the trial I

My time in the box_____________________________________________________ I got to the courthouse a little after 7 on Thursday morning and the sheriff’s deputy behind the security desk questioned my being there for jury duty. “That’s on Monday morning.” Well, no, they split the jury pool and told us to report to judge Moss’ courtroom on Thursday. So she went to ask her supervisor who told her to let me in so she ran me through the metal detector and gave me directions. Of course no-one was there so I plunked myself down on a wooden bench and waited. Other moaning prospective jurors began to trickle in and by about ten until 8 eight there were quite a few, (something over thirty, I never got an accurate count) at eight they took us into the courtroom to begin filling out paperwork in triplicate, one for the judge, one for the defense, and one for the prosecutors. A bit of conversation between the middle aged bleached blond bailiff and some of the candidates for juryhood established that the jury pool was split because there usually wasn’t a jury trial in this court, in fact this was the first one this year, ”after all you don’t usually have a jury trial in misdemeanor court.” That got my attention…a jury trial in misdemeanor court? Why? There’s a story here After the paperwork was done they showed us a piece of propaganda about the inalienable right to a jury trial…that killed another twenty minutes…then we waited. A bit after nine the prosecutors, the defendant, and the defense attorney showed up…once they were seated the judge came in and began the process of empanelment. It was a six person jury with an alternate so they called the first seven victims up and started asking questions like “do you own a hand gun or any pets.” And “are you a member of an animal rights organization” and, “ are you a vegetarian” There must have been a purpose for that juxtaposition. People did their damnedest to get out of that jury box…radical peta members were crawling out of the wood work along with diehard hunters and meat eaters…the prosecution dismissed a doctor with two goldfish and the defense got rid of four animal rights extremists…two of the first seven remained in the box and five more went in…all sorts of questions …”have you, a member of your family, or a close personal friend ever been a victim of a crime?” “ have you, a family member, or close personal friend ever been charged and convicted of a crime, including driving under the influence ?” Four of those five were dismissed. I was in the next four to go up there and try as I might to rant about the bias towards wealth of the system I somehow remained in the box when only one of my group was dismissed…shit…this is a pain. The next woman up was chosen as the alternate and at ten-forty five the judge announced “we have a panel” and adjourned until 1:30 for lunch…this set the pattern for the entire trial which experienced far more down time that courtroom time. Lunch was free but the catch ( aside from the jury business) was that it had to come from the courthouse cafeteria…I always feel threatened by institutional food, and for good reason…the antibiotics I was taking for my mangled hand we already causing some gastric discomfiture…the courthouse food rendered it into full blown distress…we were pinned with huge orange buttons that said JUROR on them and turned us all into instant pariahs…people fell over themselves avoiding us as we walked down the hallways…quickly cutting corners, hugging the walls, ducking into rest rooms, cowering in doorways until we passed…no-one wanted to be tagged with jury tampering…which in itself is odd…it’s lake county Indiana after all and jury rigging is hallowed tradition amongst the legal fraternity dating back to the time when the governor of Indiana offered the county to Illinois at a fire sale price ( which was refused, at which the governor simply wished the damned place would slide off into the lake)…after we filled our trays the bailiff led us down to an empty table near the back of the cafeteria. As we were about to sit down he pointed to the enclosed smoking area and asked. “ do any of you guys smoke?” before we could answer he looked directly at me and said, “I mean cigarettes. You guys in here with your marijuana charges…if the ever legalize it or I retire I’m gonna try it just to see what it’s all about.” I was stunned into silence…it’s the hair…I know…stereotypical thinking…I do it too (bleach blond bailiff…that was an assumption)…I will try harder not to. 1:30 and the show began… the seven of us were sworn in as a jury and the defendant was introduced as a doctor…and the scales fell from my eyes…we were a jury in misdemeanor court because the doctor had the means to hire counsel and counsel felt that the good doctor would get a better break with a jury that with a judge. Much easier to fool the laity with a bunch of trite emotionalism and the proper amount of legalese. It seems that on the evening of august 15, 2007 ( the wheels of justice grind slowly…a bailiff who is entering law school next fall told me that this was purposeful…that things were done slowly and deliberately to minimize rash and hasty decisions…I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now…the bailiff is part of the system and like most of us not terribly objective about things we’re close to) the doctor shot and killed a neighbor’s dog with a .380 handgun alleging that the dog was mauling his…the owner of the dead dog and a handful of eyewitnesses took exception with that and the doctor was charged with cruelty to animals ( much was made of the definition of the word “beat” in this trial) and criminal mischief…both class a misdemeanors carrying fines and the possibility of a one year jail sentence. Opening statements were rhetorical masterpieces…prosecutors set out to prove the doctor a socio-path and a madman…a loose cannon with a .380 cannon while the defense characterized him as a loving son ( middle-age and still living with mom? All sorts of sirens, red flags, bells and whistles) and doting dog owner who had been victimized by a raging lone wolf of a golden retriever named max who was wandering the post storm ( there had been a doozie and all the power was out…a significant factor in all the confusion) chaos in a snarling, un-neutered frenzy of blood lust…I surmised the truth ( if you can find such a thing in a courtroom) lay somewhere between the two extremes. After opening statements there was a recess so the parties could arrange their displays, flow charts, graphs, aerial photographs, and dog obedience awards ( don’t laugh…they used all that stuff and more) and figure out just how they were going to pitch something so idiotic as a misdemeanor jury trial to seven shmucks off the street.

