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Bigotry is the lot of retards. A grown man has enough enemies of all stripes to preempt uniform grudges.
“When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they’ve been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.”
“When I was a kid, some of the guys would try to get me to hate white people for what they’ve been doing to Negroes, and for a while I tried real hard. But every time I got to hating them, some white guy would come along and mess the whole thing up.”
—Thelonious Sphere Monk as quoted by Harry Colomby in Down Beat, Vol. 25, 1958
Tags:
hearts and heads
Jan. 27th, 2012 03:12 pmInequality has made upward mobility difficult. Equality would make upward mobility impossible. Either way, more and more Americans will get screwed.
« N’être pas republicain à vingt ans est preuve d’un manque de coeur ; l’être après trente ans est preuve d’un manque de tête. »
“Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
“Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
« N’être pas republicain à vingt ans est preuve d’un manque de coeur ; l’être après trente ans est preuve d’un manque de tête. »
“Not to be a republican at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
—François Guizot (1787–1874)
« N’être pas socialiste à vingt ans est preuve d’un manque de coeur ; l’être après trente ans est preuve d’un manque de tête. »“Not to be a socialist at twenty is proof of want of heart; to be one at thirty is proof of want of head.”
—Georges Clemenceau (1841–1929)
“A recent Pew Research Center poll found that for the first time more people under the age of thirty view socialism positively than view capitalism positively—49 to 46 percent—although what they meant by socialism was not clearly defined.”the politics of greed
Oct. 11th, 2011 09:41 amA specter slate of numbers is haunting teh internets. Thus “Going for Broke – Will Legislate For Food”, posted on 4 July 2011 by gmyers2112, purports to illustrate the “Ratio of Pay CEO : Avg Worker” in several countries:
Regrettably, in an ongoing discussion, the blogger credits “the entrails of a still born calf” as his source of information. Thankfully, another prolific replicator is more forthcoming:
In “The Real American Exceptionalism”, posted on 18 April 2011, David Morris credits this substantially similar chart, purporting to illustrate the “Multiplier of CEO Pay to Average Worker Pay”, to a Management 510 class presentation, given at Louisiana Tech University on 17 November 2005 by Adam Choate, Dana Rowzee, and Jerrod Tinsley. The numbers quoted by Choate, Rowzee, and Tinsley are identical to those posted by gmyers2112, and likewise unsourced.
Another set of international pay ratios was assembled under the heading of “Growing Sense Of Outrage Over Executive Pay” by Heather Landy for The Washington Post on 15 November 2008. Restricting her analysis to S&P 500 CEOs, Landy tallies the ratios of their pay to the average wage of the American worker, as 42:1 in 1980; 107:1 in 1990; 525:1 in 2000; 364:1 in 2006; and 344:1 in 2007. But her international comparisons are far from the foregoing:
More to the point, on 6 October 2011, Business Insider reported that the U.S is the #39 most unequal country in the world, based on the CIA compilation of Gini coefficients. The U.S. has more income inequality than Russia (#51) and China (#52). It ranks far worse than Portugal (#71), which rates as the worst in Western Europe. In consolation, the adjoining list of “The 16 Most Creative Countries In The World”, based on a recently released study by the Martin Prosperity Institute, counts United States as #2, right below Sweden counted as #1, replicating its achievement of the most egalitarian distribution of family incomes in the aforementioned ranking. In so far as these metrics are equally credible, creativity needn’t depend upon, or be stymied by, inequality. To complicate matters further, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and The Washington Post, 52% of American respondents say that it is incorrect to think of the country as divided between “haves” and “have-nots”, while only 45% say that it is divided this way. Thus a solid majority of U.S. citizens is turning a blind eye to the facts of its ostensible disenfranchisement.
One reason for this blindness is the effect of institutionalized ambitions. Twelve years ago, Ted Ownby identified the American dreams of unbounded consumption, shared by the poorest black Mississippians. They craved an abundance of freely chosen and perpetually renewed material goods, shared regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or class. They claimed the right to fashion individual life styles unconstrained by meddlesome standards of their social betters. In the context of such cravings and claims, economic inequality becomes ambivalent. For dedicated consumers, the availability of the 475:1 earnings ratio is a true inspiration. For dissidents nursing spiritual notions, what reason could there be to obsess about it? As our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness vest in the humble toiler, so they do in the rapacious one percenter. To socially responsible entreaties of moderation, the American consumer puts forth an irresistible retort: “Can you let me go to Hell the way I want to?”
The perdurance of American Dreams tends to frame the protests sweeping across our nation as still-born ramblings of discombobulated malcontents. After failing to anticipate the Arab nations moving from stability to turmoil, our beleaguered POTUS is attempting to surf the wave of protests sweeping suddenly across the nation. Yet this is the same Chief Executive who has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician of his generation; who publicly declined to begrudge the bonuses of Wall Street bigwigs; and who now depends on their largesse for a third of his reelection campaign contributions. It is tempting to hope for a politically effective counterpart to the Tea Party emerging from the American Left. Regrettably, this hope will not be realized by the occupiers of Wall Street.
Regrettably, in an ongoing discussion, the blogger credits “the entrails of a still born calf” as his source of information. Thankfully, another prolific replicator is more forthcoming:
In “The Real American Exceptionalism”, posted on 18 April 2011, David Morris credits this substantially similar chart, purporting to illustrate the “Multiplier of CEO Pay to Average Worker Pay”, to a Management 510 class presentation, given at Louisiana Tech University on 17 November 2005 by Adam Choate, Dana Rowzee, and Jerrod Tinsley. The numbers quoted by Choate, Rowzee, and Tinsley are identical to those posted by gmyers2112, and likewise unsourced.
Another set of international pay ratios was assembled under the heading of “Growing Sense Of Outrage Over Executive Pay” by Heather Landy for The Washington Post on 15 November 2008. Restricting her analysis to S&P 500 CEOs, Landy tallies the ratios of their pay to the average wage of the American worker, as 42:1 in 1980; 107:1 in 1990; 525:1 in 2000; 364:1 in 2006; and 344:1 in 2007. But her international comparisons are far from the foregoing:
How American CEOs Compare With CEOs in Other Countries: “a 2005 analysis of the ratio of CEO compensation to the pay of production workers in the manufacturing sector showed U.S. chief executives taking a clear lead”:Landy’s charts suggest that Choate, Rowzee, and Tinsley were comparing the ratio of pay between celebrity chief executives of the U.S. S&P 500, to their garden variety counterparts abroad. This contrast makes as little sense as singling out Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie as model U.S. actor representatives in international income comparisons biased towards bit players world-wide.
- Australia: 15.6;
- Belgium: 18;
- Canada: 23.1;
- France: 22.8;
- Germany: 20.1;
- Italy: 25.9;
- Japan: 10.8;
- New Zealand: 24.9;
- Spain: 17.2;
- Switzerland: 19.3;
- Britain: 31.8;
- United Slates: 39.
More to the point, on 6 October 2011, Business Insider reported that the U.S is the #39 most unequal country in the world, based on the CIA compilation of Gini coefficients. The U.S. has more income inequality than Russia (#51) and China (#52). It ranks far worse than Portugal (#71), which rates as the worst in Western Europe. In consolation, the adjoining list of “The 16 Most Creative Countries In The World”, based on a recently released study by the Martin Prosperity Institute, counts United States as #2, right below Sweden counted as #1, replicating its achievement of the most egalitarian distribution of family incomes in the aforementioned ranking. In so far as these metrics are equally credible, creativity needn’t depend upon, or be stymied by, inequality. To complicate matters further, according to a poll conducted by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press and The Washington Post, 52% of American respondents say that it is incorrect to think of the country as divided between “haves” and “have-nots”, while only 45% say that it is divided this way. Thus a solid majority of U.S. citizens is turning a blind eye to the facts of its ostensible disenfranchisement.
