"Beware any blog that has the words musings, thoughts, and ramblings in it. This is a clear sign of the bad, boring amateur writer as deer poop is for a hunter."
Was looking out the kitchen window just now, and outside saw one of the kids across the way, looking through a bag for something. What Xmas goodies would be hiding outside in below-freezing weather, I'm not sure, but I was convinced it must be just that, something holiday related --what else would he be doing this afternoon? From this distance I couldn't make out what he finally grabbed, but perhaps it was only a soda or sweet-treat (hey, they have their laundry and dryer outside, why not save on refrigerator space?). Still most likely what he and his family, like a lot, if not most, people on this block, in this city, across the country, and many other parts of the world, are doing right now--celebrating Xmas.
Leaving aside the meaning, practice, and politics of the holiday itself for the moment, it shares with other such days or events a reflected ubiquity: part of what makes occasions like these transcend the norm is some kind of self-identification with a prevailing tide. Of course, this is just an extremely amplified quotidian condition. (You might say that in a city, especially like NY, this everyday experience is generally more amplified than the rest of the world. Riding the subway at certain times of certain days allows quite a bit of certainty about where people are going or what they're doing--going home, "out," to work, to school, to a game, or, especially this time of year, shopping--and a bond can be formed around it. But, then again, NY, as much as or more than any other place, has such a diversity of peoples and cultures, that at any given time there are more divergent streams of human activity to temper whatever calendrical monolith might be at hand--disasters, natural and otherwise notwithstanding. Indeed, this is one of the many things I love about NY. So it is true, at this moment, that any place outside the city in any direction has a probably greater homogeneity of holiday than does my charming Bushwick block. That said...)
(disclaimer: no he doesn't)
This above-average unanimity can be both beautiful and terrifying. Most migratory birds having already fled south, their stationary brethren remain: pigeons still share the fluid simplicity of their group-think flight, even in the most casual and daring aerial acrobatics, that we, begrudgingly perhaps, admire from our earth-bound in(if you consider that we on the ground move as individuals more easily)dependence, and are left with our self-identities intact. If hesitant with appreciation, perhaps it's only the formality of their movement that can't help remind us of the lock-step of jack-boots, from the twentieth century and of today. Although China's displays of mass-maneuvering now titillate for those with Olympic fervor, their neighbors to the east prepare for thermonuclear Armageddon with similarly militaristic moves, and dressed not too dissimilar to boot.
NY in a way gets a special dispensation for being especially Xmas-y, despite our low-density celebration, and yet not in spite of but for our dour and multicultural norm--everybody's rooting for us (of course, Hollywood and literature haven't hurt). In a similar fashion, the city has now become sacred ground for those who, before almost a decade ago, would've have rejoiced if Manhattan ever wound up underwater (ironically, if puzzlingly, many of the newly devout still would). The same could be said though of most I've known, including those who were there, who now morn the loss of the towers, despite their own unique aesthetic and economic villainy they maintained while standing.
For all my resident lonely-Jew-on-Xmas status, I've had a handful/fair share of uniform Christmastime. But, today, like many, I'm the outsider looking in. Only, and here's why it's actually really hard to ever be completely alone--no matter the feeling or lack of corporal or even digital proof--there are plenty of other people similarly, for want of or for wont, passing the day like any other Saturday and yet are singularly aware of narrow focus of so many around, if for no other reason than it's a little more quiet around than usual. But, like in front of some window display, standing in the cold, there is a warmth, actually and emotionally, to be felt in a group.
Holbrooke is dead. Apparently working as U.S. envoy to AfPak, despite bringing an end to the Bosnian war and being involved in the infamous Pentagon Papers, literally broke his heart. Damn, he was a crafty bastard if nothing else; good to have around and on our side. If I were the superstitious type, I'd say this doesn't portend well. Luckily, I'm not.
Despite my moderate bent, sometimes it's not a pretty sight.