a holiday on the lam

an advertisement in my sunday paper sets forth in the form of a picture the four things that are needed for a successful christmas. at the top of the picture is a roast turkey, below that a christmas pudding, below that a dish of mince pies; and below that a tin of_...'s liver salt...implied in the above-mentioned advertisement is the notion that a good meal means a meal at which you over-eat yourself. in principle i agree. i would only add in passing that when we gorge ourselves at christmas, if we do get the chance to gorge ourselves, it is worth giving a thought to the thousand million human beings or thereabouts who will be doing no such thing. for in the long run our christmas dinners would be safer if we could make sure that everyone else had a christmas dinner as well...a deliberately austere christmas would be an absurdity. thew whole point of christmas is that it is a debauch-as it was probably long before the birth of christ was arbitrarily fixed on that date..." george orwell. as i please 66, london tribune 20 december 1946________________________________________________________________________ i,ve quoted george before but this bears repeating...orwell had the habit of occasionally dissecting the front page of his newspaper in his column and trying to read between the lines of the editorial slant provided by advertisers for himself and anyone who cared to read what he wrote...it's the holidays and anyone who doesn't know i loathe the intrusive nature of this one doesn't know me...agnostic that i am i have no "true religion"...not even a secular one...they are pretty much thin veneers of someone else's agenda for my behaviors and i am skeptical of the wisdom behind that manipulation...nobody "knows" they just think they do...which is all fine and good as long as they shut up about it...i will not tolerate a missionary...this leaves me out of any sort of spiritual attachment to this holiday and i am left with scrooges "false and commercial festival"...according to today's n y times the "festival" has seen better days...a dreary pre-christmas sales week for retailers has them in a holiday funk with more probable losses to come as they dump inventories after christmas...if anyone shows up for that...the op-ed page says nobody trusts anyone anymore ( i never did ) because of the growing inequality the consequentialism of the bogus ponzi scheme called capitalism has created...they are well behind the curve on this...tom freidman is dragging them down...there is also news that the "nest of vipers" called congress is crafting a farm bill that will further restrict access to food aid for the poorest amongst us...a manifestation of the tea party cretins and their war on the poor because their social darwinist philosophy tells them they deserve it all...fuck them...twice...inflation is there as well...the cost of the 364 items in "the twelve days of christmas" is up to $114,651...6.9 higher than 2012...and finally crude oil is trading at $99.22 a barrel this holiday morning...well above the $85 that "economists" say causes economic damage...yet the band palys on and the hegemonic culture tries its best to convince us that "business as usual" can go on in the face of climate change ( deniers scoff! ) and the relentless reduction of non-renewable resources that are central to "business as usual" while alternatives are hyped with the downside ( energy density ) left out ( i read another piece about "advances in science and technology" allowing jatropha seeds to be converted into bio-fuel...what's the eroei? is it scalable? how much cropland will be diverted to its production and what will be the impact on food prices? what's the energy density of the fuel? ethanol has 1/4 the energy of gasoline...no-one talks about that...especially the national corn growers' association...read brian tokar's essay on bio-feul and food then read the research from the university of minnesota...it will help balance the propaganda )...if we are realistic in our thinking ( read cut the greed out with a really sharp knife ) and actually practice all the fucking expedient blather about equality of opportunity that the myth makers puke out we just might be able to provide christmas dinner for all those people who will "be doing no such thing"...feeding nine billion people by mid-century means less of the 364 items and a bit more community...happy holidays everyone...i am off to spend some time with my children and grandchild...giving small gifts and sharing of ourselves.

st. thomas's day

"no: a canadian winter for my money; or a russian one, where evry man is but a co-proprietor with the north wind in the free-simple of his own ears. indeed so great an epicure am in in this matter that i cannot relish a winter night full if it be much past st. thomas's day, and have degenerated into disgusting tendencies to vernal appearances. from the latter days of october to christmas eve , therefore, is the period during which happiness is in season..." thomas de quincey from "confessions of an english opium eater"________________________________________________________________________tom had, i think, ulterior motives in preferring a brutal winter...he was a long-time laudanum addict, "happiness might now be bought for a penny and carried in the waistcoat pocket: portable ecstasies might be corked up in a pint bottle: and peace of mind might be sent down in gallons by the mail coach."...an ample supply of the drug of choice and foul weather to insure that 1) no irritating neighbors or pesky creditors might drop by to spoil the mood...and 2) he wouldn't have to share...addicts can be a giving lot at times and their disdain for personal possessions has been called deeply anti-social in a consumerist society...but they are notoriously stingy with the drug of choice...i am, at darker times, as much of a fugitive from polite society as tom was...i get it...i don't indulge myself in tom's dislike for spring or other seasons ( gardening can be as reclusive a sport as drug use...the outside world falls away...i can get cranky if i am interrupted while working on a project...but it is a constricted business to garden in winter...and i get seeds "by the mail coach" the way tom got laudanum ) but i do indulge myself in his serial search for solitude...it is the first day of winter as well as st. thomas's day...we are nearing the end of tom's time-frame when "happiness is in season" and i am about to pull on my boots and head out to a garden to check on things...no one else will be there.

