The following doesn't vary much from the way I feel about our slide into national insolvency. So rather than write a post myself, here y'go, y'all:
Money started out as a convenient form of exchange. It's become an adversarial construct, a tin deity and the scoreboard for our existence. We can pretend it's still working for us, but it's become a lever that - as the length and stiffness of that lever expands for the haves - is used to pry us from what little hard wealth we have. 14,000,000,000,000.00 in debt notes is a stupid thing to trade anything for.
You can harrumph and wave your made in China flag and wait for Michelle Bachmann to lead you to the promised land of loonies and pray to Bill O'Reilly and keep crushing those aluminum cans but the pooch has been hosed and we're holding the bag for these junk notes.
We need a concise game plan that includes a lot of hard and fast changes to how we allow businesses to function, who gets to do what and to whom and for how long or the hard and fast change will come via a molotov cocktail when there's no more malarkey to sell and the curtain is pulled back from the man in the booth. This - shit - isn't - working - anymore. Pretending it is has put us in this sack.
This is cut point for America, y'all. With or without me or you and recess is over. So if anybody has some useful ideas that don't include guillotines or mathematically gymnastic bar graphs that add up to "shut up and don't pester the wealthy", I'm all ears. Cause I don't want to see riots in the streets, either. But this shit is way past band aids and if we don't waylay the getaway car, we're gonna be left with ashes and whatever we can grow in that corner lot where those small shops used to be. I got nothing against wealth. How you got it and what you do with it matters, not the wealth itself. I got a huge problem with pirates and thugs. Don't you? .02 USD.
- by that Internet entity known as "Bunner."
Showing posts with label All That Is Solid..... Show all posts
Showing posts with label All That Is Solid..... Show all posts
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
All that was solid.....
It's gone. The execrable journalism in the week since the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has killed any residual credence or respect I my have had for the media. There is no information, only infotainment. I suppose this was never all that traumatic for me, since my connection with the ongoing events in the world has always been tenuous, at best. It wasn't a coincidence I worked as a history teacher for 32 years.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Poetry Corner, 2011
The flight of the curiales from Wisconsin and Indiana to the welcoming arms of Illinois is such transparent, temporizing, time-wasting nonsense that a large hole should be dug for all the legislators - ALL- from both states, plus the governors. Then they should all -ALL- do the decent thing. If they can persuade the same officials in Illinois to join them, I'm sure the hole can be enlarged to fit.
To do what has to be done, these cowards, of every political persuasion, are terrified of appearing the bad guy and risking their pathetic careers. So the Donks flee the state, ostensibly to block legislation, while attempting to make the Trunks look bad and do a Pontius Pilate for their constituencies. The Trunks threaten draconian executive action to terminate thousands of state employees, while attempting to make the Donks look bad and do a Pontius Pilate for their constituencies.
As I have the habit of doing, I'll let others speak for me:
"There are three principles in this Constitution, and they are very precious. They are compromise, compromise, and compromise."
-James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution
On a more global level, we resort to the poets:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
"And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
- Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
To do what has to be done, these cowards, of every political persuasion, are terrified of appearing the bad guy and risking their pathetic careers. So the Donks flee the state, ostensibly to block legislation, while attempting to make the Trunks look bad and do a Pontius Pilate for their constituencies. The Trunks threaten draconian executive action to terminate thousands of state employees, while attempting to make the Donks look bad and do a Pontius Pilate for their constituencies.
As I have the habit of doing, I'll let others speak for me:
"There are three principles in this Constitution, and they are very precious. They are compromise, compromise, and compromise."
-James Madison, Father of the U.S. Constitution
On a more global level, we resort to the poets:
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
- William Butler Yeats, The Second Coming
"And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night."
- Matthew Arnold, Dover Beach
"There are four types of homicide: felonious, accidental, justifiable, and praiseworthy."
- Ambrose Bierce, The Devil’s Dictionary
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Science is in Intensive Care
Attempts to popularize Science and rationality as it was purveyed 30 or 40 years ago was invariably done by someone with credentials, and who approached it in a systematic manner (Martin Gardner comes to mind), and where what you learned invariably made sense in one's further readings*.
