slouching towards euphoria

2003-03-18T14:50:00.000-05:00

W.A. B. ain't for me.

How sad.

2003-03-18T14:45:00.000-05:00

C.S. Lewis on Christianity and sexual pleasure.

"Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body - which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once."

2003-03-10T23:42:00.000-05:00

A few of my favorite sex laws, some breakable, some absurd, and some best left untouched.

In Florida, having sexual relations with a porcupine is illegal.

In Tibet, many years ago, the law required all women prostitute themselves. This was seen as a way to gain sexual experience prior to marriage.I think the situation is the same in Alabama. In fact, the practice has even been insitutionalized through the formation of sororoties.

In London, it's illegal to have sex on a parked motorcycle.

"Female breasts," according to the Arizona Supreme Court, don't constitute "private parts" under state law.

The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.

The T'ang Dynasty Empress Wu Hu passed a special law concerning oral sex. She felt that a woman pleasuring a man represented the supremacy of the male over the female. Therefore, she insisted all visiting male dignitaries show their respect by pleasuring her orally when meeting. The empress would throw open her robe and her guest would kneel before her and kiss her genitals.

There is, in fact, an Illinois law that prohibits a number of things—one of which is a public erection, another is nude dancing. The prohibition against the public erection has never been challenged in the Supreme Court, but the prohibition against nude dancing has.Boys, I am truly sorry about this judicial negligence. Fight for your right to a free erection.

In 17th century Spain, it was illegal for anyone other than a woman's husband to see her bare feet. A woman could freely expose her breasts, but feet were considered sexual and had to be covered in the presence of men other than her husband.The beginnings of foot fetishism.

An 18th century French prostitute could be spared punishment if she were willing to join the opera. Brilliant. Welfare-to-workfare in action.

The Romans would crush a first-time rapist's gonads between two stones.

In Indiana, mustaches are illegal if the bearer has a "tendency to habitually kiss other humans."

In Krakow, Poland it's not only a crime to have sex with animals, but three-time offenders are shot in the head.Don't get me started on Krakow....

Up until 1884, a woman could be sent to prison for denying a husband sex.

While not as extreme as the ancient Israelite punishment for adultery (stoning), Greek men still had their fair share of discomfort when their pubic hair was removed and a large radish was shoved up their rectum.The thought of radishes has never been less tempting.

In Alabama, it's against the law for a man to seduce "a chaste woman by means of temptation, deception, arts, flattery or a promise of marriage."I love it! So, wait a minute, is a chaste woman a self-dubbed "chaste woman". Consider me chaste...

In Mississippi, S & M is against the law. Specifically, "The depiction or description of flagellation or torture by or upon a person who is nude or in undergarments or in a bizarre or revealing costume for the purpose of sexual gratification."

As recently as 1990, these states had laws against heterosexual fellatio, cunnilingus, anal sex and the use of dildos: Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Washington D.C. Pitiful.

In Minnesota, it is illegal for any man to have sexual intercourse with a live fish.

In Oxford, Ohio, it's illegal for a woman to strip off her clothing while standing in front of a man's picture.

An excerpt from Kentucky state legislation: "No female shall appear in a bathing suit on any highway within this state unless she be escorted by at least two officers or unless she be armed with a club."Kinky.

The only acceptable sexual position in Washington, D.C. is the missionary position. Any other sexual position is considered illegal. Guess that eliminates the old Clinton cigar-trick.

It is illegal for any member of the Nevada legislature to conduct official business wearing a penis costume while the legislature is in session.A problem I never imagined...

It's against the law in Willowdale, Oregon, for a husband to curse during sex.

In Kingsville, Texas there is a law against two pigs having sex on the city's airport property. Beautiful.

In Romboch, Virginia, it is illegal to engage in sexual activity with the lights on.

In the state of Utah, sex with an animal—unless performed for profit—is not considered sodomy and therefore is legal.

In the quiet town of Connorsville, Wisconsin, it's illegal for a man to shoot off a gun when his female partner has an orgasm.

In the state of Washington there is a law against having sex with a virgin under any circumstances (including the wedding night).

A Tremonton, Utah law states that no woman is allowed to have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance. In addition to normal charges, the woman's name will be published in the local newspaper. The man does not receive any punishment.

The owner of every hotel in Hastings, Nebraska, is required to provide each guest with a clean and pressed nightshirt. No couple, even if they are married, may sleep together in the nude. Nor may they have sex unless they are wearing one of these clean, white cotton nightshirts.

An ordinance in Newcastle, Wyoming, specifically bans couples from having sex while standing inside a store's walk-in meat freezer.

A state law in Illinois mandates that all bachelors should be called master, not mister, when addressed by their female counterparts.

2003-03-10T23:21:00.000-05:00

Understanding noise.

Ian Simmons talks to Jacques Attali, author of Noise. Attali's other books include Anti-economique, L'ordre cannibal, Economie de I'Apocalypse and Millennium: Winners and Losers in the Coming World Order. He was special advisor to François Mitterrand, and advised the United Nations General Secretary on nuclear proliferation. He founded and served as president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and, in 1984, founded the Eureka new technologies program. He is chairman of A&A, an investment bank and which specialises in information technology. But is he the man to lead us to the bottom of noise? Perhaps the question suffers from the same excess subjectivity as the potential response.

2003-03-10T23:13:00.000-05:00

Men with whom I would like to mix genes.

Adrien Brody.

Adrien Brody.

And Adrien Brody.

Come to think of it, Brody resembles my cousin, Filip Pitaru, a little bit. Maybe the genes are closer than I think...

2003-03-10T16:48:00.000-05:00

The White Stripes.....

Talk about their new album, "the death of the sweetheart", and other fine topics.

2003-03-10T16:39:00.000-05:00

Things To Tell Your Next Lover by Susan Taylor

Most of the nerve endings on your clitoris are on the left side.
Your G spot seems to be about two inches in, slightly to the right.
There is nothing worse than breaking rhythm, unless it's doing it too hard.
You like your coffee with lots of milk.
You hate to be kissed before you brush your teeth.
Your feet are always cold.
You like to kiss with the taste of wine still in your mouth.
You like to have your nipples circled, slowly, with a fingertip or tongue.
You don't enjoy having your butt touched, at all.
You don't like sharing the shower.
You stretch gently in response to having your neck stroked.
You hate having your navel touched.
You always stop to pet cats on the street.
You don't refill the ice cube trays.
Sometimes you look like you're listening, but you're not.
You aren't good at it but sometimes you lie anyway.
Someday, the two of you will run into me somewhere, at the movies or just leaving a restaurant as you're entering it, and I will still know all these things about you. And both you and your next lover will know that I do, by the way that I smile.

2003-02-25T15:32:00.000-05:00

In the world of the classified and ossified...

The declassification of a few new papers is always exciting. There is nothing quite like slicing open the envelope and finding that all the verbs and proper names have been blacked-out. Alas, the historian must interpret the skeleton. A juicy new batch ripe for the interpreting.

2003-02-19T14:56:00.000-05:00

Privacy perverts.

An excellent article by Neil Davenport on the perversion of privacy.

2003-02-18T15:09:00.000-05:00

The rock has a soul.

As life and satire inch closer together, to paraphrase Radley, Ellen Parker's short, "Hell: An Autobiography", carves its own niche in the sizzle of anthropomorphizing literary trends.

2003-02-18T14:57:00.000-05:00

Grrr..

Karen Shepard's short story, "Popular Girls", has a disgusting protagonist that shares my name.

2003-02-18T14:24:00.000-05:00

Digressions.

Dr. Jane Alexander Stewart reviews the film Personal Velocity.
What's in a bag? A revelation by any other name would taste as sweet.
How time changes when the hands on the clock are no longer your own.

2003-02-14T13:15:00.000-05:00

"Skipping the State" by Marilyn Krysl

Know I did not speak ill of you
when you left me weeping and pregnant
in the suburbs, for that girl with spiked hair
and a tongue ring. I have not defaulted
on the mortgage, or revealed to your enemies
your smoldering secret—how you liked it
when I pretended to have betrayed you with Robert
and you turned on the spit of minor-league jealousy,
the kind with no penalty, since you knew I was
faking. Nor in regard to naughtier longings
did I turn loquacious, nor list for other women

your shortfalls. Grant me, then, the child-support
payments, which, after all, result from your indulgence and my gullibility, trusting that things you said
in private might be taken literally. Forgetting,
under the spell of your rhetoric, that declarations
men make while inside women
will be retroactively rescinded

on withdrawal. Though you, of all people, had the temerity
to question my fidelity—believe me, the child
is ours. In honor, then, of our son's innocence,
rise, please, to this fiduciary occasion.

2003-02-14T13:12:00.000-05:00

Beautiful ideas for hotel bathrooms...

2003-02-14T12:31:00.000-05:00

Radley's list and my additions.

So the search for the best love songs continues. And for a music-lover like myself, it becomes all too easy to get wrapped up in the nostalgia of a life lived to the tune of love songs. I wholeheartedly agree with the songs Radley added, but particularly the two that follow.

Nick Cave and Johnette Nopalitano, "The Ship Song" -- "I must remove your wings, and you, you must learn to fly..." Cave's creepy barritone and Nopalitano's angelic cry mingle with rapturous results.
Absolutely. The most amazing part-- losing your innocence, or exchanging one faith for another.

Bob Dylan, "Just Like a Woman" -- Speaking of Dylan, I guess I'd pick this one if I had to choose just one, by a hair over "Most of the Time." Like most of his bests, it's beautiful in its simplicity. "She makes love just like a woman,/But she breaks just like a little girl." Did a man ever understand a woman better than Dylan?

Now I will venture into the realm of the unspoken secret shames-- ah yes, the cock rock realm, and everything thereafter. So whip out your pleather pants, your yearbooks, and forget about what you're supposed to be doing.

Love is a battlefield by Pat Benatar-- "We are strong-- no one can tell us we're wrong. Searching our hearts for so long...both of knowing... love is a battlefield. Believe me believe me but I can't tell you why-- I'm trapped by your love and I'm chained to your sigh." Reminds me of first love-- defiant, rebellious, refusing to concede to anything like "wisdom". Thank you for that, Martin Kennedy. Love has never been as mad, as tempestuous, or as extreme since.

Patience by Guns N Roses-- I won't even quote this one. Let's just assume everyone has a secret place for this tune.

Crash by Dave Matthews-- "I'm bareboned and crazy for you, when you come crash into me... and I come into you, in a boy's dream..Hike up your skirt a little more, show the world to me. Oh, hike up your skirt a little more, show your world to me". So much to say about this song, and how it unravels every defense, unblocks every expectation. "Tied up and twisted" the way love leaves you, hungry and longing, so beautiful. I remember listening to this song with someone on a train through Europe, so happy in my chains, as small tears rolled down my cheek. This is what makes life worth the sometimes-pain.

Romeo and Juliet by the Dire Straits-- "Juliet, the dice was loaded from the start. And then you exploded into my heart....When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong?....I dreamed your dream for you, but now your dream is real. How can you look at me as if I were just another one of your deals? You can fall for chains of silver, you can fall for chains of gold, you can fall for pretty strangers and the promises they hold..... I can't do everything, but I'll do anything for you...And all I do is miss you, and the way we used to be. All I do is keep the beat of bad company. And all I do is kiss you.. through the bars of a rhyme. Juliet, I'd do the stars with you anytime." Once again, this belongs to Martin.

Hallelujah by Jeff Buckley-- "Well, your faith was strong but you needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof, her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to her kitchen chair, and she broke your throne and she cut your hair and from your lips she drew the hallelujah." When a man loves you, there is that moment when he decides to finally let go of his fears. Only then do you both get to taste freedom. John Charles named the kittens I left in a basket for him Sampson and Delilah. Indeed, Sampson lost in the end, but "love is not a victory march-- it's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah". You can't "win" love; you can't control it-- you can only accept it. Courage is knowing that you can't love without losing a little part of yourself. But you also can't love without discovering new parts. Embrace your blues.