(D.C. Metro, Thanksgiving weekend)
Senate Begins Debate on Tax Cut Bill But while the Senate looks set to pass the $858 billion package, House Democrats have protested with a raucous "Just Say No" rally. Read original story in The Wall Street Journal | Friday, Dec. 10, 2010
DADT Repeal Dies In Senate Harry Reid needed 60 votes to cut off debate on the defense authorization bill and get to an actual vote. He got 57. Read original story in Talking Points Memo Talking Points Memo | Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010
Obama Administration Retreats on Pollution Rules The EPA has decided to hold off new regulations on toxic industrial emissions fearing such environmental protections may cost jobs. Read original story in The New York Times | Friday, Dec. 10, 2010
Senate Republicans Kill Benefits for 9/11 Rescue Workers A fully paid-for piece of legislation providing health care coverage to 9/11 workers sickened by exposure to toxic fumes--sounds like a bipartisan fantasy, right? Wrong. Read original story in The Washington Monthly | Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010 Senate Tables DREAM Act The student immigration measure made it through the House on Wednesday but was tabled in the Senate Thursday because Harry Reid doesn't have enough votes to stop a Republican filibuster. Read original story in The Hill | Thursday, Dec. 9, 2010 Obama's Tax Deal Infuriates Big Donors Major donors are expressing "extreme disappointment" and considering withholding their donations in the 2012 election season. Read original story in The Los Angeles Times | Friday, Dec. 10, 2010
November's elections showed that the country is getting increasingly politically divided. Unlike the big GOP win in 1994, Republicans this time around won back the House without any real help from metropolitan areas, which remained largely Democratic. The GOP gains came mostly in districts "that were older, less diverse and less educated than the nation as a whole," notes the Washington Post. The good news for Democrats is that they continue to win among minorities and whites with more education, but they are increasingly losing working-class voters. While that's good news for Republicans it's also a shrinking percentage of the electorate. "Republicans do the best in areas that are typically not growing very fast and don't look like the present, or certainly the future, of the country," one Democratic strategist said.
Can you blame those enraptured in the Beck-ian fears that have taken hold of "white" (whatever that means) America (or Europe for that matter)? Yes. Is it understandable? Yes as well.
Fear is often the result of ignorance; however, this is not the case here. Whether by first-hand experience of whites who have indeed seen the number of non-whites increasing in their lifetime or who, living in less "progressive" areas, get it indirectly from the assertions by the Right (see Beck/Limbaugh/McCain even) or the Left (see above and social science), they are aware of the demographic changes going on around them. So they aren't unaware, ignorant; they just aren't smart enough to use that knowledge to be unafraid of its consequences.
To be sure, as the the percentage of non-whites increases, so will their share of the economic--and political--pie. But that's as it should be, logically if not ethically. Only, if one conflates the natural evolution of society's statistical balance, a process that takes time and shifts only gradually, with their own immediate circumstance--the non-smart part--than we can understand how they arrive at fear; they become reactionary.
Certainly there is a part of "middle"/"white" America who are looking at the long-game and don't like what they see--again, not ignorance but stupidity. Stupid because they are fearing the loss of something that never existed--surely not in any of our lifetimes--of a "white" culture, of the "real" America for which the pine for so dearly. (Even if true, no love-loss here.) It's simple prejudice; once again, a mere manifestation of stupidity.
But here's the thing: despite the slight tilt in electoral politics this fall--slight in what it says about the psychology of the country despite the exaggerated affect on our somewhat antiquated political system and the horse-race media mentality that spins its coverage--doesn't mean we're mostly stupid. It doesn't even mean that most who voted Republican are dumb. There's plenty of reasons to vote the bums (whoever they happen to be at time) out besides straight race-based fear. Mostly just that: whatever their persuasion, there are a whole lot of bums. Most of the old blood was blue and the new blood is red.
If anything, it says more about our increasing impatience, perhaps due in part to our decreasing attention span, and lack of faith in politicians to get anything done. I say perhaps about the attention span thing because at this point there isn't the data to back it up. But also because, in all the blame the 24hr news cycle has been receiving for this apparent circumscribed mental faculty, maybe something has been missed. Has the exponential media coverage of the politics so revealed the inherent inertia and seediness of the process that our reaction--abhorrence, frustration, and, yes, fear; from the Right and Left (see displeasure (ha!) with Obama)--is justified? Perhaps even a good thing? Perhaps.
Can anyone say WikiLeaks? For whatever diplomatic muck has been stirred up so far, can anyone say that, in the end, it isn't a public good? Not me. In the face of almost a million released documents, the best a tow-the-line general on The Daily Show this week could muster was that it might cause a national security problem--might?--while at the same time saying Assange is a bigger--not just as big, but bigger--threat to America than Al Qaeda. Sorry cool-general-that-is-fairly-progressive-on-other-issues-of-foreign-policy--though not on DADT, which Stewart gave him a good drumming for--but I call bullshit.
I'm sticking with my homeboy Robert Gates on this one:
Let me just offer some perspective as somebody who’s been at this a long time. Every other government in the world knows the United States government leaks like a sieve, and it has for a long time. And I dragged this up the other day when I was looking at some of these prospective releases. And this is a quote from John Adams: “How can a government go on, publishing all of their negotiations with foreign nations, I know not. To me, it appears as dangerous and pernicious as it is novel." …
Now, I’ve heard the impact of these releases on our foreign policy described as a meltdown, as a game-changer, and so on. I think -- I think those descriptions are fairly significantly overwrought. The fact is, governments deal with the United States because it’s in their interest, not because they like us, not because they trust us, and not because they believe we can keep secrets.