Now.....the best way to put it is that we are screwed. The popularization of Science has been taken over by movies, TV and the mass media, and there is so much that is twisted, rampantly Procrustean, or just plain wrong that there is literally nowhere to begin.
It may be that Mass Man never had any real chance of integrating Science with spirituality and a balanced view of the world, but we'll likely never find out.
*My citations here should in no way be construed as to apply any label of atheist or rationalist to me. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Now.....the best way to put it is that we are screwed. The popularization of Science has been taken over by movies, TV and the mass media, and there is so much that is twisted, rampantly Procrustean, or just plain wrong that there is literally nowhere to begin.
It may be that Mass Man never had any real chance of integrating Science with spirituality and a balanced view of the world, but we'll likely never find out.
*My citations here should in no way be construed as to apply any label of atheist or rationalist to me. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Sunday, April 25, 2010
This Will Not End Well
The History Channel has finally done what no one has attempted since the 1970's- to produce a comprehensive history of the United States. As with so many things these days, I'll read the reviews before I even consider watching any of it. Given current trends, not only on the Hysteria / History / Catastrophe Channel, I suspect that the series will be fatally flawed. I predict that the essence of it will be "Cover everything and attempt to please everyone, but explain nothing and satisfy no one."
The last series to attempt to tell the story of the United States was Alistair Cooke's America: A Personal History. It even appears as though THC has attempted to "borrow from" the title. However, there is a vast difference between what some may consider the same sort of program, and one need go no further than the respective titles to see it.
The strength of Cooke's America lay in the twofold nature of it being a personal viewpoint (and Cooke never claimed otherwise), and in Cooke being a transplanted Englishman (became a U.S. citizen in 1941, six days before Pearl Harbor), which gives the author an almost essential detachment from hewing to a particular native viewpoint or politics. In this, Cooke may be seen as a legitimate heir of Alexis de Tocqueville, still the most famous foreigner to write of this country in Democracy in America, (1835 / 1840), and in so doing, having written what many still consider the best analysis of this country.
The History Channel has entitled its opus America: The Story of Us, which I'm sure it will be. I'm sure it will be supremely earnest, with all sorts of "docu-dramatic" vignettes that purport to be historical, that technology will be portrayed as a deus ex machina, and that every effort will be made to place Abigail Adams on the same plane as John, and Harriets Tubman and Beecher Stowe on the same level of importance as Abe Lincoln. It will be very, very egalitarian, and very, very inclusive, irrespective of the degree to which it is very, very far removed from what may have happened. My prediction could be wrong, and I sincerely hope that it is.....but I'm sticking to it.
I will conclude with my favorite quote from Cooke's America (Episode 3, Making a Revolution) :
"That, too, is history- not what happened, but what people convinced themselves must have happened."
The last series to attempt to tell the story of the United States was Alistair Cooke's America: A Personal History. It even appears as though THC has attempted to "borrow from" the title. However, there is a vast difference between what some may consider the same sort of program, and one need go no further than the respective titles to see it.
The strength of Cooke's America lay in the twofold nature of it being a personal viewpoint (and Cooke never claimed otherwise), and in Cooke being a transplanted Englishman (became a U.S. citizen in 1941, six days before Pearl Harbor), which gives the author an almost essential detachment from hewing to a particular native viewpoint or politics. In this, Cooke may be seen as a legitimate heir of Alexis de Tocqueville, still the most famous foreigner to write of this country in Democracy in America, (1835 / 1840), and in so doing, having written what many still consider the best analysis of this country.
The History Channel has entitled its opus America: The Story of Us, which I'm sure it will be. I'm sure it will be supremely earnest, with all sorts of "docu-dramatic" vignettes that purport to be historical, that technology will be portrayed as a deus ex machina, and that every effort will be made to place Abigail Adams on the same plane as John, and Harriets Tubman and Beecher Stowe on the same level of importance as Abe Lincoln. It will be very, very egalitarian, and very, very inclusive, irrespective of the degree to which it is very, very far removed from what may have happened. My prediction could be wrong, and I sincerely hope that it is.....but I'm sticking to it.