Borderline by Madonna-- "Finish what you start....Just try to understand, I'm giving all I can cause you've got the best of me. Borderline... feels like I'm going to lose my mind. You just keep on pushin' my love over the borderline." About all the insecurities and nonsense and jealousy and envy you tolerate and attempt to placate when you love someone. Put this one a few CDs for Bill. Love to dance alone in my room to this-- early Madonna makes me want to skip.

Breakdown by Tom Petty-- About looking someone in the eye and essentially saying, "Quit bullshitting. Lay it on the table. What do you want?"

Sign your name by Terence Trent D'Arby-- High school again. And again.

2003-01-10T16:29:00.000-05:00

Because living is in the way we die...

And a good death requires just the right last-action-inducing soundtrack. Sometimes I think life would be simpler if it ran at Bond-speed, robbing us of the time for leisured contemplation. To jump from one corner to another, fueled by animal instinct-- to live at the end of a joy-stick. There's no point in living if you can't feel alive. If I can't have it all, then at least I can set the soundtrack for those who will.

1. The World Is Not Enough Garbage
2. Never Met a Girl Like You Before Edwyn Collins
3. Talk Show Host Radiohead
4. Everybody Knows Concrete Blonde
5. Witch The Cult
6. Real Cool World David Bowie
7. Hold me, thrill me, kiss me, kill me U2
8. Goldeneye Tina Turner
9. History Repeating The Propellorheads
10. Strip tease Hawksley Workman
11. Break My Body Pixies
12. FraKtured King Crimson
13. She Moves On Paul Simon

2003-01-07T21:48:00.000-05:00

So says Dr. Richard D. Swenson in The Overload Syndrome

"Despite most people's abundant personal -- and painful -- experience with activity overload, it is interesting to see how we have normalized such a state. We have come to believe that activity is all that counts, everything else is being sloth. If we are not busy, we are not of value. Where did this notion come from? And why is it so strongly resident with in us?"

2003-01-05T23:12:00.000-05:00

Inspirations.

In his essay, Self-Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote :"People measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is.... Nothing can bring you peace but yourself." On this note, nothing can help those who love you deal with your potential death better than your own ability to deal with it. Bharati Mukherjee's ability to confront her own mortality in the public eye is a mark of true integrity and personal strength.

2003-01-05T18:00:00.000-05:00

Self-exploration.

How wonderfully rotten to be able to spend the afternoon in reckless, self-indulgence, otherwise known as "contemplation" or "introspection"! Of course, the lack of events in my life certainly increases my tendency to have second-rate thoughts-- a problem quickly relieved by the numerous web sites which allow you to examine yourself without having to think too much.

For example, today I learned that sleeping positions are the key to personality. The fact that I always sleep on my stomach or my side is suggestive of "hidden aggression", and "often a precursor to dramatic and sometimes detrimental shifts in the sleeper's emotional life". Sounds hopeful.

After making sure that I did not win the world's ugliest toes contest, I decided to take a look at this website translated into Redneck dialect, which opened a world of new possibilities, including the Elmer Fudd dialect, known to be accorded handsome respect on The Hill.

I then went on to create my own cult; invitations to membership are open, though I understand if membership in the Church of the Blind Chihuahua poses a conflict of interest.

Enough. Everything I learned about myself today added up to a grand total of nonsense. Like the big button that doesn't do anything, I have exhausted my entertainment options. So please excuse me if I move on to something more stimulating, like, for example, the cases against physical exercise.

2003-01-04T15:07:00.000-05:00

Music at this moment...

BROKEN ENGLISH by Marianne Faithful
It's just an old war, not even a cold war..What are we fighting for? ....Don't say it in Russian, don't say it in German. Say it in broken English.
DAMAGED GOODS by Gang of Four
Damaged goods. Send 'em back. I can't work, I can't achieve. Send me back.
HOUR FOLLOWS HOUR by Ani DiFranco
REDEMPTION'S SON by Joseph Arthur
STRIPTEASE by Hawksley Workman
TEAR ME DOWN by Hedwig and the Angry Inch
On August 12, 1961, a wall was erected down the middle of the city of Berlin. The world was divided by a cold war and the Berlin Wall was the most hated symbol of that divide Reviled. Graffitied. Spit upon. We thought the wall would stand forever, and now that it's gone, we don't know who we are anymore. Ladies and Gentlemen, Hedwig is like that wall, standing before you in the divide between East and West, Slavery and Freedom, Man and Woman, Top and Bottom. And you can try to tear her down, but before you do, remember one thing. There ain't much of a difference between a bridge and a wall. Without me right in the middle, babe you would be nothing at all.
TONGUE-TIED by Eve 6
I would swallow my pride, I would turn with the tide, but the lack thereof just leaves me empty inside. Swallow my doubt, turn it inside out, find nothing but faith in nothing.

2003-01-04T13:18:00.000-05:00

The last of my weekend odes to drunkards.

In honor of those dedicated drunks who stimulate certains sectors of the American economy with their spending, I bring you The Ballad Of The Drunkard by David Smith.

My darling young angel
Don't you leave me behind
Won't you wait for a sinner
While I have some more wine

I know there's no future
In drinking all day
But the factories'll keep working
Without me in their way

In barrooms they sing songs
In churches they pray
I'd rather sing with the sinners
Then grovel all day

When I dream of Heaven
I dream of the past
Surrounded by drunk friends
And raising a glass

So when dear God does ask you
Where is the soul they call Dave
Tell him I fell off the wagon
On the way to the grave.

2003-01-04T13:05:00.000-05:00

Wisdom from the back booths.

“There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable, and smokeable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.”

So sayeth Sammy C. while pontificating over a cigar and bourbon at the Streets of London Pub. For more Wino Wisdom, check your local hole-in-the-wall at around 5 AM.

2003-01-03T21:57:00.000-05:00

The entire script of Emma Goldman's "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty". Because it's now or never in the hopes that it may be never again.

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one's birthplace, the place of childhood's recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naivety, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one "an eye should be," piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother's knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood? If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.

What, then, is patriotism? "Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

Gustave Hervé, another great anti-patriot, justly calls patriotism a superstition--one far more injurious, brutal, and inhumane than religion. The superstition of religion originated in man's inability to explain natural phenomena. That is, when primitive man heard thunder or saw the lightning, he could not account for either, and therefore concluded that back of them must be a force greater than himself. Similarly he saw a supernatural force in the rain, and in the various other changes in nature. Patriotism, on the other hand, is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

Indeed, conceit, arrogance, and egotism are the essentials of patriotism. Let me illustrate. Patriotism assumes that our globe is divided into little spots, each one surrounded by an iron gate. Those who have had the fortune of being born on some particular spot, consider themselves better, nobler, grander, more intelligent than the living beings inhabiting any other spot. It is, therefore, the duty of everyone living on that chosen spot to fight, kill, and die in the attempt to impose his superiority upon all the others.

The inhabitants of the other spots reason in like manner, of course, with the result that, from early infancy, the mind of the child is poisoned with blood-curdling stories about the Germans, the French, the Italians, Russians, etc. When the child has reached manhood, he is thoroughly saturated with the belief that he is chosen by the Lord himself to defend his country against the attack or invasion of any foreigner. It is for that purpose that we are clamoring for a greater army and navy, more battleships and ammunition. It is for that purpose that America has within a short time spent four hundred million dollars. Just think of it--four hundred million dollars taken from the produce of the people. For surely it is not the rich who contribute to patriotism. They are cosmopolitans, perfectly at home in every land. We in America know well the truth of this. Are not our rich Americans Frenchmen in France, Germans in Germany, or Englishmen in England? And do they not squandor with cosmopolitan grace fortunes coined by American factory children and cotton slaves? Yes, theirs is the patriotism that will make it possible to send messages of condolence to a despot like the Russian Tsar, when any mishap befalls him, as President Roosevelt did in the name if his people, when Sergius was punished by the Russian revolutionists.

It is a patriotism that will assist the arch-murderer, Diaz, in destroying thousands of lives in Mexico, or that will even aid in arresting Mexican revolutionists on American soil and keep them incarcerated in American prisons, without the slightest cause or reason. But, then, patriotism is not for those who represent wealth and power. It is good enough for the people. It reminds one of the historic wisdom of Frederick the Great, the bosom friend of Voltaire, who said: "Religion is a fraud, but it must be maintained for the masses."

That patriotism is rather a costly institution, no one will doubt after considering the following statistics. The progressive increase of the expenditures for the leading armies and navies of the world during the last quarter of a century is a fact of such gravity as to startle every thoughtful student of economic problems. It may be briefly indicated by dividing the time from 1881 to 1905 into five-year periods, and noting the disbursements of several great nations for army and navy purposes during the first and last of those periods. From the first to the last of the periods noted the expenditures of Great Britain increased from $2,101,848,936 to $4,143,226,885, those of France from $3,324,500,000 to $3,455,109,900, those of Germany from $725,000,200 to $2,700,375,600, those of the United States from $1,275,500,750 to $2,650,900,450, those of Russia from $1,900,975,500 to $5,250,445,100, those of Italy from $1,600,975,750 to $1,755,500,100, and those of Japan from $182,900,500 to $700,925,475.

The military expenditures of each of the nations mentioned increased in each of the five-year periods under review. During the entire interval from 1881 to 1905 Great Britain's outlay for her army increased fourfold, that of the United States was tripled, Russia's was doubled, that of Germany increased 35 per cent., that of France about 15 per cent., and that of Japan nearly 500 per cent. If we compare the expenditures of these nations upon their armies with their total expenditures for all the twenty-five years ending with 1905, the proportion rose as follows:

In Great Britain from 20 per cent to 37; in the United States from 15 to 23; in France from 16 to 18; in Italy from 12 to 15; in Japan from 12 to 14. On the other hand, it is interesting to note that the proportion in Germany decreased from about 58 per cent. to 25, the decrease being due to the enormous increase in the imperial expenditures for other purposes, the fact being that the army expenditures for the period of 1901-5 were higher than for any five-year period preceding. Statistics show that the countries in which army expenditures are greatest, in proportion to the total national revenues, are Great Britain, the United States, Japan, France, and Italy, in the order named.

The showing as to the cost of great navies is equally impressive. During the twenty-five years ending with 1905 naval expenditures increased approximately as follows: Great Britain, 300 per cent.; France 60 per cent.; Germany 600 per cent.; the United States 525 per cent.; Russia 300 per cent.; Italy 250 per cent.; and Japan, 700 per cent. With the exception of Great Britain, the United States spends more for naval purposes than any other nation, and this expenditure bears also a larger proportion to the entire national disbursements than that of any other power. In the period 1881-5, the expenditure for the United States navy was $6.20 out of each $100 appropriated for all national purposes; the amount rose to $6.60 for the next five-year period, to $8.10 for the next, to $11.70 for the next, and to $16.40 for 1901-5. It is morally certain that the outlay for the current period of five years will show a still further increase.

The rising cost of militarism may be still further illustrated by computing it as a per capita tax on population. From the first to the last of the five-year periods taken as the basis for the comparisons here given, it has risen as follows: In Great Britain, from $18.47 to $52.50; in France, from $19.66 to $23.62; in Germany, from $10.17 to $15.51; in the United States, from $5.62 to $13.64; in Russia, from $6.14 to $8.37; in Italy, from $9.59 to $11.24, and in Japan from 86 cents to $3.11.

It is in connection with this rough estimate of cost per capita that the economic burden of militarism is most appreciable. The irresistible conclusion from available data is that the increase of expenditure for army and navy purposes is rapidly surpassing the growth of population in each of the countries considered in the present calculation. In other words, a continuation of the increased demands of militarism threatens each of those nations with a progressive exhaustion both of men and resources.

The awful waste that patriotism necessitates ought to be sufficient to cure the man of even average intelligence from this disease. Yet patriotism demands still more. The people are urged to be patriotic and for that luxury they pay, not only by supporting their "defenders," but even by sacrificing their own children. Patriotism requires allegiance to the flag, which means obedience and readiness to kill father, mother, brother, sister.