One reason for this blindness is the effect of institutionalized ambitions. Twelve years ago, Ted Ownby identified the American dreams of unbounded consumption, shared by the poorest black Mississippians. They craved an abundance of freely chosen and perpetually renewed material goods, shared regardless of race, gender, ethnicity, or class. They claimed the right to fashion individual life styles unconstrained by meddlesome standards of their social betters. In the context of such cravings and claims, economic inequality becomes ambivalent. For dedicated consumers, the availability of the 475:1 earnings ratio is a true inspiration. For dissidents nursing spiritual notions, what reason could there be to obsess about it? As our unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness vest in the humble toiler, so they do in the rapacious one percenter. To socially responsible entreaties of moderation, the American consumer puts forth an irresistible retort: “Can you let me go to Hell the way I want to?”
The perdurance of American Dreams tends to frame the protests sweeping across our nation as still-born ramblings of discombobulated malcontents. After failing to anticipate the Arab nations moving from stability to turmoil, our beleaguered POTUS is attempting to surf the wave of protests sweeping suddenly across the nation. Yet this is the same Chief Executive who has received more money from Wall Street than any other politician of his generation; who publicly declined to begrudge the bonuses of Wall Street bigwigs; and who now depends on their largesse for a third of his reelection campaign contributions. It is tempting to hope for a politically effective counterpart to the Tea Party emerging from the American Left. Regrettably, this hope will not be realized by the occupiers of Wall Street.
Melor Sturua reviews the movie The Last Argument of Kings [a remake of Seven Days in May] by the studio Ukrtelefilm:
The movie shows the tycoons of the military-industrial complex, concerned about the readiness of the President of the U.S. to reach arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, organize a conspiracy against him. But the Pentagon “hawks” have no need to dive into the White House. The Reagan administration is pursuing a course that pleases the militarists.
As a rule, American film and television, in turning to the Soviet themes, create anti-Soviet and anti-Russian, and therefore inhumane films.
25 years later, anti-American rhetoric is no longer the official discourse in Russia. However, it is still in demand, as the Moscow News has determined after talking to the political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow State University.
Today, there are many more reasons to hate America, than 25 years ago. In the era of the Cold War there were two relatively comparable ideological models, the two poles—the socialist and the capitalist, two adversaries in an ideological war. Then we exchanged “pleasantries” based on our world-views, and anti-American sentiments coincided with the defense of the socialist system and the interests of the Eastern bloc.
Since then, the Eastern Bloc fell, and the world has become unipolar. Today there exists the center, and the fringe comprises all that is not America or its direct vassals. The fringe feels the pressure of a new American empire, feels the U.S. sucking out all its resources, suppressing it, conducting a thoroughly imperialist colonial policy. And those who now oppose the U.S., comprise all of mankind, all countries facing a threat of becoming the next target of colonization and imperialist aggression by the U.S. Political scientist Samuel Hungtington proposed a formula: “The West Against the Rest”. But “the Rest” also have something to say in this situation, so that you can turn it around: “The Rest Against the West”, all the rest, except for America, against America.
In his time, prince Trubetzkoy, founder of the Eurasian movement, wrote an important book, Europe and Mankind (meaning that Europe is opposed to mankind and mankind is opposed to Europe). And according to Trubetskoy, what unites the mankind is its aversion for European expansion. Today the center of the West has shifted across the ocean, and the one trait common to the planet of men, is the hatred of its U.S. hegemon.
After the intervention in Libya, it is clear that Western interests and Western values differ drastically. The words proclaim human rights, humanism, tolerance, democracy, and freedom;the deeds seek oil, power, occupation, and invasion. That is why the hatred of America is now not merely a common ground of “the Rest”, all the remainder of the world. This hatred is by and large becoming the force that unites the people of Europe as a part of the pro-American “West”, and even a large segment of Americans. America is hated by everyone, even by the Americans. Anti-Americanism is perhaps the main force that unites mankind. Anti-Americanism becomes a synonym for self-determination of man, the man of the fringes seeking a multipolar free world. Therefore, “Death to America” should be written as a slogan on the shield of all those who want a humane world order. As long as America has not been ruined, annihilated, and crushed in its imperialist effort to impose its hegemony upon everyone, we will subsist under a constant threat of recurrence of Libyan, Iraqi, Afghani, and Serbian events. The fight against America must proceed not only with words but also with hearts and minds, and most importantly, with actions. America must be terminated. People who do not hate America today, are not people at all. They are victims of Western propaganda, biorobots who relinquish their right to freedom, independence, and dignity.
The movie shows the tycoons of the military-industrial complex, concerned about the readiness of the President of the U.S. to reach arms control agreements with the Soviet Union, organize a conspiracy against him. But the Pentagon “hawks” have no need to dive into the White House. The Reagan administration is pursuing a course that pleases the militarists.
As a rule, American film and television, in turning to the Soviet themes, create anti-Soviet and anti-Russian, and therefore inhumane films.
—Moscow News № 35, dated 31 August 1986
25 years later, anti-American rhetoric is no longer the official discourse in Russia. However, it is still in demand, as the Moscow News has determined after talking to the political scientist Aleksandr Dugin, head of the Department of Sociology of International Relations at Moscow State University.
Today, there are many more reasons to hate America, than 25 years ago. In the era of the Cold War there were two relatively comparable ideological models, the two poles—the socialist and the capitalist, two adversaries in an ideological war. Then we exchanged “pleasantries” based on our world-views, and anti-American sentiments coincided with the defense of the socialist system and the interests of the Eastern bloc.
Since then, the Eastern Bloc fell, and the world has become unipolar. Today there exists the center, and the fringe comprises all that is not America or its direct vassals. The fringe feels the pressure of a new American empire, feels the U.S. sucking out all its resources, suppressing it, conducting a thoroughly imperialist colonial policy. And those who now oppose the U.S., comprise all of mankind, all countries facing a threat of becoming the next target of colonization and imperialist aggression by the U.S. Political scientist Samuel Hungtington proposed a formula: “The West Against the Rest”. But “the Rest” also have something to say in this situation, so that you can turn it around: “The Rest Against the West”, all the rest, except for America, against America.
In his time, prince Trubetzkoy, founder of the Eurasian movement, wrote an important book, Europe and Mankind (meaning that Europe is opposed to mankind and mankind is opposed to Europe). And according to Trubetskoy, what unites the mankind is its aversion for European expansion. Today the center of the West has shifted across the ocean, and the one trait common to the planet of men, is the hatred of its U.S. hegemon.
After the intervention in Libya, it is clear that Western interests and Western values differ drastically. The words proclaim human rights, humanism, tolerance, democracy, and freedom;the deeds seek oil, power, occupation, and invasion. That is why the hatred of America is now not merely a common ground of “the Rest”, all the remainder of the world. This hatred is by and large becoming the force that unites the people of Europe as a part of the pro-American “West”, and even a large segment of Americans. America is hated by everyone, even by the Americans. Anti-Americanism is perhaps the main force that unites mankind. Anti-Americanism becomes a synonym for self-determination of man, the man of the fringes seeking a multipolar free world. Therefore, “Death to America” should be written as a slogan on the shield of all those who want a humane world order. As long as America has not been ruined, annihilated, and crushed in its imperialist effort to impose its hegemony upon everyone, we will subsist under a constant threat of recurrence of Libyan, Iraqi, Afghani, and Serbian events. The fight against America must proceed not only with words but also with hearts and minds, and most importantly, with actions. America must be terminated. People who do not hate America today, are not people at all. They are victims of Western propaganda, biorobots who relinquish their right to freedom, independence, and dignity.
—Marina Grineva, Moscow News № 115, dated 9 September 2011
no second place winner
Sep. 11th, 2011 02:31 pmThe meeting was billed as “A Salute to Bill Jordan and the United States of America—A Bicentennial Spectacular Celebrating Over 200 Years of Lawfully Armed Citizenry Helping to Preserve Freedom.” Bill Jordan was being saluted because he is a recently retired top field representative of the National Rifle Association, a Marine veteran of the Second World War and Korea, a veteran of thirty years’ service with the United States Border Patrol in Texas, a holder of the trophy for Outstanding American Handgunner, a developer of Smith & Wesson’s Model 19 Combat Magnum revolver and the owner of Serial No. 1, the designer of the quick-draw Jordan holster and Jordan grip now used by many police officers, and author of the widely read book on handgun shooting titled “No Second Place Winner.” Mr. Jordan is also something of a trick shot, and this was to be his last public demonstration of his hip-shooting and quick-draw techniques.
