Sunday, December 30, 2012

Exploitation by apple

NY Times Jan 25, 2012 "In China Human Costs Are Built Into an IpaD"

Idiots in eptx

What do these creatures think? Do they think at all? Are they drunk or stoned all of the time? Possible answers: Yes, I know that my dog makes squealing noises like a pig---- for three or four hours at a time........But, the kids love it. ...... Or, I love it. Yes my dog was squealing for literally hours, but, it is my dog and my yard, so fuck off!

Or, Yes, my dog barks intermittently throughout the entire day (and night), or even sometimes for hours non- stop, but I couldn't care less. I am inside watching the idiot box.

Or, I thought my neighbors were all deaf. It is my god damn yard, and I am frustrated with my life, so this is the one thing I can do that makes me feel important. I am deaf, and did not realize that my dog was barking for hours at a time.

 Yes, I saw his jaws moving, but I thought he was speaking, probably reciting poetry in a doggy style, but softly, too quitly to be heard. I have to have a barking dog for the same reason I have to own a pick up truck and a small house with a fence around it: that is the only way to live. Ownership of a barking dog proves I am human, and civilized. It shows that my life is successful. If I did not own a barking dog, I would feel bad, odd, a social outcast. My friends might say to me: What is wrong with you? Why dont you have a dog?

 Or, what is wrong with your dog? Why doesnt he bark? Dont you know a house is not really a home unless it has at least one dog out in the yard barking all the time?

But, the explanation is really much simpler: El Pasoans are assholes.

Recommended reading:
  http://jnls.cup.org/abstract.do?componentId=7950509&jid=THI

I have cut and pasted the abstract and publication information below; but, first, a brief comment:

  My take on it: even owning a pet has undesirable consequences--consequences which most people would prefer to ignore. (Cf. the continuing squandering of resources on advertising pushing the obsolete technology, the climate-destroying personally piloted vehicle.............as if there were no climate change.) A fundamental principle of morality and healthy peasant reason is: you've got to think about the consequences of your action. That fundamental idea is shit upon everyday by corporations and politicians---so, is it a surprise if ordinary people give in to the tendency to close their eyes?
I suppose stupidity can be the product of demoralization and "discipline" in the workplace.  (Your job can make you stupid!)

What follows below has been cut and pasted:

Think (2011), 10: 105-108 Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 2011 doi: 10.1017/S1477175610000448
Published online: Dec 2010 Research Article ARE DOGS THE NEW HUMMER?
by Margaret Betz:

Pet adoption from an animal rescue shelter would seem to be one of those indisputable things in life that only increases a person's positive karma. Kant spoke of morality residing in a good will and pure intention; saving a dog from being euthanized by providing it with a loving, secure home seems the living embodiment of that. Or so it would seem.

Margaret Betz is an adjunct philosophy professor at Rutgers University and West Chester University in America. She is the author of The Hidden Philosophy of Hannah Arendt and various articles on continental philosophy, feminist theory, and animal ethics. Diotima121@aol.com

Monday, December 24, 2012

untitled, unfinished

"Maximilian was born on 6 July 1832 in the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna"
--Wikipedia

I.
When I visited the Palace Schoenbrunn,
as I have too many times,
I was not moved,
by the attempt to portray Sissi as a saint--Everywoman,
slimming, and exercising in obedience to the gods of beauty.

And I was baffled,
by the willingness,
of all assembled to believe,
that the childen of privilege,
were really only just like us.

II.
But I did not notice or understand,
that the Future Emperor of Mexico,
came into being,
within the walls of this many-roomed monstrosity.


III.
Nor was I moved by the sad tale,
of an emperor who spent countless hours,
slaving away at his desk,
managing the affairs of his empire:

If Empire came to be out of the slavish devotion of an Emperor,
then Profit might derive from the Abstinence of Capitalists!


IV.
But things began to look different,
on the day that a native of Mexico described,
his visit to the Palace Schoenbrunn,
Where he heard it said that Maximillian of royal blood,
was killed by "Juarez, the Indian".

---And he went on to explain,
smiling as he did,
that the tour guide had not noticed,
that some of the tourists were Mexican.



Noted, noticed, imagined

Monday, December 17, 2012

a poem

An Intensive course is Expensive; but we Guarantee Results!


