People Lie of TV. Get a Latte. Go to the Gym. Everything is OK

I am getting up earlier, before 6AM. The sun is coming up earlier, before 6AM. The cat and the dog are chasing each other about the house making a racket. They are not about to let me stay in bed. Time to go out. Time for me to get up. Tomorrow I take off. Got the truck all packed. Be back in July I said. Well maybe. No sooner than that anyway.

Stars sling shot / round the center / at millions of miles per // In rest homes beds, patients / hang on / as if to love – Rae Armantrout – Versed, 2000  p25

People lie, They stand up right there on TV and they lie. They lie to you and me. They lie in front of the kids. They lie  in church. They will lie to their dog. They lie right there on TV; is there nothing sacred anymore?

The fact [is] that we are no longer excluded. We are no longer excluded, not because of racism, sexism, and class differences have come to an end. They manifestly have not. Rather, we are no longer excluded because…because there is no longer any culture to be excluded from. That is to say, the word “Culture” no longer names a metadiscursive project – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p103

Bureaucratic rationales are not reasoned arguments but take as given unsubstantiated propositions backed up only by the authority of the bureaucracy itself – bureaucracies are self-referential. Bureacrates are the paragon of excellence.

There is… not much evidence to real ‘learning’ taking place at most postsecondary institutions, if by that we mean the process by which a student is motivated to participate in, even challenge, established intellectual authority – Stanley Aronowitz – The Knowledge Factory, 2000 p143

The big blond climbs up

Into a black SUV clutching

            A latte and talking

            On a cellphone

How much work does it

            Take to arrest

            This middle-age spread

Two little Jon Bennet Ramseys

            To dress, the real-estate

            Game was supposed to have

Been such easy money but then came

            The turndown and one finds

            Oneself struggling just

To make ends meets let alone

            To dream and be

            All that one can be

But still one must try

One must keep on keeping on

            Mustent one?

Get a latte and head for the gym

The institution doesn’t need another hero. There are no heros in bureaucracy – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p45

Two thirds of the world’s 5 billion mobile phone subscribers are in the developing world

Under globalization the state does not disappear; it simply becomes more and more managerial, increasingly incapable of imposing its ideological will – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p47

For each 10% increase in mobile phone usage there is a 0.6% boost in GDP for a developing country

Rather than being under national political control, the economy is more and more the concern of transnational enities who transfer capital in search of profit without regard to national boundaries. The erstwhile all-powerful state is reduced to becoming a bueraucratic appaaratus of management – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p49

Natural gas produced by hydraulic fracturing as it turns out produces as much pollution and contributes at least as much  and maybe more to global warming than does an equalivent quantity of  coal. This is largely due to the amount of methane released during production. Enough emissions are released to negate the carbon advantage that gas has over coal and oil when they are burned.

Every unit represents an implied measurement… Behind every real-world number, there is a measurement – Charles Seife – Proofiness, 2010   p10

I Didn't Know That I Could Play a Blue Guitar

The lady at the Café Trieste told us of Ginsberg and Corso setting right over there in the corner. Had I read Corso? Yes, some years back I did. Did we  know who Ginsberg was. Yes, of course, everyone did. I had read some of most of the other beat poets. And I had even met of few of them. A few of them were still alive. I even knew the location of the former garage in which he first read “Howl”. The site was now occupied by a hardware store with yellow, blue and red plastic pails in the window. I had sat at the bar across the street and talked with Ferlinghetti sipping a Chianti. Who, him or you? Who? What do you mean? Who was drinking the Chianti, Ferlinghetti or you? We both were. At a bar across from a garaage? No, across from here, at the Cafe Vesuvius. Ok. You can continue now. Thanks!

Brian I say, this is Bohemia. This is North Beach. He says, Uh huh! The woman in the orange flower print and orange high heels continues to dance. She is singing something by the Beetles  Tie me kangaroo sport. Tie me kangaroo down. Not that that it has anything to do with anything else that was going on, but it just entered my mind like a cyclone in Saigon. And Brian says. You’ve got it all wrong, it should be Tie Me Kangaroo down, sport. I didn't say anything, I said (I had thought that I only thought the lyrics - that it was only a brainworm) And its defiantly not by the Beetles. Well if you know everything you sing it. And he graps the blue guitar from the man in the blue shirt and sings:

Watch me wallabys feed mate. 


Watch me wallabys feed. 


They're a dangerous breed mate. 


So watch me wallabys feed. 


