Moo Moo Camus "None dare call it COWardice!"

2011-03-03T19:33:00.001-08:00

If Only Fido Would Talk

2011-02-09T15:06:00.001-08:00

The dog is waiting, always waiting, interminably waiting for something. Head slung low, like a cow’s belly, sad and slow, loitering eyes. I think he knows which one of us will die first. Don’t ask me how, he just knows. It’s a doggie secret.

He doesn’t want to confess.

Violin

2010-01-14T05:45:00.001-08:00

She had given up playing the violin, even though she loved the instrument's taut strings and the drunken, scratchy timbre of her childhood notes. Why, she now wondered, 40 years later, did I ever listen to him?

Her father had said, "Girls don't play the violin." He then stiffly walked out, as if departing a failed business meeting.

What did he know about 'girls'? What did he know about music?

Lost His Shirt

2009-12-05T13:37:00.000-08:00

My car’s headlights pierce twin tunnels into the night’s remote darkness, as the rain stabs down, its bright pins glittering towards God’s paved earth. Nothing ahead, but two-lane tarmac interrupted by a white center line, and the promise of heavy weather for hours to come.

Suddenly, the beams sweep a half-naked man, shirtless, running at the side of this country road. As I approach him, I slow down, but he doesn’t look up, he doesn’t pause, he just keeps running---towards or away, it’s impossible to say.

I ease past him, and a half mile later, I glimpse a white Ford empty as an abandoned house readied for demolition, tilted on side of the road. Windows rolled down, rain pouring in, no telling how much has been lost, or just who managed to escape

Bone To Pick

2009-11-29T10:22:00.000-08:00

Write it down. Don't worry if it's art. Write it down. Just write it down.

She left. She left again. Walked out. She was always leaving. She WAS her leaving. Her leaving is who she is.

How could he fall in love with someone who wasn't there? It was easy. People do it all the time. They fall in love with people who are absent. They fall in love with people on their way out. It happens every day.

She simply left. Said it was too much to love him. Too intense. Buried alive. Lights on in a small casket. The sound of shovels digging in earth, then the methodical thump of shovelsfull of earth on the casket. The lights on, and the sound of her own breathing. That's what she said. Until the breathing and the methodical thumps of the tossed earth were synchronized. Said she couldn't tell the difference between respiration and burial. Breathing felt like suffocation. Breathing was burial. That's why she was leaving.

Love doesn't matter. Not really. Other things matter. Hunger, honor, saving lives, creating a just world. Those things matter. Not love.

Wished she had stayed one more day, though.

Had one more bone I wanted to pick with her.

“SEND”

2009-11-23T13:02:00.000-08:00

Yes, it’s true, she’d written the ‘poison pen’ e-mail, but she intended to obey the cardinal rule of e-mail: DON’T’ SEND death threats, confessions, flaming attacks, or love letters for complete strangers, until you WAIT for 24 HOURS and carefully consider all of the consequences, all the ramifications.

ALWAYS WAIT 24 HOURS!

She hated her boss—that arrogant mother @#^%#!, and she had the dirt that she knew would ruin his reputation--- with his employer AND with his wife.

Fuming, she sat at her keyboard and tapped out the most scathing expose a former English major could muster, filled with devastating accusations and undeniable evidence.

She knew he would squirm, he would grovel—she relished the imagined red-in-tooth-and-claw image that paraded across her mind’s eye.

Suddenly the phone rang, startled her like an electrocution, and without a thought, she hit “send.”

Never Married

2009-11-22T06:34:00.002-08:00

Why do we see the world through our eyes only? We are composed of chemicals and water and we’re animated by electrical charges. But why do we have this particular perspective? Why is the body the ground of everything that we know?

Standing there, dressed in his sky blue pajamas, Bob looked down at this feet and slowly began to scan upwards. Legs, abdomen, chest…that’s as far as he could see. He couldn’t see his own face without a mirror.

Maybe this isn’t me after all? Maybe it is another person, and my consciousness has blossomed inside their body? Maybe those aren’t my feet or legs? Maybe that’s not my heart inside this chest?

He became hungry, but now he wasn’t trusting his, or what he thought was his, experience. Nonetheless, he opened the refrigerator and took out a small container of yogurt. Plain yogurt, the color of a white ceiling. He dipped a spoon in, and then raised it to his mouth.

I hate yogurt. But I have eaten yogurt for breakfast now, for 45 years. It’s a habit. Why do I have habits that I don’t even like? Voluntary habit that I don’t like. He paused for a moment and considered that maybe he wasn’t himself, but rather, he was someone else. Someone who liked yogurt.

His wife was gone. She had risen, and left early for a business trip. He had discovered that his bed was empty when he arose. There had been only one body in it. It was his.

I like sleeping alone. I like the way the bed is all mine. Lots of room. No other body to nudge away when I feel crowded. No one else to steal the sheets and leave me in the cold.

He walked back from the kitchen and into the bedroom and sat on the unmade bed. It seemed large, even for a king-sized bed. The sheets strewn about, looked like pale ruts embossed in an impressionable cotton road. He continued to occasionally spoon yogurt into his hungry mouth.

I hate yogurt.

He looked out the bedroom window, which itself looked out on a stand of oaks and maples. The trees were silent and waiting for a change in the weather. They were sleeping. Each tree sleeping alone. Their bark was beautiful skin. Thick and old and rough textured. It was hard to imagine that their skin was theirs, and theirs, only. Who could imagine that the trees belonged only to themselves?

He phoned his wife. But there was no answer.

Funny, he thought, I wonder why I never married?

Bone to Pick

2009-11-21T06:30:00.001-08:00

Almost Lucky

2009-11-19T13:02:00.001-08:00

From the 13th floor window of the Beverly Wilshire hotel, he watched as the late afternoon smog settled over LA, like clay-white concrete; air so thick it was impossible to imagine that it wouldn’t crush the hearts of everyone caught beneath its mass. Why, he wondered, do we learn the most from the things we shouldn’t do?

Turning now, from the window, and surveying the graying room, he could see that she looked so beautiful as she lie there, asleep, her breathing nearly undetectable, skin white and gleaming, delicate porcelain. That tiny scar neatly drawn across her right wrist, like a seam on a doll’s arm, should have been a clue.

How had he managed to find a woman who was as elegantly damaged as she? Throughout his entire life, he'd always been almost lucky.

Identity Earthquake In Time

2009-11-18T17:43:00.001-08:00

I am an old guy, right? Yes. I am an old guy. Who would have ever thought that I would get to the point where I would say that I'm and old guy? Not this old old guy. At least not until recently. So, anyway, today I was trying to remember what I was like in high school. (Calvin Trillin once wrote something about we are always the same people we were in high school. What and awful thought Calvin! Cruel and awful.) So there I am today, minding my own business and cogitating, or maybe "contemplating" about who I was, or who I used to be, in high school. But then I thought, I don't have the foggiest idea of who I am now, so how am I going to remember who I was then?' (This identity thing is harder than I had hoped it would be.) Jeez, how am ever going to remember who I was? I went to high school in another century. Yes, another century. Thank God it was a contiguous century with this one, and not a century so far away in time that it isn't even part of the continent of this century. That would be like Hawaii's relationship to the U.S. mainland. If Hawaii was the nineteenth century, it would be an island, and there would be an ocean between it and now--a kind of Pacific Ocean of time. The 20th century. No, the century in which I went to high school is more like California. It's loosely configured, but at least it is attached to the mainland. Loosely attached. I went to school in California at a time that was loosely connected to this century, but only very loosely. It was a long time ago. And there was a fault line running through it.

I remember the earthquake like it was yesterday. Only it wasn't exactly yesterday. It was when I was in high school. Which, I can assure you, wasn't yesterday. The buildings shook and shimmied, and everyone said "Oh oh, this is the BIG ONE." And for all they knew at the time, it WAS the big one. Only it wasn't. It wasn't the BIG ONE. Because I am here to tell you that it wasn't the BIG ONE. But it WAS a long time ago. I went to high school in California. In another century. I wish I could remember who I was then. But I can't. I hope I was brave. I like to think I was. I like to think I wasn't afraid of earthquakes or time. I like to think I was young and fearless. And handsome. Yes, handsome. I like to think that, because it makes me fell better about being old and ummmm, a little less than handsome, now. And no longer brave. Yes, I'm sure back then, I was young and fearless and handsome. Even if it was a long time ago.

I wish I could remember who I was then.

And now.

Pig Fish

2008-11-13T12:00:00.000-08:00

He hated fish. He hated fish ever since that day in the third grade, when he had been bitten by a fish. It had been at the aquarium. He put his hand in one of the tanks that were designed for children . Children were encouraged to touch and feel the sand dollars and the little horseshoe crabs. It was educational. At one end of the tank however, there were two piranha, but no one told the children. So he was there with his mom, and when he put his hand in the tank, of course the fish saw an opportunity to remove some fingers. Luckily only three.

When he returned from the hospital and went back to school the following week, the kids in his class had heard of his loss. Instead of kindness however, they offered only merciless taunting. They called him “Captain Hook,” and “Claw Boy”. Children can be quite cruel. One called him “Fish Hand” Another “Piranha Breath.”

He was a forgiving child, though. When he grew up, he refused to eat fish. Of any kind. But he did enjoy occasionally dining on pigs’ knuckles.

On Democracy

2007-09-06T18:22:00.000-07:00

I’m currently reading a book called First Democracy: the Challenge of an Ancient Idea, by a guy named Paul Woodruff, about Athenian democracy. This is a popular little book, very accessible, and it discusses the components of Athens’ democracy. I have learned about the features that are often paraded as democracy in our contemporary world, but which, in and of themselves, do not constitute democracy. Each alone, would not have made Athenian democrats very satisfied. Woodruff points out that democracy is not just majority rule (what about the rights of minorities?) and it is not just voting (some tyrants require voting in elections in which there are no opposition candidates.)
Democracy requires a number of features, including the rule of law, a belief in the natural equality of citizens, the ability of the citizens to reason without having certain knowledge, and a harmony among equals. Athenian democracy, was a big experiment that was never completed and perpetually struggled with. It seems that it was made possible, in part, because of the scale of the society, (about 30-40,000 citizens which excluded of course, slaves and women.) It was an extremely active phenomenon. It happened, in part, because Athens was very prosperous, financed by a slave economy and an expanding empire. And it gave, via a series of reforms and class compromises over a period of about 200 years, unprecedented political power to the poor (farmers and “peasants’). It was an unusual thing—far from perfect, but an incredible, if blemished, achievement.

Perhaps one of the most notable things about Athenian democracy was the composition of representative institutions through lotteries (vs. elections). Legislative bodies and courts were selected by lot. Even the Assembly, the major governing body, was composed in a rather haphazard way; the first 6000 men to arrive at the Pnyx, a hillside near the Acropolis, became the legislature for the day. If 6000 failed to show up, the Athenians did a sweep of the local public spaces with a red rope, and literally rounded up more citizens to participate in the Assembly.

