I just downloaded a crapload of music this weekend. . .Rolling Stones (Beggars Banquet, Sticky Fingers, Let It Bleed) Townes Van Zandt (Road Songs) Nina Simone (Anthology) and Creedence (Chronicles). . .sitting there today studying Engineering these lyrics came into my head:
Spare a thought for the stay-at-home voter
His empty eyes gaze at strange beauty shows
And a parade of the gray suited grafters
A choice of cancer or polio
the top line drew me in. is it possible to be without politics in this day and age? without cant, without intending a slight, or copping a posture? like bugs to a zapper, we turn to the power of the world. what of the powerless? some days it’s worth being a slave, because it’s one less thing you have to worry about, so you can go on about your day, and make of your life as you can, as your part time job governs what you can afford. maybe those are the limits we should explore.
is a life devoid of politics, the political, the powers and structures thereof we conjure, possible? a world where the signs we signal, red vs. blue, wasp vs. bougie, fades? where the political fades to a frequency only dogscan hear? I’m not talking a life without these things, I don’t think it’s possible. we’re the wrong animal for it. we can’t live without rubbing up against one another. rubbing is fucking. fucking is good. I’m not looking for a better mask of these things. maybe I’m looking for a de-emphasis. a shirking from the sensationalism. maybe a shrinking from the seriousness.
post citizenship, how are we going to re-inhabit our lives? when we realize that self-government isn’t possible, nor is it desirable? how do we deal with the fact that we elect and are ruled by a bunch of bastards, and how do we work backwards to supplant the power they’ve amassed? it starts by ignoring them completely, and ignoring the words and phrases and language they use. dis-engage. and start fucking with them. if we’ve got a big bowl of shit to eat, there’s nothing wrong with a little food fight.
it seems a worthy goal, doesn’t it?
update!: FMG: In discussing developments in the black-studies and women’s-studies movements, you have criticized the concept that “The personal is political.”
EG: It’s a fascist and a Stalinist slogan.
I wish Congress would stimulate my crotch.
my `rents bought their own home in 1987 for $220k in Nashua, NH. ten years later, two mortgages and Catholic schools later, they (we) moved due to a relo- in the runup to the DEC-Compaq-HP Transformers!-less-than-meets-the-eyes fiasco, for $170k. or maybe it was $180k and $140k, I forget. it wasn’t pretty.
this was twelve years ago.
fucking eat shit America. put whipped cream on it and fucking eat it. go on, it won’t hurt ya.
this ain’t very hard folks. the story reads like a failed exchange in the Sopranos, with LA as Tony.
this reads like a Bush Administration press release:
“Lance is the most tested athlete in sports history and he is certainly the most tested cyclist in the world since his return to the sport last year evidenced by no fewer than 16 unannounced out-of-competition tests since August all over the world. We will continue to do everything we can do to ensure transparency and honesty in his testing results.”
what? so we understand that people are gunning for him, which must totally suck. it is likely harder for him to do any sort of doping at all than for anyone else in the peloton. who can he trust? he’d be a pretty big fish to reel in.
maybe it’s part of his mental and emotional profile, and the stress and strain from being him and all that entails, but his Walter Sobchak moment here is a bit overwrought.
WAITRESS Could you please keep your voices down—this is a family restaurant.
WALTER Lady, I got buddies who died face- down in the muck so you and I could enjoy this family restaurant!
apparently the critic got his word in:
“You don’t have a patent on cancer. I’m interested in the cancer of doping in cycling. That has been my life’s work! I raced as a professional and I exposed it. Then you come along and the problem disappears.”
how you handle criticism speaks volumes about how you handle yourself as a person, let alone as a leader. non-sequitor’s can be funny. that was nasty. I guess I’d want him on my side, but I mean, at what price?
I would argue that underneath its libertine surface and despite paying lip service to feminist issues, The L Word is a Republican show, and that is why it feels so jarring these days.
First, the entire show feels like a gated community: Let’s live among people who are identical to ourselves and shut out all the others.
how many times I’ve listened to my more, um, “progressive” friends, yearning for, or relieved that they’ve finally found, the right group of “like-minded” folks with which to hang around, work with, or befriend. as if all their other relationships were false, less real, or imperfect.
spare me.
h / t
since when should nominally anti-materialist, um, anyone’s be giving advice on what materials people should and should not use? “sustainability” right now is all about command and control. do this, not this. use this, not that. it’s about value judgment, not, and not really about the materials being used. those engaged in the rhetoric and movement, are really ahistorical and not at all intellectually interested in the philosophical underpinnings of their cant. it’s really a shame if you ask me. I’m by no means a materialist. things are just things.
if you really wanted to keep carbon from the atmosphere you’d figure out a better way to scrub it from the air – if you were really interested in the carbon. but yer not, and you should recognize it.
Libertarianism isn’t really a philosophy that repudiates coercion. Libertarians believe in government, albeit government strictly curtailed and circumscribed. (Question: by whom? For how long?) Obviously their outlook owes much to classical liberalism. But why is it obvious that securing private property rights is within the legitimate purview of state responsibility, whereas, say, guaranteeing gender equity in the workplace is not? Well, you say, the former is far less intrusive. Preventing the expropriation of property through theft or intimidation is a much less subjective matter than determining what constitutes gender fairness. Is it?