Altogether now!

Tie me kangaroo down sport,

 
tie me kangaroo down. 


Tie me kangaroo down sport, 


tie me kangaroo down.

Keep me cockatoo cool,

Curl, 
keep me cockatoo cool.


Don't go acting the fool, Curl,

 
just keep me cockatoo cool. 


Altogether now!

Take me koala back, Jack, 


take me koala back. 


Brian I say I didn’t know you could sing. And Brian, I say, I don’t think we are in Bohemia anymore. And Brian said, I didn't know that I could play a blue guitar either. And flying monkeys were coming out of assholes. And Judy is wearing sapphire slippers. And fields of poppies were making me sleepy. I want to go home and go to sleep in my own bed.

Intoxicated witnesses remember the same number of details as do sober witnesses.

It’s hard not / to jump out / instead of / waiting to be / found. It’s / hard to be / alone so long / and then hear / someone come around – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p250

Terror is an action of a government – terrorism is an action against a government. War is a sustained period of induced terror resulting from systematic terrorism. A war stops when a nation refuses to live in terror any longer or when a land becomes depopulated.

Authority ensured that it is obeyed only if everyone is convinced that it is ‘the authority’ – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 p169

What does technology want?

What does capital desire?

Whatever it is,

It gets

What does it mean for

            Technology to want?

What does it mean for

            Capital to desire?

What does it mean to

            Give in?

Knowledge may only be countered with knowledge… Only another power can oppose a power – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 p170

Aeroplane parts, laminated walnut

            Propellers and ash spars awaiting

            Doped fabric

Then carried away on drays drawn

            By Suffolk horses with heroic

Names

Timber-haulers and sawyers

            Delivering a steady supply

            Of fine English wood

Just so that young boys can

Watch them come

Down in flames

Just so poets can leave a few

            Tracings on muddy

            Scraps of paper

That shall get trodden
            In the mud under

           Soldiers' jackboots

Deep travel has some of the qualities of sunlight after rain – details stand out – but in other ways it more resembles moonlight, because it changes your sense of what has become possible and of what might happen next – Tony Hiss – In Motion, 2010  p12

64% of the baby boomer generation see the Social Security system as the linchpin of their retirement earnings. The first boomers turn 65 this year.

One of his favorite daydreams was to cancel gravity and act out the joy of leaping telegraph poles – Guy Davenport – Tatlin!, 1974  p30

Wars are not made up of wars. Wars are made up of battles. Battle are either won or they are lost. If you get killed you have lost, so for goodness sake survive to fight another day. Run away if you can.

The discontented are those who have not understood the reason why they should be happy; they must learn to reason better [Eric Weil] – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980

The solar oven solves a problem very few real poor people face how to cook lunch on a sunny day

Men in aeroplanes, you can see are not flying. They are merly sitting in a machine – Guy Davenport – Tatlin!, 1974  p47

Why drive miles to the grocery store only to discover that you spent your food budget on fuel  (and you still have to drive back home)? You’ll have to make fewer trips and buy more. But do you have room in the freezer? And what will happen when you can;t afford to pay the electrical bill any more? The sale of can goods is on the increase.

All around you, the known, usually a set of already told tales, has been eclipsed by the only just met up with, the yet-to-be discovered – Tony Hiss – In Motion, 2010 p13

I Forgot. What Did I Forget? I Forgot? Forgot What?

I get ready to leave. Suddenly my mind goes blank. Where did I park my car? Did I drive a car here? I must have for I am sure that I didn’t walk here. I panic. I cannot imagine where I might have parked it. I can’t remember parking it. I cannot visualize my car in its spot – this is I know where to go – I build a map in my head that leads back to its spot. There is no image there, no data to reconstruct a path back to it. I have no idea where I might have parked it. I am in a panic. When I’m in a panic I can’t think. I am unable to think right now. This used to happen when I awoke in the dark in the middle of the night. I would have no concept of the layout of the room that I was in – should I roll off the bed to the left or the right side? In which direction was the bathroom? Where was the front door? Calm down! Think! I would run through a diagram (floor plan) of all the places where I had ever lived until one of them would made sense. Yes that is the room that I’m in now. Roll off of the bed to the left – turn right, take three steps and turn left and walk three step ahead. You are now in the bathroom. The light switch is on the left.  In the fog of just waking up this is OK. But I hadn’t just woken up. There was no fog.  It is the middle of the day. The sun is bright.  I do not have any excuse this time. I fight the panic back. Oh yes, next to the column on the south side up on the second floor. Go up thesed stairs, then turn left and its is four vehicles away to the right. I can see it - my vehicle. There it is! Thank God! But there may come a time soon when it won’t ever come back to me. Will I even know that I don’t know? What is it that I have forgoten? Did I forget something? Where am I? How do I get home? Where do I live?

