an important insight

"... it's the habit of the American government to kind of say, okay, we made a mistake, it's just a one-time thing, we violated people's rights, it won't happen again, we'll put everything in check, and then they'll go back and a couple of years later new laws will come out, and those laws will justify whatever that behavior was. And then, from then on in, that's no longer a mistake, and the next time it happens it's something different, torture, say, for instance, you know, or enhanced interrogation. And at some point, that becomes--well, okay, that's legal."
--Eddie Conway, interviewed on "The Real News".
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12383

The Grouch Reads (once again)...
But this time he's reading The Czech Press (or at least one so-called "left" newspaper)...

and he's listening to the TV...

And he's noticed that someone is proud of weapons sales.  It's not just the disgraced ex-leader who was happy about selling high tech weapons to Afghanistan......

It's also the recent article bragging that Czech machine guns are superior to Kalishnikoffs,
but they use the same bullets, so they can be sold to Kurdish freedom fighters.

But, best of all, and proof that the grouch is not wholly insane was the editorial cartoon
in which a man said (to his wife, I presume) that the success of Czech foreign policy
was evident from the fact that parties on both sides of a conflict were using Czech machine
guns.

Now that's what I call progress.  Gee, who would dare say that capitalism just means more wars.....

Doctors make me sick.

Doctors make me sick.
They are so proud of themselves, so confident, so arrogant,
so blind to the real world, and so focused upon their narrow point of view
with cures which involve technology first and the human world second.

EG  a sleep machine to cure sleep apnea,
which is a damn nuisance,
which has been constructed with a 'one-size fits all' mentality,
--oh, your mother has a small head,
says the wise doctor,
as if it were her mistake,
no, he says,"that's the head god gave her."
And the god damn machine you've given us doesn't
fit her head--Or rather, the attached straps on the nasal torture device don't fit her head.

So, I've got to hear my mother's complaints about the device
every night before bed time.
Every night.
Every night, it is a case of not looking forward to the discomfort caused by
this lovely, beautiful machine.

We've not been able to think of anything better, proudly struts the doctor.
And I say, "Shame on you for not trying!"
Is there really nothing better you can do?
What happen to the lovely dynamic tendency toward innovation in capitalism?
All I see about me is stagnation and exploitation.
Doctors are no exception to the rule,
but rather sorry and unimaginative also-rans.

Yes, let us not forget,
to assert his class superiority,
the doctor blames the technician,
who's actually got to drive all over the city in her car,
and teach patients how to use the god damn thing;
she, he says, must not have spent enough time explaining.
He, however, sits in his air-conditioned office, far away from my mother's home,
where he lets her come to him,
and he doesn't have to waste resources with travelling,
as does the techie,
so it's his privilege to shit on the incompetence and laziness of the underpaid assistant.
Now, that's really impressive.
But, I read that things are catching up with doctors,
they too are about to have their lives ruled by the idiocy of the MBA,
with its diet of repeatable formulas and measurable success.
He deserves it,
That's what I think.

But none of us, really,
deserve to live in this hell;
He's just strutting because he's got less of a hell to live in,
than the rest of us.

Shame on him.

Sigh.

after a trip to the doctor's office

America's new religion: Denialism

As I sat in a car which winded and wended through the traffic,

just avoiding enormous trucks traveling at high speeds, I noticed the grayish-brown haze that had replaced the sky. So, that is what we are breathing. El Paso continues to seek fulfillment as a mini-L.A.

Please don't tell me it is beautiful or healthy. Please do notice it. But, no, that would be too much to ask. We must deny the existence of all that is ugly and unpleasant.

Please don't tell me the frigid piercing air of the AC is pleasant.

It is merely necessary to avoid the greater unpleasantness of the oppressive heat which overwhelms the skin like a heated blanket, suffocating and

inhibiting all life.

Don't tell me it is pleasant to squeeze yourself into the cramped space of a vehicle.

Don't tell me it is pleasant to sit in a moving vehicle gazing at endless cheaply constructed boxes surrounded by trees of advertising with their banal and uninspiring messages. A landscape of overwhelming uniformity and blankness.

