Can Imbeciles Go Insane?

There is smoke on the water – Is the town on fire? – No – It’s a peculiar weather condition – A river fog – But it is just this local – It has something to do with the bend in the river – It warms up by five degrees in the mile I travel from the house.

36% of what we pay for an imported good stays in the domestic economy. It goes to the transportation, wholesaling and retailing operations. The portion of “Made in China” goods that stays in the US is somewhat higher. It is about 55%.

The fetishism of fact [is a] splendid sickness – Mary McCarthy

Crash collapse

Ring the bell

Get cash

A bail out is

   In the works

Bonuses are

   Due. Its
Just business
    As usual

There is one thing that a man who has lived for money cannot resist… : talking about it. The love of money never dies – John Barlow – Intoxicated, 2006 p21

67% of Americans say they would vote for a well qualified homosexual for President but only 49% say the would vote for a similarly qualified atheist

In so far as God is what God does, we might go so far as to say that the market ‘is’ God and the activity of the market is always a hand job – Mark C Taylor – Confidence Games, 2004 p89

Intelligence is making coherent what had not previously been coherent. The more incoherent the bits used to assemble this new sense, the greater the intelligence of the processing unit. Most conspiracy theories are conceived by intelligent people, but not necessarily highly rational people. There is intelligence in our madness. I wonder if imbeciles are even capable of going insane. Would someone intelligent destroy the earth? Would someone rationally initiate a holocaust? Man the animal with a thumb but without a tail. The brain seems to have nothing to do with it.

We are not free to refrain from forging the chains of our own misery – Marcel Proust – The Fugative p90

40% of children between the 1^st and 3^rd grades read every day, but by the 4^th grade the number of readers has dropped to 29%. What happens? One hypothesis is that a dislike of school gets translated into a dislike of learning.

Only the exhausting is truly interesting – Susan Sontag – Under the Sign of Saturn, 1980

Of all the religious adherents in the US it is the Muslims who are the most likely to reject violence. 78% of Muslims believe that violence that kills civilians is never justified, but only 38% of Protestants and 39% of Catholics agree with this sentiment. Next to the Muslims the atheists and agnostics are the least likely to advocate violence.

As soon as values are dogmatized, schisms arise, followed sooner or later by catastrophe – Francis Ponge – The Voice of Things, 1972  p109

The rhythm is

Or it is not

It has no

            Opposition

It does not

Tolerate contradiction

Rhythm is

Or it is not

This rhythm

Or that rhythm

            Is of no consequence

Even the subconscious is not patient enough for poetry. You are dead and the dead are very patient – Jack Spicer – The Collected Books, 1996  p15

94% of millionaires are concerned about global unrest

One of the most fundamental tensions in our politics is that senior citizens are, simultaneously, the demographic group that most benefits from the welfare state and the one most sympathic to the right wing push to abolish it – The Nation 4/25/112 p3

The ‘A’ constitutes 43% of all college grades. If you're going to go $100,000 in debt you might at least get 'A's.

The teacher thought that my poem [‘Broken Promises’] said one thing but meant another and that it’s not the readers job to figure out what the poetry was saying. No wonder poetry doesn’t have a bigger audience – David Kirby – New York Times Book Review 4/10/11 p12