So far, everyone who's responded (you, Smearcase, Blandings, teraz) has said they can do either (except LB, but she's iffy anyway), but I wanted to check whether there was anyone else who hasn't weighed in.
Woooo! You'll be in town!
Oh, right.
Ok if this is one of those things were everyone just wants someone to pick, I'll pick Tuesday since my impression is Tuesday=everyone+possibly LB; Wednesday=everyone, definitely -LB. I remain fine with either day but for the sake of picking a day, I say Tuesday.
Didn't Blandings say he was good for Wednesday but not Tuesday? I'd love to be able to come, but I'm doubtful enough even for Tuesday that I shouldn't be a scheduling factor unless all else is completely equal. (People can stop making Buck fly out to the west coast any time now -- it's terribly disruptive to my social life.)
Blandings told me off blog that Tuesday was now fine.
May I take this opportunity to say how much I hate the terrorists for making train and bus stations take their lockers out so that I have to schlep my bag all day? And can we even count the number of lovable con artists and/or diamond thieves who have been thwarted in their last big score before going straight?
I have to schlep my bag all day
Now you know how we feel.
You know what would be neat? If you guys went to Fresh Salt, that would be neat.
Tuesday's meet-up is face to face.
Wednesday's meet-up is a no-go.
Thursday's meet-up: human flesh.
May I take this opportunity to say how much I hate the terrorists for making train and bus stations take their lockers out so that I have to schlep my bag all day?
Why not hate New York for being the one major city that decided to do that? (Maybe there are others. Certainly not all of them did, though.)
That dates back to well before 9/11. I remember finding them suddenly all gone in '95 when I arrived with two suitcases, a backpack and several hours before I could get into the apartment where I was crashing.
I remember being shocked that there were no trash cans at the train station in London. I think this was 1992 or so.
Christ, Sir Kraab, you've been around long enough to know not to violate the sanctity of off-blog communication.
So it's decided, right, that we are all going to be at Fresh Salt tomorrow at about 6:30?
I always worry with these that I'll not check back in and the meet-up will have in my absence been relocated to Poughkeepsie or something.
That dates back to well before 9/11.
In NY, it dates back to the 1975 bombing at LaGuardia.
I remember being shocked that there were no trash cans at the train station in London.
Three words: Active Service Unit.
I just asked a guy and he told me to throw the trash I was holding on the ground. I didn't get into why.
17.2: That's the point of holding them in bars. Even if no one else shows, there you are, with a drink, in a perfectly good bar.
At this point, Fresh Salt should have Al Hirschfeld style drawings of the Unfogged regulars over a corner table with a brass plate on it.
We're not really there all that often -- aside from the fact that Bave knows one or more of the bartenders, I'd doubt that we've been identified as a repeating occurrence.
Poughkeepsie? Bah. Put it in New Brunswick and I would actually show up.
In NY, it dates back to the 1975 bombing at LaGuardia.
See? Terrorists. I just didn't specify which ones.
Anyone who wants to swap phone numbers for tomorrow e-mail me at mypseud at geemail.
Christ, Sir Kraab, you've been around long enough to know not to violate the sanctity of off-blog communication.
If Christ did it too, it can't be that bad.
There was left luggage in Penn Station at least as late as 1994 and I believe it was still there at the end of May 1995.
28: The owner must have been too embarrassed to claim it what with the '70s leisure suits and all.
London railway stations still have left luggage - they just X-ray it when they accept it, and you pay ££ for the privilege.
NYC has locker storage service companies, I think. I've never tried any, so I don't know if they're shady. Far as I could tell from the websites, they just rent locker space. Also, Amtrak supposedly still had left luggage as of 2008, but various websites suggested you had to show a ticket/boarding pass.
Put it in New Brunswick and I would actually show up.
Woo! New Brunswick meetup!
Can someone recommend a good coffee shop in Union Square (or, really, anywhere on the 4-5 between Grand Central Station and Fulton St.) with wifi?
A couple of blocks over from the subway, but there is Think Coffee on Mercer between 3rd & 4th. I liked the food and my coffee peeps say good coffee (and one Unfogged semi-regular said they frequented it), but also somewhat pricey plus NYU students. There is one by Union Sq. but it apparently has no WiFi.