Many governments -- some governments deal with us because they fear us, some because they respect us, most because they need us. We are still essentially, as has been said before, the indispensable nation. So other nations will continue to deal with us. They will continue to work with us. We will continue to share sensitive information with one another. Is this embarrassing? Yes. Is it awkward? Yes. Consequences for U.S. foreign policy? I think fairly modest.
Keep speaking power to truth, brother!
Just because you're critical of a country doesn't mean you're an anarchist. --Paraphrase of Daniel Ellsberg on WNYC talking about WikiLeaks
OK, not really. But I love that we finally have a tea-patsy (I'll get to that later*) who makes no bones (he probably uses this phrase, because, you know, he "works in construction") about his flagrant prejudices--against everyone who’s not male, white and right--and total lack of governing skills. This tells us two things, at least, about the people who support him: they are equally prejudiced and have no interest in making government any better, only negating its existence.
It also wakes us (or maybe just me) from the somnambulism that this is New York City and "it can't happen here," in such a progressive northern metropolis. (Well, actually it can't, but, for better or worse, we're not just us. We’re a big-ass state full of rural and suburban upstate communities where this guy has all his support. It was Rick Lazio that took the Republican vote in the downstate counties.) We can't be blamed for this indulgence, after the usually status quo-loving Mike Bloomberg recently came to the defense of the downtown Islamic center (and Constitution and reason), and lulled all of us (or just me) into thinking the divisive moment had passed--north of the Mason-Dixon, anyway. But apparently it hasn't, at least until November 2nd.
But is he really a racist/sexist/general scumbag? The jokes, the comments, the idiotic ideas. But let's focus, as most are, on the jokes, emails actually, that he "forwarded" to a "select group of friends.” (Must not have been too select if they got out, huh Carl?) Defenders, calling into Brian Lehrer on WNYC (two out of three, aggravatingly and surprisingly, were women), claimed they don't make him anything, except maybe someone with a sense of humor. I'd agree, only, for one of the cartoons mentioned, it's a racist sense of humor, thus making him a racist.
Why not “call a spade a spade,” as one caller offered what she thought was one of Paladino’s attractive qualities? She suggested this right after denouncing the specific charge of racism from the email; Lehrer commented on her choice of words. Was she so oblivious to the fact that that expression shares a very common racial epithet for blacks, making her an idiot, or was she purposefully using thinly veiled language to tout his, and her, racist leanings?
All of which is a good distillation of the conundrum we find ourselves in, gazing into the psyche of these tea-freaks: either they really are that clueless, and that’s what passes for being anti-establishment these days—in part, now that The Man es moreno—or they’re not as dumb as we’d be comfortable believing. Paladino knows his audience; hell, he might’ve leaked the damn emails himself.
Hot Carl, by M. (thanks!)
“I’ll take you out!”
And if to prove my point, Paladino is now on video threatening, goomba-style, a journalist who had the gall to challenge him about unsubstantiated attack on his opponent, Cuomo, concerning something he himself is admittedly guilty—out of wedlock fatherhood. And, more tellingly, the reporter was from The New York Post, the super-conservative, Rupert Murdoch-owned city’s daily. Paladino doesn’t have a problem with just the left-wing media conspiracy, but with ANY media.
Both of these, the threat and that it was against an ostensible ally, bring out the larger point—it’s not so much the obvious hypocrisy involved, but that it reveals what people who like him don’t care about. This isn’t about politics or, what conservatives might usually call, morals; it’s about tearing down the system, which to them represents, and is represented by, progress of any kind. This is the extreme-libertarian ideology.
However, despite the tea-partisan antipathy toward their institutional brethren, Republicans, as Paul Krugman points out in The New York Times, the latter shares their anarchic lack of policy or any real agenda, at least when it comes to fiscal policy. I would argue that the tea-partiers have necessitated the Republican’s shift rightward into pure platitude, devoid of the desire to help the country or even “make sense.”
“So how did we get to the point where one of our two major political parties isn’t even trying to make sense?
The answer isn’t a secret. The late Irving Kristol, one of the intellectual godfathers of modern conservatism, once wrote frankly about why he threw his support behind tax cuts that would worsen the budget deficit: his task, as he saw it, was to create a Republican majority, “so political effectiveness was the priority, not the accounting deficiencies of government.” In short, say whatever it takes to gain power. That’s a philosophy that now, more than ever, holds sway in the movement Kristol helped shape.
And what happens once the movement achieves the power it seeks? The answer, presumably, is that it turns to its real, not-so-secret agenda, which mainly involves privatizing and dismantling Medicare and Social Security.
Realistically, though, Republicans aren’t going to have the power to enact their true agenda any time soon — if ever. Remember, the Bush administration’s attack on Social Security was a fiasco, despite its large majority in Congress — and it actually increased Medicare spending.
