I’m glad they caught up with
me several months ago and not now when this artic vortex is at my doorstep
knocking. Knock, knock – it's Rita the meter maid. Our records show that no one
is living here, she says. Well obviously they’re wrong. You’ll have to take that
up with gas company, she replies, or else we’ll cut you off on Wednesday. I was given a number or a green tag
that she was about to hang on my door. What the fuck, I said (to myself –
It’s not Rita’s fault afterall, and it’s not my fault either - there never is anyone around to take you anger out on anymore. Good thing the dog was not under my foot just then. He usually races out the door whenever I open it). I looked up my
records. She was right I hadn’t paid since May when I was had paid for having
them turn the gas on. (stupid, stupid - but I'm not going to rant, I promised myself I wouldn't). I called the number on the green tag. I get it
straightened out. They even told me how to apply for assistance if the bill for
the past six months was too much for me to pay. I did get them to admit that it
wasn’t my fault. Then the bill finally arrived. It was hardly anything. I guess
they did fuck up. At least they didn’t
just make up a number. It could’t have been much, only the range, everything
else is electric. It’s different now that the furnance is on half the time.
They say that El Nino is kicking into effect and we won’t have any more Arctic
Vortexs but what do they know with the climate in chaos. The ice from North Dakota is passing by on the river. Best wishes "Water Protectors" (you'll need it with our 45th). I'm picking sides (It wasn't a very difficult
Money’s queer. It goes where it’s
wanted – Agatha Christie – Endless Night, 1967
If criminal justice were a business it would long ago have
gone bankrupt for lack of any financial data
When not persecuted, intellectuals
tend to become part of the cultural and political apparatuses as technicians of
knowledge… Despite their “love” of the people, intellectuals are congenitally
distrustful of the masses. – Stanley Arnowitz – Taking it Big, 2012 p213
The best way to attract the attention of a government’s
armed representative is to ignore that that government exists
The sharks I dodged / The tigers I
slew / What ate me up / Was the bedbugs - – Bertolt Brecht – Poems p399
Creativity may be spurred on more by idle time and boredom
than a desire for wealth
For at least five thousand years,
popular movements have centered on struggles over debt… Debt is the most
efficient means ever created to take relations that are fundamentally based on
violence and violence inequality and to make them seem right and moral to
everyone concerned. When the trick no longer works, everything explodes – David
Graeber – Revolutions in Reverse, 2011 p38
Violence is a form of stupidity for which there is no
intelligent response
When one is asked to be ‘realistic’
then, the reality one is normally being asked to recognize is not one of
natural, material facts; neither is it really some supposed ugly truth about
human nature. Normally it’s a recognition of the effect of the systematic
threat of violence – David Graeber – Revolutions in Reverse, 2011 p45
Half the guns in America are owned by 3% of the population.
Typical gun owners fit their stereotype: white, male, rural and politically
conservative.
Nature is not that inventive when it
comes to successful solutions. Once it works it tries it again and again –
Antonio Damasio – Looking for Spinoza, 2003
The US is now proudly pioneering “first use” battlefield
nuclear weapons
The postmodern epoch, however,
renders obsolete the ideologies of the modern age—the orthodoxies of socialism
and liberalism, both of which are predicated on the free individual. – Stanley
Arnowitz – Taking it Big, 2012 p226
Roughly half of all
people killed by law enforcement suffer from at least one mental
disorder
So what makes cultural exchange
different from cultural appropriation? As with most points of cultural
contention, the difference is power. In particular, the power of the privileged
to borrow and normalize a cultural element of another group, while the
appropriated group is often demonized and excluded because of that very
cultural element. - Kovie Biakolo
Healthy – (as used on a food label according to the FDA, I
know, I Googled it) – means that the nutrient content of the food contributes
to creating a healthy diet and that the label includes nutrition information. I
think this means that any food with nutritional informaion on the label can be
labled as ‘healthy’. This begs the questions as to whether having ‘healthy’
printed on the lable is itself ‘nutritional information’. And we already now
that putting sugar, salt and fat into processed foods makes them taste better,
thus contributing to your eating something (anything) in the list of
ingredients that is actually ‘healthy’ thus contributing to creating a healthy
diet. In other words unhealthy foods can be labled as healty according to the
FDA so long as there is at least one ‘healthy’ ingredient listed on the label.
