all the news that's fit to print

the title of this post has been on the masthead of every new york times front page since who knows when and it could just as easily read " all the news that fits we print"...i am critical of the times a lot...mostly because it is "the paper of record" that has a lot of influence in "the media"...it is not alone in its foibles...no medium that provides "news" is unbiased or objective despite some of their claims ( one presumes fox does not claim objectivity...too laughable...probably even tot those who share their world view )...they are corporate entities seeking profit...of and for the status quo...they may disagree with specific policies editorially but they are not remotely in favor of any substantive revision of hierarchies...the n y times does indeed loathe don trump ( funny but when i type the name that way auto correct does not cue me to capitalize it ) but only because they see his actions as detrimental to their own economic interests ( and, one presumes, those of their advertisers...i don't see bloomingdale's or citibank or tiffany or ford or amazon yanking ads over the times editorializing about "riling up the crazies" or the gop's attempts to "block the ballot box" )...but they are not editorializing about "the system"...only about an administration that is so upfront and arrogantly blatant about what "the system" is, which is oligarchical and extractive ( what, exactly, do you do that caries no cost to you? dwell on that for a time )...and the disconnect between the lite and the rest of us that the trumpists are highlighting continues to grow as mcconnell says it isn't tax cuts for wealth that are the problem but rather "entitlements" like medicare and social security...well...they are not "entitlements"...programs like social security are ones i have paid into all my working life...what trump and his cronies are doing is spotlighting the extortionist proclivities of hegemonic culture and it is making the times nervous..."the crazies", if pushed far enough economically, might come tot he realization that migrant caravans are not the issue, "the system" is...this worries the times because actual substantive change could curtail their prerogatives and put a crimp in the n y time's store sales...so all media are mouthpieces for for various competing factions of the hegemonic culture and a conciliatory voice offering no real alternative, just a plea to "fix" the system of which they are an integral part...( elites do not have to be cabalistic to be more united than the divided mass of the citizenry with its petty and violent squabbles which distract their attention from the actual perpetrators of their disaffections...all they have to do is act in their own self-interest and they are advancing class interest, however, since their class interest is based on taking everything they possibly can, they are also in competition and they will, occasionally, cut one another's throats...still...greed unites...abortion and gun control divide )...all of this promotes a political system ( logically enough ) that systematically redistribute wealth upward and mythologizes they system's unbiased fairness for public consumption ( we all have an equal chance to be as greedy as congress )..so the disconnect between the governed and the government is more clearly visible than it has been in say fifty years...so...what do we do? all the alternatives seem to entail some continuation of elitism under new management..."business as usual"with a different ceo and a shuffling of congressional membership...don't count on a "blue wave" and if it should materialize don't count on a change in much of anything beyond the tone of rhetoric...two points...1) they are politicians and so liars and, 2) representatives from other districts and states don't give a rat's ass what i think..incumbents generally win...the system isn't exactly set in stone...but the inertia of the institutions is skewed heavily towards the status quo...the framers wanted it that way.

fear drives the machine

"a joyless existence, overshadowed by death and anxiety; human material for the authoritarian personality." herbert marcuse actually talking about martin heidegger's philosophy...but heidegger was a nazi and so it is germane__________one of the more noteworthy aspects of the current mid-term elections is how any and everyone is running a fear based campaign..that the trumpists would be whipping up as much hysterical anxiety as any of their fake news outlets can engender is not a surprise...the "progressives" are no better...and honestly this is no shock either...immigrants are going to take my job or congress will take my medicare...ms-13 will hack me to death with machetes or the government will become authoritarian...the government has always bee, if quietly, coercive and unafraid to employ violence when it feels threatened by substantive change from below which might threaten the elite's ( and the elite is the government...more there in a bit ) prerogatives to maintain and expand a base of wealth and power..have a look at how governments...local, state, national...dealt with labor activists be they anarchists, wobblies, or industrial unionists..leaving out nixon, macarthy, witch hunts, pumpkin papers, domino theories, black lists and a slew of other oppressions from the past...the government is one of special interests...not by or of the people...it just tries to keep quiet about it ( until some jerk like trump, who can't keep his mouth shut, gets into office and begins to highlight the disconnect )...which brings me to another point...the champions of "the street" are no less members of the elite who are playing the game by a somewhat different set of rules but still using fear as a base...warren is worth ( last figures i could find ) $18 million and pelosi has more money than ted kennedy did...they are generating fear for their own gain every bit as much as the trumpists...one wonders who is playing whom and what they are after..honestly the hysteria about a blue wave and the need to "take back" congress is bullshit...take it back from whom? and for whom? i have input in exactly two races for congress...i do not need to be propagandized about the cruz/o'roruke contest...waste of my time and theirs...except that it might make me more anxious and thus more easily manipulated...the media love consternation...sells advertising..moves goods...i will vote...i always do...i will vote what i think is the best alternative in a fucked situation..i always do because the system does not represent me...its priorities are elsewhaere.