Also, old guy in Pittsburgh who doesn't drink coffee and has no taste in food recommending establishment in NYC. But maybe I'll spur some oppositional recommendations.
No, actually, that's a good recommendation. It can be crowded though.
The hyper-rarefied tastes of people who need advice to find a good cup of coffee in downtown Manhattan is why I live in Dallas.
Not really. But it was jaw-dropping to read. God that city must suck.
37: God that city must suck.
Lots of Jews, too.
38 was mean-spirited.
37 was silly though. 33 is much more of a reflection on Unfogged than it is on Manhattan. After all, Sir Kraab lives in Texas.
And you choose to read Unfogged, bob, don't you?
Also, I thought the request was for a good coffee shop with wifi, meaning a comfortable place to sit and work on a laptop, rather than a place that would sell a cup of coffee that tastes good. A slightly less precious request, and one that's harder to find without knowing the area.
NYC sucks and is also better than anywhere else. It's hard to explain but has only obliquely to do with coffee.
p.s. Dallas is so goddamn great, eh? I happen to like it but I acknowledge that my liking has mostly to do with nostalgia.
[This is not me trying to start an actual argument about the merits of various cities. That would be dumb.]
No real advice to 33 as I don't know doink about the east side.
40.1 Yes. Perhaps, I was being slightly ironic, as bob's comments are not always the sweetest. Still the implication of anti-semitism seemed a bit much to me.
41: As a provincial myself, if I had asked this question, I would have been hoping someone would have a special favorite place to recommend -- not worrying that I wouldn't be able to find drinkable coffee in Manhattan.
A thousand years ago, I used to like Cloister Cafe on 9th, between 2d and 3d, but I haven't been there since the early 90s -- it's not a neighborhood I hang around in anymore. No idea about WiFi.
is why I live in Dallas.
I, too, would live in Hell and rent out Texas.
I can't make the surprise drop-in I was hoping to for this meetup, but it's nice to know I'd still recognize a person or two if I did.
I finally read through the other thread, and I'm now retracting 39.1 and 43.1.
49:Oh, fuck off
This is anti-semitism
Let's step thru this
1) All Irish are not superstitious drunks
2) Some Irish are superstitious drunks
3) Were they born superstitious drunks? Or did the Irish environment and culture contribute?
4) Joyce, Synge among many others said so.
I do this every single day. I am told, by Japanese, that the directors Ozu and Oguri, among others, are "too Japanese" for Westerners to appreciate or understand. What does that mean, true or not? What does it mean that they say it?
And as a Marxist and a fucking humanist, it is critically important to understand that people are not completely self-determinative and self-creating in all respects. I really do have a sense that "culture as freely chosen fashion accessory" for post-modernists has destroyed the possibility for real empathy and compassion.
Almost every hour, contingency and reaction to culture is what I think about. Class Conciousness & Revolution, ya know?
Moreover, while Hokusai's figures, as they go about their business, frequently provide an element of genre interest to his landscapes, Hiroshige's are usually mere reminders of the insignificance of man against the vastness of nature (figs. 63-64). In this, Hiroshige would appear to be an inheritor of the spirit of the Chinese and Japanese masters of monochrome landscapes; and even though Hiroshige depicts far more dramatic seasonal and weather changes in his prints, there is an underlying tranquility to them that is also very reminiscent of the earlier monochrome work.I mean really, I don't need people telling me that history and contingency don't fucking exist.
I mean really, I don't need people telling me that history and contingency don't fucking exist.
And still the voices in your head keep repeating that to you.
Nowhere is Agamben's insistence on the monolithic nature of the West more evident than in his continual reference to Judaism, where he portrays the rabbinic tradition as in essential continuity with Western debates....anti-semitism?
53:Not Kotsko, Agamben
Denying difference, or attempting to eradicate it to satisfy some liberal enlightenment ideal of perfect individual autonomy, is a very foul form of bigotry.
KEEP IT DOWN I'M TRYING TO SLEEP.
Bob, it's what, 66° and sunny where you are? Maybe go get some fresh air with the dogs.
Old guy in Pittsburgh for the win! (Actually their wifi is down at the moment but it's a nice place and I have other work I can do.)
56,57:No rain until next week. 65+ every day with no end in sight. And I can't find any decent translated Ihara Seikaku online. 1958 book still protected. Internet still sucks.
I get so fucking wired sometimes.