What would happen if membership in most of American institutions were to be chosen by lot from the general population? (One can easily see how education must be an essential part of democracy.) If this were the case, I suspect that we would quickly become interested in the human development and well being of our neighbors, who might at any time become our judges, legislators, and constables. And I suspect that we would be more interested in equality among citizens. Even Plato, who was certainly no democrat recognized the liabilities of inequality “Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one the city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another." (The Republic)

Although it is good book, and I recommend it, I don’t think that the Wooddruff book is as good as one I read a while ago, and which I may have previously written to you about, called Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory: Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle in Social Context by Ellen Meiksins- Wood and Neal Wood. (Sadly, this book may be out of print.) The goal of Class Ideology… is to show that ‘the greats’ in Western Philosophy, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, were not just ethereal abstract truth-seekers exclusively interested in the good, the true, and the beautiful, but were historically embed individuals writing under the political conditions and concerns of their day. The authors argue that a common ideology inspires these guys, and that although their writings cannot be reduced to a crude apologetics for their class (there are trans-historical insights to be gleaned from their writings) these philosophers were, nonetheless, united by a loyalty to the values, attitudes, and way of life of a an increasingly besieged (by democratic forces and reforms) landed aristocracy. “In a significant way, the political thought of the Socratics can be conceived as a supreme expression of the increasing class consciousness of the aristocracy during the fourth century (BC), a consciousness that seemed to become more pronounced as the class was progressively threatened with extinction.”

I find interesting about Class Ideology and Ancient Political Theory, not just the analysis of the way that the philosophical idealism of Socrates and his inheritors (Plato and Aristotle) offered transcendence, justification, and solace to the anti-democratic, agrarian, Athenian landed aristocracy of the 4th and 5th century BC, but that the authors also show that the historical struggle for Athenian democracy was a struggle against the power of aristocratic elites whose rule was grounded in ties of kinship (blood lineage) and hereditary property. In short, the progress of democratization in Athens, in which the middling classes (artisans, traders, peasants, and propertyless workers) began to wrest some power vis a vis the ruling aristocrats (in a struggle that in fact, created the very institution of “politics” with its corresponding notion of “citizenship”) was a prolonged historical struggle, spanning a couple of centuries, requiring the erosion of the traditional power and customary rule of strong men, wealthy families, and inherited power.—all of which dominated “Homeric society.” Moreover, the rule of powerful families and inherited wealth had been rooted in the “okios,” the household, while the power of the people, in democracy, required the invention of public, commonly held, institutions that transcended the household, the clan, and the tribe. It is not just that democracy is a kind of politics, but democracy is the force that creates politics, and the political sphere. Before democratization there were no ‘politics,’ per se. There were only private courts run by the wealthy and the priestly. Tribal law prevailed. It was an eye-for-and-eye-society. But with democratic reforms, (and the concomitant growth of differentiation and conflict) Athens begins to create a political society, in which there is a world beyond that of the private lordly household, a world where justice is meted out by civic institutions, rather than appeals to wealthy ‘protectors.’ The polis is that place where public power and the possibility of civic justice is born.

Long Live Antonioni

2007-07-31T13:58:00.000-07:00

Nice Cape

2007-03-01T13:37:00.000-08:00

Cold and Boring--Thank You Mr.T.S. Eliot for the Weather Report

2007-02-22T10:21:00.000-08:00

It's funny how life can become so filled-up and busy, and yet, in the eye of the hurricane, it's so damn boring. What, after all, is boredom. Is it under-stimulation or too much stimulation and overload? (No I think that's being "punch drunk"). I don't really know. I think the existentialists wrote about it, but I cut class when they were being taught.

I have no right to be bored. But what can you do? It just happens.

It is also so cold and icy here. Its about 2 degrees. The weather is the "objective correlative."

Here's what TS Eliot said about the uses of an objective correlative:

"The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.''

It's cold and boring here.

Yawn

Prototype Moo Moo Mobile

2007-02-18T12:36:00.000-08:00

Who said the Edsel was not a good Idea? Pictured here is the prototype Moo Moo Mobile. This is the 1934 model, which was designed by one Mr. Geddes. Note that the designer held much stock in tire manufacturing companies. Very Smooth, Mr. Geddes!

Everything is Fine

2007-02-18T12:22:00.000-08:00

Shame on you! You know who you are! You have been leading your life without a thought of Moo Moo Camus. Yes, I know. (Not much escapes us here at MMC.) You've been going about your daily business, probably making money, driving your car to and from the grocery store, humming to yourself, and when no one is looking, even snatching a quick glance in the mirror to see if you've gotten, miraculously, any younger. I can assure you these are all understandable, even worthy, pursuits (except for the last, which is, of course, entirely futile.) But don't you think you should check in on Moo Moo Camus once in a while, just to see how everything is going?

OK now that you are here. Here's the 'down low': Everything is going unbelievably well. So you can go home now, back to your everyday life, happy in the knowledge that MOO MOO CAMUS is thriving. Thank you very much for visiting. And check back soon, for more good news.

The Asymmetrical-Distribution-of-Fun-Over-a-Lifetime Theory

2007-02-18T12:12:00.001-08:00

So, I figure that I spend about a quarter of my waking time either doing the laundry or folding the laundry. This, and walking the dog, or letting the dog out so he can write his “autograph” on nature. Life is largely composed of some pretty mundane events. Picking up the kid from school. Taking the Kid to guitar lessons. Taking the Kid to Dance lessons. Walking the dog. Moving items from point A to point B around the house, so that the forces of chaos and darkness do not completely overwhelm home and hearth. We only get so many years on this astonishing planet, and what do we do with ¾ of them? Laundry and chauffeuring! Which leaves much too little time for drinking and appreciating art. I have a theory of this sorry state of affairs. I call it the “Asymmetrical-Distribution-of-Fun-Over-a-Lifetime” theory. Viz. Fun is not evenly distributed throughout our lives. Au contraire, it's unequally distributed, over time. We do not get to have, for example, the same amount of fun each year. Oh no, fun is unevenly distributed, a little bit like WEALTH in the US. (One percent of the population owns 37% of the total wealth. The next 5% own 25% of all wealth. Etc. Etc.) Fun is just like wealth. Most of the fun I was slated to have, occurred in 1974 and 1983, (Oh and that time in high schools in 1968.) Those were huge fun years. The other years are just deficit fun years. Whopee!

Go Forth and Multiply (and Divide)

2007-02-12T18:40:00.000-08:00

Ok. It's been a long time since my last post. Dear readers, lest you become demoralized without the guidance and observations offered by Moomoocamus, let's review some important lessons and insights, as these have been recenlty approved by the editorial board. To wit:

1: Should we humanize the economy, or economize the humans? You be the judge.
2: The shortest distance between two points is a crooked line. As the COW flys, anyway.
3. What profitith a man if he wins the world and looses this his shoehorn?
4. Remember, the squeaky wheel gets the shaft.
5. All is fair in love and capitalism.
6 The source of all wealth is labor.
7. "The rich man can afford the luxury of accepting a fair gamble." Brian Berry, Theories of Justice 1989 p.14
And last, but far from least,
8. Most of life is just "cutting and pasting."

Well, that's it for now. Don't say we here at Moomoocamus didn't warn you.

Go forth and divide.

Wannabe Former Has-Been

2007-02-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

Great Word!

2007-01-30T13:46:00.000-08:00

ostrobogulous

1. (humorous) Slightly risqué or indecent; bizarre, interesting, or unusual.

2007-01-27T11:59:00.000-08:00

Oh those crazy scientists! What will they think of Next?

"Libido Meter" May Be First True Sexual-Arousal Gauge”

Click on the Link Button Below, to Read all About it.

Better Than the Real Thing

2007-01-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Not a Pretty Picture

2007-01-20T11:03:00.000-08:00

Nice Shirt & Blues Brother Gangster

2007-01-20T06:25:00.000-08:00

Moo Moo Monet--Sun Glasses and Un-glasses

2007-01-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

Quote of the Day

2007-01-03T11:10:00.001-08:00

Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.

— Albert Einstein

Happy New Year, Humphrey Bogart

2007-01-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind. "- Humphrey Bogart

Happy Holidays from Moo

2006-12-21T08:28:00.000-08:00

MMC has not made an entry for quite some time. You, dear reader/viewer/cybernaut, have probably been wondering, "Will Western Civilization continue in the absence of the pithy observations by Moo Moo Camus?" Your inner voice quickly responded, " Sure, No Sweat!"

Of course when Ghandi was asked what he thought of Western Civilization, he replied, "I think it would be a good idea."

Alas, the season of mass consumption, or more accurately, even more mass consumption is upon us, and the hospitals are filled with overdosed shoppers and depressed in-laws who, despite their wildest dreams of lavish gifts, received only a new tie or knit socks.

But Fret not.

Santa is Dead.

Long live Santa!

Winner of Moo Moo Camus Caption Contest #2

2006-11-19T19:17:00.000-08:00

Bush to Putin: "Did you have to give a, you know, a 'sample' too?"

Pneumonia in August

2006-08-31T06:01:00.000-07:00

Just returned from 8 days in sunny California. Ahh, the sun, the surf, the wall-to-wall built environment. Nothing quite like it "under the sun"!

The day after our return, MMC finds himself in the Emergency Room. 103 Temp and shakes like a withdrawing heroine addict. Not good.

So what's the diagnosis?

Pneumonia.

Ahh, nothing like Pneumonia in August.

I now feel like my body is like one of those old fashioned deep diving suits with the metal helmets. Thick and creaky and barely able to move. Additionally, it's astonishing how many varieties of discomfort and pain our bodies of capable of producing. If I wasn't so darn uncomfortable, it would be interesting to enumerate all the ways that I feel bad. It feels like a kind of symphony of aches and groans and pains.

Glub, Glub, Glub

A Matter of Trust--The Beginning of a Story

2006-08-17T15:05:00.000-07:00

Karen had been driving nearly all night, with the heater turned way up. She’d forgotten how cold the desert could be at this time of year. The smell of Yucca, Saguaro, and Sage pushed in through the dashboard vents. In the back seat, her small suitcase, pile of manila file folders, and tiny black PDA, slumped over in a mound, like an unconscious body. Whenever she left like this, which was only every few years, or so, she found that she had to remind herself of the route west. The turns seemed foreign, almost the reverse of the way they should be, and the Interstate looked different than she remembered, as she passed strip malls and fast food palaces that, the last time she fled this way, had not yet blossomed in the flat vacant terrain, where no one really wanted to live. She found herself clenching her teeth, locked in some inner debate that seemed simultaneously important and trivial, “Was it a mirage or was it a delusion?” She grew more irritated with herself, “What difference did it make, now?”

The car headlights illuminated the white lines that stretched out ahead. The lines were intended to keep the vehicles and their occupants in their designated places. But now, in the early morning cold, just a few minutes before dawn, there were no other cars, no other drivers. Nothing on either side of her, but the blur of desert brush. Nothing behind, but the first half-glow of dawn. Nothing ahead, but some kind of future.

At their apartment, Rory was dreaming he was awake. The sunlight filtered in through the cheap drapes and he had the same recurring feeling he had every morning. Slight disappointment with a trace of regret. He was once again back in the unfamiliar routine that was his life. As if he belonged somewhere else. Same thing, every day. How could it be light so soon? He rolled over and pulled the blanket over his shoulders and wondered why the air felt so cold. Just then, the smell of burnt toast drifted in from the kitchen and seared his nostrils. He let out a sigh and was annoyed at her for being careless again. Why did it bother him? He tried to call out to her but the effort was too much. Why couldn't he find his voice? He thought he heard water running, but his mind couldn't focus on what was happening. Something didn't feel right. His thoughts dulled over and he felt his mind slip over the dark void into deep sleep when he suddenly jerked awake. The room was brightly lit and he had trouble opening his eyes, like someone had ground sand into them and added lead to his eyelids. Eyelids, he thought to himself. Stupid. It hurt to squint at the clock. 2:00 a.m. Shit. He'd fallen asleep with the light on. Again. The window was wide open. That was odd. He leaned over to reach for Karen at the same time he glanced over, but she wasn't there. Frowning, he tried to put the pieces of last night together...but nothing came. He tried to pull himself more awake. Then came a sinking feeling, a gnawing grip at his stomach that got stronger. A wave of disgust that preceded what he dreaded to remember. He instantly tried to suppress the thought, but that made him instantly clear headed and wide awake, unable to fend off the memory of last night.