The usual contention is that we need a standing army to protect the country from foreign invasion. Every intelligent man and woman knows, however, that this is a myth maintained to frighten and coerce the foolish. The governments of the world, knowing each other's interests, do not invade each other. They have learned that they can gain much more by international arbitration of disputes than by war and conquest. Indeed, as Carlyle said, "War is a quarrel between two thieves too cowardly to fight their own battle; therefore they take boys from one village and another village; stick them into uniforms, equip them with guns, and let them loose like wild beasts against each other."

It does not require much wisdom to trace every war back to a similar cause. Let us take our own Spanish-American war, supposedly a great and patriotic event in the history of the United States. How our hearts burned with indignation against the atrocious Spaniards! True, our indignation did not flare up spontaneously. It was nurtured by months of newspaper agitation, and long after Butcher Weyler had killed off many noble Cubans and outraged many Cuban women. Still, in justice to the American Nation be it said, it did grow indignant and was willing to fight, and that it fought bravely. But when the smoke was over, the dead buried, and the cost of the war came back to the people in an increase in the price of commodities and rent--that is, when we sobered up from our patriotic spree--it suddenly dawned on us that the cause of the Spanish-American war was the consideration of the price of sugar; or, to be more explicit, that the lives, blood, and money of the American people were used to protect the interests of American capitalists, which were threatened by the Spanish government. That this is not an exaggeration, but is based on absolute facts and figures, is best proven by the attitude of the American government to Cuban labor. When Cuba was firmly in the clutches of the United States, the very soldiers sent to liberate Cuba were ordered to shoot Cuban workingmen during the great cigarmakers' strike, which took place shortly after the war.

Nor do we stand alone in waging war for such causes. The curtain is beginning to be lifted on the motives of the terrible Russo-Japanese war, which cost so much blood and tears. And we see again that back of the fierce Moloch of war stands the still fiercer god of Commercialism. Kuropatkin, the Russian Minister of War during the Russo-Japanese struggle, has revealed the true secret behind the latter. The Tsar and his Grand Dukes, having invested money in Corean concessions, the war was forced for the sole purpose of speedily accumulating large fortunes.

The contention that a standing army and navy is the best security of peace is about as logical as the claim that the most peaceful citizen is he who goes about heavily armed. The experience of every-day life fully proves that the armed individual is invariably anxious to try his strength. The same is historically true of governments. Really peaceful countries do not waste life and energy in war preparations, with the result that peace is maintained.

However, the clamor for an increased army and navy is not due to any foreign danger. It is owing to the dread of the growing discontent of the masses and of the international spirit among the workers. It is to meet the internal enemy that the Powers of various countries are preparing themselves; an enemy, who, once awakened to consciousness, will prove more dangerous than any foreign invader.

The powers that have for centuries been engaged in enslaving the masses have made a thorough study of their psychology. They know that the people at large are like children whose despair, sorrow, and tears can be turned into joy with a little toy. And the more gorgeously the toy is dressed, the louder the colors, the more it will appeal to the million-headed child.

An army and navy represents the people's toys. To make them more attractive and acceptable, hundreds and thousands of dollars are being spent for the display of these toys. That was the purpose of the American government in equipping a fleet and sending it along the Pacific coast, that every American citizen should be made to feel the pride and glory of the United States. The city of San Francisco spent one hundred thousand dollars for the entertainment of the fleet; Los Angeles, sixty thousand; Seattle and Tacoma, about one hundred thousand. To entertain the fleet, did I say? To dine and wine a few superior officers, while the "brave boys" had to mutiny to get sufficient food. Yes, two hundred and sixty thousand dollars were spent on fireworks, theatre parties, and revelries, at a time when men, women, and children through the breadth and length of the country were starving in the streets; when thousands of unemployed were ready to sell their labor at any price.

Two hundred and sixty thousand dollars! What could not have been accomplished with such an enormous sum? But instead of bread and shelter, the children of those cities were taken to see the fleet, that it may remain, as one of the newspapers said, "a lasting memory for the child." A wonderful thing to remember, is it not? The implements of civilized slaughter. If the mind of the child is to be poisoned with such memories, what hope is there for a true realization of human brotherhood?

We Americans claim to be a peace-loving people. We hate bloodshed; we are opposed to violence. Yet we go into spasms of joy over the possibility of projecting dynamite bombs from flying machines upon helpless citizens. We are ready to hang, electrocute, or lynch anyone, who, from economic necessity, will risk his own life in the attempt upon that of some industrial magnate. Yet our hearts swell with pride at the thought that America is becoming the most powerful nation on earth, and that it will eventually plant her iron foot on the necks of all other nations.

Such is the logic of patriotism.

Considering the evil results that patriotism is fraught with for the average man, it is as nothing compared with the insult and injury that patriotism heaps upon the soldier himself,--that poor, deluded victim of superstition and ignorance. He, the savior of his country, the protector of his nation,--what has patriotism in store for him? A life of slavish submission, vice, and perversion, during peace; a life of danger, exposure, and death, during war.

While on a recent lecture tour in San Francisco, I visited the Presidio, the most beautiful spot overlooking the Bay and Golden Gate Park. Its purpose should have been playgrounds for children, gardens and music for the recreation of the weary. Instead it is made ugly, dull, and gray by barracks,--barracks wherein the rich would not allow their dogs to dwell. In these miserable shanties soldiers are herded like cattle; here they waste their young days, polishing the boots and brass buttons of their superior officers. Here, too, I saw the distinction of classes: sturdy sons of a free Republic, drawn up in line like convicts, saluting every passing shrimp of a lieutenant. American equality, degrading manhood and elevating the uniform!

Barrack life further tends to develop tendencies of sexual perversion. It is gradually producing along this line results similar to European military conditions. Havelock Ellis, the noted writer on sex psychology, has made a thorough study of the subject. I quote: "Some of the barracks are great centers of male prostitution. . . . The number of soldiers who prostitute themselves is greater than we are willing to believe. It is no exaggeration to say that in certain regiments the presumption is in favor of the venality of the majority of the men. . . . On summer evenings Hyde Park and the neighborhood of Albert Gate are full of guardsmen and others plying a lively trade, and with little disguise, in uniform or out. . . . In most cases the proceeds form a comfortable addition to Tommy Atkins' pocket money."

To what extent this perversion has eaten its way into the army and navy can best be judged from the fact that special houses exist for this form of prostitution. The practice is not limited to England; it is universal. "Soldiers are no less sought after in France than in England or in Germany, and special houses for military prostitution exist both in Paris and the garrison towns."

Had Mr. Havelock Ellis included America in his investigation of sex perversion, he would have found that the same conditions prevail in our army and navy as in those of other countries. The growth of the standing army inevitably adds to the spread of sex perversion; the barracks are the incubators.

Aside from the sexual effects of barrack life, it also tends to unfit the soldier for useful labor after leaving the army. Men, skilled in a trade, seldom enter the army or navy, but even they, after a military experience, find themselves totally unfitted for their former occupations. Having acquired habits of idleness and a taste for excitement and adventure, no peaceful pursuit can content them. Released from the army, they can turn to no useful work. But it is usually the social riff-raff, discharged prisoners and the like, whom either the struggle for life or their own inclination drives into the ranks. These, their military term over, again turn to their former life of crime, more brutalized and degraded than before. It is a well-known fact that in our prisons there is a goodly number of ex-soldiers; while, on the other hand, the army and navy are to a great extent supplied with ex-convicts.

Of all the evil results I have just described none seems to me so detrimental to human integrity as the spirit patriotism has produced in the case of Private William Buwalda. Because he foolishly believed that one can be a soldier and exercise his rights as a man at the same time, the military authorities punished him severely. True, he had served his country fifteen years, during which time his record was unimpeachable. According to Gen. Funston, who reduced Buwalda's sentence to three years, "the first duty of an officer or an enlisted man is unquestioned obedience and loyalty to the government, and it makes no difference whether he approves of that government or not." Thus Funston stamps the true character of allegiance. According to him, entrance into the army abrogates the principles of the Declaration of Independence. What a strange development of patriotism that turns a thinking being into a loyal machine!

In justification of this most outrageous sentence of Buwalda, Gen. Funston tells the American people that the soldier's action was a "serious crime equal to treason." Now, what did this "terrible crime" really consist of? Simply in this: William Buwalda was one of fifteen hundred people who attended a public meeting in San Francisco; and, oh, horrors, he shook hands with the speaker, Emma Goldman. A terrible crime, indeed, which the General calls "a great military offense, infinitely worse than desertion." Can there be a greater indictment against patriotism than that it will thus brand a man a criminal, throw him into prison, and rob him of the results of fifteen years of faithful service?

Buwalda gave to his country the best years of his life and his very manhood. But all that was as nothing. Patriotism is inexorable and, like all insatiable monsters, demands all or nothing. It does not admit that a soldier is also a human being, who has a right to his own feelings and opinions, his own inclinations and ideas. No, patriotism can not admit of that. That is the lesson which Buwalda was made to learn; made to learn at a rather costly, though not at a useless price. When he returned to freedom, he had lost his position in the army, but he regained his self-respect. After all, that is worth three years of imprisonment.

A writer on the military conditions of America, in a recent article, commented on the power of the military man over the civilian in Germany. He said, among other things, that if our Republic had no other meaning than to guarantee all citizens equal rights, it would have just cause for existence. I am convinced that the writer was not in Colorado during the patriotic régime of General Bell. He probably would have changed his mind had he seen how, in the name of patriotism and the Republic, men were thrown into bull-pens, dragged about, driven across the border, and subjected to all kinds of indignities. Nor is that Colorado incident the only one in the growth of military power in the United States. There is hardly a strike where troops and militia do not come to the rescue of those in power, and where they do not act as arrogantly and brutally as do the men wearing the Kaiser's uniform. Then, too, we have the Dick military law. Had the writer forgotten that?

A great misfortune with most of our writers is that they are absolutely ignorant on current events, or that, lacking honesty, they will not speak of these matters. And so it has come to pass that the Dick military law was rushed through Congress with little discussion and still less publicity,--a law which gives the President the power to turn a peaceful citizen into a bloodthirsty man-killer, supposedly for the defense of the country, in reality for the protection of the interests of that particular party whose mouthpiece the President happens to be.

Our writer claims that militarism can never become such a power in America as abroad, since it is voluntary with us, while compulsory in the Old World. Two very important facts, however, the gentleman forgets to consider. First, that conscription has created in Europe a deep-seated hatred of militarism among all classes of society. Thousands of young recruits enlist under protest and, once in the army, they will use every possible means to desert. Second, that it is the compulsory feature of militarism which has created a tremendous anti-militarist movement, feared by European Powers far more than anything else. After all, the greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. The very moment the latter is undermined, capitalism will totter. True, we have no conscription; that is, men are not usually forced to enlist in the army, but we have developed a far more exacting and rigid force--necessity. Is it not a fact that during industrial depressions there is a tremendous increase in the number of enlistments? The trade of militarism may not be either lucrative or honorable, but it is better than tramping the country in search of work, standing in the bread line, or sleeping in municipal lodging houses. After all, it means thirteen dollars per month, three meals a day, and a place to sleep. Yet even necessity is not sufficiently strong a factor to bring into the army an element of character and manhood. No wonder our military authorities complain of the "poor material" enlisting in the army and navy. This admission is a very encouraging sign. It proves that there is still enough of the spirit of independence and love of liberty left in the average American to risk starvation rather than don the uniform.

Thinking men and women the world over are beginning to realize that patriotism is too narrow and limited a conception to meet the necessities of our time. The centralization of power has brought into being an international feeling of solidarity among the oppressed nations of the world; a solidarity which represents a greater harmony of interests between the workingman of America and his brothers abroad than between the American miner and his exploiting compatriot; a solidarity which fears not foreign invasion, because it is bringing all the workers to the point when they will say to their masters, "Go and do your own killing. We have done it long enough for you."

