Tuesday, July 31, 2012

spelling decline

I've noticed a few errors in old posts---e.g., 'their' instead or 'there';  but I've not been able to fix all of them.  When and if I notice such infelicities (sometimes the result of late night typing habits, other times the result of using an 'ipad') I shall fix them.....  In the meantime, I can only beg the reader's forbearance.

Sister-Logic

Problem/Situation:
Three different individuals, A, B, C recently had their air conditioning serviced and/ or replaced.
A paid X.  B paid Y. And C got an estimate for Z.
Z>Y>X


What conclusions can we draw?


My sister's suggestion:  C got (or was going to be) cheated.


My suggestion:  Did A, B, and C have exactly the same thing done?  Did each purchase exactly the same unit?


My sister's reply:  "I am not talking to you.  You are impractical."
QED


The reader should feel free to supply missing steps and formalization.


After-thought:
And what if Z is twice as much as X?


Reply:
You still need to know whether C purchased/was planning to purchase the same thing as A.

Insults.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

a new start?

Yes, dear reader, I do believe it may actually be true. After three years of exile, I may be moving on. Moreover, the yankee gringo is guardedly optimistic. I have hopes that I shall manage to do things in my new location, things I have not managed here. Most of all, I won't need a car where I am going, and I won't be living in a Puritan country engaged in wars in foreign lands.......

Saturday, July 28, 2012

unfriendly USA

I continue to be amazed (and disgusted) by the attitudes toward alcohol in the USA.
The very idea that it is so tightly a regulated substance is insane.  I can't say it's easier to
get a gun than buy a beer; but if people were as carefully and frequently controlled when it
came to purchasing guns, I dare say many lives would be saved.

And, it is above all the zeal with which the citizens of the USA willingly embrace and
participate in this tight control of alcohol which most disgusts me.

Don't get me wrong.  I would never drive after the smallest glass of beer or wine. But, I do not
think the USA has a drunk driving problem (or, for UK readers,  "drink driving" problem..).
The USA has a public transportation problem, not an alcohol problem.

The problem in the USA is the absence of decent public transport.  (The El Paso bus system
uses low quality buses.  The buses run infrequently, and do not run non-stop through the night.
And, the authorities seem more interested in creating buildings where patrons must wait
(and spend money on various junk food) than avoiding the need for waiting by an increased
frequency of service and more buses----not to mention trams, or "light rail", and actual trains....
(All very sad and pathetic!))


These remarks were prompted by an experience in a local grocery store.

A young man in line in front of me at the grocery store was trying to purchase beer.
He looked as though he had just come from a day of difficult physical labor.
And, it was not easy to purchase the beer.  The cheerless guy behind the counter was grilling him
with questions.  I could not quite hear, but either he thought the ID was fake or something was
wrong.

It seems pathetic and ugly!  Some guy has been working all day and he can't simply buy
beer to drink without getting hassled about his age.  (Did he just "look" too young?---or what?)

And the guy on the other side of the counter was deathly serious as if purchasing beer
were the most important thing in the world.....That, too, strikes me as obnoxious and pathetic.
Was he afraid of what his boss would say if he were not so joyless and stern, or does
he imagine that he will prevent auto accidents in this way?

The amount of energy spent by people in the USA controlling other citizens is breathtaking.
Hardly my idea of a free people...

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

B.S.

The so- called "urban dictionary" says the term "gringo ". can be used by Spanish speakers to " define" ( sic) an "anglo saxon". Hello! Not every gringo is Anglo-Saxon....That is the sort of stupidity one can find on the web.....

quick and dirty comparative sociology

I've been thinking about how educated citizens of the USA talk about sex....well, actually sexual harassment...
And I wonder whether they assume the USA background of extreme inequality,
without quite realizing it.
Why do I say that?
Both Slovakia and the Czech Republic have less economic inequality than the USA.
And, it seems to me that the different attitudes about men and women there are not
merely due to "backwardness" or a lack of development.
So, when people in the USA talk about relationships between the sexes, they are not merely talking about relationships between men and women---but those relationships in the context of extreme economic inequality, a history of racism and imperialism, and other factors.


That might explain why (in my opinion) the views they hold in the USA only partially generalize elsewhere...


(I could be wrong.)


A different example:  In the past two years, I have had several casual conversations with residents of the USA who seem to associate public transport with USA-style cities, where, e.g., there is fear of crime.  So, public transport is associated with the evils of cities, as imagined by citizens of the USA.