“My God, Karen, what took you so long? We had just about given you up for dead. I mean…” Her sister’s voice hesitated for a moment. “You know what I mean,” she looked both embarrassed and annoyed.

Whitney stood in the blanched, cement driveway of her home. The sun was warm and the Valley air was already smoggy, well before noon. Although a year and one-half older, her sister looked like her twin, but in the two years since the sisters had seen one another, Whitney seemed thicker, everywhere, like the retraced outline of a child’s crayon drawing.

Karen slid out of the car’s front seat, and the two sister’s perfunctorily embraced for second, a bit like a shrug of the shoulders. Karen opened the driver’s side rear door of her car, as her sister stood to one side, waiting for her to unload her belongings from the back seat.

“We got your e-mail four days ago. I thought you’d be here by Tuesday. You didn’t call. I thought maybe you had an accident.” Whitney seemed more put-off than alarmed.

“I did,” muttered Karen, half-smiling and hoping her sister would get the sarcasm that she never seemed to fully appreciate.” She must have understood this time, because Whitney didn’t inquire any further.

The two sisters walked to the imposing front door, and into the house. Whitney’s kid’s were at school and the place looked astonishingly neat for the home of two elementary-aged children. Karen noticed that the walls had been newly painted a faint peach color that was now thought to mean sleekness and enlightenment in the post-modern suburbs, where her sister had come to rest after a tumultuous decade of trying to succeed as an actress in an unyielding and unwelcoming Hollywood. Multiple parental loans, an occasional appearance in locally shot TV commercials, and periodic parts in community theaters, had dimmed her Vassar-acquired expectations for the dramatic arts in contemporary America.

Her husband, Jack, was gone; at work in one of the exurban financial brokerage companies that helped retirees and well-heeled suburbanites shuttle their money into Eastern establishment, WASPy sounding mutual funds, based in the Bahamas. Karen was relieved that Jack was gone, although in a small, furtive way, barely conscious to her, she always looked forward to seeing him.

Karen dropped her luggage in the hall, and the two sisters settled into the cool air- conditioned light of the house’s large kitchen.

“So what did he do this time?” Whitney asked. “Did he hurt you?”

“No… I mean, yes, but not that way.” Karen set her coffee mug down on the chrome and glass kitchen table. She was dressed in an elegant gray business suit that much belied the swiftness of her flight and the disheveled origins of that first night of escape. Her straight dark hair offset her blue eyes. “He’s too smart to be violent, at least towards me. No, it’s about the money, ‘our’ money. Shit, all of it is gone. Gone.”

“How much was it?” Whitney asked.

“More than Jack will make in ten year’s of trading,” Karen said with a slightly indignant sneer at her sister’s question.

“Where, for God’s sake, did Rory get that kind of cash?”

“Look, you know what he does. He’s paid very well for his work, if you want to call it ‘work’.

Just then, Karen’s cell phone chirped. She paused, reached into her gray suit coat. She knew who it was without looking at the screen. She decided that enough time had passed since her escape—and anyway, Rory knew exactly where she would be. She answered the phone with a curt, “Yes.”

Rory’s voice sounded …….

©B. Rose 2006

Treatment -- Working Draft

2006-08-16T15:09:00.000-07:00

The Story

Karen leaves Rory, because Rory has committed some unforgivable sin. On the surface, its appears to be about money, but it is deeper than that. Maybe? He betrays something, maybe a promise that he made to a corporate boss. A promise not to tell something, or to use some information. Now, the boss is after Rory, but its bigger than the boss, too. The boss is just the first and closest level. Rory has sinned against some corporate code of silence--maybe he's a kind of whistle blower or a spy. (Whatever he is, he is inept) Anyway, Karen is tough and sleek, and when she learns that Rory has made a fatal mistake and ruined any chances that they may have had together for a normal life, she decides to leave. Quick. Where does she go? To her sister. Why? Because she really is in love with her brother-in-law, or at least once was. (Haven't figured out that part of the story yet, but I like the twist.) Before her sister got married, Karen and (Jack) had some kind of affair. Later, Jack gets an MBA, Karen goes to Europe for art school--they grow apart. Karen, a few years later, meets Rory. Rory's handsome, has some talent, appears to have the makings of a future in the art world, and most importantly, is relatively harmless. Karen is unable to get her own art career going, so she marries him---hoping that she will be happy as a wife of a struggling artist. They move to New Mexico. Santa Fe. Of course Rory is unable to make it, so eventually, he goes to work for the Really Big Corporation (RBC) and is able, over a few years, to make it at a low level career working on a secret project that RBC is hatching to make a billion dollars. Anyway, Rory gets a brilliant idea: he thinks he can make his own billion, if he sells or tells the secret of RBC's secret project. But Rory isn't too bright. He sells/betrays the secret project to someone--the wrong person-- that, in turn, rats on him to RBC (Why??? disappointment, incomplete information??) Rory is now up the creek. He has no money, he's being hunted (by thugs hired by RBC), his wife leaves him. He's at rock bottom. (That's when we meet him in the opening paragraph.)

Karen can't stay long with her sister, Whitney. They don’t like each other, really. And it’s way too tense, too much sexual energy between Karen and Jack. Moreover, Whitney knows that Karen has a thing for Jack, even though she doesn’t have the complete story—she just senses it. (Karen has never told Whitney about her affair with Jack. Neither has Jack told Whitney.)

Karen is the key character.

Karen decides that she will have to make a living on her own. What will she do? Karen leaves her sister's house and sets up living somewhere in LA. Somewhere cheesy and low-brow. Jack surreptitiously connects her to some friends and a job. (Jack has to do this on the sly, or Whitney will leave him too.) He acts out of loyalty to their now long-ago romance. He has a ember of a thing for Karen. Karen begins to work for some financial corporation (Later, it turns out, it’s a division of RBC, the company that is now out to kill her estranged husband).

Rory, although not too bright, has realized that he better get out of town. He goes “on the lamb” or “underground” or something. RBC thugs continue peruse him, but he stays just one step ahead. He’s lucky. At least for now.

Meanwhile, time passes—Karen gets up and goes to work, every day. It’s a hum drum life, but she’s got to make a living. The scenes cut back and forth between Karen’s hum drum, workaday existence, and Rory's flight to international locations (He goes first to Mexico, then somewhere else, far more obscure, to elude his pursuers. He is, of course, using their joint credit card, at least at first.) Eventually Rory ends up in some back water where he is safe for a while, or so he thinks. Somewhere in Africa, French Africa, where it is not entirely impossible for a white guy to stand out. (Or maybe South Africa—good location for surfing while making the movie. Though too many sharks in the water.)

Once in a while, Rory checks in with Karen. He calls her every couple of months. During those calls, Karen berates him for being stupid and thinking he could make money through a betrayal of RBC. She tells him that she’s sold his last painting of her. The one that Rory thought was so important and innovative.

Karen continues to work at RBC’s subdivision (Hereafter,” The Subdivision Corporation”) She manages to get ahead a bit, and starts working for their security division. (During this period, she sleeps with Jack a few times, but this doesn’t go anywhere—Jack actually loves Whitney, the kids, the Valley.) Eventually Karen stumbles onto Subdivision’s on-going plans to eliminate her husband. (Subdivision is really pissed. It turns out that Rory had got paid by Subdivision, but didn’t deliver the secret) OK. Karen hates her husband and thinks that he’s inept, but she doesn’t want to see him dead. So she waits for his next call from (somewhere in Africa) When they speak, she tells Rory that she knows what RBC is up to. She’s seen some of the plan to kill him. She has information that can save his life. At least some information. She wants to meet him. But where? Rory resists this idea at first, but he still loves Karen and is eager to reunite. He thinks he can restore himself to her good graces. Little does he know that Karen has become an employee of the Subdivision Corporation and that she has told Subdivision that she can help track down her husband. For a price! (Karen wants the money—she’s tough. No more living in an apartment in a one-bedroom in Palms for her!)

Eventually Karen travels to Africa for the rendezvous with Rory. She is, of course, accompanied, by a Subdivision hit man. (Does she know this?? Probably not.) She leads the hit man to Rory. She shows up at the appointed meeting place. The hit man follows her. (He’s African American, of course, he looks right at home in Africa) Rory and Karen meet. The hit man breaks in. What does Karen do? She wants the money, she needs the money. She wants a new life, and God knows it’s no fun to work for Subdivision . Additionally, she is afraid that if she doesn’t help Subdivision now, to eliminate Rory, the hit man, or some subsequent henchman from Subdivision , will “eliminate” her.

Rory is cute, but he’s incompetent. Besides, Karen still has a thing—however unrequited-- for Whitney’s husband, Jack. Plus she has big plans for that money she will receive from Subdivision. Maybe she'll beome an artist again. Karen once loved Roary, but does she love him enough now to risk her life, and to try to stop the hit man from “rubbing out” Rory? And what about the money? What will happen to her if she does prevent the hit? What will happen to her if she doesn’t?

The History of Night

2006-06-24T10:51:00.000-07:00

Cumulus closing
The ragged pupil of our sky.
The stars now curtained,
Their glittering throng interrupted.
Then, the wind levers open,
A small, perfect aperture.
We peer up, squinting
Into the glimmering past.
It’s light issued from
As far back
As we will ever know.

Ocean View in Kansas City

2006-06-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

I saw the Al Gore movie the other night (An Inconvenient Truth), and it looks like we may all be in a lot of hot sea water in a few years, with the tides rising, due to global warming. It is not entirely clear to me, but it looks like we should be setting our sites on buying some seaside, ocean front property for our retirement years, somewhere in the vicinity of Kansas City. I propose that we change the state's motto, which is now "ad astra per aspera" which is Latin for "To the stars through hardship" to something like, "Kansas, the other 'ocean state'".

My Consciousness, or Yours?

2006-05-20T07:49:00.000-07:00

One of the problems of being human is what I will term the problem of, ‘my consciousness,’ or ‘narcissistic consciousness.’ I suffer from this. Others may also. I haven’t noticed.

As a result of this malady, one thinks that what one thinks is really interesting and meaningful. (Why there is human subjectivity and individual consciousness at all, totally escapes me. Couldn’t the forces of nature, evolution, Zeus, dare I say, God, just as well have shaped living beings without consciousness—you know, kind of efficient bacteria, only prettier?? Gee, I guess it/they did! Just turn on any ‘reality’ TV show.) Anyway, I really think that what I really think is interesting—at least I experience it as interesting and novel. But is it?? Let’s review a bit of a day’s thinking---kind of a list of topics from my stream of consciousness, to see if it really is that interesting, shall we?)

