indeterminancy

"all inferences from experience suppose, as their foundation, that the future will resemble the past...if there be any suspicion that the course of nature may change, and that the past may be no rule for the future, all experience becomes useless, and can give rise to no inference or conclusion" david hume. enquiry concerning human understanding_____________________________________humans are creatures of habit and their certainties are rooted in past experience...which works a lot of the time...

recent events are pointing out, to me at least, that human cognition isn't all it's cracked up to be and that variables we cannot see...

are waiting to blind-side us no matter how carefully we plan and how we set about creating a paradigm...

which fools us into thinking it can allow us to extend our event horizon further and further into the future without unnecessary risk..."planning for the future" they call it...well...the future is nothing if not indeterminate...this should be wholly clear at this point...i have been blogging about covid-19 elsewhere on blogger and, while i do not subscribe to the croakings of "hoax" by right-wing pundits and the doofus in the white house, i am not prepared to panic just yet...what i am seeing is how disruptive fear is and what strange things behaviors it evokes in people...from panic to hoarding to self flagellation in the face of a vengeful jehova...and all because habitual certainties and beliefs are suddenly disrupted by variables that were not perceived or expected...our comfort zone has been invaded by fear which may or may not be justified...we will see...i am prepared to be open minded about it and i am adjusting my own behaviors some in response...i am not panicked just yet but i am washing my hands more because i don't feel 1) especially stupid and, 2) like tempting fate...i am fascinated by the responses of the media and particularly the economy...if this can so unsettle "the market" it should be a heads-up about the shaky foundations of all the abstractions we take as givens...hume may have a valid point there...

and since we have dragged the medias into this ( you didn't actually think you would escape this, did you? )...i just fucking love the way the elitists at the new york times like to tell me how i should live my life...they never fail me.

pardon me, but your elitism is showing

it is sunday and the new york times has delivered the "men's fashion" edition of its style magazine to my front deck...always a treat to get one...a wonderful morning of entertainment, enlightenment, and a close look at how i should perceive myself...at least through the eyes of the editors and "contributors"..they would know best, correct?

they are doing their very best to convince me that this is something i should be wearing around town to both delight my neighbors with my elegant sense of style and to shame them over their seeming lack of understanding of haute couture...hardly...looks like someone has been watching "black adder" to me...you can keep this in the display window...

there is an obvious need to bring men's fashion cost into line with that of the women's side of the equation...so this faceless drone is wearing $13600 worth of clothing i would hesitate to donate to the salvation army much less wear...keep the unsustainablility coming is what this says to me...

"for four decades, the american playwright richard greenberg has dedicated himself to chronicling, and gently tweaking, urban elites..." is this a freudian slip or is the true nature of the times elitism just shining though the denial? the whole "not an elitist newspaper" stance is lame bullshit...they are liberals...i will grant you that..and like all liberals they think they know better than me how i should think and behave...this too is lame bullshit...i am going to begin work on composting horse manure out back...this is at least utilitarian...clearly the times is not.

negative is the new positive

that the puking buddha and i loathe a politician is a given for anyone who has paid the least attention...they are unreconstructed slime to an individual at any level at any time anywhere on the planet ( with the exception of pepe mujica...there are no absolutes )...it is unsurprising then that there is nothing that resembles a positive facet of the current presidential zoo parade...

the early primaries are destined to leave me with a choice between sanders and biden...not that that choice actually matters...trump is the presumptive republican nominee so voting in that primary when it rolls a round in my state would be coals to newcastle...and by the time the democratic primary is held ( same day..election day is election day ) the issue among the democrats may already be decided ( and in the general election my state will go to trump and so, because of the "winner-take-all" disposition of electoral college votes i am effectively disenfranchised by the system...which is the whole point of the constitution and why there is an electoral college...to limit the "will of the people" and ensure elite control...the constitution is the counter-revolution...read the federalist papers )...

there is a growing consensus among democrats and the punditry that sanders has to be stopped...the stache here is leading the pundit brigade over at the times and he is vocal and pretty much a dingus in human form... https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/opinion/super-tuesday-democrats-unite.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage cut and paste the link to have a look at his column...he is planning a coup and he wants us all to abide with his subversion...plotting to win "fair and square" so all those sanders supporters are "on the team" in november...find me something positive in this...you cannot...one wishes for the days of "hinky dink" kenna and "bathouse john" over in the first ward when political corruption was at least more open and honest...freidman wants the future candidate decided behind closed doors...the "smoke filled room" will never vanish from politics...the real decisions are not in the hands of "the people"...and the times and the punditry and the system are all fine with that.

corona virus as growth opportunity

the puking buddha and i have always shared doubts about capitalism and its single-mindedness over exchange value...economists love to tell me what wonders capital has provided me...however they are the intellectual whores of wealth who work daily at justifying greed to maintain the status quo and keep the rabble in line...they are somewhat cavalier with reality...if you doubt that have a look at what they call "externals"...intellectuals, yes...dissembling and lying rat bastards too...and what, you ask, has provoked yet another rant? we will be getting to that directly...

about a month or so ago...as the whole corona virus story was accelerating i went on amazon and bought these for $8.99...or 8.99 cents a mask...today i went looking to see if there were any left in stock...there are not...i found some on ebay for $60.00 or 60 cents a crack......amazon has some comparable...at $29.99 for fifty...60 cents a pop again...until...