I will conclude with my favorite quote from Cooke's America (Episode 3, Making a Revolution) :
"That, too, is history- not what happened, but what people convinced themselves must have happened."
Monday, January 18, 2010
Define "Prescient"
Well, this is one definition, written in 1978. Nineteen seventy-eight:
Lipidleggin' by Paul F. Wilson
And here's another, probably better known:
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
This is where we're going, but it's hard to say exactly why. Since we have a representative government, I am forced to assume that in some fashion we've actually chosen to live out this nightmare, but that doesn't mean I understand it.
Lipidleggin' by Paul F. Wilson
And here's another, probably better known:
Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut
This is where we're going, but it's hard to say exactly why. Since we have a representative government, I am forced to assume that in some fashion we've actually chosen to live out this nightmare, but that doesn't mean I understand it.
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Eradicating Meaning
When a "player," someone who represents an interest (aka a nation) gets the Nobel Peace Prize, it damages the whole notion of "peace." Peace cannot be partisan....and when we dig into the elements of most situations where leaders or representatives of states were awarded the NPP, the partisan element isn't hard to find.
Woodrow Wilson fundamentally didn't deserve the Nobel Prize, because no matter how noble his Fourteen Points, without the U.S. taking the lead and forgiving all the war loans to the European countries (which was done after WWII, a lesson hard learned), it ultimately validated the crushing reparations exacted against Germany in the Versailles Treaty, which was a major factor in bringing Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP to power in Germany. The U.S. may or may not have deserved the pejorative "Uncle Shylock," but Calvin Coolidge was simply being Bismarckian in his realpolitik when he said "They hired the money, didn't they?" These things may be judged one way or another by history, but they don't fit into consideration for a peace prize. They just don't.
Henry Kissinger, in the context of the Vietnam War, may have been deserving of many things, but the Nobel Peace Prize was certainly not one of them.
One of the very few things James Earl Carter may deserve to be remembered for is the Camp David Peace Accords. But should anyone have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for this? Peace in that situation would have involved the Palestinians, whether the Egyptians were present or not- and the Palestinians were nowhere to be found. This may have been the first "joke" NPP.
What Barack Obama has done -in any substantive way- to merit a nomination for such a prize -let alone its being awarded- is hard to fathom. The Nobel committee's most trenchant statement on the topic seems to boil down to "He's made people feel good."
At the very least, it is questionable that the leader of a nation with tens of thousands of its forces currently in combat roles on foreign soil would be considered for such an award, regardless of the situation. It is therefore impossible to believe that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize (along with the prize for Literature...any that aren't awarded for measurable scientific achievement) hasn't devolved into the same level as the political vagaries of the International Olympic Committee or the United Nations. The Nobel Peace Prize should be ignored.
Woodrow Wilson fundamentally didn't deserve the Nobel Prize, because no matter how noble his Fourteen Points, without the U.S. taking the lead and forgiving all the war loans to the European countries (which was done after WWII, a lesson hard learned), it ultimately validated the crushing reparations exacted against Germany in the Versailles Treaty, which was a major factor in bringing Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP to power in Germany. The U.S. may or may not have deserved the pejorative "Uncle Shylock," but Calvin Coolidge was simply being Bismarckian in his realpolitik when he said "They hired the money, didn't they?" These things may be judged one way or another by history, but they don't fit into consideration for a peace prize. They just don't.
Henry Kissinger, in the context of the Vietnam War, may have been deserving of many things, but the Nobel Peace Prize was certainly not one of them.
One of the very few things James Earl Carter may deserve to be remembered for is the Camp David Peace Accords. But should anyone have been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize for this? Peace in that situation would have involved the Palestinians, whether the Egyptians were present or not- and the Palestinians were nowhere to be found. This may have been the first "joke" NPP.
What Barack Obama has done -in any substantive way- to merit a nomination for such a prize -let alone its being awarded- is hard to fathom. The Nobel committee's most trenchant statement on the topic seems to boil down to "He's made people feel good."