This solidarity is awakening the consciousness of even the soldiers, they, too, being flesh of the flesh of the great human family. A solidarity that has proven infallible more than once during past struggles, and which has been the impetus inducing the Parisian soldiers, during the Commune of 1871, to refuse to obey when ordered to shoot their brothers. It has given courage to the men who mutinied on Russian warships during recent years. It will eventually bring about the uprising of all the oppressed and downtrodden against their international exploiters.

The proletariat of Europe has realized the great force of that solidarity and has, as a result, inaugurated a war against patriotism and its bloody spectre, militarism. Thousands of men fill the prisons of France, Germany, Russia, and the Scandinavian countries, because they dared to defy the ancient superstition. Nor is the movement limited to the working class; it has embraced representatives in all stations of life, its chief exponents being men and women prominent in art, science, and letters.

America will have to follow suit. The spirit of militarism has already permeated all walks of life. Indeed, I am convinced that militarism is growing a greater danger here than anywhere else, because of the many bribes capitalism holds out to those whom it wishes to destroy. The beginning has already been made in the schools. Evidently the government holds to the Jesuitical conception, "Give me the child mind, and I will mould the man." Children are trained in military tactics, the glory of military achievements extolled in the curriculum, and the youthful minds perverted to suit the government. Further, the youth of the country is appealed to in glaring posters to join the army and navy. "A fine chance to see the world!" cries the governmental huckster. Thus innocent boys are morally shanghaied into patriotism, and the military Moloch strides conquering through the Nation.

The American workingman has suffered so much at the hands of the soldier, State, and Federal, that he is quite justified in his disgust with, and his opposition to, the uniformed parasite. However, mere denunciation will not solve this great problem. What we need is a propaganda of education for the soldier: anti-patriotic literature that will enlighten him as to the real horrors of his trade, and that will awaken his consciousness to his true relation to the man to whose labor he owes his very existence.

It is precisely this that the authorities fear most. It is already high treason for a soldier to attend a radical meeting. No doubt they will also stamp it high treason for a soldier to read a radical pamphlet. But, then, has not authority from time immemorial stamped every step of progress as treasonable? Those, however, who earnestly strive for social reconstruction can well afford to face all that; for it is probably even more important to carry the truth into the barracks than into the factory. When we have undermined the patriotic lie, we shall have cleared the path for that great structure wherein all nationalities shall be united into a universal brotherhood,--a truly FREE SOCIETY.

2003-01-03T21:02:00.000-05:00

Availability.

A good man is hard to find. That's why Modern Drunkards magazine brings you the top 5 most eligible winos. Consider me inspired by low-maintenance men as of late...

2003-01-02T22:07:00.000-05:00

Steve, don't you go and trim your hair...

So what's it like to be Steve Malkmus? Better yet, what is it like to be Steve Malkmus' bed? Bryan Charles attempts to explain the former, while evading the latter. After watching Malkmus perform with his new group, the Jinks, Charles reports:

It is often said of a certain kind of male figure: "Women want to be with him, and men want to be him." This statement could not be truer of Stephen Malkmus. I saw Pavement four times and I’ve seen the Jicks twice now, and if there is a factor that unifies the crowds at these shows even more than whiteness, it’s the outpouring of love and envy Malkmus is able to evoke with the slightest grin or flip of his skater bangs. Although perhaps I am projecting; perhaps I sense that love and envy most strongly in my own head.

Malkmus' best in his Pavement coterie include, on my view: Embassy Row, AT&T, Range Life, Shady Lane, and Cut Your Hair.

2003-01-02T15:21:00.000-05:00

2003-01-02T13:33:00.000-05:00

Petri-dish prophecy.

What if we have nothing besides blood culture to unite us? Is ethnic nationalism somehow remotely related to a leftover vampirism? Hit me before this begins to sound like a women's studies dissertation.

2003-01-02T13:16:00.000-05:00

Breaking the girl.

Ryan Robert Mullen's short evokes the scent of a woman, and man's frustration with trying to catch the self beneath the well-groomed layers. While avoiding the absolutes of essentialism, Mullen seeks the eternal woman, the one who needs not pass through customs to declare her femininity.

It was the rest of her, the edges of her body the invisible lines in space which dictate the movements of hips and hand. The woman unaware. The woman you must catch. That is the woman he really loved, and she lived in every one of them. Easy to find, but so difficult to capture. His favorite part of sleeping with her was laying awake and letting her slip into automatic, to let her slip into her natural body, spinning frictionless and free - he liked to watch her sleep.

2002-12-28T22:44:00.000-05:00

Love does not consist in gazing at each other, but in looking together in the same direction.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

2002-12-28T20:40:00.000-05:00

Proustian nostalgia.

Jo reminded me of the potency of places when she posted a a photograph of this Brocktonian bar we visited. Evocative? Yes. Ornery? Absolutely. I'll be back...

2002-12-28T20:31:00.000-05:00

New Year's resolutions.

Emma Taylor and Lorlei Sharkley, advice columnists for Nerve, suggest the following resolutions for the new year.
1. Resolve to tell him you love the size, shape, and personality of his member, because there's nothing he can do to change it. (If you give it a name, we don't need to know, thanks.)
2. If you say you'll call, then call. And don't wait more than four days to do it. (By the way, if they don't call, chances are they didn't lose your number, and they probably didn't hit their head and end up in the hospital with amnesia either. So just let it go.)
3. Don't cheat. We're never going to give you advice on how to get away with it.
4. Educate yourself about STDs, because whatever you think you know, it's not enough. Get tested for STDs regularly. Fess up if you've got one. And don't freak out if a potential partner fesses up to one: More than one in three people in this country will get some kind of STD during their lifetime, so it's not that big a deal. Be grateful that they're probably just more honest and more informed than most of your luvvers.
5. Just ask them out already. Who cares if they say no? Go for it. We promise, when you're on your deathbed, asking out Sandy from Accounting will not be one of the big regrets of your life.
6. If you're not in the mood, explain why, as gently as possible, so they don't develop an inferiority complex.
7. If you asked the person out, you pay for the date. Otherwise, assume you're going dutch.
8. If you're not sure how your partner is feeling, open up your mouth and ASK THEM. If you're not sure how your partner likes their sex, open up your mouth and ASK THEM. If you want your partner to know how you're feeling or how you like your sex, open up your mouth and TELL THEM (nicely, please).
9. Don't discount the short guys. Or the nice guys. Or the plump girls. Or the lawyers.
10. Visit our wishlist.

I, for one, resolve to do the following:
1. Quit smoking.
2. Learn to tango very, very well.
3. Think with my senses; preface each noun with "succulent".
4. Read less and live more.
5. Listen to more Alan Berg.

2002-12-22T19:59:00.000-05:00

Kenneth Carroll's "elaborate signings"

"women are the sweetness of life."

poets can build galaxies from pebbles
& breathe the word of life into brief glances,
but one must be careful with the power of creation
so i scribble an obligatory, struggling to keep from
staining the page with the exaggeration of new passion,
unsure if i am simply the writer who lives downstairs,
plays his coltrane too loud & likes thunderstorms

i take a trip one flight up
where your eyes escort me to another country,
your touch becomes a wet kiss on the horizon
of a birthday in a warm july
i travel to your smile to hear stories of
wrecked trains parked in your dining room

but the past is a vulgar thief
it steals the laughter from your eyes,
tosses the broken edges of yesterday's heartache
into this remembrance
i dream of erasing painful memories with lingering
caresses from a steady hand

i rearrange the jagged stars of your past
i am the young boy smiling at you with love letter eyes
i carve your name into the soul of graying trees

i am your first slow dance, a trembling hand teetering on your waist
i replace the melancholy prayers on your lips with urgent kisses
i swear an oath to your beauty, become holy in your embrace

traveling tall miles through years of distance,
i arrive, wet from your tears,
my only tool—a poet’s skill
i mend your smile,
emancipate your eyes,
& together
we ride that wrecked train from your dining room
to the horizon of your birthday in another country.

2002-12-22T14:03:00.000-05:00

How should we speak about sex?

Cathy Young's 1999 article for Reason magazine, "Sex and Sensibility", examines sexual differences, sexual identity, and evolutionary biology in an attempt to explain continuing controversies over sex and gender roles. Youngs bemoans the "social gene brouhaha" typifying current discussions about sex differences-- discussions where biology is either all or nothing. What begins as rational discussion is undermined by the almost-religious dogmatism brought to the table in the form of feminist and/or scientific assumptions. Youngs explains:
Many feminists absolutely refuse to allow that some of the gender-based inequalities they deplore may be due in part to innate differences. Many conservatives just as dogmatically invoke sex differences, often distorted or magnified beyond recognition, to condemn any departures from traditional roles. Neither side has much patience for the complexities of real life or for the variety of real people."

For example, in an August 1995 New York Times op-ed piece, conservative writer Danielle Crittenden argued that men's "genetic wiring" makes them immune to "the mental strain of walking out the door" that working mothers suffer. Irate readers dismissed this as absurd and asserted that any such feelings arise from "cultural conditioning."

It is hardly absurd to think that the parent who gives birth may have a biological predisposition to be more attached to the baby. On the other hand, a biological predisposition is not a universal imperative. Men thrust into a "Mr. Mom" role because they are out of work when the baby arrives often feel heartbroken when they have to walk out the door.

In recent years, even feminism has embraced gender differences and "female values" such as cooperation, nurturance, and pacifism. Although antipathy to "male" individualism and competition was part of the women's movement in the 1970s, "difference feminism" became ascendant after the publication of the 1982 book, In a Different Voice, by Harvard psychologist Carol Gilligan. Gilligan contrasted women's "ethic of care," based on human needs and relationships, with "male" moral reasoning based on rights, justice, and abstract principles.

"Difference feminists" usually skirt the question of where the difference originates, though Gilligan dances on the edge of arguing that childbearing gives women "easier access...to the fact of human connection." This evasiveness has earned them some ridicule: Journalist Robert Wright pokes fun at Deborah Tannen, author of the 1990 best-seller You Just Don't Understand: Men and Women in Conversation, for arguing that boys "learn" to jockey for status in their more hierarchical networks, without explaining "why the boys' groups are always more hierarchical in the first place." (That always, as we shall see, is quite an overstatement.)

Youngs describes evolutionary psychology as rooted in works likef Matt Ridley's The Red Queen, Robert Wright's 1994 book The Moral Animal, and Steven Pinker's How the Mind Works. According to the school of evolutionary psychology, difference is a product of reproductive strategies that have evolved to ensure genetic survival.

The male, who can increase his progeny by having many mates, is "programmed" to wander and to seek dominance. The female, for whom parenthood is time-consuming, saves her favors for males who have good genes or who are willing and able to "invest" in her and her young. He looks for youth and attractiveness in a mate (signs of fertility); she looks for status and resources. Even if these patterns aren't relevant in an industrial society, they are "hard-wired" into our brains by millennia of evolution.

The political implications of this theory can cut both ways. Wright and Ridley invoke it to support affirmative action: Since men's advancement is propelled by their greater lust for power, often unrelated to merit, women must be favored "not to redress prejudice but to redress human nature." Others, such as Wayne State University law professor Kingsley Browne, argue that in the light of the new Darwinian science, male dominance in the public sphere is natural. And some evolutionary psychologists take issue with the view of women as less power-hungry. Primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy points out that female apes compete for status quite aggressively, if less flamboyantly than males.

Our genetic heritage may shed light on many things about men and women. But we should heed philosopher Thomas Nagel's warning against "the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind," particularly since scientific knowledge of how evolution shapes the human mind is not just incomplete but highly speculative.

2002-12-19T17:34:00.000-05:00

The coversations we won't be having.

"I guess this means we're going to war. You wanna drink to that, Alina?"

Thus, the tripwires line our conversation, and my ski-sore muscles remind me that flippancy is always the best offense. I sit with my family before the fireplace, safe from the flames-- hell, I'm an American, aren't I? My favorite fire is the friendly kind. My favorite fire is the one you can buy for $20 at Urban Outfitters and stick in the VCR. My favorite fire lacks the afterburn.

