My feet slapped the sidewalk
I was a thought-darter
Preoccupied
Ambitious
Neglectful
Living
Quick
Just
Like
You
Monday, January 31, 2005
Rejoinder
Whether or not
You: an Adult
In your Pro-Keds
And Baseball Cap
Cutting Me Off
On the Sidewalk,
Some Loping
Computer Hacking
Self-Stroking
Smugger Than Thou
Digellect,
Are a Lurking Plotter,
A Dark Prince of
Infinite Calculation
A Maverick or
A Serial Murderer
Just Makes Me Yawn
Til my Eyes Juice
Tears.
You: an Adult
In your Pro-Keds
And Baseball Cap
Cutting Me Off
On the Sidewalk,
Some Loping
Computer Hacking
Self-Stroking
Smugger Than Thou
Digellect,
Are a Lurking Plotter,
A Dark Prince of
Infinite Calculation
A Maverick or
A Serial Murderer
Just Makes Me Yawn
Til my Eyes Juice
Tears.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
thought of the day
upon seeing the phrase "Open immediately! Time-sensitive material" on a piece of mail. Aren't I as well?
the whole rurald
I've always been touched by Sevi's pronunciation of "world" as "rurald". Just today, when we were talking about a new "rule" for breakfast, to always eat something in addition to mere cream cheese and raisin bread, that it occurred to me that to her, the world sort of consists of rules, hence it is the "ruled" or "rurald". a theory...
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Omelette Theory in Iraq
To begin to get on the right side of the rhetoric about Iraq, what I dub the "Omelette" rationale must be punctured. Which is to say, you can't simply decry the misery of the war, the fatalities, etc. You must condemn the whole project. The line of our government is that if you want to make an omelette you have to break some eggs. Question the omelette, not simply the breaking of eggs. Kerry wouldn't do this, and I believe his loss was tied to that fact. Dean perhaps would have done it. Perhaps he too would have lost, but not without mobilizing and emboldening the majority who believe this war is the biggest mistake, the most profound disaster of our generation.
Thursday, January 13, 2005
anti-corporate thoughts in response to nostalgic email
Even though it's hardly in keeping with the light and inspired nature of this email, I've just got to vent about something I find troubling in it. So if you'd rather not hear a humorless rebuttal, stop reading now.
This is entertaining and touching and great up until the next to last sentence. Yes, my how sadly things have changed, and so quickly too. But it ain't the government's fault, folks. The current government especially would welcome the conclusion that regulation has a stranglehold on America--while they proceed to dismantle every last "entitlement" (what used to be called god-given rights, natural rights, birthrights) in favor of the purely "ownership society" they want to see realized. Corporations have a stranglehold on America. First they got themselves the legal protections of individuals (ironically via the amendment to Constitution intended to protect minority disenfranchized PEOPLE), and in the last 30 or so years have nearly perfected the art of marginalizing the worth of human beings and the things they have held dear. In such a climate, it's no wonder that people leap to litigation and profiteering, and our world becomes ever more convoluted and inessential. The corporate mindset knows no other basis of value, and to the extent that it has cajoled and terrorized itself into the American psyche, it has made so much of what is mentioned below a source of sad nostalgia. And yes, before you yell "Marxist!" or "Conspiracy theorist" or even "Liberal", all of which monikers merit the corporate blessing to desist from thinking or even acknowledging the crisis we're in; the idea isn't that some few masterminds are at the helm, but that this is a juggernaut that's bigger than any one person and bodes very ill for our future. Which isn't to say many crafty people who like power and lack a conscience aren't having a field day...just that the culture now makes this field of action simply the default. How often do you remember in the 70s there being an appeal almost on a par to one's man or womanhood to be a "Smart Investor" or powerful and wealthy as an end in itself. What about what's being invested IN, and what about where the wealth CAME from. Is it helping people, helping communities, or trundling them under? These are beside the point. In corporate speak they're called "externalities". In the language of sane human beings it's called amoral. Yes it's a distressing road we're on, to be sure, but please always be alert to the ready-made and insidious corporate-spawned argument that lawyers and regulations are to blame. They are mere symptoms of a much much more dire shadow cast over our future by the amoral power of corporations, who look no farther ahead than near-term profit, even as they despoil the land and progessively sicken and curtail the lives of people from whom that profit is derived.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. --Edward Abbey.
