the municpality as HOA

the citing official was reasonable and as polite as was possible given the situation...he also, willfully or not, telegraphed that one of my neighbors was involved when he told me to make what i planned to do "neat and tidy so no one complains"...so much for neighborliness...i will also say that he was passing out citations for alley violations all down the block so it was not a case of singling out...and the third point was there was a considerable amount of detritus from the great elm collapse of 2019...and with that we have exhausted any points that might favor the municpality...they gave me five days ( until christmas...thoughty of them ) to conform or "tickets will be issued as soon as the sixth day"...this one can accept since it would involve revenue...i was off today so i cleaned up...

i established a pile by the street per the instructions i was given...well with in the five days...if the municpality has not retrieved it by the 26th i will be firm in my belief they owe me money...they will not see it as such...and i am inclined to belive they will not be picking this lot up any time soon either since the weather is due to take a turn for the arctic ( even if it is warming )...where the municpality has veered completely off course ( due i believe to one of my whiny neighbors ) is insisting we deconstruct the bush pile my wife has constructed as winter bird habitat...

note the number of filled bird feeders and the birdbaths ( including one "heated" [even though it is only "heated" enough to keep the water liquid ] birdbath ) which are meant to sustain any number and variety of birds...the brush is shelter...i believe the mayor is in for an earful over this and rightly so...there are limits to what the polity should coutenance from politicans...what next? cut down the hawthorn in the front yard? change the siding color? move the house three feet to the left? the municpality is not a homeowners association even if my neighbors feel it should be...we will se how this unwaranted intrusion pans out and i will be posting a photo of the pile from the alley...which,ironically, the birds will use as shelter as long as it is there...on social media every day the municipality negelcts to come collect it...one supposes to be fair i should only start on the 26th...i am not feeling all that disposed to give the municpality any benefit at this moment...we will see where my attitude is at tomorrow...as it stands right now they can all go pound sand

papal pretentions

earlier this morning michelle goldberg's column in the new york times ( on line, it isn't in the print edition ) carried this lede...

however when i logged back on this was the new lede...which is just as well since i was having difficulty with the idea that the times editorialists were just now familiarizing themselves with the narcissistic element in politics...i have to think there is at least a touch of narcissism at any level of leadership, coprporate or otherwise, and this would of necessity be a bit more pronounced in the more public and popularity ( even chartisma? ) based world of politics...and , one supposes, the farther up the political hierarchy one examines the more fully embraced narcissim is ( as we have seen in the recent white house denizen )...no lack of hubris in the political world..."i am the decider" was a fully dubya way of expressing it...however it does extend a bit farther back into the history of the office...nixon was paranoid and obsessed with his historical reputation to the point of criminality...and, among other blatant howlers, he said , " i would have made a good pope"...despite his quaker aposticism...even deeper, martin van buren penned a 776 page autobuography...always an element of narcissim in that and i wonder who, exactly, has read it ( to be clear i have not...i am simply admiring the fact that he could find 776 pages of personal detail to write about...must have been a wonderful life )...that krysten sinema should be labeled an narcissit is probably not much of a deviation from fact...so is shumer and that jerk mcconnell...and the rest of the zoo in the nation's capital ( and let us not overlook the jibbering bozos downstate here )...i am simply surpried the times was alert enough to identify its error and send the offending lede down the memory hole.

uncivil

“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 be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.” — GEORGE ORWEL_____ “Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” ― Adam Smith _____ "They don’t want us to feel safe. They don’t want us to be safe."_________ ___ let me preface this by saying we have a right to be who we are in so far as that being does not interfere with, or terminate, another's right to be...clearly a much easier to propose than to put into effect and there are, i think, readily discernable reasons why this is so...the last statement above is from an op-ed piece in today's new york times...in response to the shootings at clob q in colorado...and i agree that there are elements in this society that do not want the lgbtq community to be safe, or feel secure...they want them nervous and marginalized and afraid to speak out...all true...it is also far too specific...they...and by they i mean the hegemonic culture...the wealthy elite who are actually in control, as far as anyone can be, of events and direction...they want us all nervous and marginalized and afraid to speak out...they don't want us "comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too inteeligent."...they want us balkanized..divided and at one another's throats...the more bitterly violent the better...and why so? "security of property" ( and its fungible counterpart, power )"defense of the rich against the poor"..."those who have some property against those whao have none at all"...if we are utterly divided by pro life/choice/straight/gay/black/white/coke/pepsi/ford/chevy/budlite/millerlite/second amendment/gun control...we will never stop to ask why, exactly, it is those who are in control should be...one suspects that they would equate wealth with intelligence and hence say merit...i would be inclined to equate wealth with greed and capacity to do whatever is necessary to retain wealth ( see smith ) and its fungible counterpart, power...there is a civil war going on here and it is ourselves who are inflicting it on ourselves at the behest of the 1% ...wealth is self-absorbed, profoundly arrogant, and willing to kill in its own defense...or use someone else to do it for them

