August 31, 2009 - Coffee Break - 54th & Troost - Kansas City Missouri

The sun has almost reached the point of being shadowed by the awning ending its warm monopoly. A bicycle club rides up the street like grazing gnus. Then comes a gaggle of trotters. Cars lurk waiting to pounce at the waterhole. Everyone is alert. And yet during the  noonday heat everyone shall lie down together.

Just for today, I’d like to / step into someone else’s list. / Run their errands. Wish their wish – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p127

Every had a tour of a Polish peasant farm – twenty acres including the old mill race which is now connected to the grid – he is descended from the local miller. Pig sty behind the house – a big sow and brood suckling. Pot-au-feu on the stove in an overheated kitchen with dirty overalls hanging on pegs – sweet smells to the bachelor resident but not to me, and I was raised on a butternut farm (cattle, pigs, chickens and a couple of horses). This was once the dividing line between the Austro-Hungarian and the Imperial Russian empires – the line of trees forming the border is still visible. After the Great Patriotic War the Soviets built a huge steel mill (Nowa Huta) nearby – block after block of multistory crumbling concrete housing units for the thousands of steelworkers (Cabrini-Green was insignificant).

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Memorizing a poem is a good way to destroy it. / You think it will bring you closer (like getting / a tattoo) but the poem does not reside in its words / and that is all you’re left with. // Never gain will you encounter it by chance . / in the casual cruising-space that spells romance. / Rereading works better – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p236

Outstanding in his
     Field even as
The cows moo
I discussed it
     With him
They indeed are
Herbivores, but
Were their toes even
      Or odd?

CAREER: In trees // the leaves have / finally found / their niche – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p238

The largest portion of the carbon footprint of beer (25%) is its refrigeration

Radical monopoly reflects the industrial institutionalization of values. It substitutes the standard package for the personal response – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p54

Paradoxes of radical monopolies

First - correcting superficial abuses bolsters the power of the abusers
Second – Collective action to remedy problems leads to guardians being appointed to defend radical monopolies

Radical Monopolies are totalizing and co-opting institutions

People will face a danger that threatens their own self-interest but not one that threatens society as a whole – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p55

A Classification of Movement (from Gibson):
1 – postural – fundamental to all others – the body’s orientation to the earth
2 – orienting – investigation – turning movements – adjusting the head, eyes, mouth, hands – for obtaining information
3 – locomotor – placing the body in a favorable environmental position
4 – appetive – to take from or give to the environment; breathing, eating, eliminating and sexual interaction
5 – performatory – to alter the environment – displacing things, store food, construct shelter, fight and use tools
6 – expressive – movement to specify emotional states
7 – semantic – signaling movements especially speech

Once people with their roots in the land get all urbanized and modern, they start to feel patronizing towards the quaintness of the village life – John Barlow – Everything but the Squeal, 2008 p144
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A leech has 32 ‘brains’ – actually nerve endings
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$50 million dollars has been allocated to looking for bedbugs
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Olestra from the chips that made you leak, now has a new life in eco-friendly paint
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All fifty US states produce wine

In both of which [two nearby plantations in northern Mississippi] the Negroes were turned out to work at half-past three every week-day morning – I might hear the bell ring for them - and frequently they were not stopped till nine o’clock at night, Saturday nights the same as any other. One of them belonged to a very religious lady, and on Sunday mornings at half-past nine she had her bell rung for Sunday School, and after Sunday School they had to a meeting, and after dinner another religious service. Every Negro on the plantation was obliged to attend all these exercises, and if they were not dressed clean they were whipped… and if they were caught speaking to a Negro from another plantation they were whipped. They could all repeat the catechism…but they were the dullest, laziest, the most sorrowful looking Negroes he every saw – Fredrick Law Olmsted – The Cotton Kingdom, 1861 p372

The sow had a new litter – bacteria permeated the atmosphere – no place for germ fastidiousness – no Listerine anywhere. He had cousins who were doctors in the States, everyone did.

Uneconomic growth occurs when increases in production come at the expense of resources and well-being that is worth more than the items made – Herman E Daly – Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005) p104

I got there in a Volva driven by an ex-Detroit auto worker. We bounced over pot holes along narrow roads (English lanes without the hedges) as fast has he could drive. It had taken us a hundred clicks to circle Nowa Huta - back in Krakow he pointed out where the Jewish synagogue had once been. Auschwitz waited for another day.


Science may even dispense with objects, but not with events – Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p75

The old peasants who still work the land in these rural spots are providing a service fulfilling our expectations and making it so real – John Barlow – Everything but the Squeal, 2008 p153

We have gone too far, it appears, in believing that natural phenomena can be reduced to signal registrations alone  and hence that mind has no direct role in the process of observation: mind on the contrary, is as indispensable an instrument of observation as any physical contrivance. The point is of paramount importance for social sciences – Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 n p75

From the Journal (#2 January 21, 2004 - San Francisco – California & Fillmore – The Royal ground

We pass by a few cherry blossoms. They are the first of the season

The man who speaks or writes takes an attitude towards the past which is his alone - Meleau-Ponty

A big blue macaw sits next to me. It is preening itself. It a quarter to three. Its time for the movie - Pretty Dirty Things at the Opera Plaza.

Radio did not make us more foolish, it made foolishness more noise - Jean Rostand

Captain Kangaroo died today - along with my childhood. The captain died for my sins.

