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