Thoughts are spent fuel rods – Rae Armantrout – Versed, 2000 p12

If a poet could have explained his poem any better he would have written it differently. But then maybe it wouldn’t have been a poem?

Ghandi was asked, “What do you think of Western Civilization?” His reply:  “It would be a good idea”

I hold the book in my hand

I lay it down on a table

I pick up a pen. I scribble

            Just below the previous

            Scribbling.This is my journal

I call what I am writing a poem, but it’s just

            A list that I have made up

I used to make lists regularly

            Long lists of miscellaneous things

            Lists of unrelated things

            Inclusive lists; exclusive lists

I made a list of the ways

            To reserve a seat

You can place a program

            On your seat but not

            On the seats of others

            For whom you are waiting

                        The arrival

I tried to explain, “The usher might

            Have placed them there. You can’t

            Just place programs on a whole

                        Row of seats.”

It could just as well have been

            The seats without programs

            That had been reserved.

No you have to leave something

More personal for when

Your are gone. Something

That is worth stealing

Something not worth taking

            Is not worth keeping
There were more ways listed
All the ways for properly reserving
            Seats. It was a very 
            Comprehensive list
I didn't think of it then as a poem.
And it wasn't a poem then either

           

It is those of us who cannot untangle ourselves from the past that are really dangerous in the present… We are dangerous because when we come out of the past we are rich with its energies and poorly experienced in that business of daily living – Paul Metcalf – Collected Works, v.1 p7

Too big to fail

Too big to prosecute

Too big to let life

Nothing resembles mythological thought more than political ideology – Claude Levi-Strauss – Anthropologie Structurale

A Muntjac Lies Asleep in the Buttercups

Games are closed restricted; play is open, general. To not be picked to play on the team (be part of the game) while not good is not necessarily tragic. To not be allowed to play warps the personality. All little girls and most boys play well if not together at least in small groups.  Only the meritorious are allowed to play the game.  It is a sign of a man’s status that he becomes known as a player which does not mean that he can play well but that he can game well. Participants in the sports industry are not the players; the business of art does not include art itself. In a general economy jewels, games and art serve no practical purpose. Playing and gaming are not synomous. Psychopaths are good gamers but poor players. Play well! 

That which is noble and holy ceases to be so as soon as it is believed in not from naviety, but out of calculation – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980p182

Seething unrest means

            That something is alive

Something lives until it dies

It is alive if it is not dead

“The stable state of a living organism

            Is to be dead” (Norbert Wiener)

Whatever is done / leaves a hole in the / possible, a snip in / the guaze, a marble / and timble missing / from the immaterial – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p256

Life is the necessary

            Condition, we are

            Its witnesses

Without it, everything

            Would be ordinary

Only occasionally does

            Someone witness

            The extraordinary

Now is the time, you are

            The one,  but this is not

            The place

The soldier knows as much as
             His commander

To the citizen it is self-evident

Life alters its own possibilities
              And the leaders follow along

Schrodinger’s cat takes on

            The multitude

Every paradigm has

            Its poltergeist

I was haunted by the image of a blue china doorknob. / I never used the doorknob or knew what it meant, / yet some how it started the current of images – Robert Lowell

Belief is not an excuse but a cause

Truth… is worth what the will to truth is worth. Truth is superior to illusion only if the will to truth is more affirmative than the will to illusion – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 – p160

Philosophy is an attempt to make explicit what is normally done instinctively

She said to me, half-strangled ‘Do that again. / And then do the other thing.’ / Sunlight flooded the old room – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p64

The US and Britain killed about one million citizens during World War II by bombing civilian (non-military) targets. It’s OK so long as its indiscriminate, so long as you don’t lock them up in box cars. Most of this killing occurred after victory had been assured. A terrorist is a man with a bomb but no airplane. We are not waging  a war on war. We are not against war  per se  (well a few people are). Who exactly is allowed to wage war? If you have airplanes you can if you also have bombs. 9/11 was a case of having airplanes but no bombs. 9/11 was a terrorist act and not a war.  Some dictators are allowed to wage war and some are not. Democracies don't wage war, they defend freedom. Being the head of a country is critical. Trying to decide who can and who can't is as hard as trying to determine who's right and who's wrong.  It can get very messy - but rest assured - the US is always in the right. It was very white of us to assist the rebels in Libya. Get your war correctly permitted before you wage it. Some countries always have a right to wage war whether they have gotten a permit or not. This was the principle that George W Bush so vehemently defended.