If you look at the traditional construction of pleasure, you see the bodily pleasures or pleasures of the flesh, are always eating, drinking and fucking. And that seems to be the limit of our understanding of our body, our pleasure - Foucault

Impeccable timing - I got to the coffee shop just as Cindy was peddling away

The truth of ancient formulations is not an illusion. They are false in what they reject but true in what they affirm - Mealeu-Ponty

Walter has Bruce in tow. “Linda are you using the auto section?” he excitedly asks her. I know what he is up to. He had been in earlier and had gotten all excited over the new Toyota Hybrid Pickup - he had said “Bruce will love this”. Now here was Bruce

“Sure” says Linda while she hunts for that section of her paper. He wants it badly. I say “make him pay for it”. “You’re just mean” she says. She finds it finally and gives it to Walter - gratis. Walter and Bruce are oohing and aahing over the picture of the Toyota. The testrotone levels are bubbling. Heading toward the top of the thermometer. “I can smell the testrotone” Linda says.

The boys are huddled together making vroom, vroom truck noises - all agog

Later Walter says “I’ve been thinking about Max Torque. I don’t think that he should be the hero of my movie - maybe he can be the Moriarrti character. I’ve decided that it will feature Freight Liner - a detective that hangs out at truck stops and helps truckers solve mysteries. But he needs a companion - something like the way Bat Girl was for Batman” “Don’t you mean Bat Boy” I asked? “No” he replied “I thinking of a female role. Linda do you want to be a sister, a wife or a cousin?” “A sister” Linda answers. “As far as names go I it should be something like ‘Stream Liner’ or ‘Eye Liner’. No, I’ve got it, ‘Panty Liner.” I add, “Yes Walter, that’s more like a kissing cousin name. It is defiantly not sister type name” “Second fiddle again” Linda says

Bruce is still engrossed in the new pickups. “So when will they start taking orders”, he asks? “Don’t you want to wait until the new Hummer pickup comes out” I ask? “Nah” he replied, “the new Toyota is bigger”.

We are only now beginning to make history

The lottery would be nice. Bring my dead child back to life. / May the weather clear for the church picnic on Saturday. / Let Christina be my true love not Bob’s or Ralph’s. / May we destroy all terrorists countries except the children – Jim Harrison - In Search of Small Gods, 2009 p17

August 30, 2009 - Broadway Cafe - Kansas City Missouri

This blog is starting to get enough hits to get a higher priority by the search engines – indexed more often, higher on the hit list – success breads success. No different from the hit parade – the only question is can you dance to it. What is its dancibility on a scale of one to ten? Google now gives it a two.

Surely if criticism is anything worthwhile it must be a sort of history – not of course, in the Socratic sense, but retrospectively. It must alter the state of mind of the artistic audience, from mere wondering, contemplation of an inexplicable result, towards something more like sympatric participation in the process – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction p132

And it took two years before Joe caught on that my bohemian lifestyle was a choice – sort of like Thoreau – simplicity by choice, he said. Yes that is it. He had though I was just a bum (although his term was bohemian but that was what he meant) until I had told him what the salary I was making when I quite working. People don’t like be asked what they make, he had said. That is true, I replied and to most it’s a sign of their self worth and they never make enough and besides for many employers it is grounds for being fired to disclose it – they don’t want anyone to know how arbitrary it really is – would obviously be cause much discontent. Sneaky HR - we called them The Inhuman Resources.

When we strive to contemplate the genesis of meaning – to be one with the poet, as it were, while the term is still uncreate – then we have descended with Faust into the realm of the Mothers; then we are drinking of the springs and freshets of becoming – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction p132

And that someone could be deliberate about it is unfathomable to most people, their only model is to buy a big house and a new car and acquire debt and keep the little woman happy. And I told Joe, all of this would be impossible if I had had a wife – women like to have their feathered nests. Oh, I don’t know, Joe said, I am sure that there’s a lot of women who would find you fascinating. Fascinated yes, but to take up with me or even to put up with me, never. God, they say, I envy you. You’re living my dream. But none of them do it.

One day I looked up / and the answer was there / in the sky / it was no – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p260

I’m sure you’ve been told
Having just rushed
      In the front door
      Just to say this

That you look just like
      Ben Kingsley
Yes, but look here at
      My checkbook
And you’ll see that I’m not
He laughed and departed

One hardly knows where / one stands with / in the banal. Walls come / together with hardly a seam – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p194

Movie critics write reviews self-referencing movies, like academics write poems and like writers write about writers and bloggers are full of self-conceit – and I don’t give a damn for your non-contemplated knee jerk opinion and I don’t see why anyone else would either (maybe except for your momma).