What can I say when these scenes are scripted? Should I search for that velvet margin within my body that others might call "courage"? Should I even start this conversation, knowing where it ends? Can I be stoic-sweet, angel-bubbly? Can I be good?

I'll be so good they'll add me to the Pantheon. Not only will I be good, I will be God-like. I'll remind them that Yahweh was originally a volcano god, linked to the majesty of nature and our human inability to control it. I'll remind them that we created Yahweh from our fears-- because we're more comfortable with ghosts than voids. Because we prefer any lie to such cold comfort. We converge where things no longer correlate.

Have this conversation for democracy. For the graceful glory of ruins and the sharp-edged promises of victory. Call me the courtesan of disaster, the one who beckons your worst fears. Every label fits. Watch me rub one word against the other, softly first, to generate a little friction, maybe start a fire, or something less violent, laughing when my father hands me a drink, proffered with a smile. We drink to defuse things. And love defused is just dead letter.

It isn't my defiance that makes you uncomfortable-- no, it's the fact that, when we play these little games, no matter how witty the talk, how pretty the ambiance, we all walk away disappointed. For all the smoke, there is no fire-- nothing to keep us here, nothing to bring us back. The decorations lack luster. The whole piece destroyed by the decrescendo.

2002-12-18T17:37:00.000-05:00

From Joyce Carol Oates' short story, "The Stalker".

"Fate. Why, Matilde Searle has often wondered, do we so crave romantic love as if it were our destiny-- our private, secret, individual fate? As if romantic love, yes let' s be candid and call it sexual love, the real thing, might define us in some way nothing else (our families, our hard-won careers) can define us. I've never known who I am except when I've been in love, Matilde has said, and I haven't recognized that self and I haven't admired that self and I can't bear being that self again."

2002-12-16T16:46:00.000-05:00

In Memory of My Feelings by Frank O'Hara

And now it is the serpent's turn.
I am not quite you, but almost the opposite of visionary.
You are coiled around the central figure,
the heart
that bubbles with red ghosts, since to move is to love
and the scrutiny of all things is syllogistic,
the startled eyes of the dikdik, the bush full of white flags
fleeing a hunter,
which is our democracy
but the prey
is always fragile and like smething, as a seashell can be
a great Courbet, if it wishes. To bend the ear of the outer world.

2002-12-10T13:16:00.000-05:00

Ladies in Indonesia

This photo, courtesy of AFP, shows Indonesian women protesting the arrest of Abu Bakar Bashir, the preacher accused of leading the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah, as theycover their faces with his photograph at a demonstration in Jakarta on Nov. 1, 2002. Foreign policy officials should check their premises.

2002-12-09T13:16:00.000-05:00

Leaving you

gets none the easier
for repetition.
What practice fails
to make perfect
distributes its own
fair compensation.
I admit to faking fascination
with the Christmas cards,
to scouring the shelves
for a map or an atlas or
an excuse to linger
between the warm lines of your arms.

Loving you,
unlike leaving you,
lacks the procrastination ritual.
And though we slave at different speeds,
cross our hearts to different gods,
your patience makes me beauitful,
taming memory into wisdom,
turning wanderlust to wonder
and lust.

Darling, I am disarmed and ready;
yours is the dream worth sharing.

2002-12-03T17:02:00.000-05:00

Bush-isms anyone?

A friend sent these to me, but the "complete list" as compiled by Jacob Weisberg can be found somewhere on Slate. Disclaimers and credits aside, let's get to the delicious part-- what Bush said where and when. My comments are in italics.

"I need to be able to move the right people to the right place at the right time to protect you, and I'm not going to accept a lousy bill out of the United Nations Senate."-South Bend, Ind., Oct. 31, 2002 Who'd of thunk the UN has a Senate? Can Bush really not imagine an organizational arrangement that differs from that of the US government/corporation?

"John Thune has got a common-sense vision for good forest policy. I look forward to working with him in the United Nations Senate to preserve these national heritages."That rascally old UN Senate has Bush by the softballs. Well, the only way to get rid of THAT problem is either to bomb or ban it. We're at war, folks. National security means saving national honor...

"Any time we've got any kind of inkling that somebody is thinking about doing something to an American and something to our homeland, you've just got to know we're moving on it, to protect the United Nations Constitution, and at the same time, we're protecting you."-Aberdeen, S.D., same dayObviously, Bush's next plan is to run for President of the UN. May his god save us all.

"I was proud the other day when both Republicans and Democrats stood with me in the Rose Garden to announce their support for a clear statement of purpose: you disarm, or we will."-Speaking about Saddam Hussein, Manchester, N.H., Oct. 5, 2002 US disarm? You mean stop building new weapons? Wait, let me guess, we plan to do this by exporting more weapons to cruel dictators of oil-wealthy states?

"We need an energy bill that encourages consumption."-Trenton, N.J., Sept. 23, 2002 No conflict of interest here.

"People say, how can I help on this war against terror? How can I fight evil? You can do so by mentoring a child; by going into a shut-in's house and say I love you."-Washington, D.C., Sept. 19, 2002A shut-in has a house? I'm confused. Should we do this before or after brushing our teeth in the morning?

"There's an old saying in Tennessee-I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee-that says, fool me once, shame on-shame on you. Fool me-you can't get fooled again."-Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002Wow. Can't refute that.

"There's no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons."-South Bend, Ind., Sept. 5, 2002There's no doubt in my mind that there's no doubt in yours. Unfortunately, doubt is a good thing, as it forces is to reconsider our options and think coolly about what should be done.

"If you don't have any ambitions, the minimum-wage job isn't going to get you to where you want to get, for example. In other words, what is your ambitions? And oh, by the way, if that is your ambition, here's what it's going to take to achieve it."-Speech to students in Little Rock, Ark., Aug. 29, 2002 He might not pass one of his own standardized tests, and then we would have to start reconsidering Yale as a true mecca of learning.

"See, we love-we love freedom. That's what they didn't understand. They hate things; we love things. They act out of hatred; we don't seek revenge, we seek justice out of love."-Oklahoma City, Aug. 29, 2002So we bomb out of love and they bomb out of hate. Prove it. Or better yet, let's stop talking about "feelings" and other such fuzziness in foreign policy and concentrate on finding a way to make sure less people get bombed in the first place.

"There's no cave deep enough for America, or dark enough to hide."-Oklahoma City, Aug. 29, 2002

"I'm a patient man. And when I say I'm a patient man, I mean I'm a patient man."In case you didn't get that, he means he's a patient man. Don't think anyone ever accused him of being a patient woman, so the insistence seems a little strange.

"I'm thrilled to be here in the bread basket of America because it gives me a chance to remind our fellow citizens that we have an advantage here in America-we can feed ourselves."-Stockton, Calif., Aug. 23, 2002

"There's no bigger task than protecting the homeland of our country."Does he mean protecting the Homeland Security Department? Or is he just confused about the relationship between a land and a country?

"The federal government and the state government must not fear programs who change lives, but must welcome those faith-based programs for the embetterment of mankind."-Stockton, Calif., Aug. 23, 2002 I really really think education and school choice should be a bigger priority for the Bush administration. Too bad the Bushies can't tout their leader as an example of how public schools fail.

2002-11-18T23:31:00.000-05:00

The woman who misunderstood him best

In the film version of Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", Lena Olin's Sabina is described as "the woman who understood him best". For those unfamiliar with the work, the "him" in question refers to Tomas-- the typical self-obsessed Kundera male protagonist, driven by sexual desires and petty idol theft. If Sabina is the one who understands him, perhaps the favor is returned as the sit, post-sex, naked in front of a mirror, which tempts them to begin again. Sabina and Tomas are in love with their self-images, which must be sustained at all costs, for it is the shallow-root of these mirror-tricks that holds their worldview together.

Kundera is often credited by aspiring young American cooler-than-thou's with bringing sexual freedom to post-communist literature, and with creating characters which epitomize the vapid transcendence of the US hipster crowd. After all, why mourn our failures in life and love when the whole humiliation can be avoided by chalking it up to the drama of our "personal detachment"? Tomas would probably agree with Henry Kissinger that "power is the ultimate aphrodisiac", especially power parading as insensibility or impermeability. Unfortunately, the impermeable is not quite as fascinating as the subtly-permeable, or the sagaciously permeable. Who gives a flying foutre about characters that are too tough or cool or self-knowing for the trivial evens of this world? Call me a realist, but I like my characters as I like my men-- real, fallible, sentient, and yes, sensible beings who couldn't care less about being cool and couldn't care more about being for real.

2002-11-14T21:47:00.000-05:00

The nasty side of the statistics declaring American men great lovers

According to a recent profession-based rating, American men make great lovers, especially artists, mechanics and truck drivers — although the latter group falls asleep quicker than any other after sex. Other findings include that the worst group of lovers, according to the survey of 400 American women, were computer workers. Computer specialists deserve a column of their own, since they were found least likely to accommodate their wives when she wants sex and least likely to give or take oral sex. Mother hens take heed, however, because these men of the screen are almost twice as likely as the average husband to cuddle after sex.Truck drivers deserve to win the creativity award, as they are "most likely to introduce edible underwear into lovemaking", with more than a quarter of them having produced some during sex. The mystery of this tendency disappears the moment you step inside a truck stop, where edible panties rival confederate flag license plates for counter space.

According to a survey specialist, "The ideal man in bed would have the creativity and craftsmanship of an artist, the dexterity of a mechanic, the interpersonal skills of a manager and perhaps the frequency of a salesman."

While these survey results might look good for American women, a recent report by the Harvard School of Public Health, American women and girls are five times more likely to be murdered than women in other industrialized nations. In this study, considered the first look at international homicide rates among women, the discrepancy between female murder rates in industrialized (read wealthy) countries paints a nast picture of male-female relationships in the US. American women are more likely to be killed by someone they know, such as husbands, boyfriends or jilted lovers. Most disconcerting is the link between female homicide and female sexual abuse or rape. Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Boston's Northeastern University, said U.S. criminals practice a brand of sexual sadism against women that is not prevalent in other industrialized nations. Most female homicides in US involve a concurrent act of sexual violation or violence.

Personally, I don''t think the sexual ability of some men makes up for the sexual violence and perversity of some of these crimes, especially since most of them are committed by men whom the victims knew prior to the crime. One might even argue that in a context where violence and abuse of women is so rampant, an honest survey is impossible, as women will likely cover for their mates, or tell pollsters the same thing they tell their husbands in order to calm them down-- something to the tune of "Oh honey, you are the BEST".

Cool Brittania, on the other hand, begins to look more appealing. In a UK survey conducted by Top Sante health magazine, two thirds of married women say the best sex they've ever had is with their husbands. Editor Juliette Kellow remarked, "This turns on its head the idea that the best sex is when we are footloose, fancy free, and single". I would agree that this is usually the case for women, and these survey results could probably be fairly assumed of an American female polling group also. I am not so sure, however, that our Maxim-reading men would agree. After all, numerous studies have shown that men suffer very little social stigma or sanction for promiscuous behavior.

2002-11-14T03:59:00.000-05:00

"The road to hell is apparently paved with good conventions."
Stephen Holmes

2002-11-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

The romance of nationalism

James Fernandez penned a piece for Exquisite Corpses, Andrei Codrescu's literary brainchild, surveying the the relationship between nationalism, literary romanticism, and exoticism, all of which are connected by a shared perception of common suffering. What distinguishes this suffering from, say, the Christian notion, is its self-designated depth.

2002-11-09T13:40:00.000-05:00

Culture wars

Should we be concerned with the corporate marketing effect on the remaining tried-and-true depositories of culture, among which we can include NPR. Pace John Charles, "Prairie Home Companion" is entertaining and a nice slice-of-life take on Midwestern small-town culture. However, it is far from classical. At what point do survey polls become a threat to culture instead of an indicator?

2002-11-09T13:00:00.000-05:00

A quote from C.S. Lewis

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satisfied; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for the do so with the approval of their own conscience."