Don't march on private property to protest without permission - that is trespassing and if there are two or more of you it is also an unlawful assembly. Don't march in protest on public property without a permit that is also trespassing and if there are two or more of you that is also unlawful assembly. And if you intend to commit a crime (and trespassing is a crime) it is a rout. And if you commit a crime and trespassing is a crime it is a riot. This is a democracy so they can't deny you a permit based solely on you cause - unless that cause of course is in support of an organization on their list. What kind of a demonstration would it be anyway if there was only you. Be prepared to go to jail. Then protest having to go to jail.

As a non-referential unit of value entirely internal to the system, ‘excellence’ marks nothing more than the moment of technology’s self-reflection. All that a system requires is for activity to take place, and the empty notion of excellence refers to nothing other than input/output ratios in matters of information – Bill Readings – The University in Ruins, 1996  p39

The claims for a Shari’ah Conspiracy:

(1)   The goal of Islam is totalitarianism

(2)   Shari’ah is a functioning legal system

(3)   The mastermind of this totalitarianism is the Muslim Brotherhood

(4)   Groups following the lead of the Muslim Brotherhood within the United States are traitors in league with the American left and bent on acts of sedition

(5)   The majority of mosques in the United States are run by imams who promote such sedition

(6)   Through this fifth column, Shari;ah law has already infiltrated the United States and could result in a complete takeover

If truth is genuinely truth, then it must be so not only ‘for us’, but for every being – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980  p142

Try to enter this

Rock-dark night

Without first

Flipping on a switch

You [Lord] have allowed my brilliant friends to destroy themselves / and I am still here, severely damaged, but functioning – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p79

The muntjac favors the

            Flowers of oxlips

And it falls asleep amidst

            The bluebells

Her things should / keep her marks. / The passage / of a life should show – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p245

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

The Mother of All Mothers Says "Watch Your Language Dear"

If the success is measured by apprehending suspects then it pays to be very suspicious – success is derived directly from the state of our paranoia.  Paranoia leads directly to excellence and hence progress. But does it make us happy?

My world offends my eyes / bleary as an envelope cried-over / after the letter is lost – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p64

The economic advantage of marriage (or otherwise maintaining a household of two adult workers) is $2,000 per year. This is the amount that two household workers would save verus the cost of two individual workers in two different households by BEST calculations for “economic security”. The Basic Economic Security Tables include the costs for housing, food, utilities, health care, transportation and a modest level of savings for retirement and a little something tucked away for  emergencies - a basic standard with no luxuries. It does not include homeownership or education - nor cable TV and tickets the ballpark. A single adult household needs to earn $30,000 a year while a two income earning adult household needs an income of $58,000 for the same basic standard of living (the difference between two adult workers in a single household and two adults workers in two households being $2,000).

Knowledge without illlusion is an illusion through and through; in which everything is lost, including knowledge. There is no myth more innocent than that of a knowledge innocent of myth – M Serres – La traduction

If words had meanings would it be impossible to say anything that was meaningless?

Structuralism… is conspicuous, for its indifference to structure – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980  p81

Do fish fish?

You bettcha, at least

            The big uns do

What does a doggone dog

            Tired dog do?

A cow is easily cowed

It is what the bull did

Sharks lend money

But it gets wet

THEFT: The egg sucking fox / licks his copper chops. / The shell cups / lie scattered from / the orange debauch. // It is honest / straight-forward theft - / unlike whatever cruel thing / steals ‘thought’ // the full weight left / and the locked room / still locked – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p235

Whatever you think of News Corp’s politics – which isn’t today’s subject – you have to admire and respect what Murdock has accomplished on the business front – Allan Sloan – Fortune --- No I don’t – let’s change the wording a bit and see how it reads  --- Whatever you think of “The Final Solution” – which is not today’s subject – you have to admire Hitler’s determination and efficiency in carrying it out.

The system filters out the thoughtful and replaces them with the faithful – John Dower – Cultures of War

Creativity ceases as uncertainty diminishes

My muse grew taller. Rejection slips developed signatures – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p10

For-profit colleges account for 11% of all college students but for 43% of all federal student loan defaults. The largest for-profit institution, the University of Phoenix, only graduates less than 10% of its students within a ten-year period.