A ‘Radical Monopoly’ [is] the dominance of one type of product rather than the dominance of one brand…. When one industrial production process exercise an exclusive control over satisfaction of a pressing need, and excludes nonindustrial activities from competition – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p52
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Radical Monopolies – either you can’t (are not allowed) to do it yourself or there is no choice in how to fill a need: transportation (cars), health (doctors), death (undertakers), education (teachers), violence (soldiers and police), energy (the power grid or the gas station), construction (building codes), temporary accommodation (hotels) – your not allowed not to mow your lawn – you need to preserve property values (another radical monopoly – push everyone into home ownership – preferably with two thousand square feet and a big green lawn and with an island in the center and a commercial range in the corner of a manor house kitchen). It’s not that you would have chosen to do it otherwise, but that you don’t have that option – some people don’t like to walk, even though they spend an hour a day working out in the gym and derive ten miles to get there – I’m glad personal trainers haven’t yet acquired a ‘radical monopoly’ (but it’s coming).
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How often have you heard a politician say that millions of Americans “have no healthcare” when he or she meant they have no health “insurance”? How has a method of financing health care become synonymous with care itself? – David Goldhill – How American Health Care Killed my Father – The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 2009 p41

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Health insurance is different from every other type of insurance. Health insurance is the primary payment method, not just for expenses that are unexpected and large but for ‘nearly all’ healthcare expenses – David Goldhill – How American Health Care Killed my Father – The Atlantic Monthly, Sept 2009 p41
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Table football invented

     By a poet

In the wet green meadows

     Of Galicia

Played on crude homemade

     Contraptions that wobbled

In the middle of the street
     Of a Mexican barrio
Played with blinking lights
     And electronic scoring
In urban American pleasure
     Palaces
This glass of beer is for you
     Alejandro Campos Ramírez
Arriba, abajo, el centro

The minor poet is appreciator rather than creator. He imitates because he must have his idea established, acknowledged, labeled in his own consciousness as ‘poetic’ before he can feel that he is writing poetry – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction p159

From the Journal (Volume 2 page 7) – January 20, 2004 – Royal Ground – California & Fillmore – San Francisco California

Cindy is back from Mexico - she says that Pepto Bismo makes her tongue black and her poop stiff. The Eagles are playing on the radio. Cindy is gathering her stuff - Zappatista dolls, leather bookmarks, a journal that she had found, coffee mug. She straps on her fanny pack, dons a gray serapes she had acquired on her trip and disappears. Her last comment was that she had only written two and a half pages in Mexico. “But”, she said “it was very small handwriting.” Cindy is a pest. Walter would like to acquire a big flyswatter.

Michael says “Leave me out of the journal all together.” I say “OK”. But I lied. If he only knew he has now been blogged.

Determinism requires a quasi-divine point of view in our description of nature. “So”, Michael asks, “how did the guys at work (the other Michael and his partner Andy) like the soap?” “My nephew Paul was home on leave from the Army, so I gave the basket to him instead” I replied. “So how did he like it? Did anyone say anything?” Michael was wanting to know. “My niece said that she liked them. I don’t expect to hear anything from the others. Its not in their nature” I tell him. “Oh” he says. Michael is trying to make a living crafting soap in his kitchen

‘Dean comes in third in Iowa - Kerry - “We’re coming and you’re going - and don’t let the door hit you [in the ass on the way out]”

Its 8:27AM and the sun is shinning - overcast skies and rain predicted through the weekend - “if you can’t stand on your two feet, don’t stand on mine” - Talk radio, God bless it.

Michael (the other one – both of them gay, one is sweet on me and the other a co-worker) and I have lunch at the San Francisco Brewery. I had my usual burger and a beer - Anniversary Ale. Michael had a penne and an Albatross larger. He didn’t like the sausage. “Too spicy” he said as he picked at bits of pasta. We discussed Bayard Rustin and my plans - would I stay in San Francisco?. Would I give up my apartment? Probably – too expensive with no income. Isn’t it about time to start thinking about what I’ll do next. I can change – I can change anything – but probably not everything, but some things – which things? Another job – no, too cynical for that. I’ll become a flauneur, a bohemian – a poet, a writer and artist. What about money – got enough to get by, no need to get greedy.

8:45AM and its time to catch the bus to the financial district. I no longer call it ‘going to work’. It’s collecting a pay check. I haven’t seen either Walter or Linda this morning. They probably spotted Miss Cindy and beat a hasty retreat before she had spotted them

No one knows what to say when you tell them you’re a writer. It’s like shaking someone’s hand and farting at the same time – John Barlow – Everything but the Squeal, 2008 p132

August 29, 2009 - Broadway Cafe - Kansas City Missouri

Perhaps we as a species are not genetically adapted for the objectives we have set for ourselves – whose fault is that – we must either rethink or build machines that are – the later seems to be the current strategy and success is not guaranteed, while rethinking is.

Chet Chylinski  says he's been inspired by Mitch Dobrowner. Chet has been looking up at the sky (remember his rainbow photograph - I've gotten a lot of hits from people wanting to know if double rainbows are good or bad luck) . Most of us look at our shoes a lot.  If you are behind me right now I hope your looking at my rear (the break lights on my car, I mean) and don't run into me. I said to Katie, I wouldn't mind running into you". She said, "I hope your not in your car". And Anna gave Katie a high five and said "Good one, Katie."  Chet has his camera out but it's OK because he's gotten out of his car. I've tried to take pictures out the window but everything came out blurry. Chet's photographs are not blurry. Chet said I'd appreciate this blog and I do. Chet sent another of his cloud photographs. I have a whole portofolio of Chet's cloud photogtraphs. Chet is having a show this weekkend in Chicago. Chet why don't you have a blog with a portfolio like Mitch. We can't all be as clever as Cecelia.  Some of us are way to wordy. Cecelia is graphical (too graphic isn't that what we call someone who is too wordy?)  Most people want to watch videos. I do occasionally  go to the cinema (I saw Inglorous Basterds).  I don't like videos much espically on my laptop. I do like Chet's photographs of clouds though. Too bad you couldn't see it it all its graphical detail - a quality photgraph needs to be view as a print (and it's not just a Luddite thing either). I'm a Luddite in the original sense of the word. Joe says he's a Luddite but what he just means he don't like anything new. I like Robbie the Robot and R2DE too. I'm a Luddite in an Ivan Illich sense.