At the very least, it is questionable that the leader of a nation with tens of thousands of its forces currently in combat roles on foreign soil would be considered for such an award, regardless of the situation. It is therefore impossible to believe that the award of the Nobel Peace Prize (along with the prize for Literature...any that aren't awarded for measurable scientific achievement) hasn't devolved into the same level as the political vagaries of the International Olympic Committee or the United Nations. The Nobel Peace Prize should be ignored.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
The ONLY thing.....
Mr. Obama's in a hurry, so it ought to be pretty easy to set an agenda for the Sotomayor Supreme Court confirmation hearings. I'm very grateful already for one thing she's said: that the appeals courts make public policy in this country. This has been nothing but obvious for some decades now, but it's like the skeleton at the feast that no one wishes to acknowledge.
Sotomayor has brought it into the open that our elected representatives no longer make the laws, instead they ratify what they know the Federal Judiciary will approve. If I ever heard a more appropriate subject for debate, I can't remember it. Forget all the yapping about her being a "reverse racist." Let's talk about restoring representative government to this nation.
Sotomayor has brought it into the open that our elected representatives no longer make the laws, instead they ratify what they know the Federal Judiciary will approve. If I ever heard a more appropriate subject for debate, I can't remember it. Forget all the yapping about her being a "reverse racist." Let's talk about restoring representative government to this nation.
Friday, April 10, 2009
All hail Grummet!
For most, the close encounter with government that April brings is a brief view into the festering maw of the IRS via Tax Day. This year, I've had a trifecta beyond that...... and I can't claim the taxes, since I don't do 'em.
I turn 65 so I had to go through the Social Security interview, a polite excursion into Kafkaland. A forty-minute phone conversation later, and numberless questions important enough to ask, but to which I was assured repeatedly I needn't know the answers. On the other hand (I think that's three hands, so far......) I was informed both at the beginning and end of the conversation that the penalties of perjury apply. The good news (I think) is that I received a letter in the mail yesterday telling me that I'm a proud card-carrying member of Medicare.
Then there is an ongoing brushfire war with the VA, what we grew up calling the Veterans' Administration, but is evidently officially yclept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Their motto: "You can't call us on the phone." The 800 number exists, and picks up immediately to a mechanical voice that says, in paraphrase: "We're too busy to come to the phone, so why are you bothering?" To give them a little credit, they do say that you can go to their Internet site with your questions. After going through several cycles of question & answer on the VA web site spanning a month and a half, I think the motto should be changed to: "We'll answer your questions in less than a week, but don't plan on anything either informative or relevant."
Without detailing ad nauseam, after seven months with a pending claim application with the VA for my Mother, it was denied....because we had filled out the wrong forms. Return to "GO," do not collect $200; start over.
Now I have fallen afoul of the Farm Service Administration, because we have the misfortune to own somewhat over three arable acres that we sharecrop with a local farmer. The FSA decided to generate a whole new registration system this year, which means a whole new sheaf of paperwork to be filled out, and deforestation proceeding apace. I mailed them in without the slightest conviction that they have been filled out correctly.
Ye shall know Bureaucracy by the signs given above, and by the Fifth Horseman, in this case riding one of paper. I've never been much for Hegel, but it convinces me that our stage of History is about done, and it's time for Grummet (aftermath). Could it all happen that quickly? Could the acceleration that is mentioned frequently in all other phases of contemporary society also accelerate the movement back to Chaos? I'd rather not find out.....but may not have a choice.
I turn 65 so I had to go through the Social Security interview, a polite excursion into Kafkaland. A forty-minute phone conversation later, and numberless questions important enough to ask, but to which I was assured repeatedly I needn't know the answers. On the other hand (I think that's three hands, so far......) I was informed both at the beginning and end of the conversation that the penalties of perjury apply. The good news (I think) is that I received a letter in the mail yesterday telling me that I'm a proud card-carrying member of Medicare.
Then there is an ongoing brushfire war with the VA, what we grew up calling the Veterans' Administration, but is evidently officially yclept the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Their motto: "You can't call us on the phone." The 800 number exists, and picks up immediately to a mechanical voice that says, in paraphrase: "We're too busy to come to the phone, so why are you bothering?" To give them a little credit, they do say that you can go to their Internet site with your questions. After going through several cycles of question & answer on the VA web site spanning a month and a half, I think the motto should be changed to: "We'll answer your questions in less than a week, but don't plan on anything either informative or relevant."
