pharmakon

being neither a logician or an academic will not deter me from thinking: 1.) humans are tribal and territorial by nature. 2.) that being tribal imparts a sense of security and “belonging. 3.) that belonging is not universal…it is exclusionary…it is a pharmakon and, eventually, it poisons…there is always “the other”. 4.) that any treaty promulgated by the united nations banning nuclear weapons is irrelevant to those who possess nuclear weapons. 5.) because of an evolutionary predisposition to tribalism the hegemons who control their various socio-political system will not surrender what they see as an ultimate defense of “us” against “them”. We have a multitude of ways of disposing of ourselves as a species that we actively engage in on a daily basis because it is structured into the institutions we were born into…whether it is me recklessly using resources and emitting carbon dioxide ( despite the carbon offsets of the coniferous trees and deeply rooted perennials in my yard ) or kim jong un and his increasingly unstable counterpart unleashing a nuclear exchange and a general war ( and don’t doubt there are those here who would favor a “first strike”…the military mind is the uber-tribal mind )…are we doomed? may be…perhaps not…humans are adaptable too…we may find a way to live with our destructive ways ( we have always been deleterious to the environment ) but I wouldn’t expect idealism to trump weaponry…if you have it the impetus is to use it…add in the ascendancy ( or, perhaps, their assumed ascendancy ) of life-hating christian nihilists and you have a dangerous and lamentable combination of human hubris mixed with flat stupidity…trump and kim may dispose of themselves as they see fit…I care for neither…they should leave the rest of us out of their puerile posturing.

a 99% possibility of distortion

"hello, just a question someone can answer if they can find the time...are the photos you publish in in your newspaper ( as opposed to on line ) derived from digital or analog cameras? thanks for your time and attention."__________that is an email i sent off to my friends ( as long as i am a subscriber anyway ) at the n y times asking about the photos they use in their print edition ( obviously the photos in the on line edition are all digital )...i have been reading a lot of philosophy recently and there is a lot of verbiage in that discipline devoted to discussing how we know what we know and why we believe what we believe and i was wondering about the sources of what i was looking at in the media...a couple of days later this arrived in my mailbox..."Good Morning Fred, Thank you for contacting the New York Times. The Photographer has the choice of digital vs. analog. But I would say that 99% of the time they end up being digital. Have a great day today! Chuck Arnold III"__________this was not comforting news...i have something of a distaste for the digital ( i know...i know...this is digital...everything i do here is digital..my cameras [except the vivtar] are digital..i know...i know )...partly because i was born near the middle of the last century i suppose...however there is reason to be a bit concerned...with analog photography there was a mechanical transference of light to chemically treated film that created the negative for the image...things like a flaw in the chemical coating could occur or double exposures, however whatever image was transferred to the film had to be there...it had to be physically present...true photos could be "retouched"..flaws smoothed or removed...stalin had a passion for that and it is part of what inspired orwell's "memory hole" and his conceptualization of the mutability of history ( and his stint at the bbc in the second world war sensitized him to propaganda as news )..some efforts were exceptionally crude ( see photos ) and even yezhov's becoming an unperson was not perfect...you could discern the changes..it was clear things were not as they seemed...digital images and photoshop have rendered the "memory hole" obsolete...images can be seamlessly altered by editing the digital code that is the basis of the photos...you can remove or insert anything and there is no real way to tell...distortions of perception can be had easily and, given the fact that media outlets are, in the end, corporate entities, i don't doubt that some manipulation in the interests of the editorial board ( read advertisers ) or the politically motivated ( all politics are an extension of economics...why do you suppose the "dismal science" began its life being called "political economy"? )...so..what media do i trust? none i am thinking...i can no longer be sure if what i am seeing is real ( if you can manipulate digital photographs one supposes digital video is not immune )...so? so i continue reading the times..and philosophy...and orwell...and i compare what i read and hear with what i see and hear in my own locality ( trust me, the news about the economy is pretty much fiction )...and i make my own judgements.

you will be surveilled

"you see how it is...wherever you are, you always have to work. there's never any excuse for idleness. there are also no wine-taverns, no ale houses, no brothels, no opportunity for seduction, no secret meting places. everyone has his eye on you, so you are practically forced to get on with your job, and make some proper use of your spare time."_____"this ensures that everyone's conduct in public is watched by those who are responsible for their discipline at home." thomas more, from utopia.________and one supposes to think properly as well, no? thomas more was under sheriff of london so his desire to watch everyone all the time is understandable...rule crazy control freak...and it is no surprise that those outstanding teleologies in human history ( so far ) the catholic church and every authoritarian state to date embrace more as one of their own...much of our lives are led under surveillance these days...cameras are everywhere and they claim there is workable facial recognition software out there...my phone is tapped...my emails and texts read..i have no intention of hiding my blog and fucking facebook is trying to hijack my life..so? today's n y times sunday magazine has a two page color advertisement ( something like $214,000 for that ) for nest's iq home surveillance camera you can connect to your smart phone and see what the help is up to while your busy extorting money with yet another wall street ponzi scheme...just because it's legal for you to fleece the public doesn't mean the goddamed help can slack...an electronic overseer...digital simon legree..i don't have a web cam...i don't need some government funded hacker watching me type this...that doesn't mean i am not seriously observed on a daily basis...my gut feeling is this is not going to get better...have a shufti at my last post in "death of the real"...you will be surveilled.