All that I see is ugly and inhuman.

Worst of all, the trip is needed to get a bit of relief for an old person who needs a doctor's help to thrive.

Why should we have to travel so many miles so uncomfortably—and at personal expense (an expensive vehicle and wasteful gasoline)?

We needn't. It is not necessary, and it is not good.

But all of this is invisible thanks to the religion of denialism. The problem doesn't exist. This is the greatest country in the world.

Don't dare mention it. That would be rude, bad manners. You would be threatening the livelihoods of those around you. And we daren't imagine that people could change, that other jobs would be available with a different system. Put that thought out of your mind.

Don't mention the hierarchy within the doctor's office. A pretty, young girl who meets you. Her job is to be a mediator, but she's not studied as he did. His job is to share his knowledge. But don't say and don't notice the role of the society in imparting that knowledge. Taxpayers, teachers, parents, anything social must be invisible. Deny that there is anything social, please, if you want to get along.

Don't stop to wonder why he is doctor and she is a mere receptionist.

It must be because it is right and just. He worked, and she did not.

No other explanation is possible.

Don't notice. Don't think. Don't imagine. Deny. Play with your smart phone when you are bored, and allow your mind to be filled with the images displayed there. Let that fullness be your chief pleasure in life.

With apologies to Philip Mirowski, who has written a marvelous book about how Neo-Liberalism denies the existence of the economic and the ecological crises, and clouds the mind of the ordinary citizen in order to prevent any change—except, of course, changes in a direction of which neo-liberals approve.

El Paso, Texas

The heat is unpleasant.
The sun is unpleasant.
The cars and mostly trucks crowd one another on the roads.

The neighbor has a dog,
and it barks,
non-stop,
ad infinitum,
barks itself hoarse,
and it is painful to hear,
irritating.

Every weekend,
at the very least,
the dog barks,
and barks
and barks.

The residents of this desultory place are  assholes
 ---Oh, dear! Let's not say that:
Let's try this:
they live in a prison,
a prison of their own making,
full of their trucks,
houses which demand that scarce commodity,
time,
pointlessly many animals,
and I've not got the heart to continue.

And me I'm as confused as them since I know,
nothing is a commodity,
because everything has a value which is not a price.

El Paso Reloaded

Noted in passing:

Vehicles, even when smaller, seem consistently high off the ground, with the profile
of a tank or a SUV, giving them an aggressive, unfriendly appearance.

The air conditioning is painful. It feels as if tiny needles are piercing the skin.

The sun and heat in the afternoon is oppressive and tiring.

Around 4pm every day, I get a headache.

I've had enough sun to last a lifetime, and would gladly return to a month of clouds in Central Europe.

Lastly, I have discovered that the Internet is much faster in the Czech Republic than here.

It is not pleasant to be here.  The airline staff who repeatedly used that word (during my flight over) must have been crazy.  They must have forgotten what that word means.  There is nothing pleasant about the food, or the crowded space, or the thousands of tiny screens in an airplane.  All very awful.

Am I too demanding?

My mother has just returned after spending the night at a sleep clinic.  Soon she will be sleeping better with the assistance of a machine.

I would have liked to have a description, in writing, of my mother's condition.  I've not gotten that.  True enough, I did not accompany my mother; instead her care-giver did so.  So, I relied upon what the care-giver told me.

Of course, I can go to the internet and read about sleep apnea.  That's not what I want.  It's too general--like the manufacturer-supplied-book I once had telling me about features of the automobile I owned, which also described features of automobiles I did not own.

Is the sleep doctor so busy or so illiterate that he can't type up a short report of my mother's condition in understandable language?

I don't think I'm too demanding, and I don't think this system of medical care is acceptable.

But I've forgotten the most important thing:  The care-giver did did come home with documents: a sort of form which discharged my mother from the facility, and directions on cleaning the machine she'll be using.

I repeat myself:  Would it really be too much to ask for a paragraph explaining my mother's condition and the functioning of the machine?  Is that so hard? So time-consuming?  I think not.  It is indicative of the impersonal nature of the system.