So the clear and present danger isn’t that the G.O.P. will be able to achieve its long-run goals. It is, rather, that Republicans will gain just enough power to make the country ungovernable, unable to address its fiscal problems or anything else in a serious way. As I said, banana republic, here we come.”
I got your cartoon right here, Carl.
(A still from a cartoon remake of Night of the Living Dead.)
Callers also said that everyone gets these kinds of emails "nowadays." That's not the case for me. The few times I have, I either spammed the sender, or, if I knew them and didn't just want to just dismiss them (family or friends), I would tell them to "cut the shit;" perhaps not always in those words. Of course, nowadays prejudice (except for Muslims, at the moment) isn't as overtly bandied about in mainstream speech; it's coded in more appropriate ways, though sometimes not very much, as with this guy.
For one thing, humor, as it is for many touchy subjects, can be a chief mode by which extreme speech, whether you agree with it or not, can gain social acceptance. Where I grew up just below the M&D line, in a MD suburb, one of a few Jews until high school, I was hardly ever called a kike or Christ-killer (thought it happened), but I did hear a whole hell of a lot of Jew jokes. Both made my heart flush and my throat swell just the same, and yet I knew, even at the time, that there was a difference between the two.
Was one preferable to the other? Sure. I’d go so far as to say that the relegation of racism to jokes told on playgrounds and at water-coolers (do offices still have those?) is in itself a sign of progress. But was it ever cool? Hell no. Did I let it slide? Not if I thought I had a chance to get a few punches in, or more, before I got my ass kicked or it was broken up. And this was a fairly progressive era, the 80s, and area of the country.
Satire, especially, for good reason and effect, can engender discussion about uncomfortable topics that can easily get mired in undemanding silence--or it can be a, sometimes not so subtle, cover for hate. Not to realize the difference is either ignorance or wink-and-a-smile acceptance tantamount to collusion.
I just had to.
*Finally, why would I call Paladino a patsy, or any of these folks who are running for office or voting for them, for that matter? Because, as the Right have been doing for years, by appealing to the concomitants of fear and anger, thereby obfuscating any talk of substantive issues, they have managed to get people to vote against their own interests. But so too the politicians, using the term broadly here—and I’m no politico lover—are for the most part dupes for bigger interests of deregulation and privatization (see the Koch brothers, et al.).
Carl, himself has made his fortune in large part by state and local government largess up in Albany, as reported by The Village Voice—and he wants to “throw the bums out”? He was one of the bums, from the other side of it. Maybe he’s thinking of expanding into defense department contracting or “clean” coal. Maybe he’s so stupid he doesn’t understand the ramifications of his own rhetoric. Or maybe he knows, like the rest of us, probably nothing much will no matter who’s in office. In that way, then, he’d windup gaming the system form both sides. Yeah, he’s racist—like a fox.
[My apologies to all non-racist foxes, such as the enjoyable Fleet Foxes.]
Not that I'd actually ever heard of this, but seems like an appropriate enough prompt.
Now, I'd love to to get rid of religious texts as much as the next Koran-hating, soon-to-be-burning (apparently not anymore), Southern evangelical minister with really awful facial hair. But that's where our paths diverge, of course, because I mean to relieve the world of all religion, including mister child-molester-meets-1800s-train-conductor-face's Christianity, not just the ones he deems a threat. (And only a threat to his religion and country, not to the secular world as a whole, as I see religion for the most part.)
That, and my firm belief, buttressed by human history, that prohibition as a methodology for social transformation is usually unhinged from reality. What bothers me more than the destruction of books, which I'm generally against, is the thinking that doing so will effect a desired outcome; that it will somehow stem the supposedly rising tide of supposedly dangerous Islam. (In all fairness, all religion is increasing all the time; that's just part of the deal, especially in the West. Interestingly, of the big three, despite their progenitor status, the Jews have been the worst at this.) In fact, it usually has the opposite effect, as it would here, of fomenting opposition to whatever the mechanism of suppression. And we shouldn't need a general in the field and our president to tell us that.
Not only does this conflate a small faction of violent fundamentalism with its mainstream religious counterpart--a point I've been known to concede if not proffer, though here I'll take the moderate tack--it perhaps belies an insecure uncertainty that the "best" religion, here Christianity, will win out. And so it goes, they must burn certain books, they must ban the construction of certain buildings. All to protect the children, of course. Ironically, it would seem they don't have enough faith (wow, I never thought I'd think that) in their own, well, faith to believe their children will make the same supposedly correct decisions as they have--at least when it comes to what flavor you want your theology-kool-aid.
Hey! You've got your Islam in my Bible Belt!