deep shit

i am inclined to agree regarding the reliability of information available in the media...but not because i believe in any sort of "deep state" conspiracy paranoia...the media have always been mouthpieces for elite worldviews that present he interests of wealth and power ans the "national interests" and label anyone who takes umbrage with that as a brain-dead slug or a worthless traitor engaging in "class warfare"...one of the points i was trying to get across about last year's circus of a presidential election ( a clown won with his side-show freak running mate ) was that the divisiveness and scurrilous attacks that partisan media mounted against one candidate or another was nothing new...they are and have been commercial entities created to turn a buck so the naturally gravitate to the partisan views of some segment of the population and the advertisers who are trying to reach them...they tailor content to fit a general worldview and use specifics to manipulate that opinion...fox...msnbc...cnn...( and let's not leave out the n y times or that home of yellow journalism the wall street journal...talk about unrestricted class warfare ) all that news is distorted and you can almost always read someone's political views by what outlets they choose to patronize...none of them are trustworthy because they all have a corporate agenda and a need to manipulate your thinking to maximize their profitability..it isn't about objective news..it's about the share holders...so...you could characterize media as stenographers regurgitating the current vogue of agitptop emanating from elite centers that breitbart wants me to believe is a cabalistic "deep state" instead of the "business as usual" system that has been in place since 1789..or you could just turn your back on it...maybe read a few books...and just look around and think about what is going on in your neck of the woods and how it relates, or doesn't, to what the doyens, doges, and pundits have to say...don't let them confuse you.

all they needed was the beer

"mr.carol replied that the people of america were enlightened. information and knowledge would be the support of it. mr. adams replied, information and knowledge were not the source of obedience; that ignorance was a much better source."__________________"the first business was the report on what was called the stephen moore's bill. this man is the owner of the land on which the old fort of west point stands. he is got in debt in town to the amount of two thousand or some such sum. he has nothing but the rocks of west point. the secretaries of war and treasury and other influential characters have interested themselves in getting this bill passed to buy the land from him, to pay his debts, under the notion that the ground is necessary fro a fortress. barefaced as this business is it was carried in the senate by a great majority. am i mistaken or has the spirit of prodigality broke loose...?" william maclay 's journal of the first congress 28 may 1789 and 24 june 1791_______________just a quick post to point out that generations of american politicians have mystified, confused, dissembled, and outright lied to keep "the mob" in ignorance of what they were really up to which, in the end, is doing their best to protect the privileges and prerogatives of wealth at the expense of the rest of us...clearly john adams loved "the uneducated" long before don trump blustered his way into the white house by playing on the fears and deepening the ignorance of the polity...the pure venality we see in the acts of congress ( and their celebratory pounding down of brewskis like the aged frat boys they all are ) are nothing new...it may be that the media of the day was a hindrance to the exposure of the venality in 1791...news traveled slowly and was received long after the deed was done...the act was complete...we suffer from instantaneous news now...more rapid reception seems to be no guarantee of better or more public spirited behaviors...the whores are bought and sold...traded like stocks..or securities better still...their true constituents are unconcerned with "the voter"...we are ciphers tot hem...one wonders how long the fog of ignorant obedience will linger...fuck these people.

truth

the truth is subjective... the truth can be evaded... the truth can be distorted... the truth is controlled by elites... the truth is alien to politics and politicians... the truth can be inconvenient for advertisers... the truth is hard to know ( see distorted )... the truth has many versions... so..whose version are we protecting here? a four dollar cup of coffee's? a thirty million dollar condo's? or a version tailored by the n y times advertisers to fit the world view of the balance of their readership?

lots of ads...must be the sunday n y times

it has been a while since i visited the new york times "media kit" which lays out the advertising cost for the paper...inflation has impacted the advertising industry in the "new economy" as well and prices have gone up since my last sojourn into costs...a full color page in the "T" style magazine is up to $109,215 and a two page color spread is $209,695...full page black and white runs $74,890 and two pages $143,510...68 color pages, 8 color two page spreads...5 full page black and white and two black and white two page spreads grossed the n y times $9,971,510 in advertising revenues...clearly an advertising vehicle compared to the regular sunday magazine which has somewhat more space devoted to what could be called journalism and an assortment of 2/3, 1/2, and 1/3 page ad spaces the "T" magazine dispenses with by offering only full pages...less advertising space = less revenue...only $3,437,975...a loss leader if ever there was one...so i'm thinking with that much cash in the hopper the times is not about to go alienating advertisers ( unlike youtube )...the "truth" and "objectivity" they are on about is relative to their advertiser's worldview...and, while we are on the subject of "truth"...in a side note to the editors of time...truth has always had a difficult time of it..it has struggled and been ignored for centuries...it is especially vulnerable around politicians ( not just the current crop of yahoos either...this is a more generalized observation..past administrations have had their way with "truth"...abused it like they owned it...orwell has become fashionable again but he was never irrelevant...i would steer you away from 1984 and towards some essays...like "politics and the english language"...a primer for those trying to work out the special vocabularies of politicians...fuck politicians they are all lying scumbag whores...to an individual..one of the few absolutes i will subscribe to ) who work hard to say nothing they can be held accountable for...it is part of the kit that comes with the a seat at the table.