information? manipulation? profit.

“In opulent and commercial societies, besides, to think or to reason comes to be, like every other employment, a particular business, which is carried on by very few people, who furnish the public with all the thought and reason possessed by the vast multitudes of that labour. Let any ordinary person make a fair review of all the knowledge which he possesses concerning any subject that does not fall within the limits of his particular occupation, and he will find that almost everything he knows has been acquired second hand. From books…a very small part of it only, he will find, has been the produce of his own observations or reflection. All the rest has been purchased, in the same manner as his shoes or his stockings, from those whose business it is to make up and prepare for the market that particular species of goods. It is in this manner that he has acquired his general ideas concerning the great subjects of religion, morals, and government, concerning his own happiness or that of his country.”-Adam Smith from a 1767 draft of The Wealth of Nations.______________________________________________________________________few- not many, hardly any, a small number___employment-business, paid work, an activity in which a person is engaged, a person's trade, profession, or occupation.___business- commercial transactions or engagements, total bookings or receipts.___prepare- make ready, assemble.___species- a class of things having some common qualities or characteristics.___goods- saleable commodities, mechandise, wares.___market- the action or business of buying and selling, a commercial transaction.___purchased- aquired by payment. ( all definitions from the "shorter [only 500,000 definitions] oxford english dictionary" )______________________________so then a relatively few individuals ( campared to the general population ) make it a commercial enterprise in pursuit of profit to assemble information ( the editor is not about style ) of a specific nature/slant/ viewpoint which becomes the commodity they in they vend in the "marketplace of ideas" to a specific audience ( we all have our commodity preferences...why not information...even if it eludes the facts ) which we then "purchase", probably both monetarialy and philosophiocally...if you can call media philosophical...i have my doubts...certain lack of ethics as with all capital...mid-eighteenth century media criticism via the scottish enlightenment...as a side note, the "invisible hand" does not appear in " the wealth of nations"...the "invisible hand" is the invisible hand of jupiter and its impact on the solar system that crops up in a book on astronomy adam smith wrote in the mid 1750s...if economists admitted they hadn't read it it would be amore honest world...then again economists lie every bit as much as politicians do...theologians of greed that they are...everything old is new again.

news dispair?

bear in mind... crime-- commercials-- tragedies-- commercials-- sports and weather-- anchor chat-- fluff-- it is a formulaic...standardized ( read edited ) product tailored to fit specific world views...always has been...always will be...it has relied on the lurid to attract and frighten ( and here is a salient point, " men's minds, once unsettled, are prepared to belive anything." tacitus. the annals of imperial rome. ) viewers/readership...have a look at your environment and your daily life and see how the match up...yes there is crime and there are tragedies...these do not constitute the sum of existence...however that is what we are led to believe...and we are being led ( hence "the editor" )

the president is a frontman for the oligarchs

"a small number of superior heads, whose names are very likely not the best known, settle everything, while below them are the great mass of second-rate politicians, rhetors, tribunes, deputies, journalists, selected through a provincially conceived franchise to keep alive the illusion of popualr self-determination" ozzie spengler. decline of the west.

ozzie said optimism is cowardice as well and yet you keep hoping these "second-rate politicans" will end violence, save pro-choice, and act on climate change...which they will not...or, at least, not until it is far too late to actually accomplish any of it...pay attention...joe biden is no more responsible for the price of gasoline in 2022 than george "dubya" bush was in 2008...it is yet another political ploy designed to keep you divided and at each other's throats while that clown "don't boo" donny trump and his elitist thugs grin and see a 2024 payoff a la "it can't happen here"...the fat's in the fire and capital is gouging all of us all the way to the bohemian grotto...get a grip people...none of these jokers ( and i am bi-partisan in calling each and every one...shumer...mcconnell...ocassio-cortez...pelosi..and that sycophantic fucktard graham "second-rate" and entirely opposed to my [and your] actual interests ) is going to help you...they will only help themselves.