Education is successful when the student identifies with social and cultural authorities – Stanley Aronowitz – The Knowledge Factory, 2000 p1

Sleeper cells metastasis

These are very sick people

A surgical strike is necessary

Chemotherapy derives from mustard gas

A debridement via bomb

We must cleanse our body

            Politic – rid it

            Of its residual

            Poisons

We will all die & the evidence / is: nothing after that. / Honey we don’t rejoin. / The thing meanwhile, I suppose, is to be courageous & kind – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p55

A war on terror is a war of terror

The war to end all wars is the war

Of all wars

Saddham Hussain had proclaimed it

            The mother of all battles
The mother of all mother fuckers

Yeats, Yeats, I’m coming! It’s me / … I haven’t quite got the hang of the stuff yet / but I swamp with possibility – John Berryman –Love & Fame, 1974 p35

Of Samovars and Dogs the Walrus Spoke

He has a brass samovar – made in Moscow, he proclaims lifting off its top – everyone stops – They ooh and they awe. Someone offered him $200. He had just bought it for fifty dollars less – can’t pass up a bargain, he proclaims. This is were they bring their dogs on Sunday mornings. There are four dogs on leashes here. They sniff each others’ butts. The people sniff each others’ wallets. I got some Avery sunglasses yesterday. Are they prescription? They are Bally. I’ve been admiring your silvers. Nice dog. What a nice boy. A boy, he says, passed away on the operating table (supposedly this was on the news) yesterday, he claimed, but he came back. And when he woke up he announced, “There are dogs in heaven.” What a story. Then he repeats the story about the offer for his samovar. I think I liked the hockey crowd better. They merely paint themselves orange and scream while waiting for a fight to break out. These people have ritualized their aggression way too much. They are too polite. There is a G W Bush smirk on their faces and they chatter.

In the end all fall victim to the object of our adoration, perhaps because passion runs its course more swiftly than any other human emptions, perhaps as a result of our excessive familiarity with the object of desire – Roberto Bolano – The Insufferable Gaucho, 2010 p78

An imagined place

            Full of imaginary things

Though they might be real

            Things is some real space

Or they might be imaginary things

            In a real space

            This is very common

Things only exist in space

They must be some place

            Or other
Even if it is imagined

Your judgment… is true, but not all of it. That is, it is all true, but what you have expressed [to a critic after reviewing Anna Karenina] does not express all that I meant… It is one of the true things that can be said – L Tolstoy

A community is an abstract collective – one person who by means of a visual or aural presence is assigned to represent a class (another equally abstract concept). As the spokesman of his community he said…..

Too many… are enlisted too quickly into society’s privileged classes to remain convincingly or for long, society’s critics - Pankaj Mishra – New York Times Book Review 1/2/11 p10

17 states have a state rock but only one has a state gun. There are three granite states, not just one.

[There is] the growing assumption that literature cannot affect our future, that the future is in other hands – Alfred Kazin, 1960

Smear campaigns work – they tell us what we want to believe

Late justice may / be more useless / than none – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p259

Solutions that are marketable

Solutions that have panache

Simple solutions for

            Complex situations

One solution fits all

Should [there] be a meaning, not outside humanity in general, but outside each consciousness – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980  p72

NTLU – No Teacher Left Unaccountable

I was shipwrecked beneath a stormless sky / in a sea shallow enough to stand up in – Fernando Pasoa

NCAA take from March Madness:

            Ticket Sal                   $15.5   million

            TV Licenses fee             $770     million

            Corporate sponsorships      $185     million

                        TOTAL to NCAA           $950.5 million

We [the critics] write words about words – and then as the conversation progresses, we write words about words about words about words – Sam Anderson – New York Times Book Review 1/2/11  p11

Billions of Bilious Blue Blistering Barnacles in the Crab Nublea

Capt. Haddock was introduced in “The Crab with the Golden Claw”. He was the first permanent supporting character. He had been the captain of the merchant vessel “Karaboudjan”. He was an alcoholic and once tried to pull Tintin’s head off when the Capt mistook him for a bottle of champagne. In the “Red Rachams Treasure” he locates a treasure and retires to Marlinspike his family’s ancestral home. The Capt is provided with a first name, Archibald,  only in the last completed story “Tintin and the Picaros”. The various Haddockisms used by the captain have been collected and listed in the “Dictionary of Captain Haddock’s Insults”. There are 192 child friendly insults – billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles or ten thousand thundering typhoons.  His home, Marlinspike, is modeled on the Chateau de Cheverny. It first appeared in “The Secret of the Unicorns” and was then the home of the notorious “Bird Brothers”

What is / the well / and what is / a cup. Some / people get / drunk up – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p258

A 1% increase in the price of oil results in a 0.9% increase in the price of corn. A 1% rise in the price of corn results in a 0.2% rise in the price of food. It all goes round and round, everything spirals upwards.

