Duck-Rabbits are Omens of Our Happiness

A dead goldfish lay on the sidewalk. It had jumped (more likely it had been thrown – it didn’t get onto that window ledge by itself) from the third floor of a brick apartment building. It has lain here since early yesterday morning. There was a history to its presence here. It was archeological evidence. But there was yet no funding provided for any research and besides by the time a grant request had gotten written and  funding made available the godlfish would long ago have been eaten by a cat or consumed by maggots. So let’s just forget about it. I stepped on it. Smashed it flat - sidewalk goo. There is nothing more to be said about this fish, although a poet might have been able to describe its decay and they (poets that is) do not need funding, they survive on air like Spanish moss. Or an artist like Chiam Soutine could have painted it. 

When man becomes proud to be not just the site where ideas and feeling are produced, but also the crossroad where they divide and mingle, he will be ready to be saved – Francis Ponge – The Voice of Things, 1972  p109

Diet soft drink drinkers, as a group, have a 70% greater increase in waste size than do those who do not drink diet sodas

The price one pays for engaging in the conspiratorial mode is to be treated to its logic – Slavo Zizek – London Review of Books 1/20/11

He was into tarpology, he said. And he had some questions for me regarding how I had strung my tarp. If you want to see expert tarpology, check out how the Canadians do it, I told him. The weak point in stringing a tarp is the corners – the grommets easily tear out. You can wrap the corners around a stone and tie line around the package, he said. Yes I can see that that would work. But better yet, I explained relieve the tension on the corners by using shock cords. That is what the Canadians do. Yeah, I noticed that you were using shock cords, he said. I had rigged a half and half tarp – shock cords along the sides and ropes at the corners. Later I would get more shock cords and eliminate any ropes connected directly to the tarp. The Canadians hung their higher in the trees than I could reach and could move them about at will. It was quite neat. I had yet to master the full art of tarpology. A perfectly hung tarp is invisible - it can't be distinguished from the trees.

The more perfect machines become, the more they are invisible behind their function… It seems that perfection is attained not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing more to be taken away. At the climax of its evolution the machine conceals itself entirely – Antoine de Stint-Exupery – Terre des Hommas

Red tape change the ecology of the processes  that they administrate from political asylum seeking to scientific research and education -  screening processes are not benign and not necessarily necessary and most often they hinder what they purport to enable.

The ultimate show of power on the part of the ruling ideology is to allow what appears to be powerful criticism – Slavo Zizek – London Review of Books 1/20/11

THESE ARE THE  OMENS

I saw a tin soldier

            In the bark of a tree

He had his Brown Bess over

            His left shoulder

            And stood to dress

            Right dress

Queen Victoria was there

            Too but she wore a beard

John Brown stood at her side

And there is the face

            Of an owl

Above and to her left

I can’t help but fear

            That these are

            The omens of

The end of an epoch

Some have seen the face

            Of the Virgin Mary

            In a potato and have

Been relieved of their despair

Emperor Norton sent the Queen

             A marriage proposal

            She didn’t reply

Boomer and Lazarus were disappointed

            They wanted to attend

Some people collect potato chips

            With what they claim are

            Celebrity faces

I photograph the evidence

But all this is not evident

            In its image

No doubt you could play a dead rook like a bagpipe, all drone and no melody – Roger Deakin -  Wildwood, 2007  p50

Any process that bestows privilege has a tendency to become authoritarian

Some men… ascribe to the men of the preceding age a wisdom more than human – Thomas Jefferson

US university faculty members spend 40% of their research time doing funding paperwork. Some grants even have a negative value but you have to get successful at grant writing to do research. For younger scientists the amount of time devoted to obtaining grant money is even higher.

I hope you do not suspect me of being studious. I have finished my education. But there are some fashionable books that one must read, because they are ingredients of the talk of the day – Peacock – Nightmare Abbey, 1818 p27

Patterns emerge from seemingly erratic behaviors and from nowhere else

Sarah Palin runs the risk of being little more than the thinking man’s Michele Bachmann – John Avlon – The Beast 3/17/11

Only 45% of Americans between the ages of 16 and 24 are working. More than half of Millennials think that the US is seriously on the wrong track

When in countries that are called civilized, we see age going to the work-house and youth to the gallows, something is wrong in the system of government – Thomas Paine – Right of Man, Part the Second, 1792

Automobile collisions with deer result in $4.6b in medical and car repair expenseas in the US each year

It is through the application of reason that [we] learn how unreasonable we are – Alan Wolfe – The New Republic – 3/24/11 p32

Complex life forms (nematode worms) can live as much as 3.6km underground

On two occasions I have been asked – “Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures will the right answer come out?” … I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question – Charles Babbage