consensus? II

from today's new york times...just another line of evidence that this will all continue

consensus?

not bloody likely anywhere around here...not in the late republic...not when you have john thune on one side...

saying that an ar-15 is handy for doing in those pesky pairie dogs....

and the "everything is okay week" brigade on the other...there is no middle ground, only no-man's land...no consensus on gun control or abortion...coke or pepsi...ford or chevy...pabst or bud...i know baptists who think catholicism isn't a religion and catholics who don't see it that way at all... ( i am inclined to see them all as members of a bronze-age cult but i am a notorious crank )...there is no consensus on what it is to be "american"...or "rational"...or "normal"...or "christian"...or "democrat"...or "republican"or, probably, "human"...in-group bias ( a human universal even the cultural anthropolgists cannot escape ) makes humans exclusionary...so...the violence will continue unabated as nothing is done because there is no consensus to fuel a "political will" any more than we will stop our own extinction because there is no "will" to do that either...someone makes a good deal of money manufacturing ( or importing ) and selling guns ( oil seems to be on the profitable side these days as well...that whole climate/extinction thing ) ...the system is consequentialist...it's what you have, not how you got it...as long as there is money in it it will continue...violence would seem to be profitable...who knew?

invisible hand or carny grifters?

i received a raise in reumuneration recently as my employer rushes to meet the current level of pay so as to "hold on" to it "valued employees"...wonderful...coincidentally at around the same time...

the cost of a gallon of gasoline has reached its highest level since the summer of 2008 when oil was at $ 147 a barrel ( which the oil companies fingered as the price culprit )...well...a barrel of opec "basket" pil isn't anywhere near that at the moment and some anylists connected to the "oil price" web site maintain oil is "over valued" by $50 a barrel...hmmm...that same site also says ...

one presumes that would take an act of congress...don't hold your breath here...mcconnell, shumer, ocassio-cortez, taylor-greene, "don't boo" donny...all wholly owned ( fiscally or philosophically ) subsidoaries of someone or other and oil companies ( obviously ) have a lot of cash to spread around..."oil price" also says there is no sign of short-term relief in gasoline prices...another non-shocker...so the "pain at the pump" will continue until the hegemons get their fair share of my new-found prosperity...they don't give away anything and they always take back as much as they possibly can...capitalist...carny grifter...whichever or both ( more likely )...the "invisible hand" slaps us again...