Tired of being alone?

Learn to live with it! In twelve easy lessons.

---At An affordable price too!!




I am practicing the art of loneliness.
I remember people who I hardly know,
but have seen,
or spoken to,
and I imagine that they are better,
more lively,
more beautiful,
than anyone could be.


I envy people in pairs or groups,
and look down upon their frivolity;
I take refuge in the profundity,
of my stern alone-ness.


I am so serious about it all,
that I must be doing something important,
even if all I'm doing is hiding my loneliness.


I feel odd if I go outside,
but alone,
at home,
with my thoughts,
I go mad.

Re-tracing what I should have done,
but didn't do,
remembering moments of pain and anxiety,
false steps on the road to social isolation.

I remember all of it,
and can change none of it,
and travel in a pointless, painful circle,
Until, finally, I will run through the door,
burst onto the street,
and meet no one,
except a cold wind,
snow half-melted and half frozen,
and the whoosh of passing cars.

And, then,
I will stoutly,
bravely,
falsely,
pretend that I know where I am going,
why I am here,
and if I should meet someone,
anyone,
who knew me,
I would want to hug them,
and pull them close,
not let them leave,
because,
finally I can't stand it any more:
This being alone.


And so I am an easy target,
and almost a willing victim.


I am a very bad practitioner of the art of being alone.




Copyleft 2012 Mark J. Lovas
All rights reserved

You are not allowed to copy for commercial purposes.
You are not allowed to change anything.

Not allowed to splice and dice or embed my text in your something.

Copying for creative or educational purposes is encouraged so long as originál authorship is retained and no changes are made.

Poetry is not a commodity.
Human beings are not commodities.



Sunday, December 16, 2012

doubts

I've not revised the most recent entry, and I have doubts about it.  That word "communism" can only confuse.  There are dangers here, and I may well have not avoided them.....But, for now, I shall let the entry stand, unrevised, on the grounds that a blog is not ---or this blog is not----a scientific treatise, but, in part, a place where evolving and unfinished thinking goes on.  No one should think otherwise.  (Well, as a matter of fact, no scientific treatise can stand unrevised.  Possibly a better comparison is with the dogmatic literal-minded interpretation of religious texts......But I hope my point is clear;  while I try to be honest and respect the facts, it is inevitable that I stumble upon misunderstandings of my own from time to time...............and no one should imagine that I think otherwise.)

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

r'd off and p'd off..............

Warning Label:  This is not a finished, canonical version.  However, I hope by posting it that I shall inspire myself to correct, and, where necessary, expand upon the text.

Allow me to describe my present accomodation:  one longer room faces the street.  I've not got buildings close to me, so there's a bit of a view.  It's not claustrophobic.  The window is new, recently put in.  I can open it to get fresh air.  The curtains covering it are typical flimsy, and, I suspect dusty, Communist-dorm-era curtains.

The other windows, facing a different direction, are sealed permanently shut and  are rusty.

Together, all the windows produce enough light.  No complaints there.

Alas, since the kitchen windows are permanently sealed, and there is no fan or source of fresh air, the kitchen smells.  Or, it did when I first moved in.  By now I am used to it.

The radiators are unpainted and rusty, dirty.

The two overhead lights are not naked lightbulbs, but have fixtures, which are dirty and contain insects and other dirt.  They were not cleaned prior to my moving in.

There is an abundance of office furniture----two chairs,  two office chairs, bookcases, a regular chair, and other items such as a low table which might be used if I had guests.

Both of the  office chair are broken.  The back doesn't stay in position.  The wheels on the bottom are also non-functional. The wheels do not roll as they should.  The third chair has a sort of cloth or carpet back that is worn out and looks hideous. 

There are two simple beds, typical of commuist-era dorms.  The management is obsessed with the idea that I have TWO beds.  This is typical of the post-communist mentality which originated during communism.  They think everyone now has the opportunity to go into business----and somehow that scares them, as if they feared that I would suddenly start renting out my extra bed.

(Really!  What utter stupidity!  Do they really imagine that If I've complained about noise and a lack of privacy as much as I have that  I am suddenly going to give up my privacy to make a little bit of pocket change?)