2002-11-05T19:04:00.000-05:00

Good reading for the post-election, Iraq-bombing blues

I say blues because war is generally not a wonderful time, but there are certainly those who disagree with me. Perhaps they would do better sticking to sunny work like the cookbooks of Julia Fairchild. For the rest, I recommend Johnny Shines. Or maybe jazz a la Charles Mingus strikes a more appropriate chord, given its highly technical flirtation with the blues.A Love Supreme uncovers what went into the making of John Coltrane's famous album. The short story, "Rock Spring", by Richard Ford provides a subtle take on the male-female doubletake ratio, or that point at which nodding trumps head-turning and the therapist's couch provides a better means to understanding the actions of others than it does to the understanding of one's own. Giacondo Belli's The Country Under My Skin: A Memory of Love and War steers close to the Latin American tradition of love stories during war (best exemplified by Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Love In the Time Of Cholera) and raises the flag of individual triumph during that quintessential and classic collective action problem dubbed "military conflict".

2002-11-03T13:55:00.000-05:00

A short excerpt from a poem by Father Daniel Berrigan

Our trouble

the trouble with our state

with our state of soul

our state of seige

was

Civil

obedience

2002-11-02T22:59:00.000-05:00

Giving up the belief in ghosts

Who says leaving your lover should be a lengthy, nasty affair? Why should many of today's sexual relationships-- many of which never even managed to assume the pretense of love-- end as if they were based on something meaningful or special like "love"? There are still fifty ways to leave your lover, one thousand and one ways to please your lover, and countless other ways to have a Cosmo-scripted, Maxim-subtitled relationship with your lover. So it seems appropriate that now we should receive advice on how to leave like "a gentleman" (aka make a clean break, cut our losses, etc.). Perhaps what might be most appropos would be to give up the ghost of love, shove it to the heartside with faith, religions, loyalty, and all those other Christmas candies. that rot teeth and stain modern, academic conceptions of progress. Why bother with love at all? Forget leaving or loving or losing-- let's just sit around stuffed with self-obesessions and call it "freedom" or that ever-sexy-to-libertarians-term "selfishness"? If it weren't for that lovely genetic je ne sais quoi of Italian-German mixes, or strange combinations of sushi and samba, I might actually be talked into believing this recipe for spiritual disaster!

2002-10-26T13:20:00.000-04:00

A friend's response to my ideology post

I reread your last posting regarding ideology and I found myself more in agreement with it than the first time. I think what I do not like l;like is the quote from your friend making the denigration of the other is a characteristic of ideology. Ideology is simply a belief system which one uses to evaluate the world and one's place in it. All of us out ideologues. The dangers you point to our not characteristics of ideology but rather those people who use their ideology to shield them form engagement in the real world.

In fact, one of the most disturbing trends in police discourse is the use of the word "ideology" as a smear, as if those who rely on first principles and try to advance a particular world do not belong in politics. Instead, many people praise the non-ideologues "pragmatists" who do not question the fundamental premises of the welfare-warfare state but work to make the state more "efficient." that is what the end of history/end of ideology is an attempt to say that the question other legitimacy of the American social-democratic, mixed-economic, world empire is settled and all that remains to be done is spread it throughout the world and tinker around the edges to enhance its' efficacy. Well I, for one, prefer to remain a no comprising libertarian ideologue!

2002-10-23T00:32:00.000-04:00

Is she wierd? Is she white? Is she promised to the night?

2002-10-21T17:01:00.000-04:00

When pride lacks acknowledgment, it becomes pain.

Elizabeth Gonzales talks about the "pain and pride of community college". It would be easy for a Randian to chastise her for feeling insecure about it in the first place without obviating the stress of the environment that makes such insecurity easier. I won't bother with that kind of "virtue of self-obession" talk. What I would tell, Gonzales, however, is that I know at least 8 people in Ivy League graduate programs whose prior education was limited to community college. Don't ever be ashamed of where you are-- be ashamed only for allowing it to condition your dreams and aspirations.

2002-10-21T17:00:00.000-04:00

The intractable debate on abortion continues

According to a recently-released study, abortions in the United States have been declining for the past decade. This trend does not hold among minority women, however-- a rather disappointing exception.

Michael Schwartz, Concerned Women for America’s vice president’s for government relations, disagrees with those who assert that welfare reform is the culprit. According to Schwartz, "the most apparent reason for the increase in the abortion rates among the poor—and especially among poor minorities—is the marketing strategies of the abortion industry."

The recent passage of the Abortion Non-Discrimination Act (ANDA) on September 25 in the US House of Representatives (by 229-189) certainly adds to the pro-life scoreboard. The bill contains a conscience clause that would shield health care providers from government coercion to perform or participate in abortions.

2002-10-20T17:29:00.000-04:00

Human rights talk by day, human rights violations by night

Sorry boys, but that East European hooker you picked up on your high-school class trip was NOT a feminist. And you did her no liberating favors through your transaction. Sexual slavery in Europe is not getting any better. What used to be free-lanced prostitution now comes under the form of sexually-trafficked females from failed (if not just transitioning) states. Profits are estimated at $9 billion a year-- no small fee.

The consequences for the reproductive health of Albanian women stun the imagination. Men who engage in sexual encounters with prostitutes often take various diseases home as a gift to their faithful wives. You can't understand the horrifying extent of it until you speak to some Moldovan prostitutes in Poland or Romania. Often, it is the very NATO troops that have been stationed there to protect civilians that are the greatest proportional consumers of services sold by trafficked women. If you know a nice young man who visits Europe for the cheap prostitutes, remind him that he is not paying them for their sex. Mostly now, he is probably paying their master for rent.

2002-10-20T02:26:00.000-04:00

Forget French-- talk some "universal grammar" to me.

I can't get enough of the buzz surrounding Stephen Pinker's new book in evolutionary biology. The New York Times describes Pinker's position as follows:

Pinker sees human nature as largely inscribed by indelible genes. He marshals evidence from empirical studies showing, for instance, that individuals living in disparate cultures display the same repertory of emotional expressions. Angry scowls, happy smiles, the arched eyebrow of disbelief, the wrinkled brow of perplexity and scores of other facial signs are universal. They cannot have arisen from a common cultural heritage but must, Pinker argues, stem from the genetic heritage of a small group of humans that left Africa about 100,000 years ago and slowly populated all regions of the world.

Pinker links common expressions to common evolution by using a linguistic theory developed by fellow MIT professor, Noam Chomsky, called "universal grammar". This theory holds that there is a "deep grammar" embedded in genetically determined brain structures, which form our syntactical abilities and influence our communicative mediums. Chomsky's theory has been criticized on the grounds of overlooking human genetic variability. Whether you like him or not is irrelevant to the acknowledgement of Pinker's ground-breaking capacity to shake the world of cognitive and behavioral science to the core.

2002-10-19T23:23:00.000-04:00

An argument for tightening airport security

Just taking a look at the effectiveness of tighter airport security regulations so far demonstrates the effectiveness of legislative requirements.

2002-10-18T12:29:00.000-04:00

From my best French friend, Aurelie Girard

The following advice for American travelers going to France was compiled from information provided by the US State Department, the CIA, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control, and some very expensive spy satellites that the French don't know about. It is intended as a guide for American travelers only:

France is a medium-sized foreign country situated in the continent of Europe. It is an important member of the world community, though not nearlyas important as it thinks. It is bounded by Germany, Spain, Switzerland and some smaller nations of no particular consequence and with not very good shopping. France is a very old country with many treasures, such as the Louvre and EuroDisney. Among its contributions to western civilization are champagne, Camembert cheese and the guillotine.

Although France likes to think of itself as a modern nation, air conditioning is little used and it is next to impossible for Americans to get decent Mexican food. One continuing exasperation for American visitors is that local people insist on speaking in French, though many will speak
English if shouted at. Watch your money at all times.

France has a population of 56 million people. 52 million of these peopledrink and smoke, (the other 4 million are small children). All French people drive like lunatics, are dangerously oversexed, and have no concept of standing patiently in a queue. The French people are in general gloomy, temperamental, proud, arrogant, aloof, and undisciplined; and those are
their good points. Most French citizens are Roman Catholic, though you would hardly guess it from their behavior. Many people are communists. Mensometimes have girls' names like Marie or Michel, and they kiss each other when they meet. American travelers are advised to travel in groups and to wear baseball caps and colorful trousers for easier mutual recognition.

In general, France is a safe destination, although travelers must be aware that from time to time it is invaded by Germany. Traditionally the French surrender immediately and, apart from a temporary shortage of Scotch whisky and increased difficulty in getting baseball scores and stock market prices, life for the American visitor generally goes on much as before. A
tunnel connecting France to Britain beneath the English Channel has been opened in recent years to make it easier for the French Government to flee to Londonduring future German invasions.

Historical figures are Louis XIV, the Huguenots, Joan of Arc, Jacques Cousteau and Charles de Gaulle, who was President for many years and is now an airport.The French form of government is democratic but noisy. Elections are heldmore or less continuously, and always result in a draw. The French love administration so for government purposes the country is divided into
regions, departments, districts, municipalities, towns, communes, villages, cafes, and telephone kiosks. Each of these has its own government and elections. According to the most current American State Department intelligence, the President now is someone named Jacques.

Let's face it, no matter how much garlic you put on it, a snail is just a slug with a shell on its back. Croissants, on the other hand, are excellent, though it is impossible for most Americans to pronounce this word. In general, travelers are advised to stick to cheeseburgers.

French people hardly work at all. If they are not spending four hours dawdling over lunch, they are on strike and blocking the roads with their trucks and tractors. France's principal exports, in order of importance to the economy, are wine, nuclear weapons, perfume, guided missiles, champagne, guns, grenade launchers, land mines, tanks, attack aircraft, miscellaneous armaments and cheese.

France has more holidays than any other nation in the world. Among its 361national holidays are:
* 197 saints' days, 37 National Liberation Days,
* 16 Declaration of Republic Days,
* 54 Return of Charles de Gaulle in Triumph as if he Won the War single-handed Days,
* 18 Napoleon Sent into Exile Days,
* 17 Napoleon Called Back from Exile Days, and
* 112 "France is Great and the Rest of the World is Rubbish" Days.
Other important holidays are National Nuclear Bomb Day (January 12), the Feast of St. Brigitte Bardot Day (March 1), and National Guillotine Day (November 12). Bastille Day is July 14. (or as the French would say, "14 July")

France enjoys a rich history, a picturesque and varied landscape, and a temperate climate. In short, it would be a very nice country if it was not inhabited by French people. The best thing that can be said for France is that it is not Germany.

2002-10-18T12:13:00.000-04:00

More on the genetics of happiness

A great discussion on human nature and happiness between Steven Pinker, Martin Seligman, and Robert Wright. Is happiness "heritable"? Is my slide towards the reputation of being a curmudgeon inevitable?

2002-10-18T12:10:00.000-04:00

Miss Manners steps out of bounds

Is there such a thing as etiquette where affairs are concerned? Judith Martin attempts to deal with this question from one of her readers. Even bothering to answer such stupid questions strikes me as a waste of time. If a woman has the audacity to care if her affair is being conducted in the "proper" Miss Manners way, she is probably missing a brain stem. By its very nature, an affair is improper. It can never be polite or well-mannered, as it is the tell-tale sign of low pedigree.

2002-10-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

A warning from my favorite research jockey

John Charles sent me a warning worth publishing on "The Dangers of Bread". If you live near a Krispy Kreme, keep in mind that the studies on doughnuts are still inconclusive.

A recent Cincinnati Enquirer headline read, "SMELL OF BAKED BREAD MAY BE HEALTH HAZARD." The article went on to describe the dangers of the smell of baking bread. The main danger, apparently, is that the organic components of this aroma may break down ozone (I'm not making this stuff up). I was horrified. When are we going to do something about bread-induced global warming? Sure, we attack tobacco companies, but when is the government going to go after Big Bread?