taxes, bureaucrats, and a culture of suspicion

i went off to the county government ( ha!) complex yesterday afternoon to pay the property tax on my mom's house since there was some snafu with the electronic payment i had tried to make ( odd because the payment for my taxes went through an i did that online )...i had expected a dreary round of queuing and condescension from tenured bureaucrats but discovered a fordian assembly-line philosophy instead...this did not preclude any small indignities...simply sped them up...from the clearly bored county sheriff manning the metal detector ( who was rummaging around the tray people emptied their pockets into obviously searching for terrorist weapons or, perhaps, subversive tracts...pointless since the real terrorists and criminals were already at work in the building ) and who sullenly asked "you know where you're going?"...do any of us really know where we are going? what this whole business of existence is about? i am skeptical...but that wasn't what the deputy had on his mind was it? Yeah...i know where the treasurer's office is...when i arrived at my destination another bored worker examined my papers and asked if i was paying by check or cash...when i indicated cash she directed me to a longish line of people waiting to be attended to by two cashiers...i dutifully got inline to surrender the lucre and as i advanced i noticed that along the counter that ran the length of the cash line people paying by check were being expeditiously processed and released while the cash folks plodded along...as i neared the cashier's window i also noticed some arcane manipulating and arrangement of wads of cash taking place...screened by the people in front of me i could not exactly tell what was what...finally i arrived and plunked down a stack of twenties with the paperwork and the cashier arranged the bills in a pile with jefferson's portrait pointing all the same way...she then fanned the bills out in a semicircle so each bill was exposed and drew a line across them with a pen designed to detect counterfeit bills and the reason for the time consuming line became apparent...we were suspect because we had cash...checks ( cashier or money order only ) were safe and so was technology...but the herd are a wily bunch and cash can be faked...better safe than sorry...check the citizens' bills for fakery to save the county valuable time and money in tracking them down...wouldn't want the public to defraud an honest political system.

orwell takes a lesson

"...it was sanctioned by the governmental decision of february 1942 'to destroy the morale of the enemy population and, in particular, the industrial workers.'...an enterprise of the material and organizational dimensions of the bombing offensive, which by a.j.p. taylor's estimate swallowed up one third of the entire british production of war materiel, had such momentum of its own that short run corrections in its course...were more or less ruled out..." w.g.sebald, "on the natural history of destruction"____ "the essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. war is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise have been used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. even when weapons of war are nor destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without having produced anything that can be consumed...ultimately scrapped as obsolete never having brought any material benefits to anybody..." george orwell. "1984"_________ w.g. was born during the war and eric lived through it...contemporaries for a brief time they both understood that war involved destruction but took somewhat different tacks on the subject...w.g. ascribing it to institutional inertia and eric to an act of deliberate economic suppression of the masses to keep them from using any leisure time and material comfort to question the quality of their lives...as much as i admire eric i am going to come down on w.g.'s institutional inertia argument...but not without pointing out that civilians are always the target in a war and anything governments or military bureaucrats have to say to the contrary is rank and morally expedient bullshit...looking around at some of the people i know i see that they are sedated by their comfortable material lives and are usually only aroused when there is a power outage that cuts off the bears game when they are in the "red zone" or when the real housewives of whatever tawdry burg are up to no good...the consumerist utopia lobtomizes many for the benefit of the few ( and even eric's contention that scrapped obsolete, scrapped military hardware doesn't benefit anyone leaves out the manufacturer's cost plus overruns guaranteed profits [ honest abe would buy anything remotely germane to the army of the potomac and call it money well spent...a great innovator ]someone turned a buck )and generates unfulfillable expectations in a world that has access to media but not goods and never will because of the finite nature of the planet...resource substitution is the valium of economists and a complete lie or the product of intellectual dishonesty...either way...they are alchemists screwing around with the future...

