Thursday, June 30, 2011

asshole doctors

Today I had the rather difficult task of getting my eighty-six year old father from
his chair, to his wheelchair, to the car, to the doctor's office....

where my mother had an appointment.....

(of course the process repeated and was reversed two times....)

in order to visit a doctor's office where the asshole had a TV playing with --well, what should we call it?--medical information?

Was it really?

And, there were certainly advertisements, during which the volume increased notably!

Now, is that a nice thing to do to people?

There is a rich literature about faulty statistical reasoning by doctors. We are all of us prone to such error--and doctors are no exception.

More interesting is the linked article below, about the actual quality of the research available in medical journals.....

It doesn't take much insight to see the profit motive as the crucial factor. Yes, you may call me a socialist or a communist or whatever you like. I do not believe that the existing political and economic order is good, and I do think that we can do better...

Your doctor may sincerely believe him- or herself to be reading a scientific report when it's really a sophisticated piece of marketing....


Harriet Washington, "Flacking for Big Pharma", The American Scholar, posted June 3, 2011@1:05am In Summer 2011

accusation

Pious declarations by politicians and so-called medical professionals to the contrary, the USA as a society, doesn't give a damn about the elderly.
All it cares about is how the maximum tribute may be extracted from them---tribute payable primarily to the ruling class.
But to say all that is redundant for two reasons:
First, this is true of all segments of the society: the young, the middle-aged, and anyone in between are merely sources of wealth for the ruling class.
That's the way the society works.
And, finally, the point about the aged was already made more than forty years ago by Simone de Beauvoir....

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

what is war?

We must, of course, distinguish between property damage and damage to persons.
This distinction is often ignored in newspapers. If someone breaks the window of,
e.g., a McDonalds store, some reporters may speak of "violence". It would be more accurate to speak of property damage.

Of course, there may be cases where one leads to the other. No doubt.

Nonetheless, I was interested to read what one person in the streets in Greece had to say
(apparently explaining the willingness of some to set a building on fire). The Greek
said that the government had declared war on the people, so the people were responding in kind. (By setting fire to a building near the parliament.)


"Vláda nám vyhlásila válku, a na tuto válku my taky odpovíme válkou," citovala agentura AP jednoho demonstranta.

Some people speak of "structural violence"--death and injuries caused by a system, by institutions..... (As Ted Honderich once pointed out, if you die from hunger, it is a slow death, but it is still a real death....)

Structural violence is often invisible--especially for those who are in the more prosperous part of the population.....

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

possibly of interest

More reason to say: GMOOH!


(brought to my attention by Prof. Leiter at "Leiter Reports"...)


Saturday, June 25, 2011

something nice

something nice from a first-hand account of the democracy movement in Spain:

The general assemblies are always held in public spaces, usually symbolic places in the center of the city: Puerta del Sol in Madrid, Plaza Cataluña in Barcelona, Plaza de Encarnación in Sevilla, etc., all reminiscent of the Agoras from ancient Greek city-states. The fact that those squares are public has not been obvious to all observers. The traumatic experience of police repression in Barcelona on June 27th illustrates this. As a matter of fact, public spaces are only public insofar as we actually use them. Our rights as citizens cannot be weighted against commercial considerations or a "bad image" for tourism. Neglecting that right leads authorities to treat it as touristic "capital" and to undermine our collective property right. Participatory democracy begins with reclaiming that space and our right.


This reminds me of two things:
In El Paso, Texas, I once met a homeless man who told me that the police harassed him
when he was on North Mesa. (Incidentally, North Mesa is one of the ugliest places in the world. It is filled with enormous trucks boiling in the hot sun. Despite the theory of traffic management it is, essentially, a no-go area for pedestrians. If the city of El Paso had any common sense, they would ban cars and put in a tram line....)

In Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic, I once read that a person taking pictures at a local (Canadian owned, I believe) shopping center had his camera taken away by security guards--lest the pictures be used in a way bad for the image of the place.

Friday, June 24, 2011

Thursday, June 23, 2011

fuck austerity

Talk of austerity in Greece (and elsewhere) is pure class warfare---an attack by the rich on the rest of us....

Consider, for example, the following line from an article in the Guardian about the
so-called "bailout' in Greece:

The Greek finance minister, Evangelos Venizelos, announced details of the austerity measures, which include lowering the minimum threshold for income tax to €8,000 a year from its current level of €12,000.