I do think that, to a great extent, thoughts about cities as had by people in the USA are themselves restricted thoughts composed out of the evils of USA cities, not constructed using any universal concept of what a city must be.........


All very speculative......


NOTE
A book I would like to read, but have thus far not read:
http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/urban-nightmares/

Sunday, July 22, 2012

Review

Time for a mid-year review...
What have we learned about El Paso, Texas?


The residents are assholes.  E.g., they think nothing of playing music (thump-thump-thump) loudly until four in the morning...(as one "neighbor" did last night)....


each one lives in his individual house, with his individual dog, and his individual fence.....Or perhaps, they live in family units, and each adult has a large truck (and a dog?)....


Heaven forbid that you walk anywhere in El Paso, Texas after dark......
As I just did..... to mail a letter...


Dogs will bark at you and cars driving by will shine their brightest lights on you....


Sidebar:
Message for drivers of personally-piloted vehicles of climate destruction:
A pedestrian is really an ordinary person, just like you----except that we are not in a truck/car.


We have no especially strong desire to commit suicide by jumping in front of your vehicle. Just because I am a pedestrian that does not mean I want to die from lack of car.


Nor am I any sort of danger to you.  On the contrary, as you are protected by god-knows-how-many
pounds of steel and glass, you are rather more of a danger to me than I am to you.


Ergo, there is no need for you to swiftly navigate your vehicle as far away from me as possible


Neither is their any reason to shine your brightest lights on me.  There's nothing you need to
see that you can't see with ordinary headlights.  (God knows they are bright enough by themselves.)


A new measure of value

A new measure of value and a new solution to the practical problem of caring for elderly parents: I have been a total fool! My sisters have made a fantastic discovery! How I have under- estimated their genius! It is such a simple formula, but I am not sure I can capture it in words. It goes something like this: Measure of the effectiveness/ productivity of the attention Mark devotes to caring for our elderly parents: Mark is not doing enough IF anything is required of his sisters in addition to whatever he is doing. Alternatively, If his sisters cannot sit back,and do nothing, and relax with 100 Per cent certainty that their elderly parents are well, and their every need and desire is taken care of, then --- and only then--- Mark's labors are adequate. Additional proviso: If Mark complains ( as he so often does on this very blog)that negates anything else he does. If Mark complains, then any labor he performs on behalf of the parents he shares with two sisters is worth nothing, and he deserves no credit, no appreciation---- and, above all, no thanks. Such a clear principle!

recommended viewing: GA Cohen Against Capitalism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yA9WPQeow9c


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD1YEzd6QzQ

Saturday, July 21, 2012

How utterly trivial and boring....

Updated:  28 July 2012

The Grouch reads.... badly...


I have just read the first forty pages of the widely cited and praised book, The Market System, by Charles E. Lindblom. L. Does not exactly resort to the phrase "the dynamism of capitalism"--- but he might have. Allof this human activity, he might have said, how amazing--- how social we are. To be sure, there is a phenomenon there, but please spare me the " ooohs" and "ahhhs"..... An analogy: to speak of all this marvellous activity and be amazed......is much as if one were to watch a dance performance, and come away saying:: oh! So many turns! So many leaps--- and high leaps, too........


After-thoughts; as I've read further...
I'm about half way through this book, and I do find things to value.  However, I continue to be bothered by a certain glib quality in the style.  There are sentences, claims without footnotes or extended explanations.  


Moreover, I have the feeling that the author jumps this way and then that----too often.


I understand that a book of broad scope intended to be widely accessible might inevitably provoke such complaints......But, I am not convinced that in a technical sense Professor Lindlom has found the right solution to this problem.....


I also have a little worry, of a possibly more fundamental nature.
Thinking of the early part of the book, and its description of the allegedly marvelous quality of "the market", I have to say that I am not convinced that any such thing as "the market" exists.
Yes, there really is human activity, social activity, in all of its complexities.    
And, somehow out of that polyphony and cacaphony there emerges the things we value....


Yet to say it's due to the market is to commit oneself to the accuracy of a small set of laws or propositions which are the domain of professional economists.....


And, to do that is tantamount to suggesting the fundamental  laws of human psychology are known.


I doubt that proposition.


At best, what we've got is an enormous element of human striving, and many blind men and women grasping its various parts.......That, I suppose, is where we stand today with a deep understanding of human nature.