(Pray harder stupid)
Despite my opinions about the destructive role of religion in society (as this and many other things these days illustrate), I'm all for the freedom of expression, ethically and Constitutionally, and that includes the freedom to worship how one pleases. But if you want to start putting restrictions on religious liberty, I say start with the extremist elements of ALL religions here in the good-old U.S. of A. So that would mean Pastor Facial-Hair-Nightmare and his Fifty Fools in Florida are out of the country and the Islamic cultural center in lower Manhattan gets built on the hallowed ground of the once great Burlington Coat Factory.
Still, better than doing nothing. It seems to have helped before.
"Emergency Response teams from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) are distributing tents, relief supplies, and humanitarian assistance to people displaced by the flooding. In Balochistan, UNHCR has delivered 4,000 tents, 2,700 plastic sheets, 2,200 kitchen sets, and 4,000 plastic mats to the most devastated areas. The organization has partnered with mGive to allow mobile contributions. Anyone in the world can now text the word "SWAT" to 50555 to give $10, which helps provide tents and emergency stipends to displaced families. When prompted, reply with "YES" to confirm your gift."
From and for other ways: http://www.thenation.com/blog/154063/how-help-pakistan
Have been reading Richard Price's "A Multitude of Sins," a short story collection, one of which mentions "pointless acts of pointless generosity"--such as saving a butterfly, even if for only a brief time, from a parking lot--and then makes an argument for doing them anyway.
That reminded me of this pic I took recently with my camera's phone, when, walking around McCarren Park in Williamsburg, M. found a dying butterfly and decided to move it off the sidewalk, out of the way of oncoming foot-traffic.
"I am, for instance, a person who stops to move turtles off of busy interstates, or picks up butterflies in shopping mall parking lots and puts them into the bushes to give them a better chance at survival. I know these are pointless acts of pointless generosity. Yet there isn't a time when I do it that I don't get back in the car thinking more kindly about myself. (Later I often work around to thinking of myself as a fraud, too.) But the alternative is to leave the butterfly where it lies expiring, or to let the big turtle meet annihilation on the way to the pond; and in doing these things let myself in for the indictment of cruelty or the sense of loss that would follow. Possibly, anyone would argue, these issues are too small to think about seriously, since whether you preform these acts or don't perform them, you always forget them in five minutes."
Possibly, but I don't get the feeling he would have written about it if he truly believed that.
and then refuses to accept a single metaphor from Stephen Colbert.
(No, he didn't use this one.)
But before that, Colbert was pressing Frank on why the recently-created Consumer Protection Agency was needed, saying it's just another "nanny-state" measure by the Dem's. Frank then asserted that if Colbert was concerned about the nanny state he should consider ending marijuana prohibition. At which point Colbert started using obtuse metaphors about trying to make banks (tigers) change their thieving ways (stripes).
Also, watch the interview with (almost indistinguishable from that other tall, thin scary-looking blond, right-wing-moron chick, except her voice is less raspy--but not completely unraspy, as that's no doubt part of the appeal, being on the radio and their, achem, older male dmographic) Laura Ingraham. He fillets her and her stupid new NY Times best-seller quite nicely; it went well with my mac & cheese entree.
(No, this is MIA. She's like the opposite of Ingraham, but I wanted to post her spitting on a camera guy. Classy.)
So says one of the authors of "Top Secret America," The Washington Post series about the sprawling defense apparatus that has mushroomed since 9/11.
Kafka could have only dreamed of such bureaucratic inefficiency. Of course, that's absolutely false: he wrote about it. (Actually, just re-reading The Castle; a translation put out in the past decade that is much closer to what he left behind than what was originally published, and finished, after his death by his friend.)
[Lovin' that -do.]
Finally, perhaps, the always-expanding defense complex, which includes the military and all the intelligence agencies, will become part of the deficit debate. It will be interesting to see how the deficit-hawks, typically some of the strongest supporters of defense spending (of course, this crosses the aisle), will react to this indictment of the community, which includes the Congressional role of funding of the whole thing.
This was the thread picked up most by the former head of the 9/11 Commission that recommended the creation of the DNI position, the ostensible head of this ungainly beast, in the first place. On PBS News Hour, he said that no matter how well coordinated the agencies are, redundancies and inefficiencies will remain, if the funding process in Congress remains fragmented. Uh, great.
This sums up well the argument against there being different human races. And it's a 150 yo, so obviously it'll be widely accepted in no time.
Hopefully, eventually, because he's not now, Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker editor and author, will be seen as a greater thinker/writer (he writes about a much wider range of subjects) than Steve Pinker--not that I dislike him, just disagree more.
Except here, where I totally agree with him about all the tech-is-rotting-our-brains shit.