this is only what i expected

"i find that by letters which i have received, that the public creditors are to be the body who are to rise in judgement against me and try to expel me from the senate. this is only what i expected. nor are they the only ones. the adoption of the new constitution raised a singular ferment in the minds of men. every one ill at ease in his finances; every one out at the elbows in his circumstances; every ambitious man, every one desirous of a short cut to wealth and honors, cast their eyes on the new constitution as the machine which could be wrought to their purposes, either in the funds of speculation it would afford, the offices it would create, or the jobs to be obtained under it. not one of these has found a patron in me. in fact i have generally set my face against such pretensions. as such men are generally wanting in virtue, their displeasure, nay their resentment, may be expected. 'why, you want nothing neither for yourself nor friends!' said a senator one day to me in some surprise. it was somewhat selfish but i could not help uttering a wish that he could say so..." july 9th 1790 william maclay's journal of the second session of the first congress._______________________________________________________________ so...feeding at the public trough probably was a concept that predated the constitution...how not if there was a line of card sharps, defrocked clergy, and stock-jobbers waiting in line to dip in? bailouts and corporate welfare would seem to have been part and parcel of the history of the federal government since its inception as a lawfully ( someone needs to take the time to explain why i should harbor any respect for a legal system propagated by a confederacy of whores, seemingly from day one...rule of law my ass ) constituted entity...the past five years of federal handouts and the debacle of quantitative easing is simply a continuation of the "american dream " as conceived by post-colonial political operatives with an axe to grind and a powerful lust for a life of fast cash and low rent debauchery that required the creation of a new and deeply inbred native born aristocracy as a yankee response to the twisted group in "the old country" that came up with the hellfire club... fooled into believing in their own righteousness by parodying the relentless puritanism of their exiled forefathers with tent revivals and a national currency sprinkled with the word god this strain of shameless political hookers carries on deluding themselves with ersatz ideals of public service and an adherence to duty and robbing the republic blind...fuck these people.

reading tainter ( as opposed to jared diamond )

"specific evolutionary 'progress' is inversely related to general evolutionary 'potential.'" "...success at adaptation breeds conservatism; dominant polities are less able to accommodate change. successful complex societies become locked into their adaptations..." "since change is rarely in the best interests of the ruling group, and there is a lack of cohesion and common interest between groups, no mechanism exists for gradual adjustment to changing circumstances. pressures lead to collapse rather than to structural change." "...all societies, complex or otherwise, run the risk of adapting so well to existing circumstances that change becomes impossible." joseph a. tainter, from "the collapse of complex societies."______________________________________________________________ so...the "developed economies" are nearing the end of a three hundred year ( or so ) run of a bonanza of cheap, high quality energy, laid down during the carboniferous era and the social and infrastructures are deeply embedded in adaptations to that extraordinary windfall...( don't believe me? how do you feel when the power fails? what in your home functions without electricity?i have a lot of books personally, but when the power goes out for any extended length of time my neighborhood empties as people flee to relatives, or bars, or resturants, or starbucks...anywhaere they can find oases of the technology that has failed at home...television, wi-fi, whatever [and no, i haven't missed the irony that i am saying thison the internet...i am part of the consumerist culture as well...like it or not..i'm just looking for escape routes] or when gasoline prices spike...you're trapped bucko...get a grip )...i can think of at least five service stations within a mile of my house and i could drive from here to detroit on back roads and city streets, much less highways...what are all those streets and gas stations for? adaptations to cheap energy... all that sunk cost in infrastructure and all the profits left to wring out of petrochemicals mean that resource will be dominant until it becomes absolutely unsustainable...then what? ( and the first one of you to say "resource substitution" gets rapped on the knuckles...that is the valium of economists...hired guns of greed...trying to lull us into complacency )...the worldview emanating out of the media and the excuses and explanations those criminal whores in whoretown are propagating won't make the collapse any easier to deal with...they are tools of hegemonic culture and change is not "in the best interest of the ruling group"...even they won't come through this unscathed...less poor is still the new rich.

one for tom

carboniferous detritovores

"according to the united nations statistical yearbook by 1971 the per capita rate of energy consumption was about sixty times greater than in india...so it would not have been too inaccurate to suggest that , for a realistic comparison of american population pressure with that of india, the ratio between their respective population ties should have been multiplied by a factor of sixty. the number of actual people per square mile in the united states was about on eighth of what it was in india . but if each american were was about sixty times as colossal as each indian, then american population pressure was equivalent to there being twelve billion people living the indian pace of life on territory as large as the united states." overshoot: the ecological basis of revolutionary change. william r catton, jr.____________________________________________________________________________ catton's book was written in 1982 ( still relevant despite all the deniers out there...easy to find but it is a scholarly work...there are footnotes, end notes, and a bibliography...weekend readers should probably skip it...and let me add that it isn't because it is too "smart" for anyone...it's just dry as dust in some really arid stretches ) ) and the figures he is quoting are, for reasons opaque to me, eleven years old at the time of writing..that does not invalidate the comparison, however, it just calls for an update...the indian subcontinent has come a long way towards the "developed" world in the intervening forty-two years and, according to the 2012 united nations statistical yearbook energy consumption in the u s is now only 4.62070819 times as much as that of india which reduces the u s population pressure compared to india from around twelve billion citizens " living the indian pace of life" to around 1,279,600,000 americans humming along like there's no tomorrow and no future generations to consider ( i have a granddaughter now and future projections make grandpa worried about quality of life for the little sweetie )...and that's the point...the whole fucking ponzi scheme of industrial capitalism is unsustainable but , of course, those in the hegemonic culture who control the privatization of socially created wealth ( and we are all privatizing that wealth...but the elite controls who gets what and they are greedy fuckers ) can't recognize this and their political creatures who bullshit us continually with campaigning rhetoric can't admit it either because, like the barometer called "the market", it is all built on faith and doubt collapses the system..well.. i am a heretic and heterodoxy in a time of faith is a dangerous business...but that never stopped me before...the chinese use nearly as much energy as we do and as the indians continue to close in on both of us , based on the use of completely non-renewable resources, things will be going bust...energy costs will not go down...they will continue to rise ( resource substitution is the valium of economists )...and so will conflicts...over water, oil, rare earths, and who gets how much of what's left..people are shits and brotherly love doesn't buy a summer home in the hamptons...of course that cottage will be useless when you can't find a way to get there.