Give me a quiet, shy fountain - / one content to sit in a small square gathering shade – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p65

Progress is what this point in history has led us to – it is Panglossian because progress means “the best of all possible worlds” – is it not ‘progress’ that got us here – and is it not progress that will get us there. What do you want anyway to return to the ‘dark ages’ – after all this is the best of all possible worlds – hell, it’s the only world – make the most of it – shove the runts out of the way – stick your snout in the trough and feed – My! But is this mighty find slop – the best of all possible slop. It’s not that we expect too much, it’s that we don’t expect enough!

Those who study things don’t like to envisage the possibility that they’re working on phantoms – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p170

String theory is not pretty – it’s much more complicated than what it tries to explain – besides no experiment can contain it

Meaning is everything. When we can experience a changing of meaning – a new meaning – there we may really join hands and sing with the morning stars; for there we are in a new birth – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p131

Barney Oldfield
Owen Barfield
Bar None
Bridge of No Return

Words are not bottles; every individual must intuit meaning for himself and the function of the poetic is to mediate such intuition by suitable suggestion – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p133

Then the dog climbed up
      Into my lap and wanted
      The same as the black cat got


But instead of bearing its fangs
It nuzzled me with its wet
       Nose


Dog gone, your breath
And who knows where
        You’ve stuck your nose

They permitted themselves to doubt the axioms, and even if they agreed to obey the rules, it had been their own choice so to do. That very detachment, that sense of making a choice was precisely what the ordered community would have to deny – Andrew Hodges – Alan Turning: The Enigma, 1983 p499

Cross-fertilization (corn-stalks waving in the air) was the essence of education – courses are taken concurrently rather than sequentially – giving opportunities for novelty to arise – but this is not the way we organize our work – discipline, the outgrowth of slave labor now is the overriding principle – work at an assigned task until it is completed (or until the clock hand says you can quite) – education is an outgrowth of the training of a gentlemen – but we are changing all of that, making it conform to the principles of slavery – now test taking is the mark of an educated man.

Depression is an economic state. / Green is also the color of cash – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p195

A hundred pounds a day
       Of meat on the hoof is a lot
But spread it out on a hundred
      Thousand leaves it is trivial
And to realize it takes seven pounds
      Of feed to produce a pound
      Of beef if photosynthesis
Was as inefficient as cattle are
      There would be no stakes to grill
Nor would we have any worry at all
It’s just the way it works

If the debtor be insolvent to serve creditors, let his body be cut in pieces on the third market day. It may be cut into more or fewer pieces with impunity. Or, if his creditors consent to it, let him be sold to foreigners beyond the Tiber. —Twelve Tables, Table III, 6 (ca. 450 B.C.)

Nuclear deterrence was a demonstration in stupidity and its defense as a rational strategy is an apology for stupidity regardless of the apologist’s credentials. Let this be written in stone.

I shop / to make the world / an acceptable place - / less embarrassed by its riches, / more aware of my grace – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p211

Like most statistics official statistics (and all statistics are official in that they are collected in the interest of some cause) don’t tell the real story – bankruptcy statistics now record entrepreneurial failure under the count of individual fillings rather than under business filings – it makes it seem as if business risk has decreased. It is a form of selective under-reporting – official business fillings constitute only 2.3% of the fillings and constitute 15-16% of the actual bankruptcies. It’s a self-serving process – it’s the same with unemployment reporting (it’s all a matter what the numbers actually report and we don’t stop to question the meaning). Everyone has a story to tell.

In our poetry too / we like our lyricism / minus the garlic / on the poet’s breath – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p181

To movie critics, the whole world is a movie – the cinema gives you insight into its own cinematic universe where the frame-image continuum is warped and doubles back upon itself – in cinemaland everything is relevant – we are all fixed observers (sitting in our seats)

[For what is] logically simple [fundamental], a definition is not possible; there is nothing but to lead the reader or hearer, by means of hints, to understand the words as is intended – Gottleb Frege

He who finds no one
      To blame
Is the last man
      Standing

The people do not consume culture; they create it – Ernesto Cardenal

Our common language is our common
     Source of misunderstanding
Otherwise we would have assumed
     That we just failed to comprehend

August 28, 2009 - Benetti's Coffee Experience - Raytown Missouri

All in all the wholesale attachment of almost every economists of the last hundred years to the mechanistic dogma is still a historical puzzle - Nicolas Georgescu-Rogen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p2

She sings so sweet with
Just a hint of a whine
And then the door opens and
           The buzz of a motor scooter
            Drowns out her voice
Sounds that alone are tolerable
Combine to produce noise


The eyes can no longer see
The ears can no longer hear
The nose can no longer smell
None of the neurons know
          When to fire


But we only call it pollution
If it is composed of waste
A singular definition
And this is just a malaise


Into our aesthetics
Has been incorporated
This inability of the brain
           To continue processing


We even call it pleasure
To deprive it of perception
Like holding our breath
           In the ol swimming hole
           For as long as you can

But then there is alwasy the option
Of coming to the surface

I try to not speak more clearly than I think – Niels Bohr

There is a certain half-spurious element in the appreciation of poetry… of the obstreperous medium having been masterfully subdued. It is a kind of architectural pleasure – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p96