Well, I've done a little research, and what I've discovered should make anyone think twice ....
More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread eaters. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever and influenza ravaged whole nations. More than 90 percent of violent crimes are committed within 24 hours of eating bread. Bread is made from a substance called "dough." It has been proven that as little as one pound of dough can be used to suffocate a mouse. The average American eats more bread than that in one month! Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low occurrence of cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease and osteoporosis.

Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat, actually begged for bread after only two days. Bread is often a "gateway" food item, leading the user to harder items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter and even cold cuts. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 90 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person. Newborn babies can choke on bread. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute. Most American bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.

In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
No sale of bread to minors.
No advertising of bread within 1000 feet of a school.
A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
A $4.2 zillion fine on the three biggest bread manufacturers.
Remember: Think globally, act idiotically.

2002-10-17T14:18:00.000-04:00

The Asian Massage Parlor Blues

The need to fall inlove with a new CD-- call it the soundtrack of your season-- can be overwhelming at times. For those who feel an urge to find something new right now, I have a few suggestions. Ever tried Vietnamese music? Better than the food, though the ambience often borders on acrylic nail salon (if you are a girl) or Asian massage parlor (if you are a gent). For those who like their bread buttered by the classics, an amazing new album by The Classical Jazz Quartet featuring Ron Carter and Kenny Barron, makes a boogie-man out of Johann Sebastian Bach. Relaxing and beautiful. Though not quite as blonde or throaty as Diana Krall, who is on tour in the US right now-- one of the few white women whose voice range captures both Billie Holiday and Frank Sinatra.

Into the popular and slightly more pulsating steps Richard Ashcroft's new album, which bests his last one in terms of production. Radley Balko provides some interesting information on the new Jeff Buckley collection coming soon to a music conglomerate near you. The Alabama Thunderpussies are still making a point of rocking the unfree world. And, although their latest hasn't recieved the best reviews, Morcheeba fans might still want to hold an ear to their attempt at more raw, natural rhythms on their latest album.

Last word: If you have managed to keep breathing without yet purchasing the new Tom Waits album (not so new anymore), then you are lying to yourself about living.

2002-10-16T20:46:00.000-04:00

Positive anti-death penalty developments at the state and local level

As Jodi Wilgoren observes in an article for The New York Times, some of the most positive anti-death penalty actions are being taken at the state and local level. Wilgoren sheds light on recent events in Illinois, where Gov. George Ryan has halted executions after DNA evidence recently exonerated three persons convicted of capital crimes. Six months ago, a commission called for the sweeping overhaul of the state's capital punishment system. In the meantime, events opposing the death penalty have been increasing in incidence across the country.

In North Carolina, conservative citizens are taking the problem into their own hands, as the corrupt motives of certain attorneys have been exposed. Thanks to careful study and impeccable research documenting the high correlation between race and the application of the death penalty in North Carolina, even those who would normally support the death penalty have spoken out against it and called for a moratorium. In the case of North Carolina, it seems that empirical evidence effectively marshalled public opinion in the direction of active citizenship. Localities including Charlotte, Greensboro, Chapel Hill, Carrboro, and Durham have passed resolutions for a moratorium on capital punishment until probelms of corruption and racism are resolved. As executions become more cruel and prevalent in states like Texas and Alabama, Americans are beginning to wonder if Amnesty International might have been right all along-- perhaps the state has begun to mistake is role for that of a deity.

Religious groups and individuals have adamantly opposed the continuing use of the death penalty in the United States. For example, the Reverend Edward Rodman has publicly criticized the recent application of the death penalty in the case of John William King. Jesse Jackson did no less than publish a book on the issue. In a joint statement -The National Jewish/Catholic Consultation, co-sponsored by the National Council of Synagogues and the National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs, called for an end to the death penalty.

"We have committed ourselves to work together, and each within our own communities, toward ending the death penalty", the statement read. Representatives of the two faiths said they will aim to develop joint educational materials for use in schools and congregations and hope to work together in local, state and national anti-death penalty coalitions.

2002-10-13T21:16:00.000-04:00

The man I would have loved to call partner

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. - Bertrand Russell

2002-10-13T15:52:00.000-04:00

More chicken and egg dilemmas: Nature versus nurture

Steven Pinker points out that one of the problems with the debate between nature v. nurture concerns the false dichtomy set up to contain and explain it.

Humans, of course, are not exclusively selfish or generous (or nasty or noble); they are driven by competing motives elicited in different circumstances. Although no aspect of the mind is unaffected by learning, the brain has to come equipped with complex neural circuitry to make that learning possible. And if genes affect behavior, it is not by pulling the strings of the muscles directly, but via their intricate effects on a growing brain.

Pinker says most people admit that the tabula rasa assumption is too extreme, yet continue to assume it in their conclusions-- a problem most apparent in the field of developmental psychology. For example, most parenting advice is inspired by studies that find a correlation between parents and children.

Loving parents have confident children, authoritative parents (neither too permissive nor too punitive) have well-behaved children, parents who talk to their children have children with better language skills, and so on. Everyone concludes that to rear the best children, parents must be loving, authoritative, and talkative, and if children don't turn out well, it must be the parents' fault.....Parents, remember, provide their children with genes, not just a home environment. The correlations between parents and children may be telling us only that the same genes that make adults loving, authoritative, and talkative make their children self-confident, well behaved, and articulate. Until the studies are redone with adopted children (who get only their environment, not their genes, from their parents), the data are compatible with the possibility that genes make all the difference, the possibility that parenting makes all the difference, or anything in between. Yet in almost every instance, the most extreme position - that parents are everything - is the only one researchers entertain.

Thomas Moore makes a similar critique, only from an ethical position. Moore believes that too many of us use our parents as an excuse for our personal shortcomings. Insofar as we can blame Mom and Dad, we don't have to sit down and think about what we did wrong-- we don't have to feel "bad" (yuck) or consider how we might do better. In short, we don't have to grow up because Mommy and Daddy are always there to blame. However, acknowledging the somewhat dysfunctional essence of family life is crucial to bing able to appreciate and learn from it, on Moore's view.

A family is a microcosm, reflecting the nature of the world, which runs on both virtue and evil...The sentimental image of family that we present publicly is a defense against ther pain of proclaiming the family for what it is-- a sometimes comforting, sometimes devastating house of life and memory.

One sees such reasoning in the overwhelming importance that psychologists and therapists assign to divorce as a cause of childhood rebellion and adult mood disorders. Insofar as it helps us universalize our understanding of family life, mythologizing might be helpful. The image of the mater dolorosa or long-suffering mother-- perhaps best captured by the Virgin Mary-- still colours our modern views about the role of motherhood. To deny this is to ignore some of our most powerful natural cognitive inclinations

A prophet of the school of "behavioral genetics", Pinker believes that our inability to acknowledge human emotions as a part of evolution retards our understanding of modern developmental problems. Take for example the recent genetic discoveries in the study of autism bu those who, like Dr. John Vincent at the University of Toronto, are working on Chromosome 7 data. As Pinker notes:

Diseases like autism and schizophrenia are highly heritable, and though they are not completely determined by genes, the other likely contributors (toxins, pathogens, chance events in brain development) have nothing to do with parenting. Mothers don't deserve ''some'' of the blame if their children have these disorders, as a nature-nurture compromise would imply; they deserve none of it.

One of my friends who suffers from bipolar disorder refuses to have children because she feels guilty at the mere thought of passing it on. Granted, the disorder has a long history in her family, but her self-flagellation suggests a new kind of eugenic thinking that permeates modern society, namely, if your child is anything less that constantly happy, you, as a parent, are to blame. I resent this assumption for what it does to reverse the effects of tolerance and human empathy. We take respnsibility too far when we expect parents to carry the weight of their children's moral consciousness.

The 15th-century theologian Nicholas of Cuza, who authored a book about the importance of "educated ignorance", urged us to find ways to unlearn those things that screen us from the perception of profound truth. In other words, we should spend more time trying to unlearn our defense mechanisms, our most comfortable lies and scapegoats, our self-pity parties, and less time cultivating such unhelpful forms of escapism.

2002-10-12T23:56:00.000-04:00

Only the good die young.

2002-10-12T19:20:00.000-04:00

The strange chemistry between attention-seeking behavior and jealousy

As with everything we feel strongly enough to write, this is partly a response and partly a personal seeking. When children or adults are accused of "wanting attention", the accusation carries with it the weight of shame, as if some sort of guilt were laid bare. It might be interesting to ask ourselves if this shame stems from what we are forced to acknowledge by such accusations--namely, our need for reaffirmation, for communion, for warmth-- or more from that feeling of being caught stealing. The former shows when the child or adult withdraws, often into some pretentious, affectatious stoicism, while the latter is revealed by the blush that creeps across the face of one's lover when caught desiring another person besides their partner.

For the sake of discussion, the latter might prove more interesting, as the caught lover feels shame at being discovered in a secret. I'll set the stage and give these abstractions names for a moment. During dinner at a restaurant with his girlfriend, Horace feels slightly annoyed by the handsome man sitting alone at the table next to them, reading. His girlfriend, Heather, listens to Horace with a smile as he expounds upon the weather and the whethers. When he notices Heather gazing at the man nearby, Horace feels his temperature rise. He rolls his eyes. Heather blushes and tries to begin an animated conversation about the failure of Esperanzo to go mainstream. But Horace is on the defensive now. He has admitted to himself that Heather desires other men. The fact that Horace also desires other women at times seems irrelevant. After all, he is the man, and men are supposed to desire other women, according to Maxim and the Bible. For Horace, opening his mind to the possibility that Heather's love and faithfulness to him pose a continual ethical struggle in her life is devastating. Rather than embrace her for their common plight, their shared journey, he repels her for being as mired by the tensions in modern human life as himself.

Let's leave Heather and Horace at their miserable little archetype for now, as it is clear that Horace's jealousy sets up a high wall against mutual sympathy and understanding. Could Horace's need for reaffirming attention at this point-- a need which, if unacknowledged, flowers into jealousy-- teach him anything? Can our moments of jealousy or attention-deficit inform us about our own needs in a constructive way? I think the answer to this depends on one's desire to actually learn from the experience of a particular emotion. Emotions are tricky in that they often convince us of a certain position without even bothering to set up an argument. To properly engage an emotion like jealousy, one must admit it as more than a fleeting symptom of a particular situation and then begin the ardorous task of examining it from the perspective of an insight that is as common as it is potentially informative.

Perhaps jealousy is not a facet of emotional insecurity or instability as much as it is an indication-- a bubbling to the surface, if you will-- of the continuing conflict between a sort of purist moralism and the reality of the human condition. Thomas Moore describes jealousy as "an archetypal tension-- a collision of two valid needs"-- the need for the security of the hearth and like-minded community versus the need for the kind of freedom which allows us to grow as individuals, to explore the uncharted territories of unattachment. For the introspective person, an ackowledgement of these tensions is natural and essential. Why gregarious people have a more difficult time with such acknowledgement is a question I leave open for discussion at another time. In order to be rid of the humiliation wrought in jealousy and attention-seeking, we must let jealousy have its way with us first. Rather than dismiss it as pure emotion and then claim that it has nothing to teach us, we should pick it up as a challenge to our self-conceptions, our ideals, and especially the comfort of our old familiar truths.

In this sense, one of the most useless ways to approach jealousy is with self-absorption, as reducing it to a personal problem disregards its complexity. Perhaps one of the most typical reactions to feeling jealousy is to convince one's self of the wrong done to you by another. By playing the role of an innocent victim, we frame this issue as one of wrong/right, thereby ignoring the relational aspect of this feeling, as well as our own role in the relationship. Moore describes it as follows:

"By playing the role of innocent, the young man didn't have to enter the complicated world of relationship. He could hide his own loose ways and blame his girlfriend for hers. [Remember Horace and Heather?] If he were to approach her as a complicated adult, he would have to face possible rejection from her, for her own reasons, or have had to deal with the complexity of her nature. Instead, he could retreat into the place of the child where, in an odd paradox, his protection is secured by his being hurt. The young man's feelings of rage show how split off he is from the power of his knowledge. Blinded by a cloud of innocence, he seems not to know his friend or himself or the complexity of relationships in general. He pleads for simple attention and care. When he doesn't get these things, he feels controlled and toyed with....The paranoid element in his jealousy both keeps the possibility of deeper knowledge within reach but also dissociates itself from will and intentionality."