Bill Jordan shooting his S&W M19 In the lobby of the theatre, before the show, we saw some eight hundred Federation members; a display of nine target rifles; flags saying “Don’t Tread on Me;” a display of historic arms contributed by the New York State Police, including an original 1886 Winchester .36-30 repeating rifle, two .38 pistols, a service Colt .45, and a Thompson submachine gun, all guarded by two smooth-faced, blue-eyed state policemen in gray uniforms; four shiny-helmeted members of the New York National Guard, three with M-16 rifles, arriving in an armored jeep pulling a howitzer; five men dressed as British Army regulars of the eighteenth century, with .757-calibre antique Brown Bess muskets; and one man dressed as a Colonial soldier, who would have looked plausible in his tricorne hat and assorted animal furs if he had not also been wearing lavender-tinted aviator glasses. When Mr. Jordan arrived, the people in the lobby parted before him. He was wearing blue pants and a blue shirt-jacket with white stitching. He was tall and slope-shouldered, and his face looked like a less exaggerated version of Buddy Ebsen’s. He moved slowly, and he smiled and blinked a lot, and he shied away when one of the public-relations men leaned up to kiss him on the cheek.
Inside the theatre, we sat behind a man wearing a red blazer and an ankle holster. William G. Kalaidjian, a New York City police chaplain, opened the meeting with a prayer. Then a color guard brought Bill Jordan to the stage, and everybody recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then Jerry Preiser, a clothing manufacturer and president of the Federation, gave a one-hundred-dollar Courageous Citizen Award to a camera-store owner who last February shot and killed an armed robber in his store. People applauded and cheered loudly, and the camera-store owner smiled and waved back as he accepted the check. Then Dr. Richard Drooz, a Manhattan psychiatrist, who is vice-president of the Federation, made a speech introducing Bill Jordan, which ended, “He has an articulate and beautiful way of relating to people. He has a beautiful sense of humor. And tonight he brings together under one roof the best of the military, the best of law enforcement, the best of humanity.”
FBI’s Jelly Bryce and
Bill Jordan of the Border Patrol
“Gunman’s Crouch” and “Standing Tall” Bill Jordan used paraffin bullets for his demonstration. He has a very fast draw, and he shot a number of balloons from the hands of his old Marine buddy Ray Heatherton, TV’s Merry Mailman. Firing from the hip, he hit a white Life Saver and then an aspirin on a table ten feet away. He told the audience one of his favorite sayings from the Border Patrol: “Speed is fine, but accuracy is final.” Then he made a speech about ways in which the National Rifle Association could increase its membership. He encouraged people to tell their hunting companions to join, and he said that he thought Citizens Band radio might also be effective in enlisting new members.
After Representative Mario Biaggi made a speech, the meeting broke up. As we were leaving, we heard a Federation member say to the man who had been sitting in front of us, “Hey, there, Paul. Don’t go running off with my handcuffs. Or my bullets.” They both laughed.
Bill Jordan shooting his S&W M19
Inside the theatre, we sat behind a man wearing a red blazer and an ankle holster. William G. Kalaidjian, a New York City police chaplain, opened the meeting with a prayer. Then a color guard brought Bill Jordan to the stage, and everybody recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Then Jerry Preiser, a clothing manufacturer and president of the Federation, gave a one-hundred-dollar Courageous Citizen Award to a camera-store owner who last February shot and killed an armed robber in his store. People applauded and cheered loudly, and the camera-store owner smiled and waved back as he accepted the check. Then Dr. Richard Drooz, a Manhattan psychiatrist, who is vice-president of the Federation, made a speech introducing Bill Jordan, which ended, “He has an articulate and beautiful way of relating to people. He has a beautiful sense of humor. And tonight he brings together under one roof the best of the military, the best of law enforcement, the best of humanity.”
FBI’s Jelly Bryce and
Bill Jordan of the Border Patrol
“Gunman’s Crouch” and “Standing Tall”
After Representative Mario Biaggi made a speech, the meeting broke up. As we were leaving, we heard a Federation member say to the man who had been sitting in front of us, “Hey, there, Paul. Don’t go running off with my handcuffs. Or my bullets.” They both laughed.
—The New Yorker, Volume 52, 19 April 1976
papa takes a piss
Jun. 27th, 2011 12:48 pmAbout the James book: It is not great no matter what they tell you. It has fine qualities and greater faults. It is much too long and much too bitching and his one fight, against the planes, at Pearl Harbour day is almost musical comedy. He has a genius for respecting the terms of a kitchen and he is a K.P. boy for keeps and for always. Things will catch up with him and he will probably commit suicide. Who could announce in his publicity in this year 1951 that “he went over the hill” in 1944. That was a year in which many people were very busy doing their duty and in which many people died. To me he is an enormously skilled fuck-up and his book will do great damage to our country. Probably I should re-read it again to give you a truer answer. But I do not have to eat an entire bowl of scabs to know they are scabs; nor suck a boil to know it is a boil; nor swim through a river of snot to know it is snot. I hope he kills himself as soon as it does not damage his or your sales. If you give him a literary tea you might ask him to drain a bucket of snot and then suck the pus out of a dead nigger’s ear. Then present him with one of those women he is asking for and let him show her his portrait and his clippings. How did they ever get a picture of a wide-eared jerk (un-damaged ears) to look that screaming tough. I am glad he makes you money and I would never laugh him off. I would just give him a bigger bucket on the snot detail. He has the psycho’s urge to kill himself and he will do it.
Make all the money you can out of him as quickly as you can and hold out enough for Christian Burial.
Wouldn’t have brought him up if you hadn’t asked me. Now I feel as unclean as when I read his fuck-off book. It has all the charm and true-ness of the real and imitation fuck-off. I give you James Jones, Gentlemen, and please take him away before he falls apart or starts screaming.
Ernest Hemingway, late spring 1952, John F. Kennedy Library
Jones made another remark that I had difficulty dealing with. When Hemingway’s name came up, he proclaimed that, “The problem with Papa was he always wanted to suck a cock. But when he found one that fit, it had a double barrel.”
Make all the money you can out of him as quickly as you can and hold out enough for Christian Burial.
Wouldn’t have brought him up if you hadn’t asked me. Now I feel as unclean as when I read his fuck-off book. It has all the charm and true-ness of the real and imitation fuck-off. I give you James Jones, Gentlemen, and please take him away before he falls apart or starts screaming.
— Ernest Hemingway, letter to Charles Scribner, 5 March 1951, Selected Letters 1917-1961, edited by Carlos Baker, Scribner, 2003, p. 721
Ernest Hemingway, late spring 1952, John F. Kennedy Library
Jones made another remark that I had difficulty dealing with. When Hemingway’s name came up, he proclaimed that, “The problem with Papa was he always wanted to suck a cock. But when he found one that fit, it had a double barrel.”
— Michael Mewshaw, Do I Owe You Something?: A Memoir of the Literary Life, Louisiana State Univ Press, 2003, p. 53
Deshon Marman, 20, a University of New Mexico football player who was in the city to attend the funeral of a close friend, former Lincoln High School standout David Henderson, was being held at San Mateo County Jail on suspicion of trespassing, battery and resisting arrest.
Marman grew up a block from Henderson in the Bayview neighborhood, and the two were teammates at Lincoln High School and City College of San Francisco before they transferred to separate four-year universities. Henderson was shot May 26 on Kirkwood Avenue and died 11 days later.
On Wednesday, San Francisco police got a call about 9 a.m. that someone was exposing himself outside a US Airways gate, Sgt. Michael Rodriguez said.
An airline employee spotted Marman before he boarded Flight 488, bound for Albuquerque, and complained that Marman’s pants “were below his buttocks but above the knees, and that much of his boxer shorts were exposed,” Rodriguez said.