marcus aurelius, senneca,cicero, orwell, and you

"in the morning when thou risest unwillingly, let this thought be present. 'i am rising to the work of a human being. why then am i dissatified if i am going to do the things for which i exist and for which i was brought into the world? or have i been made for this, to lie in the bedclothes and keep myself warm'. but this is more pleasant, dost thou exist then to take thy pleasure and not all action and exertion? dost thou not see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees working together to put in order their several part sof the universe?and art thou willing to do the work of a human being and dost thou not make haste to do that which is according to nature?" in "as i please 68" from 3 january 1947 george orwell suggests we print this out in "large letters" and "place it opposite our beds"...for at least once george and i disagree thoroughly...i have a lot on my walls but this is not joining the group...first off marcus was a stoic and i have no use for stoicism...it smacks of quietism and an evasion of life on all its levels...oh the stoics say cicero and senneca stood up to power..and what happened? marc anthony had cicero skagged because he did not know when to shut up and nero bade the ur-christian senneca do himself in because he was basically an avaricious pain in the ass...i have no input on cicero's behavior when the inevitable happened...he was such a sycophantic wannabe that perhaps the idea that one of the real elite wanted him dead rendered him numb...as for senneca, per tacitus, he "...embraced his wife and, with a tenderness very different form his philosophical impreturbability, entreated her to be moderate..."...stoic bad faith...all this philosophy brings marcus into question...marcus was the emperor as well...his "work of a human being" was to protect and extend the privelige of himself and his elite cohort...which all leads to a number of questions...is there a consensus about what the definition the "work of a human being" is? as far as the birds and the ants and spiders and bees goes, yes we all need to address subsistence one way or another...beyond that i am thinking not...ignatius loyola would probably maintain it is the strict adherence to the tenets of the catholic church...baruch spinoz, finding your own god...descartes, trying to think your way out of absolute doubt ( one supposes that in spite of his doubt he was often convinced he was seated at a table eating...and he like to stay warm in the bedclothes as well...slug-a-bed )...none of which has much to do with sustenance...so whatever old marcus defined as "the work of a human being" my thinking is that it was something that buttressed his authority and aggrandized himself and his elite supporters...which, nearly as i can ascertain, has been the definiton elites have given it since the neolithic revolution and the rise of social stratification...and one supposes this is close to what elites think today...certainly by working i contribute taxes to the government...and cash to health care auto and property insurers...utilities and sundry services...oil companies...and a host of pther petty extractors of wealth...some of which may be necessary...i'd like the small amount of trash and the larger amount of recycling i produce picked up on a regular basis for instance...but not all...and who extracts more wealth from the corporate concern i work for, me or the sclerotic bureaucrats? i know the answer, i have the numbers...and don't pull that "merit " bullshit on me...and algorithm could do the ceo's job as effectively for much less remuneration...so? i may "risest unwillingly" at times and shuiffle off to aggrandize elites so my garbage gets picked up and i can nuke a spud...then again i'm off today and i stayed in bed a couple of extra hours...old marcus aurelius can get bent.

what's an editor for?

"a rapid jumble of opinion and falsehoods" is how the n y times described russian media coverage of the war in the ukraine in an article they ran yesterday...their experts analyzed "50 hours" of russian tlelvison to reach that conclusion...that the times would have individuals expert in "opinion and falsehoods" is not a surprise...there is no logical reason to believe that the times does not indulge in its own distortions...

indeed the effort they make to reassure me that they are not is almost shrill in tone and i find it less than convincing...the times is a corporate entity in business for profit, not the objective dissemination of fact...this applies to all corporate media...you will not be able to convince me that fox news isn't selling a product to a branded audience any more than the times is...this applies to any media outlet i can think of...

even national public radio...a perennial target of cryptofascist yahoo political assault is in it for the money...they hegemmonic culture insists that it be so...they all have editors and editors are not simply there to correct style...and then there's the editorial board and how much influence advertisers have over content..so...rusian media lie...so do those of the west...perhaps from different motivations...then again, profit is power and influence and power and influence lead to more profit...they are almost fungible...so might media be.

could've been any day since 9 august 1945

i recently saw an article on yahoo citing a "foreign affairs expert" saying that vlad the impaler is "inching towards his nuclear weapons"...possibly there are a couple of things amiss with that...first it was yahoo...and, secondly, there is a lot of opinion masquerading as fact in the academic/pundit/spook world ( the three do overlap )...lots of crackbrained weirdness among the pundits and think tanks...no one seems to be willing to take credit for the "domino theory" nonsense that was responsible for a policy of "containment" that cost 58,220 american lives and an estimated 1,239,000 vietnamese ones ( not to mention the maimed or those poisoned by say, agent orange )...so break out the grains of salt...if anyone knows what vlad is thinking it is probably vlad himself and who knows what his mental health is like...that said, he is from the spook world himself and has ( one supposes ) access to multiple nuclear weapons...it is may...and may ninth is the eighty-seventh anniversary of the end of the "great patirotic war" against the hitlerite invaders and one suspects vlad was planning no making a victoy speech in kiev that day...this seems unlikley at the moment...and, in the way of propagandists, the russians would seem to have announced that they will anounce a "mobilization" on ths ninth...given that human nature ( sorry social scientists, there is one...there are human universals ) likes to mark significant anniversaries with commemorations on the grand scale...then, whatever "mobilization" is, next monday could be a very ugly one anywhere you'd care to mane...or it may be "business as usual"...no one really knows...contingency everywhere.

$662554000

that is the total ( minus the "price on request" evasions ) of real estate listed in today's mistakenly delivered ( was supposed to be the n y times ) wall street journal's fittingly named...