Despite all that, I can work here. It's not a beautiful flat, but it is functional.  In fact, the kitchen doesn't even have a proper stove.  It's got a badly functioning hot plate.  And, what's more the wiring in the entire flat is, to say the least, sub-standard---fifty years out of date.  I have to be careful.  If I've got the hot plate on, I can't run the printer.  When I do that, the light go out.

But, it's quiet and I can work here.  And it's more than a hundred dollars cheaper than the last awful place I lived.

The other place was awful because it was noisy.

Today I paid rent for last month.  I paid for the privilege of living in that "expensive"  ("It's our best.") flat.  And, to be honest, it really pissed me off when the lady explained my bill by mentioning it was an "expensive" flat-----as if I had chosen to live there.  Well, no I actually didn't.  And I didn't know how much it would cost prior to moving in..........(But  don't want to blame the colleague who helped me.  It's really not her fault. There's something else going on here:  a mentality which must be at least thirty years old...........not a product of anything essentially communist, not a product of anti-capitalism or especially socialist thought, but a product of the narrowness of mind and meanness which was cultivated during the period called "communism"......a certain narrow bureaucratic mindset.......

Well, as I think of it, that flat didn't have a stove either---Only a hot plate, though one that was more functional than the one I am currently using.

And that flat was NOT luxurious.  Somebody made an attempt to make the flat comfortable.  And I appreciate that.  I appreciated it very much when I first moved in-----before I knew about the price.

In fact, the flat was pretentious and very bourgeoise, to the extent of being downright KITSCH.

There were bits of nice Czech folk art (pottery). Not bad.  In addition, the walls had some pictures.

But the furniture and furnishings!  Whiskey glasses with the university logo!  I don't need that.
And, then there was the stereotypical middleclass china cabinet---mostly empty, but containing variou logo'd whiskey glasses.....

The longer I stayed there, the more that particular piece of furniture seemed like an insult.  As if I were expected to leave a certain sort of kitsch and mindless lifestyle.  (No thank you.)
Invite my guests to my flat  (after my lecture as a visiting scholar) for a drink...

Err, no.  I don't live like that.   Never have.  And, I 'd rather join my students in a cheap pub for a beer.

But, to be fair, they attempted to create something comfortable----according to their (rather limited) imagination.

Nonetheless, while the walls were painted and it did not contain broken furniture (unlike the current place) and it didn't have rusty radiators (unlike the current place)  it was NOT luxurious.  It was average or normal,  Not something to be charged an "expensive" rate for.  Moreover, given that there was a hotplate and not a stove, it was sub-standard.

But, I am afraid I have a rather cynical attitude about Central Europeans who go in for "reconstruction".  They think because they put in a wood floor (and it seems to be always exactly the same floor) and a new sink or whatever, they can double the price of some small apartment.....(And I do mean "Central" Europeans:  I once had a landlord in Austria who had fixed up the "sub standard" flat by putting in a bathroom.  And it was not bad as bathrooms go.  However, I believe (though I have no conclusive evidence) that on that basis he doubled the rent.  The joke is that I once visited a similarly sub-standard flat (bathroom in the hall) where the rent was half of what I was paying.  Well, that un-renovated flat wasn't so bad---and, jeez, if the rent is half as much!  The bathroom was in the hall, but it was used only by the resident of the flat. And it was immediately next to the entry door for the flat.  --So doubling the price!!???  After all, teachers (which I am) are pretty uniformly poorly paid.  Don't get me wrong:  I understand that renovation costs money, but living costs money and I don't collect rent.  And I do work for a living---though my activities don't fit within the capitalist mentality.  (But that would require a lengthier and other blog entry.  I also hope to someday write about:  How Central Europeans love their families and joyously embrace free markets without realizing that free markets are intrinscially anti-family..............someday.............)

Well, today I paid the security deposit on my new flat.  What a joke.  It's full of broken furniture, rusty radiators, and it has out-of-date electrical wiring, and they think I might do some damage?
What planet are they living on?  They are just cheap and greedy.  That's what I think.





Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Capitalist Hell

The dystopic vision of the future which we have seen in sci-fi movies is rapidly approaching....
Today, for the first time--the first time in Pardubice, in the Czech Republic.....---- I saw a moving "billboard"----a noisy truck  with a screen mounted on the back.

This is true hell because it is so loud as to disturb a pedestrian's thoughts........ 

Welcome to capitalist hell.