The employee asked Marman to pull up his pants before he boarded the plane, but he refused, Rodriguez said. Marman allegedly repeated his refusal after taking his seat on the plane.
“At that point he was asked to leave the plane,” Rodriguez said. "“It took 15 to 20 minutes of talking to get him to leave the plane, and he was arrested for trespassing.” Marman allegedly resisted officers as he was being led away.—Justin Berton, “Grieving Passenger’s Sagging Pants Lead to Arrest”,
The San Francisco Chronicle, 16 June 2011
The fashion actually transitioned from prison culture, said author-youth advocate Judge Greg Mathis of the “Judge Mathis” show.
“In prison you aren’t allowed to wear belts to prevent self-hanging or the hanging of others,” said Mathis, who at 17 once served eight months in jail. “They take the belt and sometimes your pants hang down. The same with no shoestrings in your shoes. You aren’t allowed to have shoestrings. Many cultures of the prison have overflowed into the community unfortunately.”
Saggin’ also has sexual connotations in prison.
“Those who pulled their pants down the lowest and showed their behind a little more raw, that was an invitation,” said Mathis. “[The youth] don’t know this part about it. I always tease and tell them that they better be careful because some man who has been in prison 30 years who comes home and doesn’t know any different may think it’s an open invitation.”—Margena A. Christian, “The Facts Behind The Saggin’ Pants Craze”,
Jet, Vol. 111, No. 18, 7 May 2007, pp 16-18
equal opportunity offense
Jun. 11th, 2011 01:48 amP.J. O’Rourke: Foreigners Around the World ( Read more... )
Racial Characteristics:
Resembling the Chinese in many respects but mercifully less numerous. Their idea of a good time is to torture people, preferably by inserting a glass rod in the penis, then doing the predictable thing. And this is only for captured business competitors. During time of war, they resort to more drastic measures entirely. They have no new ideas of their own or any native creativity, but they are able to copy everything we do quite nicely, considering the color of their skin. Their diet consists principally of fish, which they do not cook or even, in many cases, kill. It’s rumored that they know of sex acts peculiar unto themselves, and with any luck, so it will stay. The most frightening thing about the Japanese is that we’ve tried the atomic bomb on them twice and it doesn’t seem to have much effect.
Good Points:
Frequently commit suicide.
Proper Forms of Address:
Nip, Jap, dink, gook, yellow rat.
An Anecdote Illustrating Something of the Japanese Character:
There was once a half-Japanese, half-Polish businessman in Tokyo who attempted to export miniaturized dildos.
( Read more... )
P.S:
Allied prisoners often reported on individual cases of mistreatment they had personally witnessed: Kanburi No. 2 Coolie Hospital, where “coolies were kept standing for hours with weights tied to the penis” — apparently for sport; Kinsayoke Checking Station, where coolies undergoing rectal swab examination for dysentery were, “one after the other, kicked violently by the Japanese medical officers”; Niki Camp, where members of a Japanese hygiene unit, during routine examinations, delighted in inserting glass rods into the vaginas of Chinese women patients; Upper Concuita Camp, where “sick coolies were used for the practice of judo and thrown over the shoulders of Japanese.” At Concuita, too, fifty to sixty workers were killed with doses of morphia and potassium permanganate.
“These instances could be multiplied,” Crawford said, “ad nauseam.”
Repeatedly, the Allies protested the mistreatment of prisoners of war and others in the Thai-Burmese camps. As in a game of badminton, the Japanese foreign minister of the day swatted back the diplomatic shuttlecock, dismissing the accusations as lies. On July 24, 1943, for example, the defendant Mamoru Shigemitsu, through the Swiss ambassador in Japan, replied to one protest by observing that “competent authorities … inform me that the prisoners of the Thailand Camp are equitably treated; furthermore, those who are sick have received the best medical treatment in the prisoners-of-war hospital.” Shigemitsu’s “competent authorities” were officials of the War Ministry. But repeated Swiss requests to visit the camps as a neutral power were denied. “So far as the matter of visiting the camp is concerned,” Shigemitsu wrote, “authorization will not be given for the moment.” It never was.
JAPANESE
Racial Characteristics:
Resembling the Chinese in many respects but mercifully less numerous. Their idea of a good time is to torture people, preferably by inserting a glass rod in the penis, then doing the predictable thing. And this is only for captured business competitors. During time of war, they resort to more drastic measures entirely. They have no new ideas of their own or any native creativity, but they are able to copy everything we do quite nicely, considering the color of their skin. Their diet consists principally of fish, which they do not cook or even, in many cases, kill. It’s rumored that they know of sex acts peculiar unto themselves, and with any luck, so it will stay. The most frightening thing about the Japanese is that we’ve tried the atomic bomb on them twice and it doesn’t seem to have much effect.
Good Points:
Frequently commit suicide.
Proper Forms of Address:
Nip, Jap, dink, gook, yellow rat.
An Anecdote Illustrating Something of the Japanese Character:
There was once a half-Japanese, half-Polish businessman in Tokyo who attempted to export miniaturized dildos.
( Read more... )
— National Lampoon, May 1976
P.S:
Allied prisoners often reported on individual cases of mistreatment they had personally witnessed: Kanburi No. 2 Coolie Hospital, where “coolies were kept standing for hours with weights tied to the penis” — apparently for sport; Kinsayoke Checking Station, where coolies undergoing rectal swab examination for dysentery were, “one after the other, kicked violently by the Japanese medical officers”; Niki Camp, where members of a Japanese hygiene unit, during routine examinations, delighted in inserting glass rods into the vaginas of Chinese women patients; Upper Concuita Camp, where “sick coolies were used for the practice of judo and thrown over the shoulders of Japanese.” At Concuita, too, fifty to sixty workers were killed with doses of morphia and potassium permanganate.
“These instances could be multiplied,” Crawford said, “ad nauseam.”
Repeatedly, the Allies protested the mistreatment of prisoners of war and others in the Thai-Burmese camps. As in a game of badminton, the Japanese foreign minister of the day swatted back the diplomatic shuttlecock, dismissing the accusations as lies. On July 24, 1943, for example, the defendant Mamoru Shigemitsu, through the Swiss ambassador in Japan, replied to one protest by observing that “competent authorities … inform me that the prisoners of the Thailand Camp are equitably treated; furthermore, those who are sick have received the best medical treatment in the prisoners-of-war hospital.” Shigemitsu’s “competent authorities” were officials of the War Ministry. But repeated Swiss requests to visit the camps as a neutral power were denied. “So far as the matter of visiting the camp is concerned,” Shigemitsu wrote, “authorization will not be given for the moment.” It never was.
— Arnold C. Brackman, The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials, William Morrow & Co., 1987, p. 258
untermenschen sind nicht brüder
Jun. 10th, 2011 11:34 pmOn 16 September 1941, my maternal grandmother and great-grandmother were exterminated by Einsatzgruppe C, led by Otto Rasch, holder of two university doctorates in political economy and philosophy. On 13 June 1942, my 16 year-old maternal aunt was raped and killed by a Tadjik collective farmer. I owe my descent to my mother’s refusal to follow the example of three generations of women in her family, expressed by her bearing arms against Nazi invaders.
Comes now Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick to bemoan and decry “hurt feelings” that according to her comprise the real concern driving the hotly contested Florida law that makes it illegal for any physician to “ask questions concerning the ownership of a firearm” or “harass … a patient about firearm ownership during an examination”. She fails to note the symmetry of this law across the political spectrum with proposed and existing laws that bar insurance companies such as those that bear the costs of medical inquiries at issue, from asking potential clients about their sexual orientation or framing questions in such a way as to determine their sexual orientation. In Lithwick World, protecting the purview and privacy of citizens’preference in the pursuit of happiness goes without saying—until and unless their private preference stays outside the purview of pursuing the right to keep and bear arms. In Lithwick World, concern over President Obama “coming for yer guns”, realizing his signed support for legislation to ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns and assault weapons, is concern over “the lie that keeps on giving”.