Libertarians believe in a justice system, albeit a limited one. (Limited by whom? For how long?) Defining murder is easier than defining securities fraud. Outlawing armed robbery is different from regulating a stock market. How much easier? How different?
Once you begin to justify a state, the line between what is and isn’t in its compelling interest blur. Establishing some entity, some agency, whose purpose is to establish and maintain a base-level social order for the provision, at least pursuit, of general welfare and prosperity (personal or otherwise) is social engineering. Why not just advocate for anarchy? Why not advocate for a system in which no third-party collective, no state entity, has coercive authority over anyone.
Well, you say, then someone will just gather up a gang and establish a . . .
Which may be true. But if that’s the case, what’s the bright distinction between chartering a gang and knuckling under to one?
I was at the back yesterday picking my way through the 20something “phenoms” or whatever, and after seeing a line of them completely fuck up the line, and after having painfully ridden around with them the day before, while watching them do the same stupid thing, I yelled “you didn’t learn a goddamn thing yesterday, didja boys?” then I passed them.
you would figure that after all those B race scrums, that you get to a USGP A race, and people should know how to commit to a line and ride it for what its worth! but noooo, Ben Turner or whoever has to go and recruit “potential” Todd Wells and throw them in the A race, with no mud skills that I could detect. it got my fire started, let me tell you.
Too. . .Whatever, an Ode to Racing (A)
warmup ride sweat dissolves
mid week bravery that
had strengthened ones resolve
yet again hesitance finds its match
once more the elastic snaps
this week shorter than the last
still, flashes of what lacks
shine through, beckoning past
daylight wanes as last lap ends
cheers once vivid return shadows cast
will he see me just `round the bend?
I’ll show him who laughs last
next week is bright, so I say
til Tuesday calls and begs again
I promise this week from today
I’ll get farther from the end.
I was out this morning when the recycling vehicle came by. Philly went to single-stream awhile back, and I had not had the chance to read up on it or take a look at the process.
Potential disadvantages of single stream recycling may include:
Initial capital cost for:
new carts,
Different collection vehicles,
Upgrading of processing facility
Education of residents;
Processing costs may increase compared to multiple stream systems
Possible reduced commodity prices due to contamination of paper;
Increased “downcycling” of paper, i.e., use of high quality fibers for low-end uses like boxboard due to presence of contaminants;
Possible increase in residual rates after processing (due chiefly to increased breakage of glass)
Potential for diminished public confidence if more recyclables are destined for landfill disposal due to contamination or unmarketability.
well it (at least looks) was worse than I thought. it’s basically an old garbage truck (with compressor) that has some new stickers on it. everything gets loaded into into the can (back of the truck) and compressed. paper, cans, plastic, glass, tin. . .everything. how on earth is this stuff getting separated and passed on to the right handlers? how is this easier to process? multiple stream, from what I recall of my undergraduate course in Waste Management, still requires separation and plastic number checking at processing. caps need to be taken off, residue needs to be removed. these are important to the quality of the materials being recycled. how on earth is any of it useful if it’s crushed into one big mess in the back of the truck?
I think Philly is putting one over on its residents.
update: I could also be wrong.
double update: of course, Tierney’s right:
In cases where recycling truly does save resources, such as with large scraps of aluminum, this will be reflected in market prices, and voluntary recycling will take place. Thus, there is no need for the government to mandate it.
Tree farmers plant more trees than they cut down.
Government mandated recycling is more expensive than putting the garbage into landfills, which means that this recycling uses up more resources than it saves.
Some small towns with landfills are happy to import garbage from other cities and states because it provides jobs and tax revenue.
Today’s modern landfills are much cleaner and safer, and much less likely to leak and pollute than the landfills of the past.
Regarding the claim that the U.S. is running out of landfill space, Tierney wrote, “A. Clark Wiseman, an economist at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash., has calculated that if Americans keep generating garbage at current rates for 1,000 years, and if all their garbage is put in a landfill 100 yards deep, by the year 3000 this national garbage heap will fill a square piece of land 35 miles on each side. This doesn’t seem a huge imposition in a country the size of America. The garbage would occupy only 5 percent of the area needed for the national array of solar panels proposed by environmentalists. The millennial landfill would fit on one-tenth of 1 percent of the range land now available for grazing in the continental United States. And if it still pains you to think of depriving posterity of that 35-mile square, remember that the loss will be only temporary. Eventually, like previous landfills, the mounds of trash will be covered with grass and become a minuscule addition to the nation’s 150,000 square miles of parkland.”
thoughts to come, I suppose.
We think it’s difficult enough to just live much less gain
Well I put my two bucks on the table just like the sign says
Proceeded to ask God to give me one good reason why we shouldn’t perish
She says it’s careless since we are, unstable as we seem
Selected few of y’all have found something to cherish
I countered that, maybe just to be argumentitve, I don’t know
But I was like yo, can’t we spare the ones that are worth it?
She was like NO, I need the comparisons
I think she could tell by the way I responded that I’m getting a little nervous
So I went far left and just said thank you
Thank you for the time, for the mind
For the breath, for the flesh
Thank you for the quest, thank you for the vision
This vision that spawns anxiety trying to see
and feel why I’m living
Time is money, every moment is costly
So I ration emotion because existence exhausts me
Oddly enough, I’m happy I ain’t famous
Imagine waking up to the fact that you’re simply entertainment
I bet god thinks you’re amusing