Without detailing ad nauseam, after seven months with a pending claim application with the VA for my Mother, it was denied....because we had filled out the wrong forms. Return to "GO," do not collect $200; start over.
Now I have fallen afoul of the Farm Service Administration, because we have the misfortune to own somewhat over three arable acres that we sharecrop with a local farmer. The FSA decided to generate a whole new registration system this year, which means a whole new sheaf of paperwork to be filled out, and deforestation proceeding apace. I mailed them in without the slightest conviction that they have been filled out correctly.
Ye shall know Bureaucracy by the signs given above, and by the Fifth Horseman, in this case riding one of paper. I've never been much for Hegel, but it convinces me that our stage of History is about done, and it's time for Grummet (aftermath). Could it all happen that quickly? Could the acceleration that is mentioned frequently in all other phases of contemporary society also accelerate the movement back to Chaos? I'd rather not find out.....but may not have a choice.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Age of Adjective
It seems impossible in the first decade of the 21st Century -and in any arena of public utterance- to avoid the use of the most extreme adjectives in either writing or rhetoric. All phenomena are "terrifying, devastating, phenomenal, etc....just fill in any extreme adjective you know. As a result, the language becomes debauched....or perhaps I should just resort to the tamer "corrupted." What recourse have we to our word-hoard when we have spent all our bolts? Will we need to abandon English, that most flexible means of expression, simply because our enormous vocabulary has been rendered unidimensional by our own misuse?
I hereby hope these musings are merely rhetorical......
I hereby hope these musings are merely rhetorical......
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Maybe This Time......
Not much of a joiner, never have been. But The Long Now Foundation may be an exception. I've been tired of the relentless presentism of modern culture for a long time and, at 65, I'm fed up. So, yes, I can see myself joining an organization the most tangible project of which has been the design and construction of a 10,000 year clock. Such things as always writing "0" in front of the year (so that we're now in 02009) seem more pretentious, but I'm sure they'd just say I'm not yet there in my ten thousand year thinking yet.......
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
All New, All The Time
Some cable channel (which, I am not sure, and don't wish to be) gushing this morning over the nominee for Attorney General, naturally the emphasis being on the "first ever {insert minority here} in the cabinet." I guess Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as Secretaries of State don't count. And to these people, I think they don't.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Wordy
The online comic xkcd.com, which rocks -some of the time- has a great one here:
"A Bunch of Rocks"
I found the strip verbose, however. Richard Brautigan, a deservedly third-rate writer*, summed up this particular suspension of the laws of space-time better, in perhaps the best line he managed:
"You should have ridden with Jesse James, for all the time you stole from me."
Yeah, we stole your time. And we used ours to give something back....if you were listening.
*No. No. He's a third-rate writer. Lots of writers are, just keep repeating that until you believe it.
"But maaaan, he wrote Trout Fishing in America, maaaan, it's such a cool title maaaan."
....and did you ever read it? Even in Cliff's Notes? Do you think the criterion for awarding Nobel Prizes in literature should be scribbling anarchic crap attacking Western Civilization? Oh, wait.......
"A Bunch of Rocks"
I found the strip verbose, however. Richard Brautigan, a deservedly third-rate writer*, summed up this particular suspension of the laws of space-time better, in perhaps the best line he managed:
"You should have ridden with Jesse James, for all the time you stole from me."
Yeah, we stole your time. And we used ours to give something back....if you were listening.
*No. No. He's a third-rate writer. Lots of writers are, just keep repeating that until you believe it.
"But maaaan, he wrote Trout Fishing in America, maaaan, it's such a cool title maaaan."
....and did you ever read it? Even in Cliff's Notes? Do you think the criterion for awarding Nobel Prizes in literature should be scribbling anarchic crap attacking Western Civilization? Oh, wait.......
Thursday, October 23, 2008
OK, Listen Up!