OK. I get up and unload the dishwasher and feed the dog. I reflect that, on the one hand, life should be more that this. Emptying the dishwasher and feeding the dog are inane activities, but on the other hand, I at least have a dishwasher and dishes and a dog. These are good things. Right? While emptying the dishwasher and feeding the dog, I think to myself, “Must get kid to school. When will she be old enough to be self-regulating, so that I don’t have to tell her to brush her teeth before we leave? When will she just automatically go in there and brush her teeth without my prompting her to do so? Geez, she is almost old enough, I think, and she is growing up way too fast. Soon she will be 30 (in fact she is just 11) and I will be dead, or what’s worse, I will be living a life of lonely poverty, forgotten in some nursing home, tortured by my regrets about my life’s failures (including having a dog and emptying the dishwasher 439,786 times.) Back to the thought at hand. My daughter is growing up and I am going to die. Shit! Change course. Think happy and pleasant thoughts. Life is sweet, and ‘being,’ if one takes time to appreciate it, is a miraculous thing. Drive kid to school. Be nice to dog!”

On the way back from dropping the kid off at school, I stop at my hair cutters and get my haircut. I like my haircutter, she is very sweet and nice and she’s been cutting my hair for 15 years, and I like her. She’s Italian-American. She is also pregnant and is scheduled to have a baby in March. (OK, maybe she’s not exactly ‘scheduled.’) As she cuts my hair, I enquire about her health, the progress of the pregnancy, her plans…it’s all very pleasant chit chat. As I do this, however, I am thinking, variously, “When H was born I was old, but a lot younger than I am now. Was I 42? Chriisst. I was! Life is short. Mortality is inescapable. I will not live forever. Me, me, me, me, me. Death = no more me.” I notice myself thinking about life and death and the looming disaster of my own mortality. This is not good. By ‘not good,’ I mean both my thinking about my mortality, and the fact of my mortality are not good. It’s dreadful.

I drive home right after the hair cut. The haircut has taken about 3 minutes to complete because I don’t have much hair, much has fallen out---another sign of my mortality and impending demise. I think to myself, “I should get ready for a work meeting I have later today , but I have plenty of time. Relax. Why not just sit down for a few minutes and have some fun. Maybe visit the NY Times website, and maybe later write about my consciousness. But wait! I don’t have that much time. Time is short. Tempest Fugit. I don’t ’know Latin—although I studied it for two years in high school—I still don’t know any Latin—I’m terrible with languages—I should have learned Spanish. I should study Spanish, now. I should take piano lessons—why haven’t I learned how to play the piano? Time is running out. Maybe I won’t learn Latin before I expire. Or the piano. I am a failure. My life is nearly ending, and I am a failure.”

Wait a minute. Get a hold of yourself, Moo!

The Schmootie Song

2006-04-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

'Schmootie' is a lovely word
Tho, all too seldom is 'schmootie' heard
Schmootie by day and schmootie by dark
Schmootie in town, schmootie in the park
If ever I were asked to be king
At the coronation, the gathered would sing
Schmootie, schmootie, schmootie
Schmootie for oney and schmootie for twoie
Schmootie for me-ee and schmootie for youie.

Little House on the Prarie?

2006-04-09T18:02:00.000-07:00

The average American home grew from 983 square feet in 1950, to 2,349 square feet in 2004 -- a 140% increase. Yet the American household shrank by 18% between 1970 and 2003, from 3.14 people to 2.57, on average.

"Louie, Louie" Redux

2006-04-07T12:41:00.000-07:00

Thank the gods for the Kingsmen. Yes, the Kingsmen, popularizers, in 1963, of such unforgettable musical achievements as “Louie, Louie,” and “The Jolly Green Giant.” (They actually did a version of “Mustang Sally” and “Money --That’s What I Want--” too) These predecessors of today’s garage bands had few pretensions to greatness, but challenged, in their own unwitting way and only a few years after the witch hunts of McCarthy (see Good night and Good Luck), the cultural torpor of late 1950’s mid-America. Today, I find that this music also makes great laundry-folding background music, as I sort through the whites and the darks. (For some activities, one desperately needs something in the background.)

Apparently, “Louie, Louie,” was presumed by many to have objectionable (read, pornographic) lyrics and was, at one point, condemned by such defenders of air-wave decency as the Governor of Indiana, Matthew Welsh. (I recall that the kids in my 7^th grade class sure were convinced that the lyrics were “dirty”. Although it was a complete mystery to me how anyone knew what the Kingsmen were singing.) When the Federal Communications Commission conducted an investigation into the lyrics of “Louie, Louie,” they concluded that, “The record is unintelligible at any speed we played it.” This, I think, speaks volumes about, on the one hand, the genius of the Kingsmen (literally creating a tabula rasa on to which anyone could project what they wanted) and on the other hand, the antipathy that seethed in early 1960s America for what was then a blossoming youth culture that would soon lay siege to the staid sensibilities of America, with a triumvirate of sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. The “Establishment” was convinced that the kids were being corrupted by dirty music. And, of course, they were right. But certainly not by lyrics of “Louie, Louie.” Essentially “Louis, Louis” had no lyrics.

The uproar over “Louie, Louie” was a long, long, long, time ago. But, time, of course, has a way of both slipping away and lingering around, simultaneously. Time is both slippery and sticky. It is evanescent and unending. Now you see it, now you don’t. Here today, gone tomorrow. Etcetera, etcetera. “Louie, Louie,” hit the airwaves over 40 years ago and yet, it seems like only a moment ago. A brief pulse in the great stream of time.

Ahh, “the great stream of time.” It’s very much like the great stream of consciousness. Only, in my case, it’s not exactly a “stream.” More like a “rivulet.” Or maybe even just a few drips. Yes, “drips” of consciousness. That’s it.

But let me first observe that consciousness, or perhaps more accurately, my consciousness, is a weird tangle of impressions and sensations and autobiographical memories and associations. It’s composed as much of the little things that skulk around in the background, as it is the big things that lumber, like locomotives, in the foreground. I’m as consciousness of the feel of this keyboard at which I’m now typing, as I am of my abstract and fuzzy ideas about the vast expanse of time.

Of course, consciousness has some relationship to identity, and as, mentioned, memory—autobiographical memory. (Speaking of identity, let me also observe that it seems to me that who we are, and what we are, is comprised as much by the things that we avoid (steer clear of) as the things that we embrace, whole hog. We are comprised by what we aren’t (or won’t allow ourselves to be) as much as by what we “are.”) So anyway, like I was saying, we conscious beings—even we of little, tiny ideas---are physical things, embedded in a specific point in time and history and nature. Connected to our genetic ancestors and our specific culture. Oh yes, and our given ecology and language (the latter an inheritance form the past that we recreate and innovate, simultaneously.) We are not ethereal and immaterial “souls” afloat in some perfect ether. We are blood and flesh and the composite of our experiences and our place of birth, plus some genetic stuff that gets factored in, that we don’t get any vote in.

But enough of this digression, let’s get back to what’s really important: “Louie, Louie.”

“Just what were the lyrics to Louie, Louie, anyway??” The Kingsmen spent 35 dollars to record their song, and the quality of the recording accords with this magnitude of their investment. Who can tell what the lyrics are by listening? So I looked them up.

Louie Louie, oh no
Me gotta go
Aye-yi-yi-yi, I said
Louie Louie, oh baby
Me gotta go

Fine little girl waits for me
Catch a ship across the sea
Sail that ship about, all alone
Never know if I make it home

CHORUS

Three nights and days I sail the sea
Think of girl, constantly
On that ship, I dream she's there
I smell the rose in her hair.

CHORUS

Okay, let's give it to 'em, right now!

GUITAR SOLO

See Jamaica, the moon above
It won't be long, me see me love
Take her in my arms again
Tell her I'll never leave again

CHORUS

Let's take it on outa here now
Let's go!!

If the governor of Indiana thought that Louie, Louie was suggestive, what do you think he would have made of these lyrics, from the song, “Gone Dead Train” which, as you will recall, appeared some years later, in the movie Performance, starring Mr. Mick Jagger. The song was sung by Randy Newman:

[Words and music by Jack Nitzsche & Russ Titelman.]

My engine was pumpin' steam and I was grindin' at you hard and fast
I was burnin' down the rail tryin' to heat the way
Haulin' ass and ridin' up the track
And I laughed at the conductor who was tellin' me my coal would never last
When the fire in my boiler up and quit before I came
Now ain't no empty cellar need a gone dead train

Once was at a time when I could Mama shave 'em dry
And raise a fever on ice-down chill
Waiting at the station with a heavy loaded sack
Savin' up and holdin' just to spill
Shootin' the supply from my demon's eye
'Stead of waitin' for a time, I hope I will
When the fire in my boiler up and quit before I came
Now ain't no empty cellar need a gone dead train

Yeah it's a gone dead train
You got to help it to burn
You know it's a gone dead train
You got to teach it to learn

There ain't no easy way when the daily run a downhill pull
And there ain't no easy day, wishin' for some jelly roll
There ain't no switch been made to let a juicy lemon find
A spring to run a dry well full
Then the fire in my boiler up and quit before I came
Ain't no empty cellar need a gone dead train

Yeah it's a gone dead train
You got to help it to burn
You know it's a gone dead train
You got to teach it to learn
You know it's a gone dead train
You got to help it to burn
You know it's a gone dead train
You got to help it to learn
Baby, it's a gone dead train
It's a gone dead train

“Louie, Louie” was really just “Little Bo Peep,” by comparison to, “Gone Dead Train.”

Ah, but both “Louie, Louie” and “Gone Dead Train” were a long time ago.

Now, I must get back to the laundry-folding. Back to the quiet zen-like, stillness of a blank consciousness.

Back to the lyrics of “Louie, Louie.”

Heraclitus' Cold Feet

2005-10-31T05:54:00.000-08:00

“Into a river you can’t step twice,”

Heraclitus declaimed his sage advice.

“You can stand on the land

And dance on the strand,

But 'NO WADING!'

unless it's on ice."

*Note:

"The river
Where you set
Your foot just now
Is gone---
Those waters
Giving way to this,
Now this."

Fragments: The Collected Wisdom of Heraclitus, Translated by Brooks Haxton.

Patterns--What Could Be Simpler?

2005-10-20T18:21:00.000-07:00

I read in a recent issue of New Scientist, that aging, which may bring with it memory loss, Alzheimer’s, dementia, and a boat load of other mental maladies does have one benefit: increased “pattern recognition.” Yep, as one gets older, a lot of things get dimmer and fade away, but apparently one of the few things that gets, or at least can get, stronger and brighter is pattern recognition, which Laura Spiney the author of the article “Golden Oldies”(New Scientist, August 13, 2005) says is a critical component of problem-solving skills. “Pattern recognition is useful for solving problems. It is the ability to see that the object or problem confronting you belongs to a group of similar objects, and is therefore likely to have similar properties. So you can solve the problem on the basis of prior experience, without knowing very much about it. So, you see, as we get older, we get more capable of solving problems. In our wizened years, we are able to see that a given problem, let us call it problem “X,” is quite like other problems that we’ve encountered, like say, problems “U, V, and W”. If, in the past, we solved “U, V and W” with strategy “A”, strategy “A” might be able to solve our current problem “X”. (Unless of course, problem “X” is a bit different and is really more like problem “Y”, in which case, given my increasingly powerful pattern recognition capabilities, I will note that problem “X” is more amenable to strategy “B”.) So in this case, where I might have used Strategy “A”, instead I will use strategy “B”. But wait a minute! What if strategy “B” has been better used with problems “R, S, and T?” Strategy “B” will not work with “U, V, and W”. Any ol’ fool can see that! No, “U, V, and W” will require a much more subtle strategic approach. It will require strategy “C”. So, in order to make the long story of pattern recognition, a short story, problem “X,”---which I originally thought looked like problems “U, V, and W,” but which in fact, looks much more like problems “R, S and T”--- will be solved, not by strategy “A,” or “B,” but by strategy “C”! I will solve problem “X” with strategy “C”! Voila! There you have it. The amazing story of how, as we get older, all problems are the same. And all we really need to do, is use the same solution for whatever problem we may encounter. From now on, you, like I, will benefit from solving all of our problems with the same solution. What could be simpler?