"mansion" section which includes michael esiner's asking price of $225000000 for his "compound"...so...shrapnel is flying in wars...there is a life threatening heat wave in the indian subcontinent...people are living and dying in the streets all over the world...and we have a "free market", right? the "invisible hand" is sweeping ethics into the dustbin of history and economists are theologians of greed...fuck these people...i refuse to join their wine club

carny grifters

like most people i did not have nearly enough money to buy the house i live in outright and so had to take out a mortgage...fairly standard stuff in life...and i paid on that mmortgage for twenty-five yeras while raising the children...and i paid property taxes and insurance premiums all as part of the monthly payment...which was fine...i had children in the local school system and that was paid for out of property taxes...so it seemd at least reasonably equitable...the payments felt never ending, however at an unspecified moment i owned the property...sort of...a few months after the bank got thier final payment i got a bill for the property taxes...by this time the "children" were adults and mostly not living at home and definitely not in the local school system...yet the county still insists i pay property taxes and will happily seize my home if i don't...so i rent my home from the grifters in the county seat...i got another tax bill a few days ago and the assessed value of my home is up by about $14,000...and so is my tax bill...astoundingly the grifters have consulted their ouija board and...

they have concluded that my home's value will continue to appreciate over the next year so they feel entitled to a larger share of my wealth for that period...let's be clear...the county does nothing for me...it does not plow my street, pick up my garbage, repair the pavements, or police the streets...in fact the only function the county sheriffs might serve herabouts is to dispossess those who are overly delinquent in their tax bills...enforcers saying "get your stuff and get out, this property is no longer yours"...there is something grossly egregious in all this...epsecially in the bahvioral sump that passes for "public service" in this county...i received a mailing from "your local township assessor" a few days later asking for my support in the approaching primary...his family was prominently displayed as "local home owners" which left me wondering what their tax bills are like...my vote would seem unlikely to go to the incumbent...the problem is any replacement is a carny grifter in waiting.

the n y times is infinite in its wisdom

some of what can only be charaterized as the miniscule readership of this screed may have noticed i have been blogging extensively about what i call gardening and events in my back yard and basement...today the n y times is repete with their ideas about what what i should be wearing/utilizing as i work out there...

i am aging so i already have gloves and kneepads...no brainers those...the rest is superflouous and i am especially repulsed by the birkenstock...what would you call them? overgrown flipflops? one wonders if the shills at the "wirecuter" newsletter get a "small commission" from any sales generated from the nyt website...the times knows what i should think and how i should proceed with what is left of my life...they are, of course, horrible people and should stay out of my back yard...i don't need their advice.

you've been warned

the former secretary of state and failed presidential candidate ( "there is a special place in hell for women who don't help each other"...we will be getting to the embittered source of that howler in a bit ) hillary clinton...

whom i can only charaterize as being every bit as venal and corrupt as any other whore politician in the country...

has penned a paean to maddy albright's virulent american exceptionalism in today's new york times..."we honor her memory by heeding her wisdom" which was basically "we think the price was worth it" on collateral damage to iraqis from economic sanctions imposed on saddam's regime after he transgressed the empire's prerogatives with a grab for kuwaiti oil ( and we all know where that transgression landed the once valiant ally fighting a proxy war against the evil iranians...pragmatic naturalism and john dewey in american foreign policy...no permanent friends...no permenent enemies [ why we get furniture from vietnam now]...

only permanent interests )...the ukrainians should ponder that as we rush to aid them )...thery lie, cheat, steal, and legislate their corruption into "the national interest"...and the times is the mouthpiece/cheer leader...

and last, but a long way from least, another paean to an elitist whore...and paranoid kgb stalin wannabe...the resemblance in behaviors is startling.

civil government

"civil government, in so far as it is instituted for the securing of property is, in reality, instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all." adam smith__________________smith was contemporary with the american "war for independence" ( the consensus right holds no truck with "revolution"...unless, of course, it is their own...then it is "freedom" ) and i cannot help but view that staement as a critique of john locke and his "not too numerous a democracy"...smith seemed more egalitarian with his view that labor should be as free to move in search of higher wages as capital was to seek profit and that government should aid this...he would not have looked favorably on closed borders and border walls...he would likely have seen the concept of an "armed lifeboat" of sealed borders repelling immagrants and refugees as an extreme example of "the defense of the rich against the poor"...and yet one supposes that is precisely where we are headed as the world's climatic conditions deteriorate ( and they will...deniers aside )...there may be some success in repelling "the poor" however that won't preclude what will happen inside the lifeboat...you may stop immigrants but the internally displaced would already be on the boat...one reflects on the 1930s dust bowl and the reception the okies received on their internal migrations...