Okay, dogs, park, early flowers, budding trees.
54: "One law for the lion and the ox is oppression"
Should be from "Opinionated William Blake", but peep wanted the credit.
60: Maybe you could start doing Opeepionated versions of a variety of people. I'd enjoy that, and Stanley has shown us that the folks here tolerate humor for a long, long time before they don't anymore.
61: Or so the mullahs would have you believe.
61 makes it sound like something horrible was done to Stanley -- maybe that the high poobahs of Unfogged held a secret meeting and decided he had them left them with no choice but to perform non-elective surgery that would remove the part of his brain responsible for puns.
64: I'm pushing for removal of whatever part of the brain keeps people from enjoying puns. In the long run, it will be quicker.
Megan you want them to remove a part of your brain?
Okay, dogs, park, early flowers, budding trees.
Look at the mountains, trees, the seven seas
And everything chilling underwater, please
Hot lava, snow, rain and fog
Long neck giraffes, and pet cats and dogs...
Fucking magnets, how do they work?
the high poobahs of Unfogged held a secret meeting and decided he had them left them with no choice but to perform non-elective surgery that would remove the part of his brain responsible for puns
An LB-otomy?
I am told, by Japanese
While living in Japan, I was sometimes told, by Japanese, that it was totally fucking amazing that I could use chopsticks or carry on a conversation. I was told by other Japanese that some Japanese are intellectually lazy twits who live in a world of easy, bigoted generalizations, and I was like, OMG you're just like us.
72: I had a very similar experience in, um, a country not too far from Japan.
They are more than welcome to take the part of my brain that intentionally puns.
I was also told that white men were hypersexualized and had big dicks, but who was I to argue?
You were in or near China, M/tch?
Oh shit I was supposed to be doing a lonely, tipsy, some-other-adjective liveblog but I forgot to go to Fresh Salt early and start pounding tequila.
There's still time, just barely! Hurry!
Smearcase, you flake, pull yourself together. Get over there and do some lonely drunk liveblogging!
I'm here but not pounding tequila. Yet.
74: They take the part that hates puns.
And then there were two. Smearcazse in the house!
Safety tip.The biggish table on the upper level wobbles. (At least it did when I was sitting at it.)
72:and I was like, OMG you're just like us.
This is the cultural imperialism that slips out from Americans without them even noticing. "They're just like is, or wanna be like Americans, and if they don't want to be like Americans, well, we can fix them. Welcome to Iraq."
No they aren't like us. Japan hasn't invaded a country in decades.
I know I shouldn't be so petty, but I feel a little frisson when I successfully troll you yourself, bob.
87.last: Don't we forbid them from having a military that could invade anybody?
89:No. It's in their constitution (which MacArthur pretty much wrote), and they can change it, I think since 1963 or so. No we are no longer occupying Japan.
Were you serious?
The Socialist and Communist Parties in Japan, something like 10+% of the voters but not the representatives (some Mayors, etc), are primarily focused on anti-militarism and secondly on economic issues.
Don't we forbid them from having a military that could invade anybody?
And all it took to get them to accept that was the Pacific campaign and a couple atomic bombs.
And all it took to get them to accept that was the Pacific campaign and a couple atomic bombs.
Well, to be fair, the Chinese also killed about 1M Japanese over their overlapping war.
Well, to be fair, the Chinese also killed about 1M Japanese over their overlapping war.
What's next, giving credit to the Russians for helping out with the Germans? Fuck that.
Wiki says 1952 was the official end of the occupation.
It's more complicated than that, I would say client state status (Korean War, Okinawa,special trading relationship, currency advantages) lasted through the mid-60s. The mutual defense treaty of 1960 caused riots, and we still have 31000 troops there.
96:Monkeys and snakes, lots of nasty snakes.
89 is genius. And, actually,
"We gotta take these bastards. Now we could do it with conventional weapons, but that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody's part."
is pretty much Bob's political philosophy in a nutshell.
90. 90 is genius. I'm cool with 89, too, though.
And all it took to get them to accept that was the Pacific campaign and a couple atomic bombs.
And the prospect of an economy barely burdened by defense spending. Cha-ching! It brought out their natural benevolence and pacifism.
There's a more-or-less native Japanese word for "squirrel," but I don't remember ever seeing any - they might be rural, or only in Hokkaido, or something.