She’s my doll

She’s got a close chopped head

Big bangles in her ears

And hairy underarms

Any institution that moves towards its second watershed tends to become highly manipulative. For instance, it cost more to make teaching possible than to teach. The cost of roles exceeds the cost of production – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p23

Blood red
Wine deep
A big leap
All in a heap
Too steep
No sleep

It's an amazing challenge to constantly break out the Nietzschean hammer and destroy your worldview and belief system and evaluate others - Steve Hoffman

THE EMPTY POCKETBOOK

To understand you must unthink
Medicine does not prolong life
It delays the grieving

The ancient men who assumed that the ‘world’ was flat were not mistaken in this observation… they were only limited in their conception of the size of the world – James Gibson – The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems, 1961 p8

The Standard Bureaucratic Response:
1 – Post a sign
2 – Promulgate a ruling
3 – Wait and see it if goes away
4 – If not – explain how it’s not this agency’s responsibility
5 – Lobby for additional funding
6 – Hire a public relations expert

For those whose conceits are seated in popular opinions, need only prove or dispute, but those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour: the one to make themselves conceived, and the other to prove and demonstrate – Bacon

How much of test taking is just that – test taking?

The English ‘love’ to talk about the price of things. They sell their homes in the U.K., cash in their life insurance, and buy a villa on the south cost of Spain… but what really moves them is how much they’re going to save on marmalade and teabags – John Barlow – Everything But the Squeal, 2008 p93

To understand you must remove yourself (place yourself outside) the system you want to understand, but if you do the knowledge the acquire becomes inapplicable – unacceptable to the process – to be relevant to neo-classical economics acceptable solutions must be consistent with neoclassical economics – only neoclassical economists can make any contribution to neoclassical economics. It was for this reason that Thomas Jefferson recommended a revolution every twenty years.

Grow a beard. / Wear a cowl. / Ride a donkey / Carry a torch. // Sit by a well. / Live to a ripe, old age. / Remain a virgin / and speak in tongues. // These are the words of the Lord – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p102

Nowhere, a place without location
Nothing happens there, ever
It is inexplicable that such a place
       Should exist

Before anyone becomes an authority on evolution, and even thereafter, he needs to know what ‘fitness’ means without waiting until natural selection will have eliminated the unfit – science cannot be satisfied with the idea that the only way to find out whether a mushroom is poisonous is to eat it – Nicolas Georgescu-Rogen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p48

Vulnerability and resilience are inversely related – an industrial nation is difficult to invade but easy to defeat, while a non-integrated economy is easy to invade but difficult to crush

Everyone knows. It’s a confrontation that no one can win. Or lose. It is a system. No one gets angry. That was the system – John Barlow – Everything But the Squeal, 2008 p55


The full meaning of words are flashing, iridescent shapes like flames – ever-flickering vestiges of the slowly ever living consciousness beneath them – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p75

Owen Barfield argues that metaphors are abbreviated similes – i.e. ‘points of view’ – ‘sleep is to hurt minds what balm is to hurt bodies’ – hence Shakespeare’s ‘balm of hurt minds’

Every aspect of industrial societies has become part of a larval system for escalating production and increasing demand necessary to justify the total social cost - Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p25

We unconsciously use metaphors by extending ancient the meanings inherent in a word and this can be done in a revolutionary manner when an author makes a given Language into a language of his own (Spencer, Shakespeare, Joyce)

It’s as if past and present are so intertwined, / they almost cancel each other out. // The city cannot be said to exist fully / in either dimension. Only the taste / of its hazelnut gelato proved eternal to me – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p65

Another new industry is born – prison consultation – that which Wall Street swindlers and rapacious athletes can expect when the enter incarceration – it doesn’t come cheap – a one hundred hours course for $20,000 – phone consultation at one hundred dollars an hours. Don’t fall prey to what is portrayed on TV, they advice, don’t pick a fight – try to stay invisible – know the prison etiquette – stay with your race – don’t talk to the guards. Everyone watches TV – they know who you are – they are awaiting your arrival.

Many scientists are surprised – greatly surprised, in fact – that the world corresponds to our calculations and obeys our brain. Some of them (including Einstein?) even admit to being worried by this and fail to understand how we can understand what surrounds us – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p172

Work cannot be sold in the marketplace – only its aftermath can be. The right to operate machines must be granted and only then can one earn a living.

There is something banal about evil / but the reverse is also true / and what is mundane quickly becomes sinister – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect - new and selected poems, 2007 p107

That’s how you know
     That this is still summer
The fireflies still come out
     Of the evening and you still
     Sweat even after the sun
            Has gone down

Then the cicadas begin
     Their chirring which makes
            You dozy

Of a summer evening
      There are now only a few
      But everyone counts

Labor day is only a week
                 Away

Really, there is no distinction between Poetry and Science, as kinds of knowing, at all. There is only a distinction between bad poetry and bad science – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p139

August 26 - The Coffee Girls - 75th & Wsahington - Kansas City Missouri

Out walking Nick Nick – oh what a cute little dog – what happened, he asked gesturing towards the top of his head – I got run over by a lawnmower – and no I did not start lecturing him of Convivial Tools – I had done something similar yesterday with the neighborhood committee on health care – and that had been a disaster. But any form of activitism will get you involved in other areas and this is good – there is a Nietzschian hammer hanging over the heads of all reformers – and when they fail as they must, they either  give up or take down that hammer and begin swinging. I explained that it was not a healthcare system but a health industry (I didn’t explain the difference – only gave them some statistical nightmares). You can’t tell someone how to think or even use rational argument with them if what your asking of them is to unthink – you must do something to disturb their mental equilibrium. Its much like teaching, they may even get good test scores, but what really counts is something they do ten years down the road and its something good and something they wouldn’t otherwise have done  (at least you like to think) it hadn’t been for your influence.

