The Guardian Dumbed Down

The Guardian of London has a new tabloid-like format--more and larger pictures.
This is not helpful or attractive.  There are so many pictures, and some of them are so large
that I find myself thinking that they think I am stupid--as if I couldn't figure out what the story
is about from the headline alone.

USP = unfreedom and clutter

There are those, it would seem, who endorse an amazing belief, a superstitious belief,
in their ability to create a difference where none exists in reality.

I have heard tell that they go to school to acquire this amazing magical ability.

A historically minded voice mumbles something about Protagoras and making the weak argument seem to be stronger....But let's not listen.

For several weeks, now, I have been present in this land of USP's where citizens seem to proudly exhibit their ability to discern differences where I see none.  It must be this brand, this label, yet to me they are all the same.  

In a feverish attempt to create a USP people will mix things up in the most unholy ways in order to produce a curious blend of things for no other reason than because they imagine it to be new or unique.

Strenuous exertion worthy of an alchemist.

And which country is this?  Despite globalization, the madness seems to be stronger here than other places I have visited.

Academic Americans Blogging

What annoys me about the blogs of Americans in academia (mostly, with perhaps one exception)
is the degree to which their most casual remarks remind me of the comforts they enjoy, most especially job security--things I've never had, and never will have......, It gives their wisdom a sort of sour or stale smell......

Eastern European Road Rage

There seems to be a primitive certainty, a surety of one's right to do what one's doing, as citizens speed in their motor cars early in the morning.  A pedestrian is a nuisance, and a mouthy surly pedestrian deserves no mercy.

From this surety that one knows one's rights can spring violence, accompanied by a sort of righteousness (and it is for that reason I would never use that word in translating or discussing Socrates) that permits and endorse one's meting out what one is convinced is a just punishment.

I recall reading that in this very country, after the war,  a pregnant German woman was pushed off a bridge to her death.

I have no doubt that those who murdered her were filled with the same self-righteousness that leads cars and bicycles to be annoyed by pedestrians.  You say it is a trite comparison.  But the potency of global warming means that the mad morning commute is part of a much greater madness and those who engage in it are madder still than other madmen.  Loving the countryside, they destroy it. Loving their children, they leave them a ruined inheritance, and as they speed along the road hurrying to work, their life is not especially pleasant.

And anyone who gets in their way or protests may receive more than words in response.  (So I learned this morning.)

This I have learned in Eastern Europe.

a funny notice

I saw a funny notice on a bulletin board the other day. I reproduce it below.  (Incidentally, I find it very disturbing that at bus stops and elsewhere in the Czech Republic, there are official notices banning the posting of non-approved materials.  Approved materials always include garish and disgusting advertising for crap.  One of the marks of a truly free society is its tolerance for pamphleting and posting in public places by every sort of person.)

A CALL FOR ACTION;

A CALL FOR THE PERMANENT EUTHANASIA OF THE V-RAT-NICE CLASS

Now is the time to recognize that the Vratnice has outlived its usefulness.

This class, with its perennial suspicion and contempt for those on the wrong side of the desk, has no role to play in a democratic society.  Nor should anyone imagine they've been somehow updated by giving them computers and defending them with thick glass.

Current members of the class should be given other jobs, real work which does not allow them to behave contemptuously and disdainfully towards others.

The Special Case of the “Nice” Vratnice:

Then there are those who are so misguided as to imagine themselves kind when they negotiate special privileges with you. 'Well, I shouldn't, but I will do it this once....”

Their kind was clearly diagnosed by Kafka in the opening pages of “The Trial”.

CCTV comes home

Recently a notice appeared in my building telling us that there is CCTV.
I wonder how much it cost.  And who is watching?  And how many hours a day?

Do they have me on tape as I enter and leave the building?

I would have preferred if they spent the money on new and larger washing machines;
but no one is asking me.

Capitalism Gives Us Crap

Bought a "Mexican"style sandwich in the Prague train station the other day.  I've been buying these sandwiches off-and-on for a couple of year.

Suddenly, they are thinner--but the price is unchanged. And there are FEWER BEANS!

Probably there's less meat too, but the beans used to be tasty.

Case number two:

Bought a pair of SANSA ballet slippers yesterday in Prague's Sansha store.  Hmmm.
They used to come with a cloth net bag.  Maybe only in the USA?  But these shoes were
brown, as if they'd been sitting in the dust for ages.  But, at least, they fit---unlike all the other shoes I own.

The moral of the story is that Markets give you crap as often as not.