveillance and control, and in the economic to make everything private and subject to property rights – Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri – Multitude: war and democracy in the age of empire, 2004 p203

If airline travel in the United States were only as safe as space travel, we would be having 272 planes crashing and 20,000 fatalities each and every day.

That’s why people really die, the shock of asking themselves one day if their lifelong position has been worth it or not - Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett – Death Rites, 1996 p112