According to Wikipedia, Dahlia Lithwick is Jewish, and keeps a kosher home. Regrettably, her Yiddishkeit does not deter her from pandering to lily-white middle-class gentiles eager to turn a blind eye to the perennial perils that inspire the keeping and bearing arms by Untermenschen not privy to their innate privilege. The last word on her subject belongs to Zero Mostel: “With kikes like you on the loose, who needs Hitler?”
Comes now Slate senior editor Dahlia Lithwick to bemoan and decry “hurt feelings” that according to her comprise the real concern driving the hotly contested Florida law that makes it illegal for any physician to “ask questions concerning the ownership of a firearm” or “harass … a patient about firearm ownership during an examination”. She fails to note the symmetry of this law across the political spectrum with proposed and existing laws that bar insurance companies such as those that bear the costs of medical inquiries at issue, from asking potential clients about their sexual orientation or framing questions in such a way as to determine their sexual orientation. In Lithwick World, protecting the purview and privacy of citizens’preference in the pursuit of happiness goes without saying—until and unless their private preference stays outside the purview of pursuing the right to keep and bear arms. In Lithwick World, concern over President Obama “coming for yer guns”, realizing his signed support for legislation to ban the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns and assault weapons, is concern over “the lie that keeps on giving”.
According to Wikipedia, Dahlia Lithwick is Jewish, and keeps a kosher home. Regrettably, her Yiddishkeit does not deter her from pandering to lily-white middle-class gentiles eager to turn a blind eye to the perennial perils that inspire the keeping and bearing arms by Untermenschen not privy to their innate privilege. The last word on her subject belongs to Zero Mostel: “With kikes like you on the loose, who needs Hitler?”
raising the stakes
May. 18th, 2011 12:35 amIn “Why I’m a Pacifist: The Dangerous Myth of the Good War”, published in Harper’s May 2011 issue, Nicholson Baker argues that Hitler’s Jewish policy was that of a hostage-taker. Baker concludes that the Allies should have heeded the pacifists such as Abraham Kaufman, Dorothy Day, Jessie Wallace Hughan, Rabbi Abraham Cronbach, Vera Brittain, Arthur Ponsonby, Clarence Pickett, Bertha Bracey, Runham Brown, Grace Beaton, and Victor Gollancz, by negotiating peace with Hitler in order to rescue Jews, instead of demanding unconditional surrender of Germany. According to Baker, this insistence inculpates Winston Churchill and FDR in Nazi genocide of the Jews.
So the Allies should have let The Axis absorb most of Europe in Germany and let Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere pay tribute to Japan, in exchange for Hitler letting the Jews go? I see no clues as to what Nicholson Baker might recognize as bargaining chips for the Allies to control and trade with the Axis. The Untermenschen residing in the occupied territories might want to have their say. Furthermore, the notion of Hitler holding Jews hostage against escalation of a European conflict into a world war is belied by the body count achieved by the Einsatzgruppen prior to America’s declaration of war against Germany. In the event, the lesson Hitler failed to teach to his adversaries, that terrorism on large enough scale can earn immunity from prosecution and be traded for political gains, is recapitulated today in the position taken by that Hamas-Fatah alliance:
Hard-liners in Israel and the U.S. will resist this capitulation to two generations of terrorists taking Jews and gentiles hostage, when not blowing them up. But there is a difference between Israel considering a compromise with Hamas and Fatah and the Allies considering a compromise with the Axis. Unlike the Nanking massacre and Babi Yar, Arab terrorism did not proceed under the color of authority endowed with international legitimacy. It must be well understood by both sides in asymmetrical warfare, that terrorist acts lose their advantage of asymmetry upon being perpetrated in the name of a state that itself is liable to be held hostage to a crushing military defeat, the likes of which befell Germany and Japan sixty-six years ago. So let the terrorists raise the stakes by getting their state this time. We’ll always have our recourse to carpet bombing and show trials.
So the Allies should have let The Axis absorb most of Europe in Germany and let Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere pay tribute to Japan, in exchange for Hitler letting the Jews go? I see no clues as to what Nicholson Baker might recognize as bargaining chips for the Allies to control and trade with the Axis. The Untermenschen residing in the occupied territories might want to have their say. Furthermore, the notion of Hitler holding Jews hostage against escalation of a European conflict into a world war is belied by the body count achieved by the Einsatzgruppen prior to America’s declaration of war against Germany. In the event, the lesson Hitler failed to teach to his adversaries, that terrorism on large enough scale can earn immunity from prosecution and be traded for political gains, is recapitulated today in the position taken by that Hamas-Fatah alliance:
ROBERT SIEGEL: You said recently that by signing this accord with Fatah, Hamas, and I quote you now, “became part of the Palestinian legitimacy,” that the movement gained legitimacy. The Israelis and others, some others, point to the 1988 Hamas charter very often and say that you should renounce that.This is the endgame. Hamas will renounce its “great hope of bringing to an end the Zionist project in Palestine”, avowed three days ago by Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister of the its government in Gaza, in exchange for Israel recognizing a Hamas-led Palestinian state in Gaza and the West Bank with its capital in Jerusalem.
And I looked at the document, and, you know, at one point it claims that the Jews started the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, both World Wars, that they operate in league with the Freemasons and set up the Rotary Clubs and Lions Clubs to do their bidding. Do you think that Western democracies are going to grant legitimacy to people with a document that reads like the paranoid conspiracies of the Ku Klux Klan or the American Nazi Party?
Mr. HAMAD: Look, and first of all, I think people should not judge Hamas according to their charter because many changes happened inside Hamas. But many people in United States and the West or in Israel, they say no, no. Hamas is still as it is before 20 years, no. I think Hamas show a lot of flexibility, and it became more pragmatic, more realistic. Hamas could be a good player in making peace in this region, but please don’t use stick against them and punishment against Hamas.
SIEGEL: But people who point to the charter say, well, even if Hamas says it has changed and there’s evidence that it has changed, the charter hasn’t changed. These are still the declared principles of your movement, aren’t they?
Mr. HAMAD: No one talk about removal of Israel. We’re only talking about removal of the occupation, and I think this is according to United Nations resolution, this is legitimate.
For example, my parents were born in Tel Aviv. We have seven millions Palestinian refugee - as refugees living in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, every - and Europe and Brazil and everywhere. They have no chance to return to their homeland. Is it their destiny to live as refugees forever? And Israel have a right to bring the Jews from South Africa, from the United States, from Russia, from everywhere to live inside the Palestinian territory, in settlements in the West Bank. I think it’s not logic. It’s not fair.
SIEGEL: Well, Mr. Hamad, thank you very much for...
Mr. HAMAD: Thank you.
SIEGEL: …spending time with us.
That’s Ghazi Hamad, who is deputy foreign minister of Hamas. He spoke to us from Gaza City. And we’ve also requested interviews, I should add, with a leader of Fatah and also with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hard-liners in Israel and the U.S. will resist this capitulation to two generations of terrorists taking Jews and gentiles hostage, when not blowing them up. But there is a difference between Israel considering a compromise with Hamas and Fatah and the Allies considering a compromise with the Axis. Unlike the Nanking massacre and Babi Yar, Arab terrorism did not proceed under the color of authority endowed with international legitimacy. It must be well understood by both sides in asymmetrical warfare, that terrorist acts lose their advantage of asymmetry upon being perpetrated in the name of a state that itself is liable to be held hostage to a crushing military defeat, the likes of which befell Germany and Japan sixty-six years ago. So let the terrorists raise the stakes by getting their state this time. We’ll always have our recourse to carpet bombing and show trials.
les fléaux sociaux
May. 15th, 2011 08:22 am
First Whora Bora, now this.
“Team America: Sex Police”.
our foreign policy, qualified
Mar. 24th, 2011 10:22 am“Muammar Qaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead, and he must leave”…
…“unless he changes his approach and there are significant reforms in the Libyan government that allow the Libyan people to express themselves”.
—Barack Hussein Obama, 3 March 2011
…“unless he changes his approach and there are significant reforms in the Libyan government that allow the Libyan people to express themselves”.