To develop this criticism, I would need to focus upon one specific element which shows the reigning orthodoxy to be fundamentally flawed.  I suppose I might start with the understanding of words like "ethics" and "morality" which appear from time to time in Lindblom's book.  (Here he is no innovator, but representative of the contemporary climate.)


And, I would make the following claim:  So long as we think that "ethics" or "morality"or that whole sphere of human existence is a special category, our understanding of ourselves will be flawed.


Can I defend that at further length?  No, not  at any rate here-and-now.  If I were to gesture in the direction of more detail, I would have to appeal to Terry Penner's interpretation of Socrates----itself controversial.


I've done my best to be honest, thereby opening myself to a variety of criticisms.  But, while what I've said is far from a full defense or explanation of anything, it's better than my initial comment.



Tuesday, July 17, 2012

"fresh" fruit

I purchased some fruit the other day.  When I bought it, it was not ripe---yellowish, hard, sour....

After a while, I tried to eat a piece, thinking it would be ripe.  It had gone rotten.  From not ripe to rotten---without getting fresh in between.

(No, I didn't wait some extremely long time before trying to eat the fruit.)

This is insane.

Friday, July 13, 2012

My method

A blog is not a scientific or philosophical treatise.  ("A blog?"--any blog?---Well, This blog at any rate is no such thing; if others blog differently, so be it.)  It allows me to express, in a sort of public space, what I am thinking and feeling.


A particular entry does not  necessarily represent a considered judgment.  Like a diary entry, it may contain occurrent thoughts or emotions which do not necessarily persist.


Moreover, any given entry is best understood in the context of surrounding entries.


Nothing said here claims to be a final or ultimate truth.


However, insofar as I am, and have been, in a difficult situation, there may be other people in a similar situation.  And, it is my hope that others may find some compensation or deeper understanding by knowing about my situation.  After all, as they tell us, the population is aging, and many people must find some way of caring for their elderly parents.


As I have said many times, I am happy to help my parents.  But I shouldn't have to sacrifice my own happiness in order to do so......  And, it is a basic moral or political principle that if an action will affect someone, then they should be included in the decision-making process leading up to action---Moreover, they should be included from the first step, and their contribution should have real efficacy in influencing the outcome......


So, as it would appear that more than three years ago, a decision was made about me, without active inclusion of me in the process, I was within my rights to protest and complain---even if some people did not (and do not) want to hear my complaints and protests.


Nor would I wish to violate that principle in the case of my parents.  Where they will live should, first and foremost, be decided by them. And they should have a real and efficacious role in the decision-making process ( all and any discussion/planning) from the very first step.....No one should be planning their future for them.


First Principles

As I've said many times, I want the best for my parents.  I don't want to get on the airplane, worrying about whether they are safe.

However, I also want a life.  And, in that I think I am only normal.

The truth is that a system which forces a person to choose between having a life of their own and taking care of their elderly parents is a bad system.

Indeed, I will go further:  a system which puts profits before people is a system which grants power to a small number ( the proverbial "one percent" if you will).  It is an unjust, unfair, cruel system.

It is a system whose existence is a mockery of words like "freedom" or "democracy".

But even a person who disagrees with all that diagnosis could agree that the important thing is to see that my parents are safe, and well cared for.......

corrected 11 September 2012

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Betrayal

Popular histories depict betrayal by individuals, but what of the case where a man or woman is betrayed by a country? But what is a country? In the case of the USA, it is a collection of individuals with a fiercely hierarchical and un- democratic structure. While my parents gave of themselves freely when they were young---working tirelessly, today when they have joined the frail elderly they are badly repaid--- paid with inadequate help, and an insulting, demeaning bureaucracy. The USA is neither a land of freedom nor even a land of basic respect.....

Sunday, July 8, 2012

a picture of my daily death, my daily taste of dying

--my mother worries about what she will do when I leave.


IF I leave, I say


---But, Mom, you have two daughters,
and they will not abandon you.


And, then there is what goes unsaid,
how every day that I remain in this house I feel as though I am dying,
being suffocated......


How I hate being here every day.
How I hate the mundane and meaningless tasks that she burdens me with.
How I despise ordinary housework,
and how this house if full of nothing but stupid,
time-wasting activities,
----all of which she thinks is very important.


No, I don't mind cooking.  And I endure washing up.....
But to have four thousand varieties of kitchen towel to celebrate every possible holiday, and to waste time washing them and folding them, putting them away, changing them----All of that is my picture of hell on earth!  Unnecessary work.  And every minute of my mother's life seems filled with such nonsense, which I am inevitably burdened with too, simply because I am here.....