(8,000 Euros is about 11,408 US Dollars)

Greece granted €120bn EU bailout""

Ian Traynor
Guardian, Friday 24 June 2011


Tuesday, June 21, 2011

social forces

imagine the pressures:
having turned twenty-one,
and being glad of that,
no longer need you fear the police:
you can drink with your friends legally.

Naturally: relief;

But, then opposing forces:

Too much fun? Too much pleasure?
Can we justify being social, enjoying the company of others?
Need we do so?

And more seriously:
what of drinking and driving?
deaths

then again:
do you mean prohibition?

then again:
INVISIBLE
cars are a law of nature (even though in reality they are not)....
((we could never blame cars or the lack of public transport for the deaths.....))))
((((unwritten, unsaid, unthinkable)))))))).....

ready to hand, so omnipresent as not needing to be explicitly said, and only hinted at:
everyone for him- or herself; individual choice, etc. etc. etc.


Saturday, June 18, 2011

usa notes

The American swims leisurely in a foul river of ideology, class warfare, and inequality. She believes that she swims in the purest of mountain streams. If she notices the odor, she feels guilty and imagines that she is not working hard enough or bathing often enough--which are, in the end, the same thing....

where do they learn to talk like that?

a message
if you demand people's attention
musn't there be a message?

No, not really.

Were any of us as great artists as Plato was,
we (you and I) would simply leave behind
creations of unsurpassable elegance and beauty.

but since we lack Plato's genius,
we resort to
BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA....ad nauseam.....ad infinitum....

Thursday, June 16, 2011

the hell that is the usa

on top of inadequate medical care
which has forced me to virtually destroy my life
in an attempt to help my aged parents

my eighty-five year old mother must endure harassing phone calls from salesmen

what a miserable country this is

I curse the day I allowed myself to return to this hell

future! what future?

NO future here in the USA....GMOOH!


The problem is the private insurance companies and the private pharmaceutical companies. And that's what needs to be controlled to get long-term health care costs down.--economist Bob Polin; full interview below:

Wednesday, June 15, 2011

the american nightmare

excerpt from an interview with Danny Dorling, Professor of Human Geography, at znet:

You mentioned appealing to the rich over inequality. Glasgow University commissioned a poll testing the popularity of a one off wealth tax on the richest 10% so as to pay off the national debt. It found slightly higher support for the measure amongst wealthy respondents.

It’s even stronger in the United States where the poorest are most against what they call death taxes and generic taxes. The poor in America have been told to hang on to the dream that one day you or your children might make it. The very worst thing you can imagine if you are really poor in America is for one your children to become superrich, only for some bastard to come and take the money off them. If what keeps you going through the day is the idea of winning the lottery or that one of your children might be the one to strike lucky, then how can you keep that as your motivator and still believe that taxing the rich is good?


the interview:

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-geography-of-injustice-by-danny-dorling



Monday, June 13, 2011

elitism eptx style

I am very distressed to hear the very elitist remarks, to recognize the contempt for ordinary people....among members of a local theater/arts group......

As if ordinary people were lesser.....

It's ugly.

but, so long as a theater director, e.g., thinks that way I predict: he or she will never
produce any art worthy of the name.

You cannot ignore the ordinary experiences of people with less leisure than you have....

And then there is the juvenile delight in shocking, or trying to shock, to somehow attempt
to express contempt for the way ordinary people think......

That's been done before, but even in the past it had a deeper basis than what I see around me....
No somos mercancía en manos de políticos y banqueros

Sunday, June 12, 2011

oh dear

random musings:

Oh dear, oh dear. in my previous post I used the biggest taboo word in the English language.
What a bad boy.

do the spaces we live in influence our thoughts?
am I a knee-jerk whorfian?

Am I a bad boy in thought?
Have I lost the respect of my readers and will my essay be rejected by the editors?

Yes, I do think that the spaces in which you and I move do influence our thoughts
To what extent?
How?
Where?

Have I done no experiments?
How dare I speak such rubbish?

Imagine the time you spend in your car (if you are a USA person).
You have a common vocabulary that you share with other USA people.
Likewise for your house and lawn...

I do not share that vocabulary and must think about what people are
saying to me.