There are a lot of things I don't like about the Japanese, but as a country that went from the closed shogunate under threat to Meiji industrialization to Greater East Asia to bouncing rubble, they understood first hand what Empire was and meant, and a whole lot of them didn't like the obvious growing American version in the late 50s to early 60s.
Our bullshit bounced right off them.
Our bullshit bounced right off them.
We should be so lucky.
There's a more-or-less native Japanese word for "squirrel," but I don't remember ever seeing any - they might be rural, or only in Hokkaido, or something.
I've seen pictures of Japanese squirrels. They're cute. Big eyes, subservient squirelesses.
"Once all of Japan only war could foresee
But that couldn't happen again
We taught them a lesson in eighteen-five-three
And they've hardly bothered us since then."
The Japanese squirrel (Sciurus lis) is a tree squirrel in the genus Sciurus endemic to Japan. The Japanese squirrel's range includes the islands of Honshū, Shikoku, and Kyūshū. Recently, populations on south-western Honshū and Shikoku decreased, and those on Kyūshū disappeared. One of the factors affecting the local extinction of this species seems to be forest fragmentation by humans.
Squirrel-killers!
Where's the drunken liveblogging? Has Sir Kraab led the whole bar in a rousing chorus of "Which Side Are You On?" yet?
I'm on the side of history and contingency.
110:I'd drink to your conversion, if I drank.
Christine Aguilera yesterday showed why we need prohibition back.
Give a thought to Christine and Charlie and all the other victims of demon rum tonight.
Could the victims of demon rum give us some drunken liveblogging please?
If I had to guess, I'd bet the Sheen's demon is already prohibited.
Does live going-home blogging count? I had to skip out early, because Buck's leaving town tomorrow.
The only exciting dish is that Pause Endlessly has apparently been married to Rhymes With Maria for years now and hadn't mentioned it.
Years ago, I tried getting married without mentioning it. Turns out that it isn't valid if you don't at least notify you intended and a couple others.
I had a weird conversation the other day (if you can call it that; it was more someone else talking at me) about marriage. It seems some people take interviewing job candidates as an excuse to unload all their neuroses on people who are forced to listen to them.
'Excuse' probably should have been 'opportunity' there.
Give a thought to Christine and Charlie and all the other victims of demon rum tonight.
Playing a bit fast and loose with the word "victim", aren't you bob?
I hear the Chinese character for interview is a combination of the characters for neuroses and opportunity.
The Japanese have forty words for "loss of honor".
I don't ever remembering Boston having a left luggage area.
Lafcadio Hearn as Japanese Nationalist. Lots of Herder. Pdf essay from Wiki. A lot that's right here, but still with the modern dismissal of culture while claiming that Hearn was determined by his.
I am plenty aware of the dangers in "culture" or "national culture" and searching for the secret mystic soul of old japan is not exactly what I am doing. More like understanding how oligarchic authoritarianism can be maintained when nationalism is weakened.
Now to Ozu's 1957 Tokyo Boshoku 2:20 of the dreariest most depressing art movie ever filmed. The characters are always wearing smog masks. I never wore a smog mask. We are not the fucking same.
Hey, Jackmormon -- check your email?
I hear the Chinese character for interview is a combination of the characters for neuroses and opportunity.
Rather splendidly, the Chinese word for "writing for pay" is "yuwen", which includes the word "yu", meaning "to sell one's children in a time of famine".
The characters are always wearing smog masks. I never wore a smog mask. We are not the fucking same.
Those aren't smog masks, bob, they're to prevent the spread of aerosol-borne pathogens.
As long as the spray cheese source is kept clean, I'm not worried about aerosol-borne pathogens.
126. Evidence, or I'll tell you the one about the Society of Disaffected Supervisors.
the word "yu", meaning "to sell one's children in a time of famine".
I just am having a hard time believing this.
Mormons have forty words for "long term storage of grain".
I just am having a hard time believing this.
Are yu suggesting that it's unlikely that a one syllable is unlikely to have such a complex and specific meaning? What are you, some kind of liguistic essentialist?
More like understanding how oligarchic authoritarianism can be maintained when nationalism is weakened.
I know I should stick to my general, "don't read bob's comments, they will only confuse or upset you" policy, but, really, what the hell is this supposed to mean?