The most recent iteration, which began at least fifteen years ago (reading a book of essays about tech and lit and language from '95; and while only half of them are doomsday predictions, it's interesting to read the same urgency, hasting toward the precipice, we hear so much of today), goes: print is dying, we're stopping reading, our brains are turning to mush. Bullshit. Language, as it always has, will mutate and be mutated by the mediums and environments we humans find or put ourselves in. I'm starting to think that language is the height of human accomplishment, the greatest technology, and all subsequent developments are similarly oriented towards encouraging mutually-beneficial bonds within the species, possibly with other species, by way of expanding empathy and compassion. (This is a combination of thoughts taken from the one of the essays mentioned above and Pinker's evo-bio concept of the purpose of empathy.)
Holy shit, I've turned Buddhist and linguist in one paragraph--Jesus.
"Saw photos of the brown pelican, Louisiana's state bird." --just texted from my Bushwick housemate.
My response text: "Had awesome NOLA (New Orleans, LA) BBQ shrimp last night."
Just in time, I guess. Unfortunately, I've been saying this same line about NOLA since I managed to get there just before Katrina changed it dramatically, from what I gather. Here they go again.
Perry Farrell: Being around music in a relaxed way; making it, listening to it, and all the things that magnetize to that moment.
FP: What’s your idea of misery?
PF: Misery is being inland, without an ocean around, and without the people that live by the ocean around. Also, having to pay attention a lot harder than I’m used to — being serious. Immaturity has its virtues. Not wearing the suit and tie, it keeps you youthful.
with our mega-OCD-founding father, Thomas Jefferson:
'Determine never to be idle. No person will have occasion to complain of the want of time who never loses any. It is wonderful how much can be done if we are always doing.'
Yeah, whatever, bro.
That's Thomas Jefferson, born in Albemarle County, Virginia (1743). And he certainly lived by those words. He wrote the Declaration of Independence for the fledging United States and then served as its minister of France, secretary of state, vice president, and president. But he was also--among other things--an inventor, philosopher, farmer, naturalist, astronomer, food and wine connoisseur, and musician. An early biographer, James Parton, described the young Jefferson a year before he helped write the Declaration of Independence: 'A gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, dance a minuet, and play the violin.'
Jefferson was an important force in American architecture. He was inspired by Andrea Palladio's The Four Books of Architecture, which drew from classical Roman principles,and he determined to improve Virginia's architecture, which he disliked. He designed his great estate, Monticello, as well as the University of Virginia, the Virginia State Capitol, and a number of federal buildings in Washington, D.C.--he is responsible for the neoclassical look of our Capitol. He read widely in architecture throughout his life, and he observed buildings as he traveled and brought back new ideas to incorporate into his designs.
He loved to read about much more than architecture--he said, 'I cannot live without books.' He wrote to John Adams, 'I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier.'
Jefferson said, 'Nature intended me for the tranquil pursuits of science, by rendering them my supreme delight.' Even as a scientist his interests varied widely. He knew physics, anatomy, botany, and geology. He was a talented astronomer who accurately predicted an eclipse in 1778. When he founded the University of Virginia in 1819, one of his main plans for its curriculum was astronomy, and he wanted to build the first planetarium and observatory in the country. He was also an enthusiastic naturalist and paleontologist. At one point, he had the East Room of the White House covered with potential mastodon bones.
His talent for botany was evident in his Monticello gardens and farm. In the gardens, he grew 170 varieties of fruit, 330 varieties of vegetables, and ornamental plants and flowers. He grew Mexican varieties of peppers, beans collected by Lewis and Clark, broccoli from Italy. The English pea was his favorite vegetable, and he had a Garden Book in which he kept exhaustive notes on the states of his turnips, lettuces, artichokes, tomatoes, eggplants, and squash--when each variety was sown, when it was mulched and how, when the first leaves or fruits appeared, which varieties were tastiest. His household ate from the garden, and he said that he ate meat and animal products 'as a condiment for the vegetables, which constitute my principal diet.' Some of the varieties that Jefferson cultivated at Monticello have been passed down as heirloom vegetables, and people still plant them in their backyard gardens. Overall, he had about 5,000 acres of farmland, planted mostly in wheat and other grains. The man who wrote 'All men are created equal' defended the institution of slavery, and he was dependent on the labor of hundreds of slaves to keep his farms running. He spent a large part of his days supervising them; he wrote, 'From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner, I am mostly on horseback, Attending to My Farm or other concerns, which I find healthful to my body, mind, and affairs.'
Jefferson loved music. He wrote to an Italian friend: 'If there is a gratification which I envy any people in this world it is to your country its music. This is the favorite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.' He played the violin, and sometimes the cello and harpsichord, and sang. He walked around Monticello singing and humming to himself.
Jefferson died on July 4,1826, exactly 50 years after his Declaration of Independence had been adopted. He was 83 years old and wrote his own epitaph before he died. It didn't mention anything about being president. It said: 'Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia.'