Told You Not to Wander 'Round in the Dark

2005-10-15T11:09:00.000-07:00

It has been raining here for 7 or 8 days. It’s Biblical. Last night, I walked Stanley in the pouring rain and howling wind. The trees were heavy with rain, their leaves pulled down by a conspiracy of gravity and damp weariness. Stanley was happy, as he padded around looking for the right place to leave his doggy signature. I wore headphones and listened to the recent release of Cream Live at the Royal Albert Hall (2005). The streetlight at the corner had gone out, and as I rounded the bend with Stanley pulling at his leash, everything was ink black, sopping wet, and horror-movieish. The song "Badge" was on, a song originally written 35 years ago, or more, by Mr. Clapton and George Harrison. "I told you not to wander round in the dark. I told you about the swans that they live in the park. Then I told you about a kid, now he's married to Mabel." What does this mean? I don’t know. Shouldn't I be reciting Yeats instead? Jeez. The curse of the 60s. It’s my music, like it or not. The driving base, the searing lead guitar. The inane lyrics that seem, somehow, to speak to me—across the years--- with some poignant meaning, despite their inanity. The rain, the rain, the damn rain driving down. The dog looking for a place to poop, but he too, now growing weary of the rain. "I'm talking about a girl that looks quite like you. She didn’t have the time to wait in the queue. She cried away her life since she fell off the cradle." At least the trees are beautiful with the night all tangled up in them. An invisible beauty I need to imagine, because it is too damn black and windy for me see much, nor to linger here long. “You’d better pick yourself up off the ground, before they bring the curtain down.” Maybe this is a song about death? About the ineluctable fate that everyone must confront. Who cares if the 60s are 40 years in the past. Who cares that the past has passed. There is only a past for those who are living. For the dead there is nothing, not even nothing, because the deceased are no more. Auden: “What Happens to the living when we die?/Death is not understood by death; nor you, nor I.” Stanley, almost invisible in his poodle blackness, decides he’s had enough and tugs me in the direction of home. Which way is that, Stanley?

The Air Conditioned Class: "It's Climate Change, Silly, Not Global Warming."

2005-08-19T15:17:00.000-07:00

In response to a recent post by one of our readers and the reader's trusty canine (you know who you are, so I need not mention any names here) the following:

Dear (Name of Reader), and of course, (Name of Reader's Dog):

Thank you for your thoughtful comments on the state of Air Conditioning, a.k.a., the Air Conditioned State. We here at Moo Moo Camus, and our subsidiary organization, the Bureau of Social Turmoil, are happy that you have, with your clever acumen, penetrated the fog of our initial observation. Indeed, to wit, viz, i.e, : a specter is haunting all of Europe, and indeed, the other important parts of the known world, including Anaheim and Orlando, and it is the specter of the international air conditioned class, who hope one day to seize control of the state (including the states of Florida and California, but not Idaho---too many hot potatoes) and impose a world numbing condition (to wit: air conditioning) on all of humanity. This state will henceforth be known as "Chilly" (not to be confused with the South American nation, nor with ingredients of Mexican food). Chilly will be ruled by a small elite of neo-conservatives, neo-liberals, and neo-anderthals whose every effort will be directed toward making the world safe for global warming. Their motto however, will be, "Everything is cool". They will work, day and night, to make us all think that everything is cool, really cool, when in fact , it is not. Once they have worked their evil, everyone will want to be 'cool.' Everyone. And pretty soon, everyone will THINK that he or she IS cool. Then people from all walks of life will walk around, thinking, "I am really cool," and "everything is cool." And more insidiously, they will FEEL cool.

Once this new elite, the air conditioned class, has stabilized power, it will not stop at anything. It will announce that the world is cool and that you and I are cool, and that even Donald Trump is cool. Next thing you know, they will have us believe that even capitalism is cool. And everyone will want to be a capitalist and everyone will want to be on 'the Apprentice,' or worse, some home remodeling show on the E-channel. Everyone will be infatuated with themselves, thinking, "I am cool, the world is cool, capitalism is cool, everything is cool." But of course, (Name of Reader), you and I will know better. You and I, and perhaps ( name of Reader's dog) too, in is doggy perceptiveness-- will know the truth: WE ARE ALL IN A WHOLE LOT OF HOT WATER!

Down with the Air Conditioned Class. Long live Air Conditioning!

Air Condition the Roman Forum!

2005-08-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

Pictured here, MMC and daughter at the Roman Forum (and Siena), August, 2005. 2500 years of history, layer upon layer, in the footsteps of the Emperors, the foundations, both literally and figuratively, of Western civilization, and all I can think about while here is, 'My god, its, 95 degrees and what I wouldn't give for a cool Lime Squishy and a dunk in a pool.' Of course, there was no pool available. OK, so creature-comfort comes before my appreciation of high culture and the history of Wesern Civ . I'm spoiled. I've become a member of the air conditioned class. (Thanks Sandra for the Class designation)

For all those awaiting more philosphical insight: Here is what I am thinking today: Why have human civilizations throughout history so much depended upon barbarism, terror, and violence, to sustain themselves? Take, for example the Roman gladiatorial system and the theme of brutal circuses and free bread. It wasn't just that the participants must have been brutalized, but the whole of Roman society must have internalized a kind of normalized violence and cruelty. Oh Oh! (Sound Familiar?) Fast forward 2000 years: Q: What's changed in contemporary, advanced industrial societies? How much have we progressed? A: Air conditioning.

Today, in our contemporary culture, we have plenty of spectator viloence, although much formerly overt public violence has been hidden from view and is perpetrated far from our eyes (e.g Iraq and Afganistan, Darfour, etc.). At home, sadistic cuelty now takes the place of gladiatorial mahem in the cultural arena; to wit "reality" TV shows (which are, of course aything BUT, real) and the fine achievments on offer, from FOX, like "the Apprentice."

In any case, we saw Rome, Venice, Siena, Pisa, and Florence. Took in all the sites--including the Doge's palace in Venice. Lots of old buildings and old culture. And old illustratrions of the connections between culture, politics, economics and power. I really liked the Doge's palace, in Venice, because among other things, it illustrated perfectly, the early inseparability of church, the organized military violence of the state, and (Catholic) ideology. (The ideology was of course, more beautifully portrayed by impressive painters, than today's global Coke and Rebok ads). The 'Bridge of Sighs' runs directly from the Doge's palace (the seat of political and merchant economic power) to the prison and torture rooms. So it must have been pretty clear to 17th c Venetians who held the power and to what use such power was directed. Church, state,
military----all within a few hundred yards of one another. All wrapped up in one palace-sized complex of state power. As I mentioned to H, it would be likehaving the Capitol building in Washington DC, the federal prisons, and the U.S. Army all connected by a convenient catwalk.

Ummmm, maybe things haven't changed that much, after all?? Except for, of course, the air conditioning.

2005-08-13T07:32:00.000-07:00

Sirius, the Dog[1]

There once was a dog named Sirius

Who’d chase his tail, until he became quite delirious

He’d run round and round

Until he wound down

And couldn’t tell his front from his rearious

[1] The dog in this poem is named after the star, Sirius, which appears in the constellation of the Big Dog, or Canis Major. Because Sirius is the brightest star in the Big Dog constellation, it's called the Dog Star. It's a double star, which means it has a tiny companion star that spins around it. Could that be Sirius' tail?

Back at the Wheel After A Long Absence

2005-08-09T17:38:00.000-07:00

Just returned from Italy. Two weeks in Venice, Florence, and Rome. Jet-lag, and anomie. Where are we? Methinks that too much time has passed since my last entry. Need to write a few lines in order to see if I am still able to write at all. (Was I ever able to write??) Here goes:

Sharp horizon
rusts
against the Agean.
No Odysseus,
yet a return after exile.
Everything piles up
like the smooth stones of dreams.
Plumb the sockets of this sea
until the measure
of what we are
is nothing
dreamed of,
nothing gained.

The Leaves Are Calling

2004-10-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

The Leaves Are Calling

It is fall here in the Northeast. The leaves are ochre, fire, and burnt orangello. Soon, they will all be on the ground for yours truly, MMC, to rake and haul to the dump. Ahh, the beauty of nature! But alas, it has been a while since my last scintillating entry, so here, for your reading pleasure, is a list of books that I am now reading (I try to read as many books concurently, as is humanly possible, so as to ensure that I am unable to remember the contents of any and to guarantee that I finish none of them.)

Understanding Early Civilizations, Bruce Trigger

No Contest--The Case Against Competition, Alfie Kohn

After Postmodernism: An Introduction to Critical Realism, Gary Potter and Jose Lopez

The Essential Guide to the New Adolescence, Ava Siegler

You may wish for a comment on these, but this will have to wait for another, subsequent, entry. The leaves are calling.

Invisible Dog with Happy Family

2004-10-18T15:31:00.001-07:00

2004-10-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

What's Bugging Me?
(see entry below)

What Was Bugging Early Humans???

2004-10-17T08:53:00.000-07:00

"New research showing that lice evolve with the people they infest demonstrates that a now-extinct species of human, Homo erectus, came into direct contact with modern humans, Homo sapiens. That contact happened as recently as 25,000 years ago. Evidence of contact between the two species of humans is surprising, scientists say, because researchers long had thought that Homo erectus became extinct hundreds of thousands of years ago."
Click on the title above, "What Was Bugging Early Humans?" for the link to the article

2004-09-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

"The Night In Which All Cows Are Black"--GFW Hegel The Phenomenology of Mind--Preface.

"Moo Moo Camus Launch--An Uproarious Success"

2004-09-16T13:17:00.000-07:00

"A Land Mark in Web publishing history" L.A. Times

"Any reader who has not availed themselves of the ingenious and arresting Moo Moo Camus Blog is certainly in for a BIG bovine treat!" Denver Post

"Let no one dare call it COWardice!" National Inquirer

"Whoever writes that thing is in some deep, deep s--t!" George W. Bush, Unpublished

"Most important publishing event since that nice Mr. William Caxton invented movable type." Publishers Weekly

2004-09-14T20:11:00.000-07:00

Offspring in the Tetons

Plato’s Republic, Horkheimer’s America

2004-09-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Ever since Plato’s Republic and the Allegory of the Cave, (and probably long before that) humans have limned the disparities between appearance and reality. In Plato’s cave, the poor denizens are forced to view a dim refraction of reality upon the cave wall , cast by a fire which blazes behind their backs. There, they remain in chains, waiting for something-- I suspect, if I know Plato, that it is philosophy--- to set them free. "Good luck," we bid to the unfortunate occupants of the cave. Regrettably, those chains look stronger than mere philosophy.

In Plato’s cave, if I understand it correctly, humans merely perceive the shadows of real objects as these appear on the wall, manipulated by puppeteers. Reality, (the true, the good) in fact, operates behind the cave dwellers’ backs. The tragedy of this state is, of course, that cave dwellers don’t directly perceive reality; they see only the faint shadows. (On the more up-beat side, however, one can say, "Well, at least they have eyes and they are able to see something!" Hope springs eternal in the heart of the irrepressible optimist.)
I am convinced however, that in the contemporary period, the shadows on the cave wall are darker and more malicious than those suggested by Plato. There are ever increasingly potent and malevolent forces at work in the political and cultural "atmosphere," of late imperial America (or as I have long termed it, Imperial America, of late.) Increasingly ours has become a managed, regulated, and narrowly partisan culture. False consciousness abounds. (This is, of course, no news especially to our friends in the Frankfurt school, who explored much of this territory more than 50-60 years ago.) But my concern is that Adorno and Horkheimer, although through no fault of their own, may have woefully under-estimated the depth of the penetration by the culture industry into the daily life of the common folk. The media (the Entertainment-Industrial Complex) now frame so much of our world view, and direct us to think and feel in a constricted vocabulary that prevents almost any criticism of the way things are. (Thank you, Herbert Marcuse) And of course these cultural forces --Fox, CNBC, the NY Times, Disney, et al---are interested primarily in securing a populace hyper-attuned to consumerism, and obsessed with the trivia of People magazine and Hollywood movie culture (the latter, of course, are literally images projected on an opposing "cave" wall.)

Consequently, folks nowfind themselves immersed in an electronic, media-saturated civilization, bereft of any anchor or compass with which to orient themselves, awash—although by no fault of their own-- in the ideology of winner- take-all possessive individualism and market uberalis. How can it not be difficult for most to locate the most rudimentary means with which to formulate questions about what is really true about the world and how it works. Thus appearance, far too often, has become "reality." And ideology is "lived," not thought.

"Real news is the news we need to protect our freedoms.You get tabloid news, you get blood-and-guts news, you get news shot through with a self-glorifying facade of patriotism, but people have to sift too much for the news that we need to protect our freedoms. It should be gloriously presented to the people on a nightly basis. The loss of some of the soberness and seriousness of those institutions has had a devastating effect uponpeople's ability to respond to the events of the day." --Bruce Springsteen, Rolling Stone September 22, 2004

I am, rather sadly, convinced not just that social reality is other than it seems, a mere refraction, but that it is the OPPOSITE of what it appears. Peace is thus War. Occupation, liberation. Democracy, administered plutocracy.

Thus Spake Moo Moo Camus

2004-09-11T13:10:00.000-07:00

Yellowstone, August, 2004.

Ok. This picture was snapped by a fellow tourist while we were visiting Yellowstone, in August. So there we are, or there we were, captured as a complete nuclear family. Or ,as our Commander in Chief might say, a "nukelar" family.

The charming details of our visit to Yellowstone are to be found in the prior post, below. See "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." (All similarities to anyone living or dead, purely coincidental)

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2004-09-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

Who is that masked man?

We recenlty returned from our vacation in Moose country. It was ahhh, shall we say, Moosey. And Beautiful. Extraordinarily beautiful. We stayed in the Grand Tetons for a few days, and then in Yellowstone. The Tetons, through which I was compelled by my lovely wife to march on a number of almost entirely up-hill, family hikes, look like the Alps. Only taller. Ahh, I love nature. (Especially when viewed from the comfort and convenience of an air conditioned SUV.) While in the Tetons, we not only hiked, we rode horses (see above picture for documentary evidence) and did a float trip down the Snake River. ("Once ... in the wilds of Whyoming, I lost my corkscrew, and we were forced to live on nothing but food and water, for days." W.C. Fields) During our trip we saw lots of Bison and even a gray wolf. Hannah, was very excited. We did not, however, see any bears, which was an immeasurable relief to me. As far as I am concerned, all bears should be of the cute, inanimate overstuffed kind that Teddy Roosevelt made popular and that are frequently dragged around by small children.

In Yellowstone, we saw Old Faithful and a bunch of other geothermal oddities, which apparently make Yellowstone one of the most-visited National Parks in America. (I, personally, observed a number of Japanese and German tourists, ooohing and ahhing at the site of bubbling mud and malodorous hot gases.) Despite the irrepressible excitement that accompanies one's observation of the earth's escaping H2S gas, I couldn't wait to get back to the hotel for a lovely mid-afternoon nap. Just call me "Mr. Natural."

Parapraxes--A Case in Point

2004-09-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

"Let me put it to you bluntly. In a changing world, we want more people to have control over your own life." George W. Bush

Sometimes, thank goodness, the powers that be actually speak the unvarnished Truth. Their real goals and intentions are revealed, for all to see. This, of course, is entirely unintentional. Freud would be proud.

The Big Picture Ain't That Pretty at All

2004-08-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

"Neo Liberalism and the World Economy," by David Held

" With every other justification for the invasion of Iraq discredited, President Bush has increasingly resorted to the argument that at least Iraq is free. "Freedom,"he says, "is the Almighty's gift to every man and womanin this world" and "as the greatest power on earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom."But, as Matthew Arnold long ago argued, "freedom is agreat horse to ride but to ride somewhere." So whereare the Iraqis supposed to ride their horse of freedom? The US answer was spelled out in September 2003, whenPaul Bremer, head of the Coalition ProvisionalAuthority, promulgated decrees that included the fullprivatization of the economy, full ownership rights byforeign firms of Iraqi businesses, the right of foreignfirms to take profits abroad and the elimination ofnearly all trade barriers. The orders applied to allareas of the economy, including public services,banking and finance, the media, manufacturing,services, transportation and construction. Only oil wa exempt. A regressive tax system much in favor with conservatives in the US known as "the flat tax" was also imposed. The right to strike was outlawed and unionization banned in key sectors. This amounts to the imposition of a particular kind of state apparatus - called neo-liberal - on Iraq. Interestingly, the first case of neo-liberalizationoccurred thirty years earlier in Chile. In the wake ofa violent US supported coup by General Pinochet againstthe democratically elected Salvador Allende inSeptember 1973, US economic advisors espousing the neo-liberal doctrines of Milton Friedmann went to Chile tohelp set up an almost identical state structure to thatnow decreed for Iraq. The era that separates the violence in Chile and Iraqhas seen the creation of neo-liberal states -capitalist dream regimes as the Economist calls them -all around the world by mixes of coercion and consent.Britain's Margaret Thatcher was the first world leaderfreely to embrace free-market fundamentalism whenelected in the spring of 1979. She attacked tradeunion power, diminished the welfare state and reducedtaxes. She sought privatization, to liberateentrepreneurial energies, and argued that social well-being depended upon personal responsibility and not thestate. "There is no such thing as society," shefamously said, "only individuals and their families."She accomplished all this by democratic means."Economics are the method," she said, "but the objectis to change the soul." And change it she did. In the fall of 1979, Paul Volcker, then Chair of theFederal Reserve under President Carter, shifted thetarget of monetary policy in the US from fullemployment to curbing inflation. He raised interestrates to a very high level and plunged the US into recession. In the event of any conflict between the integrity of the financial system and the welfare ofthe population, he signaled, the former interest would prevail. President Reagan, taking office in 1981, took the necessary political steps to consolidate Volcker'smove. He attacked union power, dramatically reduced taxes, cut back on state benefits and failed to enforceregulatory laws covering consumer rights, occupational health and safety, consumer protection, the minimum wage, and the like. With two of the major capitalist powers going neo-liberal could the rest of the world befar behind? Neo-liberal orthodoxy, pushed by both Britain and theUS, swept through the international financial institutions after 1980. The International MonetaryFund became a prime agent in the promotion of neo-liberal "structural adjustment" policies whenever ithad to deal with a credit crisis. As a result, countries like Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and SouthAfrica were swept into the neo-liberal camp. The price of entry into the global economic system for much ofthe old Soviet Empire was privatization and the assumption of a neo-liberal stance. Global competition has drawn many other countries, even China and India ,into something approximating a neo-liberal state structure. There are still some states, as in Europe and Scandinavia that are holdouts for social democracy and in East Asia many states have managed to combineneo-liberalism externally with concern for equity at home. But some variant of the neo-liberal state now dominates world-wide. This all happened in part because of a crisis of capitalism in the 1970s. Profit rates were low, inflation and unemployment were everywhere soaring upwards when the economic consensus (called Keynesian) of the 1960s said they should offset each other. Financial systems were in a mess, the stockmarket was in decline, and there was a fiscal crisis of state expenditures (with the bankruptcy of New YorkCity in 1975 being emblematic). The "socialdemocratic" state form that had emerged after 1945could not cope. Something new had to be invented. Neo-liberalism won out as the answer. But has it beensuccessful? In terms of stimulating growth it has been a dismal failure. Global growth rates in the 1950s and1960s stood at around 3.5 percent and fell in the troubled 1970s to around 2.4 percent. But in the 1980s they came down to 1.4 percent and fell even further inthe 1990s to 1.2 percent and since 2000 have barely made it above 1 percent. So why are we so persuaded of the benefits of neo-liberalism? There are two main answers. Firstly, neo-liberalismhas introduced considerable volatility into the global system so there are usually some places that are doing well while the rest do badly. In the 1980s it wasJapan and West Germany that led the pack and the US wasin the doldrums, but in the 1990s both fell behind withJapan suffering from a decade of severe recession. In the 1990s the US, Britain and some of the "tiger"economies of Southeast Asia came out on top. ThenSoutheast Asia crashed in 1997 followed by the collapseof the "new economy" in the US and now China and Indiaseem to be racing ahead. In a Darwinian world, theneo-liberal argument runs, you fall behind because youare not competitive. You only survive if you are fitenough. There is nothing systemically wrong. Thefault lies with you. You are not neo-liberal enough. Secondly, and more importantly, the richest incomegroups have become infinitely better off under neo-liberalism. Social inequality has increased rather thandiminished. In the US, for example, the top onepercent of income earners claimed 16 percent of thenational income before World War Two but during the1950s and 1960s this fell to 8 percent and the failuresof the 1970s threatened their power even more. But by2000 this group was back to claiming 15 percent of thenational income and this may shoot up to 20 percent inthe near future if the tax cuts stand. Similar trends,though not quite so dramatic, can be detected in other countries. So neo-liberalism has been about the restoration of class power to a small elite of financiers and CEOs.And since that class has overwhelming control of the political process and of instruments of persuasion, of course it insists that the world is a much better place. And it is, for them. Yet in the US, as elsewhere, most of the people are worse off than theywere in 1970, particularly when access to decent public education, health care, and the like is factored in. In those countries that have recently turned to neo-liberalism, like China, Russia and India, we see the emergence of extraordinarily rich oligarchies at the expense of the rest of the population. But if aggregate growth is so low, how does the upper class accumulate such wealth? They largely do so through predatory practices, by dispossessing others. This "accumulation by dispossession" takes many forms. Cheap labor is everywhere preyed upon and the cheaper and more docile the better. Profit rates of UScorporations are twice as high abroad as they are athome. Common property rights (water, land, etc) getprivatized. Peasant populations get thrown off the land. Environments are degraded. Patent rights oneverything from genetic materials, seeds, pharmaceutical products to ideas allow rents to be extracted from low-income populations. Fundamental goods like education and health care get commodified and user fees escalate. The list goes onand on. But most important of all the credit andfinancial system is actively used to accumulate wealthat one pole while extracting it from another. Family farms are foreclosed even in the US. Pension rights areprivatized (Chile pioneered with social security) andthen all too often diminished or erased (as with Enronor in China most recently). Even more dramatic are theviolent financial crises that have periodically wrackedmuch of Latin America, Central and East Europe, andEast and Southeast Asia. These allow productive assetsto be bought up by wealthy investors for a song. Neo-liberalism has seen a massive transfer of asset wealthfrom the poor to the rich. These injustices have sparked innumerable protests around the world, loosely knit together in the anti-globalization or global justice movement. The neo-liberal response has often been state repression.Mexico, for example, is advised by the US to crush theZapatista movement for indigenous rights. Given itsclass basis, the neo-liberal state is understandably antidemocratic. In some cases, such as Singapore andChina, it never bothered with democracy at all. And inthe West, it easily morphs into neo-conservativeauthoritarianism. The so-called "war on terror" nowprovides a cover for the extension of policesurveillance, militarization and authoritarianmeasures. Curiously, the protest movements against neo-liberalism often accept its terms. Before 1980, individual human rights were a fringe interest, but neo-liberalism's emphasis upon individual responsibility has sparked ahuge wave of interest in them in recent years. Evocation of such rights can provide a rhetoric for progressive politics. But this can also legitimize interventions in sovereign states by imperialistpowers. Furthermore, since most individuals cannotbring their cases to court a vast apparatus of advocacyhas emerged. The rise of the NGOs to politicalprominence has been another stunning consequence of theneo-liberal turn. NGOs sometimes aid and abet thewithdrawal of the state from social provision. Inother cases they offer tough critiques of neo-liberalpolicies. But, unfortunately, NGOs are no more democratic and transparent than the neo-liberal statethey criticize. The rise of human rights discourses and of NGO power provides a limited terrain upon which to mount effective opposition. The fear of social dissolution under an individualizing neo-liberalism has also sparked the search for a moral high-ground from which to secure the restoration ofclass rule. Appeals to nationalism (China, Japan, USA),to superior cultural values ("American," "Asiatic.""Islamic"), to religion (Christian, Confucian, Hindu)or to ethical commitments ("rights" and cosmopolitanethics) erupt into the discussion. The so-called"culture wars" - however misguided some of them mayhave been - cannot be sloughed off as some unwelcome distraction. The transformation of moral repugnance towards the alienations of neo-liberalism into cultural and then political resistance is one of thesigns of our times. Social movements against neo-liberalism, for example, frequently articulate theiropposition in moral economy terms. But purely moralargument is at best a weak ground on which to contestthe alienations and anomie that neo-liberalismproduces. We have, in short, lived through an era of sophisticated class struggle on the part of the upper strata in society to restore or, as in China and Russia, to reconstruct an overwhelming class power. The turn to authoritarianism and neo-conservatism isillustrative of the lengths to which that class will goand the strategies it is prepared to deploy in order topreserve and enhance its powers. The mass of thepopulation has either to submit to this overwhelmingclass power or respond to it in class terms. If this looks like, acts like and feels like class struggle then we must be prepared to name it for what it is and act accordingly. Though class movements may make themselves, they do notdo so under conditions of their own choosing. These conditions are currently highly diverse and fragmented.Finding the organic links between highly variegatedoppositional social movements is an urgent task. The links are there. The gap between the promise of neo-liberalism (the benefit of all) and its realization(the benefit of a small ruling class) increases. Class and regional inequalities both within states (such asChina, Russia, India and Southern Africa) as well as internationally pose a serious political problem. The idea that the market is about competition is negated bythe facts of monopolization, centralization and internationalization of corporate and financial power.The idea that neo-liberalism is about fairness is brutally offset by the extensive facts of dispossession. The idea that neo-liberalism is aboutindividual freedoms confronts the increasing authoritarianism of the neo-liberal and now neo-conservative state apparatus. The more neo-liberalismis revealed as a failed utopian project masking the restoration of class power for the few, the more itlays the basis for a resurgence of mass movementsvoicing egalitarian political demands, seeking economicjustice, fair (rather than "free") trade and greatereconomic security. The profoundly anti-democratic nature of neo-liberalismis becoming a potent political issue. The democratic deficit in nominally democratic countries is nowenormous. Institutional arrangements, like the FederalReserve, are biased, outside of democratic control.They lack transparency. Internationally, there is noaccountability let alone democratic control overinstitutions such as the IMF, the WTO and the WorldBank. To bring back the demands for democraticgovernance and for economic, political and cultural equality and justice is not to suggest some return to agolden past. The meaning of democracy in ancient Athenshas little to do with the meanings we must invest it with today. But right across the globe, from China,Brazil, Argentina, Taiwan, Korea as well as SouthAfrica, Iran, India, Egypt, the struggling nations of Eastern Europe as well as in the heartlands of contemporary capitalism, there are groups and socialmovements in motion that are rallying to the cause ofdemocratic values. The Bush Presidency has projected upon the world theidea that American values are supreme and that valuesmatter since they are the heart of what civilization isabout. The world is in a position to reject that imperialist gesture and refract back into the heartland of neo-liberal capitalism and neo-conservatism acompletely different set of values: those of an open democracy dedicated to the achievement of social equality coupled with economic, political and cultural justice. "

David Harvey is Distinguished Professor of Anthropologyat the Graduate Center of the City University of NewYork. His most recent book is The New Imperialism, published by Oxford University Press.

The "SmellyPhone" (TM) Revolutionizes Cell Phone Industry

2004-08-01T10:03:00.000-07:00

The SmellyPhone

OK The cell phone has revolutionized human communication. You may talk to anyone anywhere (providing of course that you are able to pay your monthly phone bill—an assumption that is, of course, in today’s economy, hardly a certainty. But let me not digress here on the problems of the global economy.) The world is interconnected and everyone can talk to everyone else, at least in theory. Whether they like it or not! Ahh but that’s not all. In addition to the rudimentary facility of sending and receiving voice data, cell phones now include all kinds of baneful capacities including web access, cameras, e-mail, radio, games---you name it. A recent article in the New Scientist ("A Cell phone Full of Dollars," New Scientist July 24-30 2004 p. 26) discusses the "mobile wallet" cell phone that acts a credit card, train ticket, cash reserve, and ATM. (Be careful not to wash the darn thing by accident in the laundry!) Cell phones will now do just about any conceivable task, except pay your mortgage or drive your kids to school. I recently read that the download ring-tone industry is a multi-billion dollar-a-year industry. You may now download Beethoven or the Punkabillys, whose music can alert you to an in-coming call. But if music is the soul of life, should we then, neglect our olfactory sense? Nay, I say. Hence, I propose that the next significant advance in mobile communication technology should be the "Smellyphone" or if in Europe, the "Smellyfone." With this new stinky technology , one can be alerted to in-coming calls, not by the noisy interruption of auditory intrusions, but by the odor of your choice. Imagine the possibilities! Ah the wafting pleasures of jasmine or vanilla. Or perhaps cologne scents by the designer of your choice. Or the warm aroma of fresh-brewed coffee. (Homer Simpson might prefer of course, the fresh baked smell of jelly donuts.) The Smellyphone promises to revolutionize the communication industry (patent pending) Void where prohibited by law.

2004-07-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

Who?

Dateline Boston---The Democratic Convention

2004-07-26T11:58:00.000-07:00

Boston--The Democratic Candidate Rouses the Nation and Stirs Citizens' Enthusiasm. The Republicans Tremble.

Not Bogart

2004-07-26T09:52:00.000-07:00

Remember: Smoking is not good for philosophers and other living (or formerly living) things.

2004-07-26T09:38:00.000-07:00

Neither a fish, nor out of water

Advice on How to Vote

2004-07-26T09:36:00.000-07:00

"I never vote for anyone, I always vote against." W.C. Fields

On Quotations

2004-07-25T09:23:00.000-07:00

[O]ne must never miss an opportunity of quoting things by others which are always more interesting than those one thinks up oneself. ---Marcel Proust

They Have Seen the Thing Themselves.

2004-07-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

They have seen the thing themselves…

Rusted and wicked in its age
Detonating with seconds, amassed
Broken and willing occupation
Tender, yielding, and final
Just in its unattainable yearning
Scented in lavender and lilac
Impossible in the shadow of itself
Hidden amidst our frenzy
Typical as the mean
Complete before its beginning
Tense against its own boundaries
Lavish and arrayed in dread
Waking to the tremor of its pulse
Upright against the spiked angle
Stark as the moon in its declension.

2004-07-11T08:45:00.000-07:00

Which one is Camus?

MY TOE--A POEM

2004-07-11T08:01:00.000-07:00

By Hannah and Moo Moo Camus

You ran over my toe,
You hobo,
Don’t you know,
That you just ran over my toe?
That’s my favorite toe
Way down low,
It’s big and puffy,
And shaped like Idaho.
OUCH!!! Watch where you’re going!
Be careful where you’re mowing!

Heidegger and the M&Ms

2004-07-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

Scene: The Baja Men are blaring from the CD player in the kitchen. "Can you shake it like this? I can move it like that. Can you shake it like this? I can move it like that. Can you shake it like this? I can move it like that." Ad infinitum. It is 7:45 a.m. and Hannah my daughter and I are wolfing down a hurried breakfast, before we drive to summer camp. I stand up to take the breakfast dishes to the kitchen sink, and as I do, I turn around and notice this scene: Hannah, listening to and singing along with the Baja Men, is consuming a healthy breakfast of chocolate chip waffles with whipped cream and M&Ms on top. The music is among the worst I have ever heard, although, thank god, the lyrics are harmless, if dizzying. On the crowded kitchen table, right next to Hannah¹s chocolate chip pancakes, lies the Oxford Companion to Philosophy, which the night before, I have presciently, if unwittingly, opened to the entry, "Authenticity." It reads:

"The condition of those, according to Heidegger, who understand the existential structure of their lives. Heidegger held that each of us acquires an identity from our situationÐour family, culture, etc. Usually we just absorb this identity uncritically, but to let one¹s values and goals remain fixed without critical reflection on them is ‘inauthentic¹. The ‘authentic¹ individual who has been aroused from everyday concerns by angst, takes responsibility for their (sic) life and therefore ‘chooses¹ their own identity. But Heidegger also holds that some degree of inauthenticity is unavoidable; the critical assessment of values presupposes and uncritical acceptance of them, and the practical necessities of life give priority to the unreflective action over critical deliberation. So, as Heidegger makes clear, authenticity is like Christian salvation: a state which fallen individuals cannot guarantee by their own efforts."

I notice also that the dog is unremittingly scratching himself. Mental note: call vet. Additional mental note: refill propane tank so we can BBQ chicken for dinner tonight. One more mental note: the Oxford Companion has it wrong. It¹s not Christianity, per se, but Calvinism that says that "fallen" individuals can¹t guarantee salvation by their own efforts.

Meanwhile, I am attempting to achieve ‘authenticity¹: "The unexamined life isn¹t worth living." "I think, therefore I am." "The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it." Etc. etc. etc. Thank goodness Hannah has left some M&Ms on her plate. Mental note: When I return from dropping Hannah off at camp, delete Being and Time from reading list and eat remaining M&Ms.

Why is the Dog Eating Steak While I'm Eating Corn Flakes?

2004-07-07T10:12:00.000-07:00

I notice today, that Stanley, our poodle, is eating left-over steak for his breakfast. I notice this, as I find myself grudgingly cutting up pieces of steak and dropping them into his doggie bowl. Ahh, Breakfast; the most important meal of the day. Or so it is reputed. Protein is very important, especially in those early hours when the body is just recovering from the trials of a good night's sleep. That's why the dog needs steak, I guess. Meanwhile, I shuffle off, bunny slippers and all, to eat my corn flakes, fearful that I may become undernourished, while the dog thrives and prospers, renewed by the sustenance of animal protein, while I, downtrodden, scrape by on wood-flavored, nutritionless cardboard.

Happy Smiles in the Consumer Imperium

2004-07-04T16:54:00.000-07:00

"The triumph of advertising in the culture industry is that consumers feel compelled to buy and use its products even though they see through them."
Dialectic of Enlightenment, "The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception," Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944)

Sirius--The Dog Star

2004-07-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

There once was a dog named Sirius
Who’d chase his tail, until he became quite delirious.
He’d run round and round
Until he wound down
And couldn’t tell his front from his rearious.

Not As Pretty As I Feel

2004-07-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

I’ve recently discovered, that for far too long, I’ve thought of myself as smarter, better-looking, and taller than it turns out, I really am. This may come as a terrible shock to you, dear reader, to learn this. I know that it certainly did to me. Disappointingly, I’m not really that tall, that good looking, or that smart. (Oh, the crisis of enlightnement!) And I’m now struggling with the question of what to do with this new, regrettable knowledge. I’ve thought about going back to school, but that doesn’t help with the issues of height or beauty. Maybe cosmetology school?? No, I don’t think that will address the crux of the problem. And what about height? Elevator shoes? Well as I ponder the "ugly truth" you may wish to read some of the other entries in this Blog. See the "Previous Posts" section.

Is Edukation Good for America, or (You'd Better) Get Rich Quick!

2004-06-30T11:24:00.000-07:00

Is Education Good For America?

As you well know, in America, most people believe that the ills of society can be cured by education (by which they usually mean, “schooling”). Education, it is thought, is good, and more education is gooder. But the truth, of course, is that knowledge is not nearly as powerful or effective, as ownership of property. Preferably, ownership of property in the means of production. (Which now means ownership of Microsoft as much as it once meant US Steel.) That’s the real ticket to good fortune and individual prosperity. And of course, inherited wealth (stocks, bonds, that sort of thing) is the best kind of wealth, because it means that there isn’t the slightest chance that education or intelligence may be construed as a prerequisite for securing one’s riches. If one inherits one’s wealth, one need not have attended a single day of school in order to live well. One can be as dumb as one pleases, and still be, well…wealthy. (Of course it still is humanly beneficial to know how to read and write—but this is beside the point.) Ownership of property in the means of production is one of the beauties of capitalism. One might even say, one of the geniuses of the capitalist system. To wit: Even the dumb can be rich. And of course, this point is proven, time and again, by the empirical evidence. Take a look at George Bush, for instance. What has education done for him? Or, in the immortal words of our chief executive: "You teach a child to read, and he or her will be able to pass a literacy test.'' (George W. Bush, Feb. 21, 2001.) Or perhaps even more prophetically, "Rarely is the question asked: ‘Is our children learning?’" (Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000.)

Anyway, if ever given the chance, I would wish to disabuse the American public of the misconception that education is the key to success. Why do Americans believe so strongly in education, anyway? Could it be that there is no alternative to believe in? No hope for redistributing the real sources of wealth and power in this society? “Oh no,” the prevailing wisdom of false consciousness maintains, “leave private property alone. You never know, one day, Wal-Mart employees may, after much hard work and self-sacrifice, rise to own Wal-Mart”—or so the implicit belief goes. “Let’s leave private property in the means of production (and in this case, distribution) intact. Let’s instead redistribute knowledge! Yeah that’s the ticket. All anyone really needs is more knowledge. More education.” Phoooooey, I say. Let the masses eat books!

Lost in the Dark of "Shruburbia"

2004-06-30T10:15:00.000-07:00

Last February we visited my mother, who has recently moved to a place called Murietta California, which is a bedroom community approximately 50 miles east of LA and about 60 miles north of San Diego. An odd vector, if ever there was one. It’s been a long time since I have spent any time in Southern California, so I have almost forgotten how the dry, semi-arid foothills look, when paved with endless rows of tract homes, mini-marts, condos and strip malls. Oh yes, and large nationally hegemonic Target stores and Walmarts. The whole town appeared to have been literally rolled-out in a single instant, like some kind of wall-to-wall carpeting or one of those lawns that arrives, in rolls of sod, which are “installed,” rather than grown. All the architecture of Murietta is of a kind--- a pestering, mock, semi-Spanish/Moroccan/Mediterranean stucco. Low lying, like intestinal bacteria. It reminded me a bit of some of the pictures I’ve seen of Sadam Hussein’s palaces—only far less tall. And, I dare say, less charming. And everything is painted in a lilting shade of Tuscan beige, which makes what would otherwise be merely an annoyingly standardized, ex-urban, built-environment, appear as if it were maliciously conceived and executed by a sole demon intelligence, or by the folks at Disney (whichever is most pernicious.)

Our first night in Murietta was really something. We landed in San Diego, and with no further ado, rocketed up the freeway in our rental car to Mureitta, where we retrieved my mother from her home in a sprawling, indistinguishable, gated community, and headed out to find a restaurant in the Murietta vicinity. Within 1.5 minutes of departing my mother’s house, we were as lost and bewildered, as if we had been traveling for days, without a compass or a guide, in the deep recesses of the Amazon. Of course, my mom was of absolutely no help in directing us—she hadn’t spent any time outside of her retirement enclave since moving there, and as a consequence, could not recognize even a single landmark by which we might orient our increasingly desperate search for a bistro. In all fairness, I must confess that anyone—especially my mother--- would have been disoriented; the planned suburban sprawl appeared to be purposely devised for muddling both the good citizens of Murietta and hapless visitors, alike. At night, every corner mirrored the last, and every successive block looked exactly the same as its predecessor (a phenomenon unchanged I discovered the next day, by the addition of daylight.) It is staggering to think that human intelligence, even if in the form of a California real estate development conglomerate, actually deliberately designed and built a place as devoid of character, even mock character—as this.

Anyway, after much aimless wandering about, we finally did manage to find a place to eat—a large cafeteria-like complex that served us massive quantities of soup and salads—in an all-you-can-eat style. Expansive, although, not expensive. Patterned after a Ford factory, I think. My wife named it the “Soup-a-tarium” because it had a mass, hospital-like, institutional quality. I preferred to call it “Souploitation” for reasons that are not now entirely clear to me—maybe it was the overpowering sense that I didn’t want to eat there, but feared starvation even more?

Thinking back now, it occurs to me that our driving around in the dark that night, famished, amidst wall-to-wall “shruburbia”, feeling almost completely lost and disoriented , with my mother snapping out occasional, and entirely useless driving directions, is somehow a perfect metaphor for my life, or at least parts of my life. I will have to explore this more at another time (too scary to do so now), but suffice it to say, I’ve felt lost and in the dark, steered by forces that are somehow related to me, but who do not at all have my best interests at heart. I have been redeemed occasionally by blind luck, the occasional kindness of strangers and friends, and serendipitous flashes of bright light. But much of the rest of my life has been beset by confusion, darkness, and the perpetual need to “get my bearings.’ Wandering around in the wilderness! Yikes!

Life's Really BIG Questions and some Comments

2004-05-30T19:23:00.000-07:00

Some of Life’s Really BIG QUESTIONS (according to Moo Moo Camus)
The Universe
(Including ALL space and ALL time.)

It is a really big and violent universe. Things are exploding in it all the time (stars, supernovae, black holes, etc.) It’s an awfully unfriendly place, too. Not terribly hospitable to biological creatures like ourselves, who prosper only in very particular and rare kinds of bio-environments. And, by the way, space is really cold and, according to recent evidence, is getting bigger by the light-year.

So,why should we humans have good luck and hope for happy and pleasant lives? Most of what we know about what’s “out there” is really not that warm and fuzzy. Let’s thank our lucky stars that we made it this far, and let’s keep our fingers crossed!

“Nothing exists except atoms and empty space; everything else is opinion.”
Quoted in Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Eminent Philosophers

Existence, being
One of the perennial questions of philosophy is, ‘Why is there anything, anyway?’ Why does anything exist? Oh yes, and just what the heck is existence, anyway? (Unfortunately, I can’t read, let alone, comprehend Heidegger!)
Some possible answers:

1. God “needs” a universe to make his/her/it’s power and being manifest (Hegel, I think?) Though, why this manifestation is so important to an omnipotent god is not at all clear to me? (Couldn’t God just as easily choose not to be?)

2. What would a universe” be” without anything in it at all, a universe in which nothing exists? What would nothing, really nothing, “look” like? (Thomas Nagel, I think?)

Essentially, I think the argument runs, you’ve gotta have something (even if most of it is dark matter).

Death

Why do living things (of course, I will not mention any specific species or proper names, here) come to an end? Why do beings die?
Possible explanation: No death, then no intergenerational evolution. No evolution, then no innovation. No innovation (i.e. biological innovation), then no adaptation to changed circumstances and environments (assuming changed circumstances, of course). No adaptation to changed circumstances and environments, then species DEATH!

This (i.e., species death) is not good (counterproductive) for being, especially human being!

It would appear then, that individual (ontogenetic) death is the necessary price we pay for species being (phylogenetic) in an ever-changing universe.

Does this mean the species prospers, i.e., learns and improves, because we, as individuals, die? Yikes!

Human Evolution
OK, this is a long story, so I will keep it short, here. It looks like we evolved from something (Prosimians) that lived in trees about 40-50 million years ago, then into monkeys, then more upright monkey-like beings. (We share a common ancestry with apes, chimps and gorillas.) Then a bunch of splits in the hominid family tree and, so on, till there you have it, humans. (Good thing the dinosaurs went extinct or it would have been a whole other story.) The process continues as we speak, of course, and who knows where it (and we) will end?
If there are a lot of failed branches in the family tree, extinctions that were “selected out” because of insufficient or adaptively “weak” characteristics, could it be that homo sapiens, too, are only one moment in a larger evolutionary stream which in the end may not include humans? Who says we are privileged survivors in the long run? Oh, Oh!

Human societies and inequality. You know the story. Societies have to scavenge or produce stuff in order to survive. When societies reach a point where they are not simply living hand-to-mouth, that is, when they reach a point above the level of subsistence, they have to decide how to distribute the social surplus (i.e., everything that isn’t immediately consumed.) “Who gets what” and “Who decides who gets what (a strongman or a market?) are among the key questions. Who gets the goodies and how they get them has differed in different societies. Usually, it’s priests, kings, capitalists, you know, the usual suspects. In capitalism, of course it is impersonal markets that decide, (assisted by armies, states, politics and other sorts of extra-market institutions.) Result: Lots of inequality. Bad.Economic equality becomes more important than ever. On it, rests social equality, and perhaps the fate of the species.

We live in a world of immense disparities. One hundred and thirty five of the world’s most wealthy individuals have assets that equal those of nearly two billion of the earth’s “less fortunate” people.

It occurs to me however, that we know (all too well) what inequality looks like. But we don’t know much about what global equality, would look like. Hmm, I wonder???