Neurositunity has a kind of exploitative ring to it.
133.last: Six more weeks of winter.
133.2:Inverted Totalitarianism
1) Corporate dominance
2)* political apathy
3) faux (managed) democracy
Goldman-Sachs doesn't want any nationalistic protectionism. Etc
The thesis is that cultural atomism and anarchic lifestyle expression is a tool of neo-liberalism. "Free to be a furry, jobless with your useless masters sleeping on the couch in your parents rec room."
I am not seeking conservative or reactionary solutions, however.
I, for one, welcome our new useless masters.
So, I'm a furry, I have a master, the master is useless, and the master lives in my parent's house in the rec room. Am I supposed to obey the useless master? Do I also live in the rec room? Do furries have masters or is that only an S&M thing?
Goldman Sachs's world domination plan sure is confusing.
I stopped after the BA, but my wife has a useless masters degree. Do I get partial credit?
I actually use at least 25% of my degree.
141:You don't understand the game they play
Goldman Sachs's world domination plan sure is confusing. ...not really
Ezra Klein ...this morning
Mark Zandi:"Nowadays," he continued, "nine or 10 percent unemployment sounds normal."
That was quick
OT bleg: Like many Wisconsinites, and probably some other Midwesterners who hang out here as well, I have a fair number of opportunities to get into conversations with less sympathetic people on labor issues lately, so I was wondering if someone could link/point me to some resources with thoughtful considerations of the US auto industry and US manufacturing more generally and the role of labor unions. Just googling doesn't get me too much. Okay if it's an academic article or two, or maybe even a book if I can get it on gigapedia.
So "oligarchic authoritarianism" means normal everyday liberal/bourgeois democracy, and "nationalism is weakened" means the government is no longer fascist.
And then you say a buch of other things about Japan's massive population of couch surfing furries (though, really, if you're trying to look at cultural distinctiveness, I think you should focus more on cosplay enthusiasts).
I am not seeking conservative or reactionary solutions, however.
Well, there go all my suggestions.
146: Here's a link to Tom Geoghegan's articles available online, but I know his books better than his shorter stuff, so I'm not pointing to anything specific.
re: Labor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Bennett
Pinkerton agency, and the dismal performance of southern tsates that have eliminated labor unions in my mind. Basically, eliminating labor unions transfers a lot of power to immediate supervisors, who are as dysfunctional and incompetent as the employees in most cases.
Boeing's failed attempt at outsourcing everything to break their union may be germane as well for people who claim past abuses and primitive parts of the US are irrelevant.
whoops, school performance and teachers unions above. Auto factories tell a different story, in my mind one about competent management and motivated employees, but I'm sure that I do not know the whole story.
Thank you -- and incidentally, it doesn't have to be 100% sympathetic. I mean, my own principles lead me to want something as close to the real scoop as possible, and also I think you can be more persuasive when you acknowledge fair points. I just want to be able to talk back to "look what the unions did to Flint and Detroit" with something more reasonable.
130: The character is "鬻", rice gruel char over cauldron char. I guess gruel is something one would only eat in desperate circumstances.
So "oligarchic authoritarianism" means normal everyday liberal/bourgeois democracy, and "nationalism is weakened" means the government is no longer fascist.
No. It's different now.
They don't need, don't even want, the chauvinistic tools they used to use to support Empire. They don't need popular support for TARP or Afghanistan. They don't care what you think, and they know they can get away with anything.
They needed the mass media and propaganda for the Spanish American War and WWI, even Vietnam. All the current media focus on deficit reduction is not to drum up popular support, but to discourage, dispirit, depress popular support. The Village elites taking only to each other on National TV is all the message they need or want to send.
Bourgeois democracy is over, and we need to stop trying to work in it.
150: Is that missing an 'in' or 'un' or something?
I don't put any hope in unions anymore. Sorry, it's a twentieth century (Fordist) technology, and we don't have (in America) fifty years, or the material conditions to rebuild it.
Teachers and other public employees can use it to protect their particular benefits and privileges for a little while.
We need something new, some new forms of organization and activism.
thanks for 130, stuff like this is why I come back here.
http://bokane.org/2006/08/06/yu4-and-other-cool-chinese-characters/ read the last paragraph.