—Barack Hussein Obama, 22 March 2011
troglodytic pussyfooting
Jan. 6th, 2011 04:54 pmSome time ago, touristic extravagances of the POTUS elicited a great deal of waggish hand-wringing:
John Soane, Caesar’s Rhine Bridge, 1814
Lyndon Baines Johnson and Senator Richard Russell
Obama arrives in India at the start of a ten-day tour of Asia. At the heart of the White House caravan is ‘The Beast’, a gigantic, ‘pimped-up’ General Motors Cadillac which security experts say is, short of an actual battle tank, probably the safest road vehicle on the planet.Two weeks earlier, Obama’s storied subaltern opined: “If you accept the premise, and I do, that the United States is the most powerful country in the world, then Barack Obama is the most powerful writer since Julius Caesar.” Strangely enough, the potentate so anointed evaded on this occasion another favorable comparison to his illustrious predecessor:
But an outlandish car is only the start. Mr Obama will fly, of course, on Air Force One, the presidential private jumbo jet, which, boasting double beds and suites, is fitted out more like a luxury yacht. Some reports suggest it costs around $50,000 (£31,000) an hour to operate.
Of course threats can come from any direction, so a squadron of U.S. naval ships will patrol offshore. Some reports have claimed that 34 ships, including two aircraft carriers, will be involved (not far off the size of the Royal Navy’s entire Surface Fleet) but the White House has denied this.
On land, as well as The Beast, Mr Obama’s entourage will travel in a fleet of 45 U.S.-built armoured limousines, half of which will be decoys. He will also travel with 30 elite sniffer dogs, mostly German Shepherds.
The White House has, according to some reports, booked the entire Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, the city’s most luxurious. It is not uncommon for the grander heads of state to reserve a floor or two, but a whole hotel is unprecedented. This hotel was the main target of the 2008 attacks by Pakistani militants which left 166 dead.
As to the cost of all this, the White House will not reveal details – which has allowed Mr Obama’s political foes to bandy about sums including a widely-quoted $200million (£123million) a day. Whatever the figure, it makes the costs associated with the Royal Train and the late Royal Yacht Britannia seem like small change.
It is also reported that a bomb-proof tunnel will be erected for Mr Obama ahead of his visit to Mani Bhavan—the Gandhi museum—on Saturday.
According to Daily News & Analysis, U.S. secret service agents visited the museum on Monday to plan Mr Obama’s security during his tour.
They were accompanied by Mumbai Police officers and civic officials of the D ward where Mani Bhavan is located.
While they were inspecting the route and the buildings lining the path to the museum, U.S. security officers noticed a nearby skyscraper in the highly populated area that could pose a threat.
To the amazement of the Indians accompanying the U.S. agents, it was apparently decided to erect a bomb-proof over-ground tunnel, which will be installed by U.S. military engineers in just an hour.
The kilometre-long tunnel will measure 12ft by 12ft and will have air-conditioning, close-circuit television cameras, and will be heavily guarded at every point.
It’s being built so it is large enough for Mr Obama’s cavalcade to pass through and will be manned at its entry and exit points.
The material that the tunnel would be made of has not been released but officials said that the structure would be dismantled immediately after Mr Obama and his party leaves the area.—The Daily Mail, 6 November 2010
| Germanico bello confecto multis de causis Caesar statuit sibi Rhenum esse transeundum; quarum illa fuit iustissima quod, cum videret Germanos tam facile impelli ut in Galliam venirent, suis quoque rebus eos timere voluit, cum intellegerent et posse et audere populi Romani exercitum Rhenum transire. […] Caesar his de causis quas commemoravi Rhenum transire decreverat; sed navibus transire neque satis tutum esse arbitrabatur neque suae neque populi Romani dignitatis esse statuebat. Itaque, etsi summa difficultas faciendi pontis proponebatur propter latitudinem, rapiditatem altitudinemque fluminis, tamen id sibi contendendum aut aliter non traducendum exercitum existimabat. […] Diebus X, quibus materia coepta erat comportari, omni opere effecto exercitus traducitur. […] Caesar paucos dies in eorum finibus moratus, omnibus vicis aedificiisque incensis frumentisque succisis, se in fines Ubiorum recepit atque his auxilium suum pollicitus, si a Suebis premerentur, haec ab iis cognovit: Suebos, postea quam per exploratores pontem fieri comperissent, more suo concilio habito nuntios in omnes partes dimisisse, uti de oppidis demigrarent, liberos, uxores suaque omnia in silvis deponerent atque omnes qui arma ferre possent unum in locum convenirent. Hunc esse delectum medium fere regionum earum quas Suebi obtinerent; hic Romanorum adventum expectare atque ibi decertare constituisse. Quod ubi Caesar comperit, omnibus iis rebus confectis, quarum rerum causa exercitum traducere constituerat, ut Germanis metum iniceret, ut Sugambros ulcisceretur, ut Ubios obsidione liberaret, diebus omnino XVIII trans Rhenum consumptis, satis et ad laudem et ad utilitatem profectum arbitratus se in Galliam recepitpontemque rescidit. |
The German war being finished, Caesar thought it expedient for him to cross the Rhine , for many reasons; of which this was the most weighty, that, since he saw the Germans were so easily urged to go into Gaul, he desired they should have their fears for their own territories, when they discovered that the army of the Roman people both could and dared pass the Rhine. […] Caesar, for those reasons which I have mentioned, had resolved to cross the Rhine; but to cross by ships he neither deemed to be sufficiently safe, nor considered consistent with his own dignity or that of the Roman people. Therefore, although the greatest difficulty in forming a bridge was presented to him, on account of the breadth, rapidity, and depth of the river, he nevertheless considered that it ought to be attempted by him, or that his army ought not otherwise to be led over. […] Within ten days after the timber began to be collected, the whole work was completed, and the whole army led over. […] Caesar, having remained in their territories a few days, and burned all their villages and houses, and cut down their corn, proceeded into the territories of the Ubii; and having promised them his assistance, if they were ever harassed by the Suevi, he learned from them these particulars: that the Suevi, after they had by means of their scouts found that the bridge was being built, had called a council, according to their custom, and sent orders to all parts of their state to remove from the towns and convey their children, wives, and all their possessions into the woods, and that all who could bear arms should assemble in one place; that the place thus chosen was nearly the centre of those regions which the Suevi possessed; that in this spot they had resolved to await the arrival of the Romans, and give them battle there. When Caesar discovered this, having already accomplished all these things on account of which he had resolved to lead his army over, namely, to strike fear into the Germans, take vengeance on the Sigambri, and free the Ubii from the invasion of the Suevi, having spent altogether eighteen days beyond the Rhine, and thinking he had advanced far enough to serve both honor and interest, he returned into Gaul, and cut down the bridge. |
John Soane, Caesar’s Rhine Bridge, 1814
During a private conversation with some reporters who pressed him to explain why we were in Vietnam, Johnson lost his patience. According to Arthur Goldberg, “LBJ unzipped his fly, drew out his substantial organ and declared, ‘This is why!’”—Robert Dallek, Lyndon B. Johnson: Portrait of a President
Lyndon Baines Johnson and Senator Richard Russell
all the news fit to print
Nov. 29th, 2010 02:19 amNovember 20, 2009
A thick file of private emails and unpublished documents […] was obtained […] and has since spread widely across the Internet starting Thursday afternoon. […] The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
November 28, 2010
The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.
A thick file of private emails and unpublished documents […] was obtained […] and has since spread widely across the Internet starting Thursday afternoon. […] The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here.
November 28, 2010
The New York Times and a number of publications in Europe were given access to the material several weeks ago and agreed to begin publication of articles based on the cables Sunday online. The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.
california dreamin’
Nov. 8th, 2010 02:15 pmRoyce’s excursion to Europe and the eastern U.S. fixed in his mind a decided hatred of his native state. California’s provinciality, its ruthless economics, its blind and selfish politics—everything, in fact, but its exquisite natural beauty—filled him with loathing. Compared with the cultural centers that Royce had just left, California had little to offer besides stock speculation, wheat ranching, political charades, racial warfare, and agitation. “Foundation for higher growth we sadly lack. Ideals we have none. Philistines we are in soul most thoroughly. And when we do talk, our topics of discussion are so insufferably finite!’ As a place for philosophical thought, it was execrable. “There is no philosophy in California—from Siskiyou to Ft. Yuma, and from the Golden Gate to the Summit of the Sierras, there could not be found brains enough [to] accomplish the formation of a single respectable idea that was not a manifest plagiarism. Hence the atmosphere for the study of metaphysics is bad, and I wish I were out of it.”