kulturkampf

"an authentic culture roots into the collective experience of a community's past and from this sources draws meaning for the present and tools for the future."---john greer_________________________________________________________________________it's probably a bit more complex than that...i have been reading greer's book " the ecotechinic future" which is another book about the need to move away from a consumerist society based on the use of petrochemicals in just about everything and "relocalize" most facets of life as the fossil fuel based society winds down...he at least has the sense ( unlike some of his contemporaries )to maintain that it will be a gradual evolution that will take some time and he claims to have no real idea of what a future society will look like beyond some vague outlines...this, in a world crammed full of pundits ( listening friedman? ) who know what to do and could save us all if only we'd do what they say, is refreshing...he also misses the point ( i think ) that culture isn't completely dead despite the very best efforts of a capital driven consumerist utopia to kill it...regionalism has been a much maligned concept in the post-eisenhower age of interstate freeways and ungodly commutes...television and the exurbs with standardized existences was supposed to make us homogenous...but they still do things differently in northern alabama than they do in northwest indiana...some ( but obviously not all ) of that has to do with the environmental differences...we also have only a partially shared history...the community past in huntsville is divergent form the community past in lake station...we share human origins and universals ( sorry coach ) but not experience or local conditions...so the point is that every book about the need for a "transition" that i have read ( and that spate of reading is quickly drawing to a close...once you decide what is what it is time to stop reading and do something...if you don't you just become part of some intellectual salon taking about what needs to be done ) is about rebuilding culture...adjusting the community to local conditions...turning what's available into a viable way of life...growing some roots and re-establishing community connections...nothing particularly earth shattering in that...it's what humans did for centuries before the industrial revolution and its drive to develop the ultimate consumerism short circuited it... luddite, neo-luddite, pessimist, cynic...all adjectives i have heard recently...the cost of at least attempting to take a pragmatic and realistic viewpoint about the limits capital refuses to countenance because their alchemists in economist guise say they don't exist...the dog philosophers and i are old friends and the social constructs that capital creates to convince itself and the rest of us that those limits are non-existent are as abstract and phony as any that crates of thebes railed against...as much as it would like to capital can't kill culture...the distortions consumerism have placed on it would seem to have their limits.

fredrick jackson turner....

...closed the american western frontier in 1890...like many at the time ( and not a few today...because of the rail splitter's federal legacy and a nativist yahoo mindset among the retired fucks that live in the unstable and utterly unsustainable sun belt ) he thought manifest destiny to be written in stone instead of a transitory experiment in cultural displacement...now the gradual death of cheap energy and the insane overdraft of the ogallala aquifier seem poised to reopen the west to migration and settlement over the next few centuries...phoenix and las vegas are doomed as the hoover dam silts up and lake meade becomes a mud puddle...meanwhile the ogallala aquifier spreads across eight states from southern north dakota to texas and new mexico...it recharges at about an inch a year so that leaves the system that irrigates about a fifth of the cropland west of the mississippi river with an annual overdraft of only 2.7nfeet ( and that is down due to conservation measures )...recent events should show that rainfall west of big muddy is an iffy proposition at best...the old nineteenth century saw that " rain follows the plow " is rank bullshit and has been proved so time and again by things like the dust bowl ( those nice circular fields that have been adapted to rolling sprinklers fed by centrifugal pumps were created by cutting down thousands of trees planted by he ccc during the great depression to act a windbreaks to prevent the erosion that created the dust bowl...they are gone now and as the area turns to dust once again guess what is going to re-occur? )...so as the experiment that released immigrants " from european mindsets" and allowed americanism to flourish retreats the frontier will reopen to cultures that have proved able to live within the limits imposed by the ecosphere...a repopulation of northwestern mexico is in the offing despite john mccain and his yahoo constituents...the border fence will become a joke as the federal government contracts...not because of anything that cretin grover nordquist does but because the overshoot we are going to have to deal with will defy any government...guadalupe-hidalgo isn't worth the paper it's written on but not for the reasons anyone who still believes in the "american century" will ever be able to grasp.