Even more disturbing I want to interrupt the flow of the USA-thoughts.
I don't want to assume that cutting the lawn is good or worthy.

Why the hell did some idiot import totally unsuitable shrubs into a desert?
Get them out of here. They will never be sustainable.

And I have a thousand other complaints.

When you assume USA technology (cars no trams) houses each with its own this or that,
you import that whole decision (see note) into the reality of your conversations.
You cannot stop yourself.
And I want to put a tariff on that imposition. So, you may not enjoy talking to me.
Well, the experience is mutual--I assure you...

note: "decision"? Yes, that's what I mean. there was no collective decision, no democratic decision about which technology would be developed. that's what it means to say that the USA is a capitalist country.... (one of the things it means)....

Saturday, June 11, 2011

fuck google

FUCK GOOGLE
they have no right to know where I am

FUCK ADVERTISING
we don't need them

FUCK WALL STREET
we don't need them either

FUCK CAPITALISM
we can do better


oh, yeah, and on a lighter note
FUCK ALBERTSONS
my local store has been completely re-arranged, and this wastes my time hunting for things.
The food there is crap too. Vegetables and fruit are either tasteless or taste bad (nine times out of ten). THE FOOD IS NOT FRESH
AND THE PRICES ARE ARBITRARY.....but they always go up, up , up...

Friday, June 10, 2011

sadder and sadder

I am sadder and sadder at what I see around me.
A local dance group is devoting an evening to the subject of alcohol,
a dance group whose choreographer is a dance major at the local university...
The theme is illustrated by such questions as (I don't quote precisely)
Are the young controlled by alcohol or do they control alcohol?
Or, why are the young obsessed with alcohol?

Nowhere is there recognition that different nations have different attitudes toward alcohol,
or that this is a Puritan nation.....no sociological awareness of the role that economic matters
play....no appreciation of the basic biology of addictive substances.....No attempt to ask if this is a real problem, or just a mis-perception, a kind of hasty generalization based upon one's personal experience, with no attempt at all to take an external perspective on one's subjective impression.
and I say again< this must reveal something about the education system, and, indeed, the broader culture.... Or might it be that the "problem" is simply that people are socializing, not working, and enjoying themselves? But, you say: they have hang-overs! Yes, that's a problem
but nothing serious. It's excess, an error, not a sin....unless, of course, you assume a Puritan framework, and then, oh then, you are in trouble for revealing your lack of "self-control", your sinfulness.... as opposed to saying: people make mistakes, they mis-calculate; eventually you learn to control your drinking (unless you have a real problem, or maybe if you've lost your job and fallen into despair)....

And, so finally, you wonder what happens at the universities in this country if a university
educated person is so naive....(In fact, it seems as though what's going on is that a person living in an insane Puritan country who has recently acquired the ability to drink alcoholic beverages legally would simply like to celebrate that fact......and talks about the problem of the young as if alcohol abuse were not primarily a problem for the dispirited, the unemployed, those without hope.....and those attributes are not the exclusive property of the young...)

I note in passing that I recently read an essay by Bertolt Brecht in which he emphasized the importance of education for artists, a broad education in culture outside one's specific specialty,
and this pleased me because Brecht seemed to be having a thought I've had many times,
a thought that seems absent locally, even at the local university....

Schizophrenic after-thought:
It is, of course, important to distinguish between the paucity of culture and the sins of individiuals. Individuals in an individualistic culture such as the USA are blind to possibilities which the culture discourages. That is my complaint. I am an individual who has seen other possibilities and is being strangled, starved, suffocated, dehydrated by the cultural desert which exists here in the USA, elpasotexas style. People expect to have bosses because they know no other way, and haven't imagined it either.......People don't see a connection between their lives and the lives of individuals in other continents, etc. You can say "it's not my fault", but it does you no good. You go on living, and struggling, blind to reality....and I feel as though someone had dropped an enormous block of cement on my chest, and while I struggle for my life, I am fully aware of the fact that no one around me can see it......So, what sort of friendship can there be between them and me? I've got an elephant on my back and we pretend it's not there? (Because you are carrying one too)

Thursday, June 9, 2011

nie su sympaticki...

the Cold American....

My Slovak friends told me, "if someone asks you 'how are you?' here in Slovakia, they mean it....not like you Americans...."

Well, today I felt the truth of those words, as my honest answer to the question got me
a breathtakingly cold response.