Not to mention the rock garden outside and the car with its insane demands and the broken toilets inside.......


gmooh

mundane obscenity

a video on the web
a documentary
about the Russian Revolution

the voice of the narrator
god-like

the music
stirring, thrilling,
as if violence were romantic

and we learn about the evil Stalin
who apparently was a fool to believe that World War One
was an imperial war.....

and somehow the suggestion is made that dying in an imperialist war
is praiseworthy-----patriotic---But, it is not to be questioned by this
narrator that marching into battle (and following orders) proves that a man is a real man....

But both world wars were wars between empires and for the sake of imperial ambitions.

So, what good, really is this so-called "documentary"?  Probably best watched with the sound off......

Saturday, July 7, 2012

The Evil Which Families Can Do

My complaint against my sisters---the source of hatred, loathing, and contempt----is their willingness to plan my life, their willingness to commit me to a course of action.....


In complete ignorance of who I am.  After all, neither has had a normal serious face-to-face conversation with me for ......(could it be true?) twenty-five or more years....
And so, when you rely upon the merest snippets of conversation---or reports of what someone
heard or thought they heard me say----- and fill in sentences with fuller
paragraphs of your own, you can hardly have a chance of knowing what a person is like, how he thinks, how he lives.......no chance at all.  You are ignorant, blind, stupid.  You do not know who I am.


And, certainly you are in no position to commit that imagined other to a course of action.
(Especially not when the plan of action you've imagined is especially beneficial to you,
and your desire to make no change in your own life----to make no sacrifices.....)


It's no defense to say:  but how could you be unhappy? You have enough to eat, and a place to sleep.....


Neither is it a defense to say:  The life you complain about is not so very different from my own.


Yes, there's the rub.  I don't want and never have wanted a life like yours!  But, dear sister,
you've never bothered to notice that fact.....


And, for that, too, I condemn you.  That too, is ignorance and arrogance......


No, but that's not quite right either.  It's wrong to suggest that you would do what I have done.  On the contrary, you would not be willing to commit yourself to doing what I have done.  You would willingly commit me to live in a way that you yourself were unwilling to live. What I have done you are unwilling to do.  But, still you planned for me, even tried to chose this life for me----And, now, when I refuse to follow your plan, you are angry.  You wanted me to do what you yourself would not do, and now when I refuse, you have no right to complain.  You've shown yourself insincere and compromised by your very refusal to do (or even consider doing) what I have done........

Friday, July 6, 2012

The United States of Un-Freedom and Injustice

Who's in charge?  Who does all the work?  Who is in charge?  Whoever they are, they are doing a crap job, and their power should be taken away from them.


Those who work---who really contribute---receive no just reward.


And many whose influence is negative are generously, unfairly rewarded-----out of all proportion to the harmful consequences of their actions.


This society is chaotic and badly organized.  EG there is no adequate provision for the elderly.  What is the point of keeping people alive until they are feeble and dependent, when you will not grant them a decent life?


Apparently, people are kept alive because medicine has developed more quickly than thoughts about what to do with it, and thoughts about the consequences of keeping people alive.  There is a disconnect.  Profits to be made here, but the consequences there?-------"Consequences"?  Not my problem; let's talk about profits.....


That alone--that disrespect toward the elderly---- is criminal---evidence that those who run the society are incompetent and malevolent.


And it is a matter of some small number who run things----the proverbial one percent.


Because of their evil, narrow and greedy souls my life has been ruined.


Damn them.  


Wednesday, July 4, 2012

whose side are you on?

The wise law-makers of the state of Texas have decided to tax my purchase of philosophy books and
movies through Amazon...

However, the state of Texas does not have a financial transactions tax.
A financial transactions tax is sometimes mis-described as a "Robin Hood Tax".
Below Richard D. Wolff explains why that description is inaccurate.

http://rdwolff.com/content/robin-hood-tax-explained

I should elaborate a bit:  My attempt to improve myself through books and movies---and, no, contra Hollywood,
cinema doesn't have to be mindless entertainment, but can be art----is taxed.  However,
when rich people gamble on the stock market------thereby improving no one, but possibly
enriching themselves, or damaging someone as they throw the economic system into a tail spin------ they are not taxed.

That stinks.