devil media

"now a very long debate took place about the newspapers. all the printers in the city crowd their papers into the hands of the members. the bulk of the papers consist mainly of advertisements. useful information ought not to be excluded" but this is overdone. the real mean to me appears to be the taking of one or two papers by each member. but one part of the house struggled for taking them all, the other for taking none, no vote could be carried for either, and, of course, the printers will continue their old practice of sending and expecting payment." william maclay journal of the first session of the first congress. june 3rd, 1789. so i look at my facebook page or yahoo or my new york times and i think how little things have changed in the media world...all pr spin and engineered desires still...old bill was as astute as he was unpopular...heralding from that "radical pennsylvania" with its unicameral legislature and tradition of defying tradition he was targeted from the beginning by "his littleness" and "that damned ass hamilton" but he knew when he was being manipulated and he wasn't shy about saying so...the media hasn't changed much in the intervening 224 years and when i see some buffoon with an "i don't believe the liberal media" bumper sticker i am inclined to think that the corporate entities that media companies are have that poor sod right where they want him...there are liberal journalists and media personalities just as there are conservative ones...and they have a bully pulpit because they earn hard cash for the companies that employ them...if they didn't sell they'd be out on their asses tout de suite whatever particular stripe of political frenzy they were pandering to...surely this is why the new york times give that flesh eating creep tom friedman column space...the drivel he spouts isn't fit for the crapper wall but someone buys the damned paper just to read it...you are at liberty to think what you will about the media and its alleged bias...near as i can tell they follow the first principle and imperative of capital..."more"...and don't give a rat's ass about politics as a rule...ask old bill...he was sensitive to the presence of vermin...media...political...he had a finely honed sense for these things and could find his voice at a moments notice...it's why he's is utterly invisible in high school history books and in the pantheon of "the founding fathers"...he held the truth in more esteem than his peers...the hamiltonian system of political deceit grinds on.

macro-parasitism

so mom is ninety-two and has alzheimer's...and since she cannot process what has happened thirty seconds ago she has something of a tendency to let things like property taxes slide...as a result i had to procure a cashier's check in a substantial amount, go to the county government center and find my way through the skinner box of hallways and metal detectors until i found the tax sale division of the lake county assessor's office where i duly forked over the lucre to redeem my mother's house...so...taxes are a necessary evil( fuck the party of lincoln and their leisure service nominally called the democrats ) and i don't expect much in the way of sympathy...only a clean tax record...however this story doesn't end here..some low-life fuckball from the land of lincoln ( abe was an evil bastard...patron saint of the robber baron and killer of native peoples...odd that cost plus overruns should have found their start during his tenure in office...he would buy anything and chalk it up to "saving the union" ) bought a certificate of tax sale and in addition to the assessor i now have to pay him off as well...and at a profit...heart and soul of capitalism...it's also profiting from other people's misfortune ( my mother's disorder is not voluntary believe me )...so...fuck the lake county tax assessor...fuck lawyers and legislators that contrive this legal chicanery [no offense coach...you either amy lou )...fuck the rat bastard parasites that utilize that chicanery to profit..and fuck capitalism that endorses it as a righteous fucking system that we all should aspire to...there is evil in the world and we are in the heart of the dark empire...where's tucholsky when you need him?

nosferatu

hugo chavez is slated to become the next twenty-first century undead...(kim jong il beat him out for first but it's still a podium finish )...bolstering an iffy secular religion with a mummy is a longstanding tradition among teleologists of many stripes...american presidents have jesus to protect their fundamental political and philosophical tenets ( pretty much rooted in something vaguely described as "market mechanisms"...a sort of catch-all designation for anything that buttresses the position of the hegemonic culture )...with a population so deeply inculcated with consumerist ideals and so willing to go into debt to bolster "consumer spending" and the fear of a vengeful, old testament jehovah sending then to eternal hell for being frugal they have little need of mummies ( although i am fairly sure ronald reagan is a sort of ideological mummy that bogus politicians and the ever loathsome pundits call on when the herd begins to rumble...and john mccain may be a mummy...hard to tell )...mummies have their uses...that's clear...but they can also become an embarrassment...stalin didn't last long next to lenin ( and there are repeated calls to bury the original undead most years ) and you have to wonder how the chinese will continue to reconcile the dichotomy of an embalmed mao and his legacy of red guards and cultural revolution with an increasingly capitalist economy...ho benignly validates vietnamese sweatshops in the name of a socialist revolution...anything can be perverted by capital...earth day as a marketing tool? "green" doesn't have anything to do with protecting the environment...everything humans do is deleterious to the environment...but that's another blog...the point is any hegemonic culture will engage in the most bizarre behavior if the elites that control it believe it will reinforce their rule...even creating a cult of the undead...there is no dignity in politics...no fucking ethics either.