Yes, I see. It all makes sense.
Would it not be easier / In that
case for the government / To dissolve the people / And elect another? – Bertolt
Brecht – Poems of 1913-1956, 1997 p440
The US government counts student
loans as 30% of its net worth
Participation in the consumer
culture requires wage work, time, and effort, often given without enthusiasm or
interest. But this tradeoff seems natural today, an inevitable compromise
between freedom and necessity – Gary S Cross – An All-Consuming Century, 2000
p5
Most Americans rarely or never discuss global warming with
family or friends. The end of civilization has become boring. Or is it the we
have accepted that we are not actually going to do anything about it anyway and
have all become apathetic (just waiting around to die).
True, bureaucratic procedure
operates as if it were a form of stupidity, in that it invariably means
ignoring all the subtleties of real human existence and reducing everything to
simple pre-established mechanical or statistical formulae – David Graeber –
Revolutions in Reverse, 2011 p51
In ten states for every dollar of tax collected there is at
least 5 cents collected in fines and forfeitures with Louisiana at almost 20
cents having the highest fines-to-tax ratio. Decreasing budgets have forced
some police departments and local court systems to find creative ways for
self-funding. Hence Ferguson.
Symbols focus experience; meanings
organize knowledge – C Wright Mills – “The Cultural Apparatus”
The US national debt now exceeds the gross domestic product.
It looks like the trend lines crossed in 2013 when the total amount of debt was
$16.7 trillion but the GDP came in at $16.6 trillion.
Can’t we just drone this guy [Julian
Assange]?- Hillary Clinton
For-profit colleges and universities (FPCUs) spend on
average only 17 percent of their budgets on instruction and 42 percent on
marketing to new students and paying out existing investors.
“Possessive individualism,” that
seventeenth-century “vice” of personal acquisition, was a substitute for the
more disruptive passions of vengeance, glory, and domination – Gary S Cross – An All Consuming Century, 2000 p9
We must not assume that our public officials are as
incompetent as they have lead us to believe – what appears as failure may have
been intentional. What we see as failure, may be seen by the elite as a
success.
Neither the hard-nosed economist nor
the pandering politician nor the cynical intellectual may ultimately have
grasped the complexity of popular will and desire. Americans still want more
than mere shopping and more stuff. – Gary S Cross – An All Consuming Century,
2000 p12
Roughly 20 to 25 percent of our waking time is spent
thinking thoughts that involve using language directed at ourselves. If one did
not talk to one’s self how else would one be conscious of what one was
thinking?
So Mr. Spoffard says his mother has
to have him take care of her quite a lot. Because Mr. Spoffards mothers brains
have never really been so strong. Because it seems his mother came from such a
very fine old family that even when she was quite a small size child she had to
be sent to a school that was a special school for people of very fine old
familys who had to have things very easy on their brain. So she still has to
have things very easy on her brain, so she has a girl who is called her
companion who goes with her everywhere who is called Miss Chapman. Because Mr.
Spoffard says that there is always something new going on in the world which
they did not get a chance to tell her about at the school. So now Miss Chapman
keeps telling her instead. Because how would she know what to think about such
a new thing as a radio, for instance, if she did not have Miss Chapman to tell
her what it was, for instance. So Dorothy spoke up and Dorothy said, “What a
responsibility that girl has got on her shoulders. For instance, what if Miss
Chapman told her a radio was something to build a fire in, and she would get
cold some day and stuff it full of papers and light it.” But Mr. Spoffard told Dorothy
that Miss Chapman would never make such a mistake. Because he said that Miss
Chapman came from a very very fine old family herself and she really had a fine
brain. So Dorothy said, “If she really has got such a fine brain I bet her fine
old family once had an ice man who could not be trusted.” So Mr. Spoffard and I
did not pay any more attention to Dorothy because Dorothy really does not know
how to hold a conversation. – Anita Loos – Gentlemen Prefer Blonds, 1925