--KB
wideiris.net
On Jan 13, 2005, at 8:29 PM, Ivonne Sánchez wrote:
----- Original Message -----
>
>
> > To the kids who survived the 30's 40's 50's 60's and 70's (this is soo True):
> > First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
> > They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
> > Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
> > We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
> > As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
> > We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
> > We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
> > We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
>> We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
> > No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
> > We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
> > We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
> > We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
>> We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever
> > We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
> > Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
> > The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of- They actually sided with the law!
> > This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
> > The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas
> > We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW
TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
> > And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! Please pass this on to others
who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
> > Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
This is entertaining and touching and great up until the next to last sentence. Yes, my how sadly things have changed, and so quickly too. But it ain't the government's fault, folks. The current government especially would welcome the conclusion that regulation has a stranglehold on America--while they proceed to dismantle every last "entitlement" (what used to be called god-given rights, natural rights, birthrights) in favor of the purely "ownership society" they want to see realized. Corporations have a stranglehold on America. First they got themselves the legal protections of individuals (ironically via the amendment to Constitution intended to protect minority disenfranchized PEOPLE), and in the last 30 or so years have nearly perfected the art of marginalizing the worth of human beings and the things they have held dear. In such a climate, it's no wonder that people leap to litigation and profiteering, and our world becomes ever more convoluted and inessential. The corporate mindset knows no other basis of value, and to the extent that it has cajoled and terrorized itself into the American psyche, it has made so much of what is mentioned below a source of sad nostalgia. And yes, before you yell "Marxist!" or "Conspiracy theorist" or even "Liberal", all of which monikers merit the corporate blessing to desist from thinking or even acknowledging the crisis we're in; the idea isn't that some few masterminds are at the helm, but that this is a juggernaut that's bigger than any one person and bodes very ill for our future. Which isn't to say many crafty people who like power and lack a conscience aren't having a field day...just that the culture now makes this field of action simply the default. How often do you remember in the 70s there being an appeal almost on a par to one's man or womanhood to be a "Smart Investor" or powerful and wealthy as an end in itself. What about what's being invested IN, and what about where the wealth CAME from. Is it helping people, helping communities, or trundling them under? These are beside the point. In corporate speak they're called "externalities". In the language of sane human beings it's called amoral. Yes it's a distressing road we're on, to be sure, but please always be alert to the ready-made and insidious corporate-spawned argument that lawyers and regulations are to blame. They are mere symptoms of a much much more dire shadow cast over our future by the amoral power of corporations, who look no farther ahead than near-term profit, even as they despoil the land and progessively sicken and curtail the lives of people from whom that profit is derived.
Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell. --Edward Abbey.
--KB
wideiris.net
On Jan 13, 2005, at 8:29 PM, Ivonne Sánchez wrote:
----- Original Message -----
>
>
> > To the kids who survived the 30's 40's 50's 60's and 70's (this is soo True):
> > First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.
> > They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing and didn't get tested for diabetes.
> > Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.
> > We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.
> > As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.
> > We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.
> > We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
> > We ate cupcakes, bread and butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!
>> We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.
> > No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.
> > We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem.
> > We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no personal computers, no internet or internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!
> > We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents.
>> We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate worms and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes, nor did the worms live in us forever
> > We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them!
> > Little league had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!
> > The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of- They actually sided with the law!
> > This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
> > The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas
> > We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW
TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
> > And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS! Please pass this on to others
who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.
> > Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!
Wednesday, January 12, 2005
Take 5 on Chinese 2 stringed instrument
Surreal moment when I picked up the food at Red Hot Szechuan. Brubeck's "Take 5" was playing over the sound system, performed by someone on one those plaintive plucky two stringed instruments, the kind you see all talcumed up in the fingers of a street or subway player giving voice to some forgotten courtly lament from the Sung dynasty. To me, hearing that tune on that instrument was the apotheosis of something, the incongruity of this poor world never quite getting it right--flooded me with pathos for our malapropic multitudes, us poor laughably benighted fools...
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)