i'm thinking that as the country's climatic situation deteriorates ( further ) in the west those migrations will occur in a reverse okie order as people move towards water and those in possession of it resist the influx in varying degrees...what constitutes wealth, or what will constitute wealth as conditions change and how "civil" will a government that secures it be? for that matter, if things degenerate enough, what will constitute "government"? a hobbesian "war of all against all"? centralized bureaucratic authoritarianism? dictators love a crisis that scares the bejesus out of people...ramps up the herd menatlity...groupthink and torchlight parades...counting on rational discourse seems pollyanna to me...how "civil" is political discourse now?

time for abstraction

the plants in my back yard and the several beds i work in community gardens run on "event time"...their seasons have approximate lengths ( say ninety or one hundred twenty days for potatoes )...they take as long as they take to do what they do...conversely humans appear to run on "clock time" and i wonder if that isn't a mechanistic abstraction imposed on life...there are scientific and navigational reasons for measuring time exactly but how exact is it? no doubt increments of time can be delineated exactly in a laboratory...then again, "clock time" needs a leap second added every year and a half or so...exact in the micro, changable in the macro...even the calendar needs a "leap day" every four years...time seems inexact...what does "clock time" mean for the bulk of humans who are subject to it? mostly some form of control...time to be at work...time to be at school, to sleep ( that might be a natural rhythm that is disrupted by the previous two items ),"time!" at the end of an exam, time to do the laundry...it means limits, obligations...an abstraction...time zones, in this country, were instituted with the advent of railroads...making the schedules less chaotic...or, moreover, synchronizing the people who used them...and time zones seem fluid...the two northwetern counties of the state of indiana are on central time while the rest of the state is on eastern timre...why? because they are more satellites of chicago than indianapolis...the geographic nature of time zones is inexact...just like the "clock time" they represent...the international date line is an abstraction that runs through the pacific ocean...zig-zagging around contenents and islands...so date seems as arbitrary as time settings...and tomorrow we arrive at daylight savings time again...that twenty-five and twenty-three hour day twice a year abstraction...originally sold as an energy saving device, interests that pandered to the consumer saw it as an extra hour of daylight at the end of the work day in which to consume golf or beer...the uniform time act of 1966 set it at six months of the year...that was changed to seven months when dutch reagan rode high in the saddle on pennsylvaina avenue and to eight months in 2005...one senses a subtle manipulation here...it should come as no surprise that the u.s. chamber of commerce is all for "year round daylight savings time"...so you can have a dark commute to work for more of the year while purveyors of food, drink, and "a good walk ruined" can get more of what you earn for doing that dark commute...i, for one, would rather just keep my hour ( even if the twenty-five and twenty-three hour days are complete abstractions ) and if i cannot because the hegemons decree otherwise ( concerned over my having too much latitude in governing my time..they take after thomas more's utopia in this respect ) i will refusae to be a consumer during that last hour of daylight simply on principle