—John Clendenning, The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce, Revised and Expanded Edition, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999, p. 74
The word “logic”, fortunately or unfortunately, rings with varied overtones not all of which are in harmony. One ear may be deaf to what excites another, and great care must be taken in claiming that the “logic” of a subject has been found or revised. As one of my undergraduate professors once told me, “When you question a man’s logic you question his taste,” which may explain the contempt of some mathematicians for logical studies. Now that there seems to be a chance for formal logic to have a wider audience, all the more care is required. Easy victories waste too much time in celebration. Formal methods should only be applied when the subject is ready for them, when conceptual clarification is sufficiently advanced. This is not to discourage experimentation—only the party giving. Modal Logic is a good example: colorful axioms have been strung up all over, but few couples are dancing. Maybe Quantum Logic is another example, but at least the mathematics being served at that party is vastly more sophisticated than the Coca-Cola of the modal logicians. Besides, those who study the foundations of quantum physics readily agree that the fight has only just begun.2 [2 A general reference is J. M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. 1968). A related discussion and some interesting new ideas have been initiated in C.H. Randall and D.J. Foulis, “An Approach to Empirical Logic”, in American Mathematical Monthly 77 (1970) pp. 363-374.] Whether, then, the claim of a carry-over for modal logic is going to be justified is to my mind a very moot point and is one of the main motivations for attempting this essay.3 [3 Reservations about modal logic, mingled with some optimism, have been expressed by George Lakoff, “Linguistics and Natural Logic”, in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. by D. Davidson and G. Harman (D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1972) pp. 545-665. Note especially the final section of Concluding Remarks. The point about presuppositions and three-valued logic does not seem to be entirely well-taken, however, in view of van Fraassen’s well-known analysis in terms of supervaluations. This does not mean that the connections between “natural” and “formal” logic are all that clear.]
—“Background to Formalization”, Dana S. Scott, in Truth, Syntax and Modality, edited by H. Leblanc, Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, Volume 68, 1973, pp. 244-273, at p. 245
In what important and often neglected sense are there many worlds? Let it be clear that the question here is not of the possible worlds that many of my contemporaries, especially those living near Disneyland, are busy making and manipulating. We are not speaking in terms of multiple possible alternatives to a single actual world but of multiple actual worlds. How to interpret such terms as “real”, “unreal”, “fictive”, and “possible” is a subsequent question.
—Nelson Goodman, “Words, Works, Worlds”, Erkenntnis, Volume 9 (1975), Number 1, pp. 57-73, at pp. 57-58; reprinted in Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett, 1978, p. 4
Richard Montague was a small, very dapper, compact, cufflink of a character. He was dressed in a neat blue suit, a snowy white shirt, and a matching crimson tie. We had met for drinks in mid-town Manhattan—he, Daniel Gallin, and I. His hands, I noticed, were square, the fingernails manicured and covered with a clear polish. A logician by profession, Montague had a reputation for great technical brilliance. His papers were adroit, carefully written, biting, and completely beyond the intellectual grasp of all but a handful of analytic philosophers.
For some reason he was ill at ease that afternoon, and looked fitfully around the hotel’s bar, as if he suspected somehow that nothing was going to turn out properly. Beyond the bar, in the lobby of the hotel, there was an absurd canary cage in which a pair of yellowish birds were cheeping nervously, complaining, I am sure, about the price of drinks or room service.
We talked of taxes and politics and How on Earth do you survive in this place—meaning New York. Then the discussion turned to mathematics and Montague cheered up. He had just commenced his research program into formal grammars and had published a series of papers of truly monstrous technicality. He liked to imagine that he and Chomsky were rivals. “There are,” he said, “two great frauds in the history of twentieth-century science. One of them is Chomsky.”
I reached for the peanuts.
“And the other?”
“Albert Einstein,” Montague said decisively, glad that I had asked.
—David Berlinski, Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck, Mariner Books, Second Edition, 1988, pp. 139-140
Bonus links: Richard Montague’s obituary signed by Montgomery Furth, C.C. Chang, and Alonzo Church; reviews by Sacha Arnold of more or less improper treatments of Richard Montague in literary fiction, Less Than Meets the Eye by David Berlinski and The Mad Man by Samuel R. Delany, and The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell.
—John Clendenning, The Life and Thought of Josiah Royce, Revised and Expanded Edition, Vanderbilt University Press, 1999, p. 74
The word “logic”, fortunately or unfortunately, rings with varied overtones not all of which are in harmony. One ear may be deaf to what excites another, and great care must be taken in claiming that the “logic” of a subject has been found or revised. As one of my undergraduate professors once told me, “When you question a man’s logic you question his taste,” which may explain the contempt of some mathematicians for logical studies. Now that there seems to be a chance for formal logic to have a wider audience, all the more care is required. Easy victories waste too much time in celebration. Formal methods should only be applied when the subject is ready for them, when conceptual clarification is sufficiently advanced. This is not to discourage experimentation—only the party giving. Modal Logic is a good example: colorful axioms have been strung up all over, but few couples are dancing. Maybe Quantum Logic is another example, but at least the mathematics being served at that party is vastly more sophisticated than the Coca-Cola of the modal logicians. Besides, those who study the foundations of quantum physics readily agree that the fight has only just begun.2 [2 A general reference is J. M. Jauch, Foundations of Quantum Mechanics (Addison-Wesley, Reading, Mass. 1968). A related discussion and some interesting new ideas have been initiated in C.H. Randall and D.J. Foulis, “An Approach to Empirical Logic”, in American Mathematical Monthly 77 (1970) pp. 363-374.] Whether, then, the claim of a carry-over for modal logic is going to be justified is to my mind a very moot point and is one of the main motivations for attempting this essay.3 [3 Reservations about modal logic, mingled with some optimism, have been expressed by George Lakoff, “Linguistics and Natural Logic”, in Semantics of Natural Language, ed. by D. Davidson and G. Harman (D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland 1972) pp. 545-665. Note especially the final section of Concluding Remarks. The point about presuppositions and three-valued logic does not seem to be entirely well-taken, however, in view of van Fraassen’s well-known analysis in terms of supervaluations. This does not mean that the connections between “natural” and “formal” logic are all that clear.]
—“Background to Formalization”, Dana S. Scott, in Truth, Syntax and Modality, edited by H. Leblanc, Studies in Logic and the Foundations of Mathematics, Volume 68, 1973, pp. 244-273, at p. 245
In what important and often neglected sense are there many worlds? Let it be clear that the question here is not of the possible worlds that many of my contemporaries, especially those living near Disneyland, are busy making and manipulating. We are not speaking in terms of multiple possible alternatives to a single actual world but of multiple actual worlds. How to interpret such terms as “real”, “unreal”, “fictive”, and “possible” is a subsequent question.
—Nelson Goodman, “Words, Works, Worlds”, Erkenntnis, Volume 9 (1975), Number 1, pp. 57-73, at pp. 57-58; reprinted in Ways of Worldmaking, Hackett, 1978, p. 4
Richard Montague was a small, very dapper, compact, cufflink of a character. He was dressed in a neat blue suit, a snowy white shirt, and a matching crimson tie. We had met for drinks in mid-town Manhattan—he, Daniel Gallin, and I. His hands, I noticed, were square, the fingernails manicured and covered with a clear polish. A logician by profession, Montague had a reputation for great technical brilliance. His papers were adroit, carefully written, biting, and completely beyond the intellectual grasp of all but a handful of analytic philosophers.
For some reason he was ill at ease that afternoon, and looked fitfully around the hotel’s bar, as if he suspected somehow that nothing was going to turn out properly. Beyond the bar, in the lobby of the hotel, there was an absurd canary cage in which a pair of yellowish birds were cheeping nervously, complaining, I am sure, about the price of drinks or room service.