I wouldn't mind it so much if the capitalist mentality were not increasingly visible to me. It is a part of the thread which binds and disconnects people. Invisible to them, but painfully visible to me.


Is a choreographer a "supervisor"? I think not, not at all, and it is a deep confusion to so carelessly use such a word.

Supervision belongs to factories and assembly and other equally heartless capitalist institutions.

The supervisor examines the product of the worker's labor, makes sure it will bring the factory owner/capitalist his profit...

An artist is an independent creative agent---even an artist who is part of a group---and does not needs someone checking up on his/her product....The activity is collaborative..

But in the United States it seems that the capitalist illness is so deep that ordinary people cannot avoid thinking in terms of hierarchy and are in a constant and unconscious flight from freedom....

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

weather report

Weather Report
El Paso, Texas
22:00
wind
wind
wind
wind
wind
dust
dirt
dust
dirt
hot
hot
hot
YCCCCCCH
YCCCCCCH

GMOOH!

Rip off the Consumer: American Style

Today I needed to buy a thick rubber band to stretch my feet.
The old one had broken.
The old one was purchased at a store in the center of Bratislava for two or three dollars.
It was packaged in a plastic bag with a small paper insert telling me what it was.
In Bratislava, capital of Slovakia, I could purchase exactly what I wanted!
In the United States, I cannot buy exactly what I wanted.

Due to the devil called "marketing" I was forced to buy more than I need or want.

Thanks to WAL MART and GOLD'S GYM I was forced to purchase things I don't need
and contribute to environmental degradation through the excessive and needless use of resources.

Excessive packaging: On top of the simple plastic bag my Bratislava version band had
been packaged in, there was a box, and a useless booklet.

Moreover, I want nothing to do with "Gold's Gym". They are nothing to me. I certainly don't need to see their name on a box to know that something is worth buying. What a bullshit idea that is!

I don't need to buy something endorsed by them. No thank you.

And I only wanted one band of maxim firmness. I don't need to "work up to" the strongest level.

So to Wal Mart and Gold's Gym I say: Get Lost! Go Jump in a Lake! You are both assholes and irresponsible assholes.

Note well: In Eastern Europe I had the FREEDOM to choose to purchase exactly one band of the desired firmness, and I saved a good 7 or so dollars!

Courtesy of Wal Mart and Gold's Gym I was essentially extorted of that money. I paid THREE TIMES what I needed to pay, in order to buy something I didn't need!

Oh yes, both rubber bands (the one I purchased in Slovakia and the one I purchased in the USA along with two others I didn't want or need) were manufactured in China---so who is kidding who?

Now more than ever, I must borrow from the Indian communists to say:
F*CK Capitalism!


Monday, June 6, 2011

three sisters...

the three ugly sisters:
capitalism
puritanism
militarism

capitalism gives us deprived lives full of cheap things, damages everyone to produce them, and mis-counts the elements of happiness, all the while destroying, destroying destroying...

puritanism makes us believe in the filthy god of work, confuses us about the meaning of our activities and distorts our ability to enjoy, to share pleasure.....

militarism means death, brutal, heartless and cruel, and it means a big fat lie about this truth: that our leaders and generals don't care whether we die or whether a stranger dies, so long as they retain their power....

three sisters
three ugly sisters

electric cars?

See "The Consumer Trap" June 1, 2011

"Electricity; Not Magic"
and the link provided.....
at:

http://www.consumertrap.com/

journalists

journalists are an amazing breed
i say that after reading "The Guardian" interview with Arundhati Roy

I couldn't read the whole thing.
The journalist is fighting hard to say certain things, to see things a certain way.....

It's so interesting how the establishment deals with the truth.
Roy says India is a place where investments go, so there's a ban on bad stories.
The journalist finds this unbelievable. And of course, it is his business to know!
(He's a journalist, after all.) (But what is a journalist anyway?????)
(So, it's the level of argument: I say yes, you say no...)
Well, I find it very believable!((-: These sorts of bans are subtle but effective.....and only
an outsider like A. Roy would dare speak of them.....

(I have heard this strategy (deny something as incredible) used before before...)

The article itself is a bit ridiculous, but the truthful person who is Arundhati Roy escapes nevertheless....