150. States which have eliminated teachers' unions have not seen academic performance gains, either in interstate or intertemporal comparisons. Neither comparison is ceteris paribus, and many are backwaters that people with any choice flee from, so who knows. Can I go back to writing like yoda now?
As soon as I write 156 Yglesias writes a post that agrees.
At any rate given that private sector unions show absolutely no sign of suddenly reviving as a major force in the American economy, I think wondering whether or not it makes sense in the abstract to combine the collective bargaining and political activism functions is a bit besides the point. The question is what ideas can progressives come up with of other models of how to engage people in the political process? What other kinds of institutions can be built? It's clearly possible to engage large numbers of people in activism around gay rights, or to get abortion banned or kept legal, and we have a large environmental movement in the United States. Is it inconceivable that citizens could organize on behalf of progressive economic ideas outside the context of a labor union?
157: Well, shut my mouth.
156...: You're right bob, if unions can't be trusted to produce The Revolution™, then there's no reason for workers to organize within any given profession/industry to promote their collective interests.
Back to policy.
I don't put any hope in unions anymore.
Don't see why not, Ireland just beat England at cricket (think Luxembourg beat Canada at ice hockey). Anything's possible.
157: indeed. The link between "rice porridge", "writing for pay" and "being forced by famine to sell one's own children" is that all three are gruelling experiences.
I'm looking further than bokane.com to see if there's any meat to this or if it's just a tale told.
Striking similarity, though, to the etymology of "plagiarism."
all three are gruelling experiences
Christ, whatever Stanley has is contagious.
Basically, eliminating labor unions transfers a lot of power to immediate supervisors, who are as dysfunctional and incompetent as the employees in most cases.
I really like this - it's a sort of left-libertarianism/workerist anarchism, but based on utter cynicism and misanthropy rather than the usual optimistic confidence in individual dignity and perfectibility. Give one group of idiots disproportionate power over the other idiots, and what do you get? Disproportionately enormous stupidity! The union is needed to keep low-level (and indeed high-level) management from having ideas because they're almost certain to be really bad ones!
The Chinese word for "pun" includes the work "doa," meaning "to run from the room before anybody can slap you."
165: So that's how they perform appundectomies over there.
It's pundemonium! ajay has opened Pundora's Box. He's started a conservation habitat for the endangered Giant Punda (it's located in Punjab.)
Come on snipers, where are you?
Wiktionary lists three meanings for 鬻: (1) sell, (2) child, childish, (3) nourish.
This makes it seem, offhand, like someone misread a dictionary and crafted a tale around it. This presents two much more plausible origins for the term "writing for hire": "sold writing" or "writing for nourishment."
To be more fair, the character compounds mentioned at bokane.com are attributed elsewhere, such as at this Cantonese dictionary, so I don't think it was a mistake precisely. So looking more closely at the character compounds, there's:
卖妻鬻子 - "sell one's wife and son away in a famine"
But character-by-character, this is just "sell wife, 鬻 child." And it's common for compounds like this to use synonyms poetically to make them into the standard literary 4-character length. And the Cantonese has a similar compound relating to bribery, with "offices and titles" in the place of "wife and child." Putting all those compounds together with the dictionary entry, I think it's more likely that 鬻 is just an archaic word for "sell," which remained in use only for a few compounds, some of which related to child-selling, and therefore came to be associated with that act enough for the blogger to hear of it, but was never actually in common parlance on its lonesome with that meaning.
And sure enough, here's a word-by-word translation of a 3rd-century-BC text where it means "sell," plain and simple.
Rrg: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanbun#Example
Does that mean we can't make stupid jokes about Chinese word origins?
Here's a character composed of one "woman" (女) surrounded by two "men" (男), meaning "flirt, frolic., tease, torment"
So not feminist.
171: Gah, don't bother me with details. I've already updated my fb work status.
I wonder if the character for Facebook is just "face" plus "book?"
I just want to be able to talk back to "look what the unions did to Flint and Detroit" with something more reasonable.
How about blinkered and shortsighted management who failed to foresee and prepare for the demand for small cars created by increasing fuel costs. These are people who thought the Hummer was a great idea.
177: Basically, but it's written in variant characters meaning "people you don't really know and/or went to high school with" and "social network created by misogynistic nerds".
159:You're right bob, if unions can't be trusted to produce The Revolution™, then there's no reason for workers to organize within any given profession/industry to promote their collective interests.