self actualization

"what changes everything is that in bad faith it is from myself that i am concealing the truth." being and nothingness p.90__________________"consider the cafe waiter. his movements are animated and intent, a bit too precise, a bit too quick, he approaches customers with a bit too much animation, he leans forward a bit too attentively, his voice and his eyes expressing an interest in the customer's order that is a bit too solicitous.finaly, here he is, on his way back, and attenpting in his attitued to imitate the inflexible exactitude of some sort of automaton while carrying his tray with the recklessness characteristic of a tightrope walker, holding it in a constantly unstable and constantly disrupted equilibrium which he constantly restores with a light movement of his arm and his hand. his behavior strikes us as an act...one does not need to watch him for long to realize he is playing at being a cafe waiter." being and nothingness pp 103-4________________if the waiter was playing at being a waiter, paulie sartre was playing at being a philosopher, and playing at one with little understanding of what the waiter was up to...paulie maintains that," the cafe waiter plays with his condition in order to actualize it. this obligation is imposed on all shopkeepers. their condition is entirely ceremonial and the public demands them to actualize it as a ceremony."...so paulie says they are playing a role conferred on them by social sanction and lying to themselves about what it is they are actually doing...bad faith...the attentiveness of the waiter ( "a bit too solicitous" ) and his adeptness at carrying his tray ( i notice paulie did not mention any spills resulting from tray disequilibrium which the waiter "constantly restores"...perhaps skill is a part of the act )...so sartre, seemingly, in this string of subjective judgements about the waiter's actions and interior life doesn't stop to think that, perhaps, being a waiter isn't "play", but an act of sustenance whose proceeds may be a vehicle to an expression of who the waiter truly is...say a gardener or a writer...we all need to earn a living to subsist and we all need to be who we are...after all spinoza was a lens grinder who philosophized in his off-duty hours...and what about paulie? after he abandoned teaching he convenently made his living writing and philosophizing with his armchair "turned towards history"...so was he "playing" at the social ceremonies conferred on thinkers and philosphers while denying his true self in bad faith and using corydran to keep the words flowing? "caught in his own celebrity, playing a double role, civil and obliging in public, harassed and disillusioned in private, far from adhereing to the impeccable facade he offered to the eyes of the world he was in greater and greater need of turning in upon himself..."[sartre. cohen-solal p.404] who was palying their part more assiduously...paulie or the waiter?

think

"and though they did not yet call themselves ukrainians, the term, unlike the ancient word ukrania, was not widely used until the end of the [19th] century, they knew very well that they were somethlng different from the loathed muscovites, the moskali...the little russians have widely used proverbs such as: 'be freindly with the muscovite but keep a stone under your coat' "_____"it was not until the end of the [19th] century that he stared thinking of himself as a 'ukrainian'. asked his identity, he probably would have replied that he was a muzhik, a peasant, or 'orthodox', or simply one of the the tuteshni, the 'people from here' ". anna reid "borderland" a journey through the history of ukraine"______________""the carpathian mountains marked the border in the southwest, but the gentle forests and fields in the northwest part of the country could not stop invading armies and neither would the wide open steppes in the east."___"more to the point, russia relied on ukraine's sugar, grain, and coal..."anne applebaum. "red famine: stalin's war on ukraine"___"little russians were always a tribe and never a people and much less a state" vissarion belinsky____________this isn't the first time ukraine has been invaded and ukrainians have ample reason to dislike and distrust poles, gremans,russians, hungarians, austrians, swedes,certainly georgians, and americans as well...geography alone hasn't been the reason they have had so much difficulty in establishing nationhood....the land and its resources have always tempted outsiders...from "russia relied" to the violent exceptionalism of the germans, the ukrainians have paid a huge price...ukraine is much in the news these days...

however i am disinclined to follow the times' advice on thinking...

since they want to influence ( if not control ) how i approach this...i would rather pick up a number of books...

and try to muddle though on my own...but i have more than books to go on...my maternal grandfather was born in uzhgorod in western ukraine and came to the united states as an adult ( my maternal grand mother was also born in eastern europe and shared my grandfather's ethnicty...we are just getting to that )...he was born in ukraine but wouldn't have identified himself as "ukrainian"...he was carpatho-rusyn and would have called himself "hutsul"...anna reid's "colorful mountain shepards" and spoke a dialect different from ukrainian...those invasions developed a variable population which didn't really help unity any more than what my great uncle called the more important divide between catholic and orthodox...my grandparents were orthodox and read and wrote ( peasants and shepards they may have been but they were literate ) in the cyrilic alphabet...other than the russians the bulk of the invaders who controlled ukraine were catholic...religion didn't help here...except for very brief intervals ukraine has only been an independent state since 1991 and, it would appear, that is at an end as russia reasserts its control over what it considers the breakaway province of southwest russia ( and let's not forget that vlad the impaler was kgb...paranoid spookworld weirdness in control of the state apparatus )...go back ninety or so years...read anne applebaum's book and you will have just one line of evidence concerning the ukrainian desire for independence...geography, ethnicity, and economic resources have seemingly always united to defeat that desire...call me "kulak" if you like, my sympathies are with ukraine...with or without the times' meddling...vlad wants to be stalin...the world is a miserable place and the dialectic grinds on...human cognition cannot grasp all the variables in contingency and there are always consequences.