We talked of taxes and politics and How on Earth do you survive in this place—meaning New York. Then the discussion turned to mathematics and Montague cheered up. He had just commenced his research program into formal grammars and had published a series of papers of truly monstrous technicality. He liked to imagine that he and Chomsky were rivals. “There are,” he said, “two great frauds in the history of twentieth-century science. One of them is Chomsky.”
I reached for the peanuts.
“And the other?”
“Albert Einstein,” Montague said decisively, glad that I had asked.
—David Berlinski, Black Mischief: Language, Life, Logic, Luck, Mariner Books, Second Edition, 1988, pp. 139-140
Bonus links: Richard Montague’s obituary signed by Montgomery Furth, C.C. Chang, and Alonzo Church; reviews by Sacha Arnold of more or less improper treatments of Richard Montague in literary fiction, Less Than Meets the Eye by David Berlinski and The Mad Man by Samuel R. Delany, and The Semantics of Murder by Aifric Campbell.
the next change we need
Oct. 30th, 2010 07:45 pmOur newspaper of record reports the dilemma posed by Jon Stewart: “The press can hold it’s [sic] magnifying glass up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected, dangerous-flaming ant epidemic.” Undeterred by its second horn, the same issue offers Paul Krugman an opportunity to kvetch:
This is going to be terrible. In fact, future historians will probably look back at the 2010 election as a catastrophe for America, one that condemned the nation to years of political chaos and economic weakness.For my part, the road ahead is so bright, I gotta tint my windshield. Unremitting financial hegemony of the smartest guys in the room doing “God’s work”, compounded by the executive arrogance of the καλοὶ κἀγαθοὶ extolling their likes as “very savvy businessmen”, have precipitated popular hatred of public intellectuals who have concluded that their responsibilities are to power alone. This hatred cannot be quelled by appeals to reason. As a result of universal suffrage, American politics needs rationality like a fish needs a bicycle. Its proper remedy is homeopathic, a dosage of President Palin galvanizing resentment against empowering stupid people, in a welcome reversal of the instant scenario.
…and the pursuit of happiness.
Jul. 4th, 2010 11:49 pmThank you, U.S.A. You are the only land to support the vocation of an assclown.
по ту сторону общемирового процесса
Jun. 7th, 2010 08:04 pm![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
mike67:Исчезновение веры в идеалы — часть общемирового процесса…
larvatus:В моей стране скорее наблюдается обратный процесс. Почти вся наша повседневная политика основана на непоколебимой вере в право на жизнь, свободу, и поиски счастья. Сухой остаток выражает бесхитростную веру в общественный прогресс.
once_for_all:Простите, а в какой это стране? Я серьезно спрашиваю.
larvatus:В США.
mike67:Я понимаю. Но это немного другие идеалы. То есть проще сказать, что сохранились представления о добре и зле. Но тут же выяснится, что сохранились они и в России, но в другой форме. А вот при попытке описать разницу начнется такая путаница, что лучше туда не лезть.
larvatus:Непоколебимая вера в право на жизнь, свободу, и поиски счастья, это не просто представление о добре и зле, а ещё вдобавок гражданский идеал. Какие гражданские идеалы сохранились в России?
mike67:Мне кажется, Вы сейчас распространяете декларируемый гражданский идеал на все общество. Нет, в России с гражданскими идеалами плохо, это известно.
larvatus:Дело в том, что наши декларируемые гражданские идеалы именно так распространяются в нашем обществе. Я понимаю, что из старого мира это выглядит очень странно, но тем не менее, так оно и есть.
mike67:Дело в другом. Гражданский идеал есть средство, а не цель. То есть существование гражданских идеалов, которое выгодно отличает США от России (кто б спорил, проблему диалога народа с властью в РФ до сих пор решить невозможно) относится только к гражданской сфере, и мне кажется неправильным распространять его на все прочие сферы, заполняя вакуум, образовавшийся после произошедшего в XX веке краха главной основы гуманистического идеала — веры в неограниченность возможностей человека. Грубо говоря, американская конституция и американский образ жизни, равно как в СССР — советский, считались залогом успехов в науке, спорте и искусстве, но не самоцелью.
larvatus:Вы будете смеяться, но гражданский идеал воплощённый в нашей Конституции является формальной и содержательной целью нашего общества.
mike67:Гражданского общества. Но общество не может сводиться к гражданской общине.
larvatus:Как не может, так и не должно. Но мы ведь обсуждаем предполагаемое Вами исчезновение веры в идеалы, якобы являющееся частью общемирового процесса.
mike67:Так я и объясняю, что идеалы общества шире идеалов общества гражданского.
larvatus:Что же именно исчезает в общемировом порядке?
mike67:Как я уже говорил, идеалы-цели, то есть идеалы, связанные с развитием человека. Исчезают вместе с верой в перспективы его развития. С верой в прогресс.
larvatus:Вы считаете, что либеральная вера в право на жизнь, свободу, и поиски счастья не является идеалом, связанным с развитием человека?
mike67:Конечно, не является. Так же как вера в семейные ценности, например. В строительство справедливого общества — уже другое.
larvatus:Вы считаете, что развитие человека возможно вне зависимости от его права на жизнь, свободу, и поиски счастья?
mike67:Не считаю (хотя есть люди, которые так считают)! Но именно поэтому я и говорю: средство, а не цель.
Только вот про поиски счастья я уже третий раз забываю спросить, и теперь спрошу: у них-то какая специфическая связь с западной (или конкретно американской) системой ценностей?
larvatus:Простите, я совсем запутался. Вы сказали, что исчезновение веры в идеалы является частью общемирового процесса. Теперь Вы согласились, что что право на жизнь, свободу, и поиски счастья необходимо для развития человека. Соответственно, либеральная вера в это право является верой в идеал, никоим образом не исчезающей из американского общества. Не так ли?
Что касается поисков счастья, это понятие принадлежит Джефферсону, унаследовавшему его от Локка. Локк утверждал право на “life, liberty, and estate” или “lives, liberties, and fortunes”. Его последователи востребовали право на “life, liberty, and property”. Джефферсон же написал “the pursuit of happiness” вместо “property” в декларации о независимости. Следует отметить что понятие собственности в государственных трактатах Локка включает в себя все гражданские средства для поисков счастья, за исключением того, о чём заботится Мишель Уэльбек.
mike67:Да, я уже догадался, что это из Декларации независимости. Но слово выглядит сейчас таким же случайным и несвязанным со всеми остальными частями формулы, каким оно оказалось в сочиненной Джефферсоном парафразе.
Что касается основной темы, то схема такова: права человека необходимы для развития человека, следовательно могут рассматриваться не как идеал, а как средство его достижения. В качестве же самостоятельных идеалов в последние века фигурировал комплекс, связанный с совершенствованием человека, с его торжеством над мощью природы, с верой в прогресс, то есть с тот гуманистический комплекс, который породил, в том числе, и понятие прав человека. Вот весь этот проект, составивший специфику нового времени, теперь закрыт.
larvatus:Вот тут я с Вами мог бы согласиться на основаниях тюремной культуры. Скажем так: тот гуманистический комплекс, который породил, в том числе, и понятие прав человека, начинается с рьяной гомофобии, к примеру в «Государстве» 403a и в «Законах» 636c и 838e. Напротив, либеральное общество рано или поздно приходит к заключению, что каждый гражданин имеет право
Я всё это к тому, что граждане моей страны неоднократно проявляли, и продолжают проявлять, готовность к самопожертвованию во имя того гуманистического комплекса, который породил понятие прав человека. И это при том, что сами права они рассматривают неоднозначно. К примеру, наша армия не признаёт право военнослужащих на злоупотребление своими жопами.
h.l. mencken: a little book in c major
Nov. 30th, 2009 09:07 pm
H.L. MENCKEN
NEW YORK
JOHN LANE COMPANY
MCMXVI
Colin bat sa ménagère;
C’est un beau jour pour l’amour!
—Pierre Jean de Béranger