I've read and listened to one too many pieces about people who refuse to have their children vaccinated because they might get autism. So, if you happen to read this, ONE MORE TIME:
[rant on]
The idea that vaccines, or the preservatives in vaccines, cause autism, or ringworm, or fallen arches, is completely UNPROVEN. Studies done in both the U.S. and Europe have failed to find any significant correlation between vaccination and autism. The hysteria engendered in a world of missing information is just a harbinger of the coming Dark Age. We have become Super Barbarians, who channel surf with the latest technology, the world passes by our faces in a blur, of information about anything there is only a smattering, information incomplete, understanding illusory, enlightenment increasingly in the shadows.
The view that the only risk is measles (as my most recent piece argues) conveniently leaves out all those things that may be prevented by vaccines: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), etc. And how about polio? Willing to give that a pass? Can you REALLY do that and look in the mirror and call yourself a fit parent?
[rant off]
[rant on]
The idea that vaccines, or the preservatives in vaccines, cause autism, or ringworm, or fallen arches, is completely UNPROVEN. Studies done in both the U.S. and Europe have failed to find any significant correlation between vaccination and autism. The hysteria engendered in a world of missing information is just a harbinger of the coming Dark Age. We have become Super Barbarians, who channel surf with the latest technology, the world passes by our faces in a blur, of information about anything there is only a smattering, information incomplete, understanding illusory, enlightenment increasingly in the shadows.
The view that the only risk is measles (as my most recent piece argues) conveniently leaves out all those things that may be prevented by vaccines: diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), etc. And how about polio? Willing to give that a pass? Can you REALLY do that and look in the mirror and call yourself a fit parent?
[rant off]
Monday, October 20, 2008
He lit a match*
I normally don't just link to a comic, even though I enjoy xkcd, but I'll make an exception. this one takes me back to covering the miles of two-lane highway (back when I was little, and most highways were), and finding the Burma-Shave signs a welcome blip in the miles of corn fields. On the other hand, when you're a kid, those miles of corn fields may be your first chance to experience introspection- a pastime of great difficulty in contemporary culture.
*Can you complete it? (Scroll down to the 1959 jingles....)
*Can you complete it? (Scroll down to the 1959 jingles....)
Monday, July 7, 2008
Profundity in xkcd.com
I get some laughs from -a percentage- of this strip, but there's both comedy and tragedy in this one, my friends. Terrible truth, too.
Wednesday, June 18, 2008
And The Beat Goes On....
Just too much goodness to pass up out there today. Now we have families investigated for child abuse because a psychic had a vision.
Time to trot out the W.H. Auden; can't get too much of the classics:
“One doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the consequences...
“Reason will be replaced by Revelation…Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions— feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fever or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces…
“Idealism will be replaced by Materialism…Diverted from its normal outlet in patriotism and civic or family pride, the need of the masses for some visible Idol to worship will be driven into totally unsociable channels where no education can reach it. Divine honours will be paid to shallow depressions in the earth, domestic pets, ruined windmills, or malignant tumours.
“Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. Every corner-boy will congratulate himself: ‘I’m such a sinner that God has come down in person to save me.’ Every crook will argue: ‘I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.’ The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums, and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Tragedy, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
— Herod, in For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
W. H. Auden, 1940
Time to trot out the W.H. Auden; can't get too much of the classics:
“One doesn’t have to be a prophet to predict the consequences...
“Reason will be replaced by Revelation…Knowledge will degenerate into a riot of subjective visions— feelings in the solar plexus induced by undernourishment, angelic images generated by fever or drugs, dream warnings inspired by the sound of falling water. Whole cosmogonies will be created out of some forgotten personal resentment, complete epics written in private languages, the daubs of schoolchildren ranked above the greatest masterpieces…
“Idealism will be replaced by Materialism…Diverted from its normal outlet in patriotism and civic or family pride, the need of the masses for some visible Idol to worship will be driven into totally unsociable channels where no education can reach it. Divine honours will be paid to shallow depressions in the earth, domestic pets, ruined windmills, or malignant tumours.
“Justice will be replaced by Pity as the cardinal human virtue, and all fear of retribution will vanish. Every corner-boy will congratulate himself: ‘I’m such a sinner that God has come down in person to save me.’ Every crook will argue: ‘I like committing crimes. God likes forgiving them. Really the world is admirably arranged.’ The New Aristocracy will consist exclusively of hermits, bums, and permanent invalids. The Rough Diamond, the Consumptive Whore, the bandit who is good to his mother, the epileptic girl who has a way with animals will be the heroes and heroines of the New Tragedy, when the general, the statesman, and the philosopher have become the butt of every farce and satire.”