Was he ashamed of us?
He said: 'In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.'
I think I have it backwards: my style is forever stuck in mid-90s slacker mud, while I've come to distrust those of unbending principle--life is rarely simplistic enough to allow for such idealism.
It's the birthday of Flannery O'Connor, born 85 years ago today in Savannah, Georgia (1925), who wrote two novels and 32 short stories and who said: 'I come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation. In some this tendency produces hives, in others literature, in me both.' When she was six, she and a chicken that she taught to walk backward appeared on the news. She later said: 'I was just there to assist the chicken but it was the high point in my life. Everything since has been anticlimax.'
After college, she went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop, and then spent time at the Yaddo Writers' Colony. At the age of 26, she was diagnosed with lupus, the disease that had killed her father when she was a teenager. At the time, doctors told her she would live for another five years, but she survived for nearly 14 years. She moved back to Georgia so that her mom could take care of her, to a 500-acre family farm in Milledgeville where she raised chickens, ducks, hens, geese, and peacocks, her favorite. She arose every morning when the chickens first cackled, went to 7:00 a.m. Mass in town at Sacred Heart, returned home and wrote for a couple of hours each day, until she felt too weak or tired.
As she herself put it, she wrote about 'freaks and folks.' She said, 'Whenever I'm asked why Southern writers particularly have a penchant for writing about freaks, I say it is because we are still able to recognize one.'
In her sickly 14 years on the farm with her mother, O'Connor wrote two dozen short stories and two novels filled with her freakish, obsessive characters, crazy preachers, murderers, outcasts.
Her most famous stories include 'A Good Man Is Hard to Find,' about a silly, annoying old woman whose entire family gets murdered by a man called The Misfit, and 'Good Country People,' about a pretentious young woman whose wooden leg is stolen by a Bible salesman.
Many of Flannery O'Connor's letters are collected in a volume called The Habit of Being (1979), edited by her friend Sally Fitzgerald. And despite O'Connor's premonition that 'there won't be any biographies of me, because lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy,' a new book about her life came out just last year, written by Brad Gooch and entitled Flannery (2009).
Flannery O'Connor said, 'The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.'
(Faulkner quote)
Breaking Silence - For My Son by Patricia Fargnoli
The night you were conceived your father drove up Avon Mountain and into the roadside rest that looked over the little city, its handful of scattered sparks. I was eighteen and thin then but the front seat of the 1956 Dodge seemed cramped and dark, the new diamond, I hadn't known how to refuse, trapping flecks of light. Even then the blackness was thick as a muck you could swim through. Your father pushed me down on the scratchy seat, not roughly but as if staking a claim, and his face rose like a thing-shadowed moon above me. My legs ached in those peculiar angles, my head bumped against the door. I know you want me to say I loved him but I wanted only to belong--to anyone. So I let it happen, the way I let all of it happen-- the marriage, his drinking, the rage. This is not to say I loved you any less-- only I was young and didn't know yet we can choose our lives. It was dark in the car. Such weight and pressure, the wet earthy smell of night, a slickness like glue. And in a distant inviolate place, as though it had nothing at all to do with him, you were a spark in silence catching.
from Necessary Light. (c) Utah State University Press, 1999.
Lest we forget all the Baptists. Even the NE doesn't look too good. At least there's more diversity of kookiness. Still, the West is looking better and better: down w/ God, up with Pot.
"This week, an RNC spokesperson confirmed that the committee is looking into a report that thousands of dollars from the committee's account was spent at a Los Angeles club called Voyeur West Hollywood, which offers discerning customers a chance to sample simulated bondage scenes and nudity. The ambience of this club, one web site promises, "transports you to a world of risque sexuality and eroticism."
I'm certainly not going to criticize the RNC for reaching out to the country's more sexually-adventurous communities. Presumably, the GOP's spin doctors considered making the case that recent developments should be seen as a measure of progress for which Steele could claim credit.
Ultimately, however, the chairman proved to be a tad shy about the Voyeur connection."
Despite unavoidably being reminded of my significant age advantage during their show, almost two weeks ago, at Coco66 in Greenpoint, Twin Sister (download a free four song EP also) are indeed something to experience live. Here's my FlipVideo of one of my current fave songs: "I Want a House".
Another video clip, this one not my own, is worth a look, too. Thank heavens, The National are finally putting out a new album this year. Here is the first song, "The Terrible," I've heard/saw. And we have (unfortunately, because, as I've previously made clear, I hate him) Jimmy Fallon to thank. And BrooklynVegan, for that matter.
Ohio is about to execute a man who, last week, was brought to a hospital to be revived after attempting suicide. Why bother? you ask. Good question.