Recommended reading (on the regressive nature of taxation in the USA):
Eric Olin Wright and Joel Rogers,  America Society; How it Really Works,  (WW Norton, 2011),
Chapter Eighteen, "Taxation and the Attack on the Affirmative State"
pre-publication version available at:
http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/ContemporaryAmericanSoicety.htm

deeply resentful

Yes, it's true.  Earlier this day I did recall (with resentment) that whilst a graduate student I had to work weekends.....Ahh, but I did get my degree.  Yes, and I have had precarious employment ever since.

Summer?  I am beginning to get a knot in my stomach over that word---much as I used to feel annoyance, anger and embarrassment when others used to discuss their weekends.....

(No, I don't think I missed that much; but there is a deeper issue here.)

Summer?  Summer reading?  I'm lucky if I do any reading at all, living as I do with two noisy elderly people.  My mother routinely shouts at my going-deaf father.  The phone rings frequently.  (My younger sister is bored and can think of nothing better to do.)  Then, there are my daily chores.

How can I even tell it is summer? Because it says so at various blogs.  Or, because the weather has become not just hot (the norm) but insanely and unpleasantly and oppressively hot.

And, yes, best of all:  the water pump for the AC is (once again, just like last year) broken and the hall carpet is wet.

GMOOH!

Oh, yes, let's celebrate freedom!  (ha ha ha)
Link to C.Bertram on the lack of freedom in the USA workplace:
http://crookedtimber.org/2012/07/01/let-it-bleed-libertarianism-and-the-workplace/
"Let It Bleed: Libertarianism and the Workplace"  by CHRIS BERTRAM on JULY 1, 2012 (at "Crooked Timber")

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

teaser

On July 9 my life may change.  I may (after three years of unemployment) be about to get a job......

Monday, July 2, 2012

fragment of a conversation

Fragment of a conversation (plus unspoken thoughts/commentary)


"I've got to go....do some shopping....."


"Oh, your wife....." (in a tone slightly ironic, if not wholly unfriendly....)


"No, I'm not married....."


Look!  I perfectly well understand that at my age not only are most people married, but most have been divorced three times.  So, I'm an exception. And don't make some joke about how my wife gave me a list, bla bla bla (although my mother used to make lists when her health was better)....


What's most irksome here is not the stereotyped presumption of male and female roles, or even the suggestion that at my age I should have a wife (and own a home---another thought which doesn't offend me because I find home ownership not the least bit attractive)......


It's not exactly the thought that everyone lives this way:  married with sharp division of labor.
Rather, it's the knowledge that woman's work (so called) is largely invisible, and not acknowledged.
After all, what I've been doing for the past three years is the sort of thing often or mostly done by women.


All of my life I've heard my father brag about how hard he worked.  But, he never acknowledged that while he was working "hard", his wife cooked his meals, purchased his groceries, washed his clothes, and provided a place where he could relax.  He never acknowledged that his work would have been impossible without the help my mother provided. (It was as if he alone had worked hard and deserved credit.  What my mother had done didn't need mentioning.---Although, if you did ask him, he would acknowledge that my mother worked hard.  It's just that he doesn't seem to connect that fact to his hard work, which was somehow all his own.)  I've never had a domestic servant, so by comparison I've worked harder.  No, I don't want a domestic servant.  But, if my father worked hard, then I've worked ten times harder because I had to do all of the cooking, cleaning, and shopping.  


Indeed, the situation is even sicker. There are many people who are generously rewarded for activities which do not contribute to human well being.  And those who actually make a positive contribution are not so generously compensated.  The world is screwed up in a really big and basic way.  (Don't give me crap about free markets.  They obviously don't work.)  (And if you don't believe me, then read John Quiggin or Steve Keen......)

Sunday, July 1, 2012

Depressing, primitive, unpleasant el paso, texas.....

This place is so depressing. I am sure the hours spent sittng in a car are harmful. So, this evening, after the sun had set -- when it was still unpleasantly warm---- I went for a walk. Nothing pleasant about it. The streets were dark. Such street lamps as there were were so dim that they seemed well on their way to burning out. Annoying bright lights on numerous trucks. No other person on the street--- not one. Well, perhaps one boy leaving a local store......nothing nice about being outside. Dogs bark on every block. It seems they are commenting" who are you?". Or " How dare you walk down the street!?". It is truly annoying. You can hardly take a step without being threatened by these idiotic animals. How can people live like this? What part of their brain has been removed? Get me out of here!