you add in the $89.99 "shipping" from virginia and then it's more like $1.1998 a mask...the ones from israel are, at fist glance, a better deal...$9.99 for fifty...20 cents apiece...until you hit hat $99.99 "shipping" business again...still...$1.0998 is a better deal...oh capital loves a crisis! gouge the proles while you can and nothing sets them off like a good dose of fear....these cretinous shits are slime...putrescent fucks...scum that would make gay gould or charles tyson yerkes wince...and all they are doing is playing the system...fuck these people.

it depends on your definition of "elitist"

the puking buddha and i are having a shufti at the "we are not an elitist newspaper" ( one editor actually did state this in an editorial ) new york times...and this week the sunday paper brings us yet another edition of "T the new york times style magazine"...

and although the "men's fashion" or the "design" or the "travel" issues all have things to recommend them, "women's fashion" has always been our favorite for a multitude of reasons but mostly because it puts the lie to the whole "not elitist" editorial bullshit...and this issue does not disappoint...

dior will be more than happy to sell any of you non-elitists this dress for a modest $11000...

or, perhaps, you would prefer this $11740 plus ensemble...the plus is because those elegant red gloves are "price on request" and bound to drive the total cost a scoshe higher...still what's a few bucks more? especially when they accessorize the whole "look" so well...

and you can further accessorize by choosing from these wonderful purses an/or shoes valued at $13381 plus...plus because we again find a "price on request" ( if you have to ask you can't afford it ) item...

and you can flaunt your newfound "style" in the lobby, hallways, and elevators in the building where you just bought your bargain $1.93 million condo...why waste such style on the street?

and, in the midst of all this upscale elite consumerist garbage, the vile editors have included an article on dorothea lange...whose work recorded the poverty and angst of the great depression...my disgust was on high alert before i saw this...as a consequence i am speechless..or,. at least, lacking in adequate adjectives to express what is going on in my head..."the paths to error are various and infinite" and the times continues to mark them out...there are a multitude of behavioral sumps in this alleged nation...this non elitist newspaper is leading the parade for one of them...denial runs deep.

the senator elaborates and i respond

prior to trumpy's senate trial i wrote to both of my alleged representatives in that august areopagus dispairing of a rational and unbiased approach on both their parts....mike braun immediately confirmed his trumpist loyalties, while todd young took longer to respond in what was admittedly a much more measured ( and thus politically attuned ) response...yesterday i received this:

email from todd, elaborating on his decision to vote for acquittal and take a few shots at the democrats in the house ( with a few historical inaccuracies thrown in )...he sent this along as well:

to enlighten me in "greater detail"...i have responded, and, keeping with the senator's measured tone, in a less vitriolic manner than you might expect:____ Dear Senator Young, I had expected acquittal, it is the precedent set by the two preceding presidential impeachments and, given the near impossibility of garnering a two thirds majority over anything in congress, the outcome was obvious to all but the naive. i do have several points to make regarding your response. Removing anyone from a political office is an overtly political act and as such cannot be anything but politically motivated. Given the make up of the 105th Congress and the 36 vote plurality held by Republicans in the House of Representative, you would be hard pressed to convince me that the impeachment of William Jefferson Clinton was not a political act born of a "political fever". As an aside to this, Richard Nixon was never impeached. he resigned before that could take place and was given what can only be deemed a suspect presidential pardon by his successor. Admittedly, in reference to the "Rubino rule", there was not chance of a bi-partisan approach to this case, so, abandoning it you, as a partisan body embraced a partisan acquittal, which, again, meets the precedent set by the Clinton impeachment in which the 45 Democratic senators voted for acquittal on all counts thus insuring it. The only bi-partisan approach to impeachment came in 1868 when 10 Republican senators ( notably mostly from the Mid-West ) voted to acquit Andrew Johnson. It was easily as fractious a time in American politics and, perhaps, a more honest one. Senators went armed into the chamber and it was called the Department of War, not the euphemistic Department of Defense. I will vote against the president in the fall despite the fact that given the winner-take-all formula for distributing electoral votes I am effectively disenfranchised by down-state yahoos. Your next opponent may also count on my support. Sincerely, Fred Lumpen Proletariat____these are interesting times and the flow of events will crank up the existential hum to almost unbearable levels...dogs will run in packs...blood will weep from the walls...substance abuse will become more widespread and abominations will roam the streets while the psychiatric mission will shift from one of cure to containment.

cadre of whores

the puking buudha and i have maintained throughout this zoo parade that the senate trial would end in acquittal and our reasoning was based on pure math...we could not find financial disclosure statements for the present senate...we did find them for the one previous...not counting the ten who listed their assets as $0 ( including feinstein ) and subtracting the $3,106,012 that four senators listed as their debt, the previous senate was worth $1,353,487,056...slotting it in at number 175 in world gdp just above grenada...sixty-two millionaires were among them ( including bernie sanders ) and we cannot see that the current senate would be worth less ( although worthless ) than its predecessor...the current senate does have forty-seven lawyers in its ranks...in the end trumpy did not need a lawyer...they were already there...if this does nothing to convince the misguided that the imperial senate...and congress as a whole...does not represent "the will of the people" in any way, but rather, as the framers of the constitution intended, the well being of the wealthy elite...then there is no hope of their seeing beyond the operant conditioning instilled by the hegemonic culture...stop talking about what "should be" and start fucking looking at what is...and what is is trump is "not guilty" because the imperial congress is raking in lucre and doesn't give two fucks up a dead cat's ass what you think, do, or want...they are in business for themselves...buckle up people...a second term is well within the realm of the possible...