And he laughed when I said I had been run over by a lawnmower – he was a man of conspiracies and could take a crackpot so  long as he would listen to his conspiracy theory. "They’re scooping out the neighborhood at night," he said in confidence. Who was - UFOs, the FBI, terrorists? I was afraid to ask who they were. I was expecting a thirty-minute tirade – but no in this case he only meant the niggers, but he didn’t use THE word, even poor whites have learned to be PC. He said "The Blacks" (but he was able to say it in a way that made it sound just as sinister). "They are coming around at four and five in the morning while everyone is asleep." Now this little cracker enclave is overrun with dogs and everyone has a gun and several years ago a neighbor did a stand down with the police that made national news after shooting several and dieing in the ensuing infernal. The idea of a bunch of kids casing this neighborhood in the middle of the night was a little ludicrous. And when anyone called the police, their standard response was always " if they come on your property shoot ‘em" . And what did any of these crackers have to steal that would make it that worthwhile. Now how stupid would a Nigga have to be? Then he saw a neighbor and went off to gab and left me alone to continue walking Nick Nick.

The great dream of ‘tourism’ then, comes close to fruition today in Laza. As tourists we want to taste the authentic, the local, the genuine. Effectively, we want to go where there are no tourists – John Barlow – Everything But the Squeal, 2008 p64

The velvet painting is getting attention
Unlike most of the art on the wall
And it only differs for dogs playing
       Poker by a tiny anthromophized

Cartoon duck standing
My the old mill pond in the moon light
And I supposed that that is supposed
       To make it ironic
       Or is it merely moronic
Replacing the cause with the effect
The problem with the symptom
And everyone points to the duck
       And chuckles

You can’t comment on what is plain to see – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p162

But they do, everyone does and although they can’t do anything about it, they are always commenting of the weather. And doesn’t your partner always want to know how he/she was – was it as good for you as it was for me? Maybe it is only the universe for which it is true – see that, it’s the sun and it makes the crops grow. It’s big and bright and that’s good too! When the obvious is questioned a negative answer is never acceptable

A person who makes an assertion will always fine someone to contradict him. It’s harder when someone makes an observation. His contradiction has to make an observation of his own – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p167

And I don’t agree that it’s the sun that makes the crops grow! Crops don’t grow at the North Pole – not at least in the wintertime, do they! Just as they don’t grow in Antarctica not in the summertime. Yes, but that’s due to the cold. Right, and what make it cold? That is due to the absence of the sun.

In view of the fact that theoretical science is a living organism, it would not be exaggerating to say that this attitude [economics seen as ‘the mechanics of utility and self-interest] is tantamount to planning a fish hatchery in a moist flowerbed – Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p40

The is something Panglossian in formulistic conservatism as there is something Quixotic about a liberal

The self-confidence of learned people is the comic tragedy of [our] civilization – Alfred North Whitehead – Science and Philosophy, 1948 p103

Equi for Gerstler

Thou shall look
Through chocolate
Decadent eyes


Barbequed
Angles wings
Takes the cake


In this almond
Eyed salty autumn
We admitted defeat

The capitalist system is a market economy, but markets are not an institution that belongs exclusively to Capitalism. It is important to distinguish between the Market and markets – Serge Latouche – interview with Claudia Ciobanu IPS News Agency Aug 5, 2009

Institutionalization ensures that simplicity yields to complexity; that access becomes controlled; that desire yield to need – by institutionalization a process becomes justified not by what it satisfies but for the good of society – it proceeds from the real to the abstract, from responsibility to accountability – institutionalization is inherently efficient and fascist and independent of its original purpose

Three hooded TV men stomped on their way to the parking lot. The presenter in particular is not looking happy. I want to remind him that he is getting paid to attend a Dionysian festival that’s been celebrated for an unbroken thousand years… but I don’t say anything. After all he’s just been whipped in the face with a bramble by a teenager in his underpants – John Barlow – Everything But the Squeal, 2008 p79

That area of politics called progressive
Is often mistaken for liberalism
While any solution that does
         Not constitute more of the same
Is labeled socialism
And this is why those claiming
To be socialist is rapidly growing
Politics is all contained in its specific epithets

I don’t think it’s fair for an enemy to die / and rob you of victory, go and leave you, fist still / shaking in the air – this isn’t the end of this – Elaine Equi – Ripple Effect, 2007 p39

What I do, I can do out of my backpack. This is true even if my backpack is small - a day pack. It is no big handicap to work like this. This is also true of astronauts but they also need to tanks of oxygen like a scuba diver, but not me. I am not burdened by weight and there is no trade-off.