Reference:

(Article on A. Roy in the Guardian, Sunday 5 June, written by Stephen Moss)

recommended site:
medialens:
http://www.medialens.org

Sunday, June 5, 2011

why do the rich cry?

Noted in passing:
My mother was supposed to receive a free copy of the Sunday newspaper, delivered to her front door. Either it wasn't delivered at all, or--what I regard as more likely--it was delivered, but someone walking by early in the morning stole it. El Paso---a ruthless, dog-eat-dog sort of place....(gmooh)

"Why do the rich cry Daddy?"
This is my intepretation/elaboration of a Spanish cartoon I've just seen:

Scene: a small child is talking to her father, who sits in his comfortable arm chair.
The conversation goes something like this:

Child: Do the rich cry?

(My elaboration: Do they cry just like we do, we who are not rich?)

Father: Yes, the rich cry too.

Child: But what do they cry about?

(Why should they cry when they've got so much money?)

Father: They cry because they want to be richer.

(I.e., the rich who have more money than they need are unhappy or sad when they don't get to have even more money than they already have.)

So, they may cry----but they definitely don't cry the way we do (e.g., ,because we are feeling stress and anxiety about paying our bills, or uncertainty about the future.....)

Saturday, June 4, 2011

uncivilized el paso

What kind of barbarians live in El Paso, Texas?


When the neighbor drinks beer, he evidently thinks it is "cool" to throw the bottle

over the fence into his neighbors' yard.

Today it is a beer can. Last time it was a beer bottle.

What kind of people are these?

Is it fun to throw beer cans over fences? Really?

Is this neighbor really a schoolteacher, as my mother believes? Probably she is badly informed....



What strange people these are!



GMOOH

queries from my readers

My readers abroad often express astonishment and disbelief. "Can there really be so deranged and bizarre a group of people as you seem to describe? Are these residents of the Puritan States of America not merely your invention? Or, might it not be that you exaggerate a trifle too much?"

I am, as a matter of fact, entirely in agreement with the spirit of the question/comment.
I myself am often amazed, for example, by the extraordinary abilities this strange race possesses to see differences where none exist. Thus my humble sandals, the cheapest I could find in my neighborhood in Wien, are classed as "Birkies" and people immediately suppose that I must be some sort of hippie or would-be hippie, or god knows what. And then they launch into a discussion involving brand names that means nothing to me.

Can there really be a group of people so contaminated by the consumerist spirit?

That is an excellent question which I cannot answer. I try my best to describe what I see and experience, but maybe I really am dreaming. I hope so. It is a nightmare that I would like to wake up from. As soon as possible!

What a great relief it is to take a crap; what a great relief it is to crap art.

Insofar as the artist is at all sensitive to the world, it is necessary to begin with awareness of the world's injustice, which is simultaneously the injustice of existing institutions and the badness of individual persons.

My happiness--circumscribed though it is by the intense propaganda and vulgarity of capitalism--is yet purchased at the price of the greater misery of others. I am not wholly innocent, even if not fully guilty---even if the concepts of innocence and guilt don't actually aid our understanding.

Thus the happy-happy-happy art of celebration is a lie. It doesn't matter if it is a personal celebration (I am now old enough to legally drink alcohol in the Puritan states of America--says the twenty-one year old!, as she sings and dances with her friends) or if it is a so-called historical celebration (look how far my group, our group has come!). All of that is about dishonesty and lies ---any attempt to make a public spectacle out of it is, in fact, a step backwards, a limitation to human understanding.

Nonetheless, I put forward a bold hypothesis: any creative individual with a minimum of sensitivity must notice the suffering of others, and this must be reflected in whatever they create--just as much as our dreams reflect our real concerns, hopes, wishes, fears. Not that injustice must be in the foreground, but it can potently be present in the background.

Friday, June 3, 2011

just this

I have only one thing to say: gmooh!

Thursday, June 2, 2011

Big Trucks, Big Emissions and Big Die-In

As the citizens of El Paso continue to drive their trucks as if there were no tomorrow...
and, don't get me wrong, I don't actually suppose that only trucks or primarily
trucks cause climate change....

Yes, I know that very many activities contribute to carbon emissions (even owing
a dog, not to mention the manufacture of cement).....

Nevertheless, living in this miserable wasteland, trucks are a salient reminder of the utter depravity of the modern world....

for a more sober assessment, please follow this link to Juan Cole's blog (via Leiter Reports)