Ethics aside, lawmakers in some states are reconsidering the efficiency of the death penalty. It costs less to try and convict someone of murder who might get a life sentence, rather than going for capital punishment.
(I realize this pic alludes to the electric chair, which as far as I know isn't used anymore, though still legal in some states if the prisoner chooses it--yeah right, like that will happen--but I had no gurney photos.)
And I grew up listening to my father rant, while religiously reading the thing, that the Post was just another liberal rag, on par with the holiest of holies, The New York Times.
Well, apparently nothing lasts for ever--if it ever happened in the first place. Like most candy-colored "things that used to be so great" nostalgia--you know, when America was America for Americans, capitalism was "free" and government was "small"--that never were (not the way people that use them mean them), this never existed.
Anyway, now they've run afoul of the rightist-watching Media Matters:
"The Washington Post just hired Marc Thiessen, who now becomes the second former George W. Bush speechwriter-turned-columnist at the paper. Thiessen isn't just any right-wing shill: He's an unapologetic advocate for torture. And he isn't alone. Charles Krauthammer, Michael Scheuer, and Richard Cohen have all used the editorial pages of the Post to defend torture.
"In his book and even on the pages of the Post, Thiessen has repeatedly made dishonest and dubious statements in support of torture. For example:
He falsely claimed in his most recent book that, since CIA interrogation of terror suspects began after 9-11, there were no attacks by Al Qaeda on U.S. interests at home or abroad.
He also claimed, falsely, in a Post op-ed that Bush oversaw "2,688 days without a terrorist attack on [American] soil," ignoring the anthrax mail attacks, the El Al shooting in Los Angeles and other domestic terrorist attacks.
In a Post op-ed, he called President Obama's decision to release Bush administration torture memos "irresponsible" and claimed that "Americans may die as a result.""
JIC (just in case) it seemed my snowy post yesterday implied that the blizzard somehow disproves global warming, let me clarify. As Colbert aptly pointed out, a blizzard (or even two! like in DC) does not a hoax make, just as the night does not imply the sun's death. My point, only vaguely conceptualized at the time, was that Pollyannaish-disbelief in global warming because of the weather outside is as irrational as the IPCC's (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) contention that the sky is falling in the next couple of decades.
That, and, where the transition to renewable/sustainable energies from soon-to-be-gone (goggle: peak oil) fossil-fuels as an issue of pragmatic resource allocation and thus world security and political stability is concerned, there's a convergence of me and the Sex-Master.
(All pics of feral houses in Detroit. Thanks Flavorwire.com)
Increasing non-fossil fuel electricity generating capacity is to:
1. reduce the dependence on non-renewable energy sources and 2. reduce pollutions from say burning coals, but 3. NOT to deal with IPCC's religious bleif of global warming.
Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston in 1809. When he was two, both his parents died from tuberculosis. Poe lived most of his life in poverty and sometimes in misery. He would work and work on a poem only to sell it to a newspaper for a few dollars. In 1836, Poe married his 14-year-old cousin, Virginia Clemm. She was sick with tuberculosis, and they had no money to pay for heat so Poe trained their cat to sit on her lap to keep her warm. Virginia's mother lived with the couple as well, and Poe was trying to care for them both with almost no money. When he did get money, he often spent it on alcohol. His biggest problem was that he wasn't paid enough money for what he wrote; in 1845, he sold the poem 'The Raven' to a newspaper for $15.
-The Writer's Almanac
Douchie Poe fans have a mock funeral in recompense for his dying drunk on a Baltimore street.
"With all the negative impacts of TV, it might make you wonder whether TV offers any benefits at all. The pseudonymous neuroscience blogger “Neurocritic” found one studyshowing a benefit of television: People say they’re less lonely when they watch. As with the Dunton study, this is just a self-reported correlation, but if TV really makes people less lonely, that’s inarguably a plus.
But there may be more tangible benefits to TV, especially in developing nations. Daniel Hawes, a PhD candidate in applied at the University of Minnesota, discusses a study of a thousand villages in Tamil Nadu, India. The researchers found that shortly after the introduction of TV into a village, the standing of women improved dramatically. Villagers were more likely to say it was wrong for a husband to beat his wife, and women had greater autonomy and lower rates of pregnancy.
This makes some sense—in the US, the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 70s followed shortly after the nation-wide explosion of television ownership in the 1950s. It’s quite conceivable that TV’s power to induce social change—by giving people more access to information—is universal.
Paradoxically, while TV may be harmful to an individual’s mental and physical well-being, on the aggregate it could be beneficial to society. Perhaps, as with so many other things, the best advice might be to watch TV—but only in moderation. For more on the impact of TV and other technologies, visit ResearchBlogging.org."
The org mentioned, while not visually stimulating, has some interesting posts.
(disclaimer: no he doesn't)
Sex-master wrote: