Wednesday, August 31, 2011

eptx insanity

Is it pleasant to have ice cold air blowing in your face?
Offhand, I would think not. However, the behavior of the residents of this
benighted place suggests otherwise.

How many times have I seen a Texan stand face-to-face with a cooling
device blowing freezing cold air, and smile, while making sounds that in my experience
would be better left to the confines of a darkened bedroom?

It is a mystery to me why they do it.
I find blowing freezing cold air unpleasant.

Moreover, I continue to be amazed by the lack of humidity in the air.
One does not sweat here. However, the locals seem to be unaware of that fact.
Most distressing is the extremely demonstrative behavior of local dandies and pampered
teenagers: should one drop of sweat form on their brow, they immediately begin a complicated ritual of
whining and fanning the air---protesting as if their fundamental human rights had been violated!

I call upon the gods and goddesses: Please come down, and sweep me away from this miserable place!
Or, better yet, I call upon a healthy fair goddess whose name I have yet to learn: would you be so kind as to remove me from this field of battle? I can promise any number of burnt offerings in the future..... (I would even welcome a visit by an angel with a sword......provided she does quick work....)

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Gulag USA:

File for Prisoner 4323:
Collected by 637302

Prisoner does not demonstrate sufficient national enthusiasm.

Was overheard to be thinking/saying that the USA is "anti-social", that he had more social contacts
in a foreign land.

A Program of Re-Indoctrination is called for.

Recommend to begin immediately.

Suggest specifically a refresher course in the double meaning of consumer goods. Recommend that the subject be punished for a failure to speak of his role as a consumer in the correct terms.

GULAG USA:

File for Prisoner 4323:
Collected by 637377

Testing the new mind-reading machine. Surprised at the number of obscenities floating through the prisoner's brain. First sample below:

"God damn it! I HATE Wal Mart. Fucking Thieves. Assholes. they accuse me of being a thief every time I go there when they demand my sales receipt. I hate this!"

Recommend more frequent monitoring.

GULAG USA: from the prisoner's diary

Gulag USA

File for Prisoner 4323:
Collected by 637377

Today NN seems tired. The usual mood swings have been observed. Has been writing in his diary. The following appeared:


I am in a prison--this house, this city, this country--not of my own making.

Constant Surveillance Recommended

Friday, August 26, 2011

Eastern Europe in the USA

When I lived in Bratislava, a friend advised me that no one in their right mind would shop there when Vienna was so close.
How close? Trains run every hour, and the journey lasts an hour.
Easy to do.

In EL Paso, Texas, you can't buy clothing or shoes of any quality in my neighborhood.
One must travel by personal automobile--a climate-destroying and soul-destroying
instrument of the capitalist class--to the "other side of the mountain".
Please don't think there is anything romantic about it. IT's not.
The journey lasts, perhaps, 45 minutes.... a journey to a mall--not my idea of a beautiful place.
An enclosed space with artificial air and light......

Unpleasant, inconvenient....eptx
gmooh

Thursday, August 25, 2011

The Past Is The Present

As a college student, one summer I visited the Czecho-Slovak Socialist Republic. When my stay had ended, I was, early one morning, after drinking a bit too much home-made wine, waiting in a train station in the east of that country with two friends, when we were accosted by a drunk who evidently knew we were from the USA. He told us, “We have everything we need here…” The next day, in Vienna, a city whose billboards alone stood in bright contrast to the gray of communism, we laughed as we remembered his words.

Today, I find that the North Americans I meet suffer from a peculiar narrowness of perspective reminiscent of that Czecho-Slovak man. A specific incident can illustrate this:

After several years spent working outside the USA, teaching English (EFL) and Philosophy, I was back in the States, standing in a long line at a major airport hub. As we moved through endless turns through turnstile after turnstile, I was greeted by a small, dark-skinned uniformed woman with a friendly smile and an incomprehensible accent. I don’t know what she said, but I guessed that she was helping me continue in the right direction. “Guess” may be something of an exaggeration since her body language was clear.

.When I commented upon her incomprehensibility, a nearby woman, young and (to my eyes) over-confident, laughed, and said smugly--speaking to me as if I were not a citizen of the USA, "Yes, we are a mix...." -- Or words to that effect.

Her words expressed a kind of pride. Apparently, she regarded me as an ignorant foreigner who needed a lesson in the greatness of the USA. In reality, there was nothing here to be proud of. First of all, if you speak a language with such a strong accent, that's because you've not had the opportunity to correct or improve your pronunciation.

If you have a strong accent, you have not benefited from the sort of schooling I used to provide at an “International” School in Slovakia to the spoiled children of ambassadors and mafia dons, as well as to the extremely hard working children of hard working Korean employees of an automotive firm.
(I hasten to add that the Mafia parents treated me with the utmost respect, and were far less pushy than North American teachers whose children attended the school.)

Secondly, that small dark-skinned woman probably was badly paid, and probably doesn't even get health insurance.

So, what's to be proud of? Her home country has in all probability been the victim of interference form the USA or some other industrially advanced nation, and that's why she's come to the USA.

Nothing to be proud of in that.

The real problem is that the young woman who I briefly encountered in the airport is in no way unique. And that’s something not merely to gripe about; it is a serious problem.

Recommended Reading:


Vijay Prashad, The Darker Nations; A People’s History of the Third World: New Press, London and New York 2007: The focus of this elegant work is the recent history of countries once called “third world”. This work justifies my speculation that the uniformed woman I met came from a place which suffered from USA interference.

John Quiggin, Zombie Economics; How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us, Princeton University Press 2010, Princeton—on the absence of upward mobility in the USA, despite myths to the contrary…. And more generally, on the insanity of the ruling economic consensus in the world’s most dangerous country.

Richard Wilikinson and Kate Picket, The Spirit Level, Penguin 2010, London.
A quick look at the graphs will tell you that the USA is not doing very well as compared to other industrialized nations.

Eirk Olin Wright and Joel Rogers, American Society: How it Really Works, WW Norton, New York and London, 2011
A portrait of the actual state of the USA, and more evidence that the young woman’s pride was not justified.





the black book of capitalism

thoughts while frying onions

The food that's available locally is disgustingly not fresh.....

I was just looking at the texture of the over-priced tomatoes sold in plastic containers,
and allegedly in some way connected to "Euro" cuisine...

such an enormous lie...

Label this under: THE CRIMES OF CAPITALISM.....

gulagamerika---a unique sort of prison, coming soon to the entire world....

untitled

It is difficult for me to describe the cultural bleakness which I experience in this country.
Even that word "culture" is fraught with peril. It is a word too often used, and used badly.

And I would not even deny that the ugliness of it all would be endurable if it were not so all-encompassing--if there were for me some real possibility of internal exile.

But, that, precisely is the rub.

Were I allowed a private space free from interruption, I might be able to work it out in my
own head. Or if I had real friends here, and if I could somehow meet them without the onerous business of driving a car and suffering through the heat, and meet them in some comfortable space, then some kind of life might be possible.

But precisely that is not possible.

I think of the massive "convention hotels" where the American Philosophical Association meets, and I shudder. That is precisely the impossibility which is this country. Those hotels are not designed for human beings. They are sterile and unfriendly machines. Human beings need touch and pleasure, not mere efficiency.

But there is no touch or pleasure for me in this land of destruction.
I am being destroyed as well.
And no one will put my name on the list of victims--if ever the list is compiled.

I am dying in silence.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

the dangers of popularizing philosophy

Perhaps as an unemployed philosopher, I am willing and able--nay, eager--to say things that professional courtesy would forbid were I employed.
Perhaps.....

Terry Penner, my teacher, used to say that issues in Plato interpretation came down, often and at bottom, to philosophical disagreements between the interpreters.

I think there are several things involved in unpacking that saying. The texts themselves do not suffice to determine a specific, fine-grained view, so that reasonable readers and interpreters can come up with different readings--incompatible, but defensible, readings.

(I cannot say if Penner himself would say the texts are indeterminate....)

But what Penner did not say is that there is a kind of interpretation which does not rise to that level. There is a kind of interpretation which does not go so far as to actually address the philosophical issues raised by a text.

Unfortunately, I just came across an example of that via a link at Professor Leiter's blog.

Commenting on the recent disturbances of business as usual in London and other UK cities, a philosopher in the UK ( whose job is to popularize philosophy for a wider public) used Plato's famous "parts of the soul" theory from the "Republic" to make a comment on the disturbances in the UK.

I shall provide a link below.

My overall reaction (in addition to the comment I've already posted) is something like this:

An intelligent reader of this entry might well come away saying: "Well! Why bother to read Plato at all? He just thinks like we all do!"

I am sympathetic toward the attempt to make a historical philosophical figure appear non-insane. However, this comment (by Angie Hobbs) seems to me to go too far in that direction. Plato seems reasonable, but not especially interesting.

By contrast, the sort of thing Terry Penner is talking about involves finding surprising views in philosophers---views that require some imagination to defend.

I don't know what this shows about the project of popularizing philosophy. I guess that so far as this one attempt by AH goes, I would say that it fails. But, of course, I am not against the project of spreading knowledge and insight....

LINK:

August 15, 2011

Plato and the England Riots


AFTER-THOUGHT
Incidentally, who was disrupting business-as-usual in London and elsewhere?
There's now an article in the Guardian which answers the question:

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

medical don't care

The other day I came across a small glossy brochure created by the manufacturer of a specific pain medicine. It happens to be the medicine my mother was prescribed by a Neurologist.

Herr Neurologist has stressed his superiority to ordinary doctors. Moreover, he has been a university teacher, training doctors.

I confess that I see no evidence that he has teaching skills. He has not, in general, impressed me with his ability to provide clear explanations, although I can think of one counter-example to that general claim. Perhaps it is my biological and chemical ignorance, but I doubt it. Indeed, this doctor has impressed me most of all with his specific approach, the way he represents himself as a superior individual.

A few months ago when I asked a question about the medicine he had prescribed for my mother, his answer was to give me a small brochure manufactured by the manufacturer of the medicine--i.e., a bit of advertising.

I wonder if he realizes how stupid that is. Today, with the internet, it is very easy for me to acquire relatively more independent information at the pages of the NEH.

Probably, he did not for one minute think about what he was doing, or what he had done--namely, to respond to a question for information with a bit of advertising.

This is one example which illustrates the sort of experiences I have had in the past two years, experiences which lead me to speak of the USA don't care health system. I also have formed a very low opinion of doctor's in general, though I admit that this particular doctor is a special case.

Monday, August 15, 2011

a memory

As in many strikes, workers on the picket line talked to supporters not just about the disputed issues in the contract, but also about the many ways their job has gotten harder and more pressured in recent years. Call center workers complained about management pressure to limit phone calls to four minutes, which often makes genuine customer service impossible.

The above was cut-and-pasted from an article about the Verizon strike.

As I recall, I briefly used Verizon, but was pissed off because they would not let unused minutes carry over for more than ninety days. What a bunch of cheap-skates.

However, their flaws are more serious, which you can find out if you go the the below link, the source of the quotation above.


"Striker's seeing red over Verizon's greed", Socialistworker.org; 15 August 2011

My memory?
As a high school teacher or a teacher of English as a Foreign Language, I often felt that the sheer number of students and/0r number of classes (subjects) I was being asked to teach made it impossible for me to do a good job. And, that was as frustrating as my low pay and other demanding/frustrating aspects of the job..... Indeed, trying to teach Philosophy at a university but lacking adequate resources....Or, for that matter, trying to do research without access to a research library.... Those are the sorts of things that do indeed make one feel despair and hopelessness....

Sunday, August 14, 2011

in passing

While I endure the tender mercies of the USA health care system--
on account of my aged parents' need for help--it is interesting to note that in today's "Lidove Noviny", a newspaper in the Czech Republic, there is a story about how the USA ambassador has been pressuring Czech politicians, lobbying on behalf of American pharmaceutical companies.

I.e., they want high prices (like they get here at home)....

The Czech journalist (correctly) describes it as hypocrisy because the American diplomat has been lecturing about ethics and corruption.