— Herod, in For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
W. H. Auden, 1940
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Isn't that Special?
Yet another badly conceived idea.....and from the same Democratic Party that spent much time screaming at the last election that all electronic balloting methods, or anything that didn't leave a paper trail, was being used to cheat them. Now we have Internet voting, from that same source, even more unproven and risky than Diebold machines or whatever. From "hanging chad" to off the deep end, in only 8 years.....
I reflect, however, that this is consistent with a philosophy that any votes, from whatever source, are valid and desirable, be it (as the article relates) from some hacker in Eastern Europe, the tombstones in the graveyards of Chicago, etc.
I reflect, however, that this is consistent with a philosophy that any votes, from whatever source, are valid and desirable, be it (as the article relates) from some hacker in Eastern Europe, the tombstones in the graveyards of Chicago, etc.
Monday, November 26, 2007
Next: Pizza
The History Channel deserves the name because it is subverting history. It does so by placing established fact and surmise, speculation, and the most outrageous claims on the same plane and concluding the episode (whatever the topic may be) with "Who knows?"
Well, in a recent case...we do. The UFO files (more and more cable channels are developing a love affair with UFOs & Las Vegas devoting more and more air time to these subjects) claims in one episode that we owe integrated circuits, lasers, and Kevlar to items found on or near the putative crashed UFO in 1947 at Roswell, NM. If you've never heard of the Roswell Incident, you're lucky; quit reading this post immediately, and always look (or run) away any time you hear the word "Roswell."
In the cases above, one individual (a former Army officer named Corso) claims that the alien technology was turned over to Bell Labs, or some such thing, and they came up with it. It is specifically claimed that Bell Labs developed the microchip from alien technology. This is patent nonsense, as it is documented that the integrated circuit was developed at Fairchild Semiconductor (Robert Noyce) and Texas Instruments (Jack Kilby) under circumstances that brook no dispute. The technology of integrated circuits requires no postulate of the introduction of alien materials or design.
In all of these cases, it is only necessary to apply Occam's Razor. Simply put, no wonderful and mysterious stories of extraterrestrial intervention are required, thank you very much. And yet the conflation of prosaic fact with wild speculation continues, and on a multitude of topics, every day, via media that are supposedly reputable. Soon, when I claim that the thermometer reads 25 degrees C, I will be told "Not necessarily; that thermometer could be an illusion, or...." Is this a symptom of The Coming Dark Age? I'd better go and consult Nostradamus.....
Well, in a recent case...we do. The UFO files (more and more cable channels are developing a love affair with UFOs & Las Vegas devoting more and more air time to these subjects) claims in one episode that we owe integrated circuits, lasers, and Kevlar to items found on or near the putative crashed UFO in 1947 at Roswell, NM. If you've never heard of the Roswell Incident, you're lucky; quit reading this post immediately, and always look (or run) away any time you hear the word "Roswell."
In the cases above, one individual (a former Army officer named Corso) claims that the alien technology was turned over to Bell Labs, or some such thing, and they came up with it. It is specifically claimed that Bell Labs developed the microchip from alien technology. This is patent nonsense, as it is documented that the integrated circuit was developed at Fairchild Semiconductor (Robert Noyce) and Texas Instruments (Jack Kilby) under circumstances that brook no dispute. The technology of integrated circuits requires no postulate of the introduction of alien materials or design.
In all of these cases, it is only necessary to apply Occam's Razor. Simply put, no wonderful and mysterious stories of extraterrestrial intervention are required, thank you very much. And yet the conflation of prosaic fact with wild speculation continues, and on a multitude of topics, every day, via media that are supposedly reputable. Soon, when I claim that the thermometer reads 25 degrees C, I will be told "Not necessarily; that thermometer could be an illusion, or...." Is this a symptom of The Coming Dark Age? I'd better go and consult Nostradamus.....
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)