Make It, Take It

Down by the River taking a walk before it gets hot. They are setting up for a run. Later I go for coffee. This is TD’s big moment. He likes to piss on all the flower pots on Main Street. Stormy and his boxer pup stop by. Can’t get used to this humidity, he says. He’s from Oregon (Bend County) but was raised near Columbia MO. Listening to Captain Beefhear (Trout Replica Mask) and watching Alice Guy (Falling Leaves). Smoking dope (yes, it all makes sense now). Why couldn't I see this before.

90% of state investment incentive monies are awarded to large coroporations and hence hurt the competitiveness of small businesses

What is often called ‘American culture’ is no longer a product of the American people: it is instead an artificial consumer culture created and projected by corporate advertising and media….a culture determined by technological and economic forces, rather than human and ecological needs. - Helena Norberg-Hodge

Whenever prices eclipse 210 on the UN’s FAO Food Index (a measure of the monthly change in international prices of core food commodities) riots and conflict became much more likely.

If you want to drop more bombs, spend more on war, and live in constant fear of the next terrorist attack, that is your prerogative as a citizen of a free nation — but there is nothing “conservative” about those who hold these positions and they should not be described as such. – S M Gibson

The health care cost of dying:  dementia - $287.038, heart disease - $175.136, cancer - $173,383. On average Medicare pays out about $100,000 for patients with each of these diseases. The average out-of-pocket expense for a dementia patient is $61,522

The weapons of the strong are classification, delineation, division. The strong depend on the certainty of mapping – Tim Cresswell

Fortune 500 companies account for 80% of the $60b in fines imposed by US federal agencies since 2010. Almost half of the $60b in fines was the result of BP’s Gulf Coast oilspill. Alpha Natural Resources (a coal mining company) tops the list in regards to the number of fines with 2,500 violations and fines of $500m. 40 parent companies have paid out at least $100m in fines.

 Can it be that the creative lies not in the acquired abilities of the ego but in the freedom to let the ego float off like so much woodsy refuse?   – James P Carse – Breakfast at the Victory, 2004 p148

At least 130 immigrants to New England prior to 1646 had matriculated at either Oxford or Cambridge Universities. There was at least on university man for every thirty-two families in New England.

Economics is not just any academic discipline. It is the theology of our age, the language that all interests, high and low, must speak if they are to win a respectful hearing in the courts of power. Economics owes its special position in part to the failure of other disciplines to impress their stamp on political debate - Robert Skidelsky – How Much is  Enough?, 2012

This all makes sense if you’re listening as I am, to Don Van Vliet - click-clack, click-clack -uha, uha, uhoo

You don’t get paid what you are worth, you are worth what you get paid

Memory loves to go hunting in the dark – Osip Mandlestram  - The Prose of , 1986 p94

Highly trained Police officers have only an 18% accuracy rate for hitting their intended target in a live shooting situation.

But how can you talk with a person if they always say the same thing? - Lewis Carroll

A fourth of working Americans earn less than $20,000/year. 50% earn less than $30,000. 900 individuals earn more that $20,000,000 in compensation (as reported on  their IRS Form W-2).

The identity I present to the world is a self to be seen and not the self who sees  – James P Carse – Breakfast at the Victory, 2004 p115

Jack Kerouac never learned to drive

Modern life is so thoroughly mediated by electronic images that we cannot help responding to others as if their actions – and our own -  whether being recorded and simultaneously transmitted to an unseen audience or stored up for close scrutiny at some later time – Christopher Lasch

19% of all cancers are caused by tobacco;  3% of all cancers are caused by red or processed meat. Tobacco causes 86% of all lung cancers. Red or processed meat causes 21% of all bowel cancers. There is evidence that as little as 100g or red meat a day will increases the cancer risk by 17%

Private problems do not turn into public issues by dint of being vented in public; even under public gaze they do not cease to be private, and what they seem to be accomplishing by being transferred to the public stage is pushing all other ‘non-private’ problems out of the public agenda. What are commonly and ever more often perceived as ‘public issues’ are private problems of public figures  agenda – Zygmet Bauman – Liquid Modernity, 2000 p70

At least six Americans have been shot by their dog in the last five years. A third of these incidents happened in Florida. The actual number of such incidents is probably much higher as only incidents reported in newspapers have been taken into account. Maybe Floridians just like to read dog stories.

With all wonder there is a wonderer – James P Carse – Breakfast at the Victory, 2004 p98

Influenza kills as many as 500,000 people in a normal year

It is only once in a generation that a people can be lifted above material things. That is why conservative government is in the saddle two-thirds of the time – Woodrow Wilson

Federal asset forfeiture collections have risen from around $800 million in 2002 to almost $4.5 billion in 2014.

We cannot allow our economic life to be controlled by that small group of men whose chief outlook upon the social welfare is tinctured by the fact that they can make large profits from the lending of money and the marketing of securities – Franklin D Roosevelt

The residential electricity needed to power our digital gadgets will rise to 30% of global consumption by 2022, and 45% by 2030. Personal digital devices currently use 15% of the global residential energy

Many persons left their jobs for the more profitable one of selling apples – Herbert Hoover

In the US it is estimated that impulsive buying generates around $4 billion in sales every year. Research suggests that up to 62 percent of store purchases may be considered impulsive purchases

Some things come too soon and others come too late, but we only find out when there’s nothing to be done, when we’ve already bet against ourselves – Alvaro Mutis – The Adventures and Misadventuees of Maqroll, 2002 p44

British police have fatally shot only one person wielding a knife since 2008 — a hostage taker. By comparison US police have fatally shot more than 575 people allegedly wielding blades just in the years since 2013

We never are certain about the identity of the beings in our dreams. We never see just one person but totality, an instantaneous, condensed parade of people rather than a single definitive presence – Alvaro Mutis – The Adventures and Misadventuees of Maqroll, 2002 p37

In 2014, for the first time, law enforcement officials took more property from American citizens than burglers did, Federal asset forfeiture collections have risen from around $800 million in 2002 to almost $4.5 billion in 2014.  Burglary losses topped out at $3.5 billion. The FBI tracks in addition to burglary, theft (including motor vehicles) which was $8.8 billion. At least an additional $1 billion in forfeitures are probably taken by state and local police.