This is very funny---even if simultaneously sad and disgusting.....


PS
A more careful reading of this article produces several other nuggets:
The so-called ethical expert offers the advice that (in effect) something is wrong
if it would embarrass you to read about it on the pages of the Washington Post!

Obviously, many immoral activities of the US government are routinely reported on the pages of USA newspapers in language which distracts from the ugly reality.

The Washington Post hardly provides any kind of real ethical or moral guidance!

Moreover, the individual in question is the former Advisor to Barack Obama for "ethics"!
Laughable and sad!

Judge a man by his results! (Thus spoke Socrates.) By that measure, given Obama's behavior, this advisor is incompetent.

(Caveat: About which matters did the man advise Obama? I'd need details to fully assert the above claim without qualification. Nonetheless, prima facie, it would seem yet another emperor (or "expert") has no clothes!)

a bad place to live

I have not made a careful list of all of the disadvantages of living in the USA,
nevertheless,
I just want to repeat:

the food in the USA is shit

for example,
yogurts here are either too sweet or don't taste as good as those in--dare i say it?--Slovakia.

Slovakia--a very small, post-Socialist or formerly "Communist" country....

The variety of yogurt and yogurt products available there were--by contrast with the USA---
amazing.
The quality was higher.
The flavored yogurts were not as sweet, and the unflavored yogurts were much richer tasting.

Like everything else in this country, the quality is low....

Please, oh please, (here I pray to the god or goddess or gods and goddesses of food) get me out of here!!!

Saturday, August 13, 2011

sad, sad, sad; --or, well, stupid and uniformed....

Over in the UK, there's this Cameron chap who is going to meet a tough
American Cop--a so-called super-cop..

Why?

There's a lot of super crap, or super bullshit floating around about how police techniques
can influence crime....

I quote (cut and paste) the first paragraph of a section of a paper by the sociologist Loic Wacquant, below:

2. IT IS THE POLICE WHO MAKE CRIME MELT AWAY

A recent report by the Manhattan Institute – a major promoter of the ‘class

cleansing’ of the streets and nerve centre of the worldwide campaign to

penalize poverty18 – asserts this with emphasis: the sustained drop in the

statistics of crime in the US over the past decade is due to the energetic

and innovative action of the law-enforcement forces, after they were finally

freed from the ideological taboos and legal yokes that previously constrained

them. The paradigmatic case for this is offered by the spectacular turn-

around achieved in New York by the Republican mayor Rudolph Giuliani

under the leadership of his master police chiefs William Bratton and William

Safir.19 But there is a catch: here again facts are more stubborn than ideol-

ogy, and all scientific studies converge in concluding that the police did not

play the key determining role that the advocates of the penal management of

social insecurity assign to it as a matter of petitio principii – far from it.


http://sociology.berkeley.edu/faculty/wacquant/wacquant_pdf/SCHOLARLYMYTHLAW&ORDER.pdf


Friday, August 5, 2011

omnipresent stupidity

the stupidity of the home-owner who imagines the wall around his house gives him the rights to do anything,
the stupidity of the El Pasoan who builds a wall around his boxy house and believes himself to inhabit an independent country, which he rules as king,
the stupidity of the American who fails to notice that his country's military is poking its nose in a dozen or more countries around the world where it has no business,

the stupidity of the American who doesn't realize that his cheap bananas have been paid for with blood

etc
etc
etc

the stupidity of the individual home, isolated and separate only in the imagination of its owner,
stands part-for-whole in relation to the massive ignorance and deliberate blindness of the real effects that actions here have over there......

my car--global warming

my purchases----and all of the unwanted and harmful side-effects all across the globe

Let's close our eyes until......

I don't want to imagine how that sentence could be completed.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

crap weather in El paso Texas

Recently I was reading that the summers in Europe are not so intensely hot as those in the USA. Ain't that the truth!

Right now, the weather outside is miserably, oppressively hot. Inside, there is the artificial expedient of forced blown cold air. Itself unpleasant. The air is simply not fresh.

This is no place to live, and the excessive use of technology is no solution. GMOOH!