There could be nutrients / in failure - / deep amendments / to the shallow soil / of wishes – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p202

The long term impact of out industrial age and it’s CO₂ emissions may last for hundreds of thousands of hears. So far we have only looked at the short term consequences, say the flooding of coastal cities over the next thirty years. But in the long term, the consequences may be much much worse worse than has hereto been imagined. Recent modeling indicates that if we stop burning fossil fuels today the temperature  may spike sometime around 2050 at 2-3^oC above the current norm and the oceans would rise by 10 meters. If we continue using fossil fuels until coal resources are exhausted the temperature may peak sometime between 2500 and 3500AD with a temperature 6-9^o C higher than today and with sea level rising 70 meters.

EXPECTATIONS:  We expect rain / to animate this / creek; these rocks / to harbor gurgles, / these pebbles to / creep downstream / a little, those leaves / to circle in the wet. / The bed is ready / but no rain yet – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010 p228

Most of Australia’s parrots are left footed while none of them are left-handed (of course none of them are right-handed either)

Prairie dogs will kiss more frequently if people are watching them

Without songs, without pleasure, without humor, all the artifice in the world goes to waste – Zadie Smith – Changing My Mind: occasional essays 2009 p181

To ‘cleanse’

            Implies a moral

            Outrage

That can not just be
            Scrubbed away

Please God, cleanse

            These thought

            From my heart

There is a purifying

            Quality in “cleansing

            Products”

It is not just elbow grease

            But a moral science

The ultimate expression of

            It is in “ethnic cleansing”

Thinking about literature eventually means thinking about society and politics – Adam Kirsch – New York Times Book Review 1/2/11  p10

The size of the American marijuana market is about the same as the size of the Viagra market and getting bigger – it might double in size over the next five years. This growth is attributed to better patient access.

A hundred Bolts of Satin: There seem / to have been / a track / the things / that you / unpack / from the / abandoned cars / cannot sustain / life a crate of / tractor axles, / for example, / a dozen dozen / clasp knives, / a hundred bolts of satin - / perhaps you specialized / more than  / you imagined / All you have to lose / is one connection / and the mind / uncouples / all the way back. / It seems / to never have been / a train – Kay Ryan – The Best of it, 2010  p154

The corporate share of the US tax receipts went from 30% in 1950 to 6.6% in 2009

What distinguishes the United States from a political oligarchy is that citizens do retain the right to vote in elections… In dominant thinking the existence of this right to vote is what qualifies the United States as a democracy. It is an awfully, awfully thin reed – Robert McChesney – Rich media, poor democracy, 1999 p5

A disingenuous politics always fails when it invariably loses track of its true objective

Identity cannot be thought except as differing from the different – Vincent Descombes – Modern French Philosophy, 1980 s p40

Go to the community

            Knock on any door

Someone emerges out of

            Darkness. He has

            A gun. A dog is

            Barking

Why can’t we all  just

            Get along? – Rodney

            King was back in

                        The news yesterday

The Community News – the local

            Neighborhood advertiser

The Black community supports

            Its local churches

The Islamic community doesn’t

            Adequately support law enforcement

They send out their community patrols

Who drive slowly through the neighborhood

            And detour when they spot anything amiss

Community maps desire

            Onto geography

Norm is at his place at

            The bar

What does the business

            Community think about this?

Who will speak for the Gay

            Community about it?

A society like the United States which has rampant inequalities, minimal popular involvement in decision making, and widespread depoliticization can never be regarded as democratic in an honest use of the term – Robert McChesney – Rich media, poor democracy, 1999 p5

Privilege is not having to be defined by a limiting condition (he is pretty smart for a Black) – community members are not privileged individuals (the Islamic community is not adequately supporting our war against terrorism).

The historian should be a skeptic, a doubter, a detective and an honest person – Bruce Cumings – War and Television, 1992