not my style

the new issue of the new york times "style" magazine ( that workhorse of advertising revenue...first ten pages...$1,090,000 ) arrived with yesterday's paper ( and i was disappointed to see no ads from macy's )..."the greats"...an issue that purports to encourage me to emulate the lasting cultural contributions of viggo mortensen and bruce nauman...among others...while selling selling selling...oh there are "articles" among the glossy ads...one in particular that asks i give second thought to "brutalist architecture" which are gaining "new life" as poland slides into fascism...all this interspersed with lovingly photographed high end consumerist propaganda...ads telling me what tequila to drink ( patron ) what sheets to sleep on ( ones woven from pima cotton )...and beauties like this...

that's a $13,900 purse top left...in an ad not far past the article about foodies in the sacred valley of peru gobbling up native cuisine..they don't tell you about the way it prices locals out of the staples market...

baxter italy, archiproducts, and milashops would only give me a "price on request" for this baxter furniture chester moon sofa...intirium finally came through though...13,000 euros..or $14,950...we all need one today...

i am so culturally illiterate, so lumpen proletariat, such a philistine that 1) i have no clue what this photo is trying to tell me...2) i find the stench from the cologne ads uninviting...and, 3) i find this whole process of selling an elite, over hyped, over priced, wannabe lifsestyle completely undermines the editorial stance of the new york times...they hate trump and rightly so...but they are of and for the elite which engendered him..always good to know the media's biases and the times has a very difficult time disguising them.

terra incognita

yesterday's new york times promised "a map of every building in the united states" in, seemingly, an "interactive feature" and "a poster sized view of one of six major cities, depending on where you live" in today's paper...

and so they did...a stunning four page fold out map of chicago and a significant chunk of its western suburbs delivered to my doorstep down here in back-yard goat tending indiana...the boondocks where cornfields and apple orchards ( and oh my, there is an entire post about fucking orchards just waiting to be written ) abound...

unfortunately the map ends abruptly at the state line and indiana becomes terra incognita for the urbane west of the border...no guide to those rural wonders is deemed necessary by the editors of the times in their profound urban bias..the "new urbanism" is something they adore, subconsciously if not overtly, and if it isn't urban it is mostly disdained...

and there are rural areas...once you get south of the subdivisions of mcmansions alive with folks who have fled the big city and its taxes and it's politics and what is quaintly termed "urban blight" and made a new home in the boonies...that is a soybean field ready to harvest for the unfamiliar...

there's dense yellow # 2 down here as well...feed stock for all those extruded hot pockets and mountain dew that are ubiquitous...even in chicago...

i actually ran across farmer brown harvesting some of that corn yesterday...keeping the industrial food pipeline flowing...from conagra, staley's, and nestle to your table...which brings us to the actual point of this screed ( about time, right? )..in "the structures of everyday life" fenand braudel wrote "the town only exists in relation to a form of life lower than its own...there is no town, no townlet without its villages, its scrap of rural life attached; no town that does not impose upon its hinterland the amenities of its market.."...what braudel fails to mention is that, in their urban bigotry, the "new urbanists" and city dwellers fail to recognize that no city is self-sufficient...solar panels and vertical farms aside they do not produce anywhere near the material support their existence demands...they are delusional in their denial of what economists would term "externals"...braudel is correct...the city does not exist without its "scrap of rural life"...he simply neglects to factor in the city's preeminence as sink for resources and an epicenter of greed...chicago became wealthy by underpaying rural produces and over charging urban consumers..i have no use for cities or urbanist fantasies...old wendell berry is far too utopian in his view of the rural life...his is a bias in the other direction...still...a more palatable vision that that of the times.

the wea...arkansas...and tom cotton

"this is senator tom cotton. election day is 29 days. we need your help to remove liberal obstructionists from office. donate now!" that is a text i received not long ago...it had a web address which i will not put here because i an not shilling for this fucktard from arkansas or the jibbering dickhead in the white house...it has been five days since der furhair has sent me an emergency alert...just what i want...that fool texting me...three days ago i got a text from an unnamed source that wanted donations to help old brett kavanaugh be seated ( the shits are multiplying )...today's texter identified himself ( or the robot did ) anyway and both texts came from the same number 1-855-535-0080...there has to be more than coincidence that the president impinges on my phone with the pretext of some "wireless emergency alert" and then i begin to receive texts from the crypto-fascists in the fucking senate...where is my faraday bag? have i said fuck these people today?

as an addenda on the ninth of the month...a photo of the text.