Our imaginations have been industrially deformed – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p15

Chattel slavery was an experimental form of wage slavery. It had the disadvantages of lack of flexibility and inefficiency, but most of all it tied up capital in labor rather than in tools. What kept it alive was need to recover invested capital which was substantial – less developed economies are needed as dumping grounds for obsolescent investments

It [slavery] was not instituted by us – we are not responsible for it. It is unfortunately fixed upon us; we could not do away with it if we wished; our duty in only to make the best of a bad thing; to lessen its evils as much as we can, so far as we have to do with it individually – Fredrick Law Olmsted – Cotton Kingdom, 1861 p259

No man, to listen to him, is ever responsible for the moral or ethical situation that he inherits (along with its privileges which he forgets). And after all there is a chance that even greater evil might result if he did (this cannot be disproved)

It might be argued that the state was taking a larger role in policing sexual behavior, precisely because the inhibitory effect of public opinion was decreasing – Andrew Hodges – Alan Turing: The Enigma, 1983 p462

Looked at it this way the conservative desired power to be exercised when social authority waned while the liberal desired political power to be exercised where social authority had failed. For one political power is a substitute for social authority and for the other a replacement of it.

No science has been criticized by its own servants as openly and constantly as economics. The motive of dissatisfaction are many, but the most important pertains to the fiction of ‘homo economicus’. The complaint is that this fiction strips man’s behavior of every cultural propensity, which is tantamount to saying that in his economic life man acts mechanically – Nicolas Georgescu-Rogen – The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, 1971 p1

The collective memory abridges everything – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p147

August 24, 2009 - Coffee Break - Kansas City Missouri

Sunday morning – ug-ga ug-ga, ugh – twitter twitter twip twip – eek eeek eek – all this natural stuff and that insistent motorway even on this day of rest – oh, what a headache

[Economic growth] has become the secular religion of advanced societies: the source of individual motivation, the basis of political solidarity, the ground for mobilization of society for a common purpose – Daniel Bell – The Cultural Contradictions of Capitalism, 1978 p237

The loudest takers are the stupidest or is it
That they are the only ones that I notice
They do, they do know a lot it seems


But in my ears it has no relevance
Which is what makes it stupid
Stupidity is after all in the mind
       Of its beholder it seems

Talking on the cell phone makes
Much less than half sense
And on the whole there may
        Have been none to begin with


The more effectively the inane
Is accomplished by the insane
The greater the stupidity


The inane is always stupid
The minutia of the world
Accomplished with so much
         Concentration


Some might argue with me
As to whether this is really a poem
          Is it about stupidity or is it just stupid


And they are trying to tell me this
In a loud and booming voice
Can’t you see, I’m talking
           On my cell phone!

When an enterprise grows beyond a certain point on a [natural] scale, it first frustrates the end for which it was originally designed, and then rapidly becomes a threat to society itself – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 pXXIII

Analyze the premises; not the symptoms – the symptoms are only the indication of a problem, not the problem itself – that would be like banging on the instrument panel at Chernobyl – who in God’s name would do such a thing!

Perversity Patriotic: Terrorism has ruined / S&M for me! //Now it just seems / like watching / the news – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect, 2007 p49

THANKS TO Everything but the Squeal

Pigs sound like god in Cantonese

And similar to bees in Japanese

So much for onomatopoeia

What money is to the conservative economist, words are to the conservative philosopher – Owen Barfield – Poetic Diction, 1951 p61

Science is the only thing that progresses – everything else merely gets older or accumulates or rots  away

The present world is divided into those who do not have enough and those who have more than enough, those who are pushed off the road by cars and those who drive them – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p15

Obsessions – economic growth (fear that there may not be enough), progress (fear of slipping back into the dark), health (fear that there may be an end), happiness (fear of not deserving), celebrities (fear that we won’t get what we deserve), crime (fear that we might get what we deserve), good schools (fear of mediocrity), creditworthiness (fear of not having more), death (fear that it may not be enough)

We’re trying to pay for brain surgery with bake sales – Gordan Marino

W C Field’s explanation of why he did not drink water – Fish fuck in it!

We’ve lost all sense of proportion to our relationship with the universe. We’re off the scale, we’ve ceased to be the measure of the world, we are the world – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p56

Why is that crime fiction usually portrays the criminals as loners – the flashy pimp, the ruthless killer, the sulking  rapist, the neighborhood bully – rather than as member of a body polis? Is it that we as members of the community we may  share in the accountability? And after all most criminals (ignoring the pathological) are as much conformists as are middle level executives (again ignoring the pathological). The major function of a gang leader is the development economic opportunities for his members so that they will remain in his gang – it’s not unlike an entrepreneur, but instead of working with capital he is working with people. Wouldn't that make a good reality show - take gangbangers off the streets and give them major managment responsibilities (but do it on a deserted island)!

Every traditional school of thought tells us that we don’t see the world as it really is, that we must liberate our gaze from our habits, but we’re caught in the trap of our senses and consequently of our mode of speech. Words stick to the tongue. We can’t speak without them, yet they lie to us continuously – Jean-Claude Carriére – Please, Mr. Einstein, 2006 p42

I’m a duck in a wet suit

I’m a beaver that is not eager

I’m a fish who is seasick

I’m a citizen without any income
         And the IRS wants to know why
I’m an asocial javilina without an any odor

Minutes of standardized test preparation, on average that New York and Los Angeles kindergartners are given each day and the number of minutes of unstructured play respectively: 24; 25 [Harper’s Index]