reading nietzsche

"at bottom one now, when confronted by work, and what is invariably meant is relentless industry from early until late, that such work is the best police, that it keeps everybody in harness and powerfully obstructs the development of reason, of covetousness of the desire for independence. for it uses up a tremendous amount of nervous energy and takes it away from reflection, brooding, dreaming, worry, love and hatred; it always sets a small goal before one's eyes and permits easy and regular satisfactions." frederick nietzsche. "the dawn"___________________ i'm not sure fred's quite nailed it down here...he has some of the elements, but it seems to be more of a statement of nietzshe's distaste for factory work ( and, by extension, i am assuming factory workers ) than an unbiased assessment of the state of the worker...the need to work does indeed direct " a tremendous amount of nervous energy" away from lengthy reflection on a system that is extractive ( some would say extortionist ) to the core and based on the few enjoying wealth at the cost of the many ( despite what thorsten veblen and fucking ayn rand say )...but work is symptomatic of a consumerist system that is the real policeman...it does not place "a small goal before one's eyes and permit easy and regular satisfactions"...rather it engineers desires for more and larger...for new and novel...and it seeks to preserve itself by engendering an imperative of competitive consumption as the path to social status across the whole spectrum of society...from highest to lowest "more" is instilled as the greatest ethical good which keeps people working...marvin harris maintained that debt was the prime mover of the west's cultural materialism but i am inclined to think that "more" is the imperative and that is the true source of debt and is the mechanism that impels the system...economic obligation based on consumerist competition is what shackles us to work...that it serves to keep people in line is a bonus for the elites who putatively control things ( that they are embedded in an ecosystem is something their economists have dissembled to them about and all that ignorance is about to come home to roost in smaller everything including wealth...everything carries the seeds of its own destruction...capitalism too )...old fred has a lot to say about the angst and alienation that characterizes industrial work in his writings ( as a classicist he seems to also have a gross fear of anything "modern" ) but i believe they are based more on a traditional german romantic ( nietzsche is nothing if not a romantic ) abhorrence of the industrial revolution and all that entailed rather than its impact on working masses.

fuck tom friedman

globalization apologist, booster, propagandist...world class jerk

abstraction vs. satisfaction

friday was a furlough day where i work...no paid work...at least not paid in the abstract representation of work called money...there was payment in the form of satisfaction, however...the intent behind money is to represent work sanctioned by an economic elite...work that buttresses its position of power and privilege...work that extracts money from the economy without supporting the elite ( what would be termed "vice for instance ) is deemed illegal and negatively sanctioned...money is simply a tool of the elite made basic to everyone because it is the only way to obtain basic needs in a consumer society, just as debt ( also a buttress to the elite ) is the positively sanctioned way of buying upward mobility ( or, at least, the pretense of upward mobility )...satisfaction is something the elite works hard to eliminate through media propaganda that creates engineered desire ( a buttress to debt ) because it is a basic threat to money...it can be obtained by the lower orders without engaging in any activity either positively sanctioned or deemed illegal so it subverts the entire money/desire/debt paradigm...primarily mental and connected to some form of constructive activity it falls beyond the influence of money...i went out to the local extension campus of indiana university and visited with friends in the archives and checked on my research garden there...then i went out and photographed some peri-urban agricultural fields i have been monitoring this past year then headed home to upload the photos and do some writing...true they were all activities connected to the consumer economy by their use of energy...but they were low cost and non debt producing and my mental outlook was vastly improved...i had a good time with no physical exchange of cash and without bringing home any of those holy of holies for the elite...consumer goods...i'm planning more subversive activities, like visiting my granddaughter, soon.

megacity

"in 2052 most of the world's population will live in big cities...the big cities will be divided into two types of communities, as they are today. the center ( or multiple centers ) will be part of the industrialized world, with adequate infrastructure. the periphery will be huge shantytowns basically without infrastructure. there will be 'cities of gold' on a 'planet of slums'...the huge populations in the megacities of 2052 will be part of the global community. still, most people will live their lives as part of a local community that will form the stable frame for their daily lives. the local community will gain importance for most people as the main source of their identity rather than the megacity itself. the multi-center structure will facilitate the cultivation of specific cultural traditions..." per arild garnasjordet and lars hem.___________________________ humans have been on the planet for about a million years and some of them have lived in cities for about five thousand...i have to wonder what in those nine hundred ninety-five thousand years of evolution has equipped them to pack themselves together in high-rise buildings ringed by atrocious slums...i can see where economic drivers will spell the end of the cul-de-sac and zoysia grass lawns sprawling further and further into rural areas...the advent of liquid fuels with less efficiency and much lower energy density than current fossil fuels ( you have to burn about four times as much ethanol as gasoline to do the same work...something the national corn growers boosterism for "corn based ethanol" is silent about...that and the impact it has on food prices ) will spell the end of the long-distance commute from suburbia for all but those with the wealth and the hankering to rusticate...but what in a history of foraging and nomadic pastoralism prepared people for megacity sedentism? well...there may be a hint in what garnasjoret and hem have to say and it's the part about the " multi-center structure" allowing "cultivation of specific cultural traditions"...some anthropologists i know say that culture is "everything humans do"...i am inclined to see it as problem solving...creating uses for a given area's assets and adaptations for its limits...it may be economics that drive future populations into sprawling slums as opposed to sprawling gated communities ( although i am willing to wage those won't readily disappear...just be closer to the slums...more heavily gated as well ) but it will be a tradition of cultural adaptation to local conditions that hold them together ( if anything can hold them together ) and make them livablr at all.