I am glad you agree. How's that collective bargaining stuff been working out the last couple decades? How did it go for the GM workers?
The Neo-liberals have found ways to work around unions. It clicked for me, even without looking at Daniels and Kasich, when I looked at Walker's budget and saw the tax provisions.
If we don't get the taxes and the money, we will always be scrambling over a shrinking pie, and unions can bargain all they want. They're fucked. As the members get fucked, the confidence of members and society in general in unions and organization will crashdive (I'm in the union, so why did I lose my job my house my healthcare my family?).
And the very attitude of working within the system will perpetuate and enable the system. Simple nostalgia for a game the other side is no longer playing.
While walking the dogs ta dum
1) I decided to measure revolutions in Smores. Libya is 4 Smores, Bahrain 2 Smores, Egypt 1 Smore. Wisconsin doesn't register.
2) I also decided that the ME, that last bastion of freedom against global capitalism, is experiencing a hostile takeover. This is why Ghaddafi and Jr are so pissed, they know the billionaires by name that are going to take their places. "I golfed with that SoB"
Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld were fucking geniuses. Unspeakably evil, but they did indeed set this up. We need to understand Shock Doctrine or Disaster Capitalism to give them credit.
Bush obviously didn't generate Katrina, but was able to use Katrina to ethnic cleanse NO and funnel millions to Haley Barbour. Liberals just whimpered. Being able to take advantage of catastrophe requires ruthlessness. That is why the pigs are going to win the ME.
Call me when you are ready to burn shit down and take their stuff.
Ireland just beat England at cricket
And apparently some dude got to a "century" (whatever that is) with only fifty balls, which sounds both impressive and possibly painful.
They listen to the phones. I'll take out an ad agony column, like in the Sherlock Holmes story "The Adventure of the Red Circle."
s/b "an ad in the the agony column"
Meanwhile, I'll start an "Add in the Agony" column to promote home cooking for masochists.
Call me when you are ready to burn shit down and take their stuff.
Can you do this while walking your dogs and making smores and mumbling on teh blogs?
Burning shit down is a prerequisite of making smores.
This is true. It's like taking candy from a baby.
You can make smores with candy from the store or a baby.
189: Specifically, you should take chocolate bars. For the smores.
188: Is that what you were referring to with your smore scale in 181, bob?
In solidarity with Bob, the next time I make smores I will start a fire and expropriate the candy.
Smores use marshmallows to put graham crackers in solidarity with chocolate.
Bourgeois democracy is over, and we need to stop trying to work in it.
We like mocking Bob, but he's right about this. Or rather: electoral democracy is no longer a particularly effective method of fighting elite domination of the polity, at least not in the US/Europe. It's hard to avoid looking at the responses of the US/EU to the financial crisis and everything that followed without feeling like you're watching the last bit of Chinatown. Actually, I can't remember exactly what happened there; I'm just thinking of the general feeling of despair, combined with some line about "forget it, Jake, this is Chinatown" e.g. a place where the game is rigged.
Of course, my spending the day walking around the Marrakech Old City with four friendly deutsche Mädels isn't exactly doing my part for the revolution.
Calling people "crackers" won't help you build solidarity with the working class, Moby.
Of course, my spending the day walking around the Marrakech Old City with four friendly deutsche Mädels isn't exactly doing my part for the revolution.
After all the shit has been burned down, we'll need to repopulate.
I happily can't see what it's responding to, but 196 is plenty silly all on its own. Is there a name for the fallacy contained therein, or should we call it the "singularity fallacy"?
Of course, my spending the day walking around the Marrakech Old City with four friendly deutsche Mädels isn't exactly doing my part for the revolution.
Throw in some dirndls and it'll probably revolutionize Moby's mood.
199: well, I didn't intend to be endorsing anything concrete enough such that my comment could be construed as an argument, fallacious or not. I was rather gesturing towards the idea that political activism ought to be aimed not merely at mustering greater resources for competing in the electoral-representation game, but changing that game towards forms less easily captured by current elites.
You're right that 196 could be easily taken as expressing rather more agreement with Bob's "burn shit down" program than I in fact share. (Though in the ME/NA right now, it may well be the right move; I don't pretend to know.)
the last bit of Chinatown. Actually, I can't remember exactly what happened there; I'm just thinking of the general feeling of despair, combined with some line about "forget it, Jake, this is Chinatown" e.g. a place where the game is rigged.