Minor depression – a decline in GDP of at least 10%; Major depression - a decline in GDP of at least 25% - Robert Barro.  It’s official – the New York Times has used it as a proper name – it’s to be called The Great Recession.
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As the world becomes full of use and our stuff, it becomes empty of what was here ‘before’ – – Herman E Daly – Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005) p101

The alternative to a sustainable economy, an ever growing economy is biophysical impossible. In choosing between tackling a politically impossibility and a biophysical impossibility, I would judge the later to be more possible –  Herman E Daly -  Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005)  p102

The general concern with symptoms, distracts from the malignant expansion of ‘institutional’ health care which is at the root of rising costs and demand and the decline in well being – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p6

An Institute of Health study – 100,000 people die in US hospitals as a result of medical errors or mistakes. But this is untrue 80,000 die as a result of cross infections which are neither the result of error or mistake but of proscribed practice. It is estimated that as many as two million patients a year become cross infected

TO DO: Never finish anything / on your to do list. // It will look as if you have nothing better to do – Elaine Equi – Ripple Effect, 2007 p39

What is learned is not to be displayed on a shelf but to be put into play

Identical tools also promote the development of the same character types. Policemen in patrol cars or accountants at computers look and act alike all over the world, while their poor cousins using nightsticks or pens are different from region to region – Ivan Illich -  Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p15

It’s time to shake up the snow globe we call the world / and see what’s happening in the near-far-middle-east-west – Elaine Equi - Ripple Effect, 2007 p39

August 21, 2009 - Bennetti's Coffee Experience - Raytown, Missouri

Chet Chylinski   has just sent me this photo that he made of a double rainbow – notice that the order of colors are reversed for the secondary rainbow. If he had been in the aircraft seen in the photo the rainbows would have appeared circular rather than as arches. I replied that I had once seen a triple rainbow over the Grand Canyon, but I lied – I discovered that that is not possible – it was either a supernumerary rainbow or it was the result of light reflecting off a bright surface and creating a new light source in which case the third rainbow would have intersected the other two rather than forming a concentric ring. If a tertiary rainbow actually occurred it would not be visible above the first two but in the opposite side of the sky.
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Rainbow tidbits
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It comes as a surprise to me that those who live and work in the real countryside harbor a healthy ambivalence towards their own way of life – John Barlow – Everything but the squeal, 2008 p8

Its becoming harder and harder to try new places
Its all part of the process of acclimation
Its not that I am content with my routine
It’s that I am familiar with it


Its becoming harder and harder to try new ideas
Its all part of the process of acclimation
Its not that I am content with what I think
Its that it is at least acceptable

But I try not to be too  smug about this

Much of the rustic landscape is composed of neatly manicured, picture-postcard villages awash with gleaming BMWs… the rural population moved out years ago, no one knows where they went – John Barlow – Everything but the squeal, 2008 p8

If it can’t be said in a poem
It can’t be said
To be said it first
Must be said in a poem

In a visible world, the invisible does not compete – Mark Slouka – Harpers (Sept 2009) p32

We all know the myth about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow – but in general is seeing a rainbow a good omen or a bad one and what does a double rainbow mean. Seeing a lamb, a frog, a spider a black cat, or a rainbow on the way to a wedding ceremony is believed to be the sign of good luck. Sometimes the rainbow is viewed as s sign of good weather – rainbow seen in evening betokens a fine day. The most auspicious of the myths is that if you stand so that the rainbow’s colors reflect on your clothing you will be rich as a queen. And a double rainbow, called a ‘water gaul’ is a sure sign of continued fair weather. To secure luck, when a rainbow occurs make a cross on the ground and spit on all four corners.

The rainbow as a good omen is the exception, most rainbow supersititutions are signs of bad weather and death:
- Peruvian Indians believe that exposing your teeth to a rainbow will cause them to loosen and rot
- A Saturday rainbow is sure to be followed by a week of rainy weather (Ireland)

- Rainbow in morn, put your hook in corn; rainbow at eve, put your hand in the sleve (and by the way you will never see a rainbow at noon)
- The rainbow is a sign of children’s souls ascending to heaven (a la “It’s a Wonderful Life” and angels getting wings)
- A rainbow over the house means death
- If you point at a rainbow you will be a felon
- Arched over a cemetery it will cause an epidemic (Greek)
- Rainbow in winter mean more snow
- Seen in the middle of water – drought; seen on land – crops will be injured; seen on trees – disease in the land; seen on anthills will result in wars; and if seen at night – ministers will perish (India)
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It has taken us a century to over come the handicap created by modern medicine – but finally we have the majority of the world’s countries no longer capable of sustaining their populations. There are 64 countries that no longer reproduce at a rate high enough maintain their populations.
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The foundation myth of modern society is that the trend is towards more equal conditions. Inequalities are accepted, since many goods that were once reserved for the privileged are now widespread, and the luxuries of today will be assessable to all tomorrow - Serge Latouche – The Globe Downshifted (Le Monde dipolmatique, Jan 2006)

What is truth I can’t
        Say
I can say this is a book
        This is a pencil
        This is a piece of paper
These are just words

When the economy’s expansion encroaches too much on the surrounding ecosystem we will begin to sacrifice natural capital… we will then have what I call un-economic growth… - making us poorer, not richer – Herman E Daly – Economics in a Full World (Scientific American Sept 2005) p.100

It has become fashionable to say that where science and technology have created problems, it is only more scientific understanding and better technology that can carry us past them. The cure for bad management is more management – Ivan Illich – Tools of Conviviality, 1973 p9