The Solution is to Make It Someone Else's Problem

It’s a miracle of technology according to Walter. Any household appliance can now do it. Technology first creates the problems and then technology offers to solve them. This is true, I replied.  Most of our problems are the result of our previous attempt at problem solving.

All one can say about the true or the good is this: it is good that the good is good – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 p138

We go to Café Trieste in North Beach; Chianti and a poetry reading. My nephew Brian is having a latte. We had each just before been sitting in Washington Square munching on Joe’s Specials from Molinari’s while listening to the squawking of the parrot flock. They flew in and then the flew off. They returned twice more as we ate. They are hard to spot. Large green and red birds should be easy to see I would have thought. But they are not, but you know they are about by the racket that they make. Brian has finally spotted a parrot. Parrots are native to South America, he says, more a question than a statement. Yes, I replied, these are native to Ecuador. There is a cockatoo over there. It has its wings clipped and is on a leash. Brian spotted a man whom he had seen earlier on a bus. He is now sitting in a bar that we passed on our way from Washington Square to the Café Trieste.  I had twice spotted my neice Lesie walking along here on her way home from work. Both times on a Friday at about this time. We are on the look out for her but don’t see her. She has red hair and often wears a green coat. She had gone to DC but should have returned by now. I tried to call her but she hadn’t returned by calls. This was normal. Brain said that the mozzarella in  the Joe’s Special was really good. Good mozzarella is consumed on the same day that is made, I say.  I had forgot to ask at Molinare’s if this was buffalo mozzarella but it must have been, this was Little Italy and it was a authentic Italian Deli. There is a place in the Central Valley that has a herd of buffalo and makes fresh mozzarella in the traditional way and ships it daily into the City. I was sure that it was real buffalo mozzarella. Leslie is usually quiet. She doesn't squawk too much. I'm sure she has returned from her trip by now. I will give her another call.

The Korean Demilitarized Zone, a long narrow belt of no-man’s land that has devided North from South ever since the war ended in 1953, has become an improbable wildlife refuge that is now the winter home for a tenth of thew world’s cranes – Tony Hiss – In Motion, 2010 p11

Unspeak makes things unthinkable without every having to un-utter them. The result of unspeaking is un-deciding. “Body bags” became ‘human remains pouches’ and finally merely ‘transfer tubes’.

We have now produced on the left an echo chamber like that on the right, where the scurrilous charges of marginal fanatics are disseminated through electronic media and end up, cleansed of their original associations, as respected opinion – Katha Pollitt – The Nation 1/10/11 p9

Targeting by terrorist constitutes an act of terrorism [John Bolton]. And conversely we might say that an act of terrorism defines a terrorist.

It is one thing to have the faculty of speech , and another to have something to say – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 p96

Money posses negative entropy

Money is controlled by demons

Money is the deux ex machina of

            Economics

Metaphor is located precisely at the point where meaning is produced of non-meaning – Lucan – Ecrits

Heat generates energy demands

Heat generates, energy demands

Energy demands generate heat

Generating heat demands energy

“I have not made my mind up to admire everything new.  I am trying to distinguish the good from the bad so that the energies liberated by the good should not be lost.” (Guillaume Apollinaire)

Demons inhabit all

            Self-organizing systems

Science occupies tiny atolls

            In the vast ocean of

            The universe

Differential equations define

            All that is easily solved

Consumerism… is less of an ideological falsification of well-being (bread and circuses) than a mark that no benefit exterior to the system can be imagined, no benefit that would not be subject to cost-benefit analysis – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p48

Money is a marker for

            Social engagement

It a poker chip, the get out of jail

            Card

Mistook for a sign of meritocracy

It’s the social lubricant

It’s a measure of social entropy

Money is the messenger
              Of social relevance

In the absence of any discretion

Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs a true sublimity, and the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all of these things – T H Huxley, 1876