In reality, of course, not actually a demonstration of a rigged democracy, since the water was voted in overwhelmingly by referendum with full prior disclosure of the land deals, and enormously benefited (most of) the people who voted for it. /end personal pet peeve about LA history that I bring up anytime anyone brings up Chinatown.
When are you going to write that book about the LAPD?
In reality, probably when I have a spell of unemployment.
201.1: well, that's reasonable enough, but I can't quite figure out what it has to do with the quoted bit.
205: when it's all finished up you should totally license one of sandow birk's paintings about the rampart scandal as cover art.
I was glossing the quoted bit as "electoral parliamentary/presidential democracy is fundamentally flawed"; I really do think random-lot rather than election is the way to go.
Anyway. There's the evening call for prayer, so I should log off for the night.
There's the evening call for prayer
Trapnel, you cad.
I was rather gesturing towards the idea that political activism ought to be aimed not merely at mustering greater resources for competing in the electoral-representation game, but changing that game towards forms less easily captured by current elites
Right, but most versions of that are a reform a bourgeois democracy rather than its elimination. I mean, I'm all for eliminating the bourgeois part and think that one would do that through eliminating the concentration of personal wealth, but unless you can convince enough of your fellow citizens that that's a good plan you just have unending dictatorship town, and who likes that?
Your lot system is cute, but, like most anarchist proposals, unscalable.
Anyway, I'll leave you to your evening ablutions.
The Chinatown scam is much closer to what happened to the Owens Valley -- secret deals that took water rights out of the hands of locals before anyone knew what was up. The happy result is that the Owens Valley, undevelopable because of DWP land ownership, is now the beautiful Gateway to the Sierras instead of sprawling Lancaster or Palmdale, and people get to bitch about DWP.
(The unhappy result is that the salinization of the Owens Dry Lake has resulted in horrific rates of asthmas on Paiute reservations, though the last decade has seen DWP prodded into reversing that somewhat.)
Holy Shit!
72 degrees with sunshine, 25% humidity/33 degree dewpoint, ESE winds at 5-10 mph.
Dallas has its moments. I'll burn shit down come May.
C'mon dogs.
I thought of the Franz Fanon books that Grove Press reprinted a few years back, though those have some extra widgits to them.
The happy result is that the Owens Valley, undevelopable because of DWP land ownership, is now the beautiful Gateway to the Sierras
Soon we can offer this alluring fate to the entire Sacramento Valley!
It's true that there were "secret" (i.e., the purchasers didn't disclose that the parcels were being purchased for water rights to an aqueduct bringing water to LA) deals in the Owens Valley, but it's always important to remember that (a) the beneficiary of these deals was a major public utility (LADWP), not private land speculators, and the private speculators/insiders who tried to make money on the deal lost big time; (b) the most egregious "misconduct" by the City of LA was putting political pressure on the federal BLM to avoid builidng a useless irrigation project for the Owens Valley that would have helped out a few thousand at most farmers (who, it should be noted, had already screwed up their own water management); (c) most of the land in the Owens Valley that was bought up for the use of DWP was in the hands of . . . land speculators, who were just betting on a different irrigation project or grazing lands; (d) other big cities, including NY, acquired their irrigation systems in roughly the same way.
Your lot system is cute, but, like most anarchist proposals, unscalable.
This is a puzzling objection. Selection-by-lot is if anything far more scalable than -by-election, since it doesn't require more of citizens as the numbers go up. Plus, the bigger you get, the more the law of large numbers works in your favor as far as getting representative assemblies without having everyone give up their evenings.
Okay, now I'm done for the night. Here's hoping the Grenzkontrolle let me back into Germany.
218 isn't the best written thing in the world, but it'll do.
If anyone wants, you can have the water rights to my basement sump. At peak, you get about a gallon every couple of minutes.
...but now we may be getting real...
Wisconsin Dems Announce Recall Effort
...as long as this isn't a negotiating tactic to get crumbs for the union.
"Burn shit down" can be a metaphor for structural or systemic change but...
"Take Their Stuff" is the essence of politics. "Haves and have-nots" said Aristotle. Hurt the enemy. Tell your allies what they will win.
These Recalls are a good start on doing both structural change and stealing from the enemy.