class warfare

As we look to the future of higher education, said the M.I.T. president, L. Rafael Reif, something that we now call a “degree” will be a concept “connected with bricks and mortar” — and traditional on-campus experiences that will increasingly leverage technology and the Internet to enhance classroom and laboratory work. Alongside that, though, said Reif, many universities will offer online courses to students anywhere in the world, in which they will earn “credentials” — certificates that testify that they have done the work and passed all the exams. tom friedman n y t 1-27-2013____________________________________________________________________ i wonder why tom is always so far behind the curve on these sorts of things...i took my first on line class from iu in the fall term of 2008...a labor history class to be exact...got an "a" too...all it really took was the ability to read the text and string two or three cogent paragraphs together that were germane to the topic...something like a more formal form of blogging...not that much of a stretch actually...and if there were credentials that came along with it i have yet to receive them ( not that i am one to dwell on credentials when so much of this life is an empirical sort of roller coaster that renders a good portion of formal learning irrelevant...they don't put that in the syllabus and it is doubtlessly an observation that some would roundly disagree with...but what do i know? )...some of the academics i know have embraced the on line university but most respond with reactions ranging from quiet unease to outright loathing with those farthest removed from computer science...liberal arts and humanities for instance...being the most outspoken proponents of classroom experience...all of which is fine and good but does not excuse tom form being such a plodding jerk or the engineering and technology centered geeks at mit from being patently biased about the value of on line learning...like all learning you only get out what you put in and i really need to see how they verify that each student has "done all the work and passed all the exams" when they only know them through a screen...my relationships with academics have not always been peaceful and loving but they were face to face and the amity and enmity as well as my grasp ( or lack thereof ) of the material were fairly plain to see...i am, in fact, enrolled in an on line class this semester and am fairly confident it will go well...but that doesn't mean i don't miss eye contact.

bads

"we still call it economic growth, or simply 'growth' in the confused belief that growth must always be economic. i contend that we have reached the economic limit to growth but we don't know it, and desperately hide the fact by faulty national accounting, because growth is our idol and to stop worshiping it is an anathema...i must confess surprise that denial has endured for forty years." herman e. daly. professor emeritus in the school of public policy, university of maryland.___________________________________________________________________ so why the denial about limits? and why the politically expedient cooked books? and why is growth an idol? it's not my idol...i believe in limits...social....cultural...economic...it's the hegemonic culture that is "hiding the fact by faulty national accounting"...i'm doing my best to decode the data and place it in context of an economy firmly embedded in the bioshpere and all the natural limits that entails, human ingenuity non withstanding...the hegemonic culture needs "growth" because it has developed a methodology of privatizing the benefits of that growth while socializing the costs...that is the basis of their position of wealth and privilege and the platform from which they inform us of their worldview and from which they propagandize us into thinking that it is our worldview and that it will benefit us all...that poverty can disappear through growth without sharing...they are, of course, lying through their teeth and laughing all the way to the bank while the "losers" keep on chasing the carrot...i am weary of the apologists for capitalism and "market mechanisms", techno-optimists and the rabid, greedy scum that people the stock exchange and investment banks...we all need material things to survive...goods if you will...but the system that produces those "goods" doesn't account for the "bads" it produces along with them...those are "externalities" and not subject to the scrutiny of public accountancy...enough...basta ya! it's time to ferret out the truth of our situation...build supportive communities...produce as much as we can on our own and utilize the consumerist utopia for what we need, not what someone else wants us to believe we need...in short a culture not an economy...that is a manifestly non-violent way to reduce the ruling oligarchy ( plutocracy? hamiltonian scam artists? pharaohs? brahmins? whatever you care to call them ) to irrelevance...to remove ourselves as far as possible from their worldview...take what you need from it and leave what aggrandizes them at our expense...it all starts in your neighborhood...not in theirs.

banking with bureaucrats

capital is infinitely flexible and adaptive with the "invisible hand" relentlessly regulating market mechanisms to keep supply and demand in equilibrium...that's why economists and their technocratic creatures accountants are so vital to the smooth functioning of the system...can't tell the players without a good set of well kept books...right? sure...and this is why on this balmy, climate change driven january day i find myself in receipt of a $0.28 check from j p morgan chase...drawn on the "disbursement clearing in trust for various mortgagors and various investors" division from columbus ohio...no doubt a few pennies that got misplaced in the whole payoff transaction business...let's see here...$0.45 in postage ( already the bureaucratic forms have cost them ) then there's the envelope and the cost of printing the check...and some low-level drone had to stuff it in the envelope and the sign off on a check sheet saying it had been stuffed...and then it had to be put in the mail and trans ported form ohio here to indiana and then stuffed in my mailbox by another bureaucratically controlled civil servant...this is becoming an expensive twenty-eight cent check and we haven't even gotten to the cost of cutting the tree, transporting it, pulping it, and rolling it into rolls which also had to be transported to some check paper printing and perforating the damned stub facility...yep...capital is flexible and knows how to adapt...no worries about the balmy january day or depleted resources or carrying capacity overshoot...they have the mentality to bring it under control.