Blame and self-victimization are extraordinarily popular ways of providing ourselves with a defensive substitute for an honest examination of our lives. Instead of asking the hard questions, we defer to the drama of hurling insults, often losing track of the very issue that proved so painful or divisive in the first place. Such behavior is a way to avoid consciousness of error. Rather than play avoidance games, we should engage in a little bit of soothing hermeneutics, and seek the poetic in our contigencies as opposed to the disaster and the melodrama. Jealousy is best apprehended as a baptism into fire, a personal encounter with the mythological Mars, or as the continuing tension between Hera and Zeus. If erotic creativity makes the world, then jealousy serves as a means of preserving the hearth and the drives which inspire creation in the first place.

Hera's famous jealousy, in such a case, nestled well with Zeus' philandering. The problem is not so much jealousy anymore, as it is the fluid role-playing which characterizes modernity. Instead of feeling our jealousy as a knife between what we want to possess and our ability to possess it, we should feel it as a bond, a mutual vulnerability that, if carefully examined, might even produce something as beautiful and subtle as understanding. For those of us who resent the idea of being possessed, this kind of reflection might disarm our defenses, thus forcing us to face our dark angels with our white ones. After all, harmony is a constantly-shifting balance when the externals are in constant flux. It is not static. It is not dull. It is the melted gold of a sunset, the moment before day turns to night, or good to bad.

2002-10-11T18:00:00.000-04:00

Strange, a woman tries to save what a man will try to drown...

2002-10-11T17:54:00.000-04:00

Ayn Rand on foreign policy

In The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand states the following:

"Dictatorship nations are outlaws. Any free nation had the right to invade Nazi Germany and, today, has the right to invade Soviet Russia, Cuba or any other slave pen. Whether a free nation chooses to do so or not is a matter of its own self-interest, not of respect for the nonexistent "rights" of gang rulers. It is not a free nation's duty to liberate other nations at the price of self-sacrifice, but a free nation has the right to do it, when and if it so chooses.

This right, however, is conditional. Just as the suppression of crimes does not give a policeman the right to engage in criminal activities, so the invasion and destruction of a dictatorship does not give the invader the right to establish another variant of a slave society in the conquered country.

A slave country has no national rights, but the individual rights of its citizens remain valid, even if unrecognized, and the conqueror has no right to violate them. Therefore, the invasion of an enslaved country is morally justified only when and if the conquerors establish a free social system, that is, a system based on the recognition of individual rights."

As a friend pointed out to me, her premise is collectivist: namely, that nations have collective minds and the citizens share an identical collective self-interest. "National interests" are state interests, not individual interests. Nations certainly don't have "rights." Poor Rand couldn't get beyond her own reactionary disgust of communism to make a principled application of objectivist theory to foreign policy. I do my best to guard against my own anti-communist reactionary tendencies for fear of making mistakes similar to those of Rand.

2002-10-10T22:25:00.000-04:00

A thought upon watching a young couple begin their own cold war in the frozen foods section

He looked at the cover of her book before rising to the occasion of her glare. True to the moment-- and to his enduring empiricism-- his expression propped up by the circumspect, his eyebrows shoved her between parentheses.

2002-10-10T22:13:00.000-04:00

The songs running through my head this week...

"My oh my" David Gray
"Damaged goods" Gang of Four
"Ever fallen in love" The Buzzcocks
"Nothing man" Bruce Springsteen
"Jesse's girl" Rick Springfield
"Belladonna" Stevie Nicks
"Watch me fall" Uncle Tupelo
"Hard-core troubadour" Steve Earle
"Alice" Tom Waits

2002-10-03T22:36:00.000-04:00

"Is my passion perfect?"
"No. Do it once again."

According to the teachings of the Kaballah, most humans have a "soul-mate", meant to designate "the other half of ourselves, the one person who makes us whole, who fits us perfectly, who allows us to become the human being we were meant to be". Similarly, the Zohar describes the uniting of soul-mates as a miracle greater than the parting of the Red Sea. Jewish mysticism dovetails nicely with early Christian and pagan conceptions of man's initial hermaphroditic nature, evident perhaps even in the Biblical book of Genesis. Such ideas, clearly incompatible with the institution of a powerful centralized Christian Church, dug their own graves (and the graves of those who held them) during the Christian Crusades and at the Council of Nicea.

According to the Aztecs, creation was the result of complementary opposition and conflict. Like the dialogue between two individuals, the interaction and exchange between opposites constitute a creative act...the great creator god, Ometeotl, God of Duality...Possessing both the male and female creative principles, Ometeotl was also referred to as the couple Tonacatecuhtli and Tonacacihuatl, Lord and Lady of Our Sustenance. Although Ometeotl constitutes the ultimate source of all, his and her progeny of lesser but still powerful deities perform the actual deeds of creation.

Early Mayan civilization is believed to have shared a similar belief in hermaphroditic divinity. Some scholars have even argued that the mythical image of the mermaid posits early hermaphroditic belief.

After my travels in India, I discovered very similar ideas of divinity and power-sharing in the Hindu religion-- ideas which are left open for individual exploration through tantrism.

2002-09-30T17:08:00.000-04:00

On new exhilirations

Until the end of my undergraduate career, when friends asked me where I wanted to get married, I deferred the question with a curt-- "I don't know. Dr. before Mrs." The refrain still hisses.

Undergrad and environs, I wore my loves like unwashed jeans, dirty in all the familiar places, comfortable enough for Greenspan-type "soft landing" ideals. Ideals and ideas were my forte, and falling in love almost beat good philosophy for me sometimes. But I was always in love. It was the backdrop, my smile the stage-hand. It was my drug, my religion, my ends, my means, my happiness, my dismay.

So I never thought that falling out of love could be so beautiful-- never even imagined what it might mean to lose the security of a back-drop, the warm womb of an intended end, to trade solace for satiation-- and emerge scathed with such lovely scars. The truth does set you free, but not in the way one might expect. "Rising like a phoenix from the ashes" is an appropriate description, as is Schumpeter's "creative destruction". It's the greatest liberation you never wanted; and the most amazing constant you can never properly expect. Growing virtuously into knowledge sometimes requires violating both law and custom, severing all ties to safety, to be able to come back home.

2002-09-30T13:58:00.000-04:00

Am I savage enough for Dan?

Last night, for lack of love and honor, an old friend an I decided to try and get our question answered by Dan Savage. If it gets answered, I will post a link. :)

2002-09-25T12:53:00.000-04:00

Learning to move

There is a different type of movement for each moment in one's life. As I endeavor to find the right sort of movement in the here-and-now, I find myself back at the bookshelf, searching for poetry. When all prose fails, poetry might teach us to move, trading slaughter for symbol, stopping abruptly at the tip of a tongue to begin another line, to continue metered rhyme, to say in style what we never learned to say in all seriousness.

David R. Slavitt's poem, "Change of Address", deals with leaving a too-tired love story, where the act of packing itself is studded with mementos. John Keats' "On Leaving Some Friends at an Early Hour" evokes the happiness and satisfaction of true friendship, when what is sometimes so hard to leave might be as fleeting as a wonderful night of laughter and conversation. Alan Paprill courts the typical Saturday-night, small-town disillusionment in "Leaving Home".

Yet we still tend to move cautiously, reluctant to part with a history that has yet to be interpreted. Seeking meaning, we nurture Memory. Perhaps it is as simple as the fashion of writing inscriptions above doorways through which you may never return, as in China:
"In the Tang dynasty, every successful candidate who passed the imperial examinations would have to climb up the Big Wild Goose Pagoda and wrote poems and inscriptions there. This ritual would symbolize a soaring career in the future. The fashion of writing poems and leaving inscriptions on the horizontal bars over doors and stone frame-works by successful candidates of the imperial examinations went on as far as the Ming dynasty." Likewise, when my grandmother passed away, my mother and her sister engraved lines from her favorite poetry in the woodwork of our mountainhouse. One of my better ex-boyfriends carved our initials into a tree (he still goes back to refresh them from time to time), which tempts me to think that sort of forever is enough for me.

2002-09-21T13:22:00.000-04:00

When the story is what counts.

What has ontological primacy-- the life, or the story we tell about it? Which is more true? Or is truth even the most enlightening quality to seek here? Should the real concern be whether the life or the story can be seperated in such a way as to be able to discover which one we respond to? I want to believe my ears, but what reaches them does through the medium of language, so perhaps I should rely only on my eyes. Yet I cannot be sure that there is not some translation taking place at the level of sight. I want to understand you, but I don't think you understand yourself. And since I am required to respond to your interpretations of your self, as manifested in your behavior, actions, and translations, we square circles. All this grasping makes me more uncomfortable than Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

2002-09-20T23:35:00.000-04:00

Why war is "good for the economy"

Since September 11th, the American economy has taken a slump for the worse. Some of this can be attributed to the vulnerability of an economy far too dependent on the finance industry to be called "independent" in any meaningful sense of the word. We take at face-value the fact that most Americans live on credit, yet to realize the extent to which the health of the economy depends on this same ever-expanding credit-line can be frightening. An examination of political economic history reveals why war is such a probable, almost reflexive, policy choice for the Bush administration given current economic trends.

In many ways, the 1920's economic boom resembled the boom of the Clinton era, notably an increase in "speculative mania" at all levels of the American public, reflecting the belief that a "New Economy" was replacing the old one. In his new book, Wealth and Democracy: A Political History of the American Rich, Kevin Phillips notes that many Americans in the 1920's believed that the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913 would end, or at least re-vamp, the business cycle. Similar beliefs were touted by economists who, following Greenspan's lead in the 90's, argued that the new, technology-driven, globalized economy would result in the creation of faster business cycle, with greater capacity for generating wealth and more shallow slumps with less devastating economic downturns. (For some of this reasoning, see Bob Woodward's Maestro: Greenspan's Fed and the American Boom, or take a peek at Alan Greenspan's fanclub, named, appropriately, "Get Exuberant". But an economy based on credit and a hot-rodding finance sector can promise nothing like economic stability, unless its advocates don't mind looking like car salesman.

So what happened to the heady days of "irrational exuberance"? Phillips likens the current recession to the one following the speculative mania of the 1920's, commenting, however, that the 1990s been witness to the "morphing of politics into a marketplace with barely hidden price tags" in which this trend has reached "critical mass". For students of political economy, Phillips' position appears self-evident. For disgruntled Americans watching their 401K's plummet with the tunes of Enron and Worldcom corruption and accounting scandals playing in the background, the "free market" has lost its seductive charm in the harsh, bright light of the morning-after. Yet most Americans still support Bushs' decision to go to war with Iraq. Surely this is more than a semantic misunderstanding, whereby the public thinks we haven't really been at war with Iraq for the last few years (when we, in fact, have) and takes the Bush push for "regime-change" to be another word for establishing democracy in Iraq (not likely). If Americans really feel comfortable entering a new war-- one that has little to do with the war on terrorism-- is it because they understand the economic arguments for doing so?

I'll tell you why I don't think so. In the introduction to Wealth and Democracy, Phillips warns that the new war on terrorism adds the possibility that "a US government concerned with protecting wealth may do so at the expense of democratic procedures and may try to blame terrorism rather than flawed policies for hard times". He adds to this concern the worry that what he calls the "financialization processes of the 1980's and 1990's"-- or the securitizing of so many income and debt streams, the increased electronic dependence, and the exaltation of ther stock market as the center of commerce-- vastly broaden the potential for economic terrorism and warfare. The Bush administration will surely use this threat of economic terrorism to build even closer government-business partnerships, as "national security" becomes the strange bedfellow of economic security, proving that even conservatives can be sexually libertine in some respects. Bill Moyers' interview with Phillips suggests why Bush might have an easy time with a sharply divided Congress, as it seems that both Demicans and Republicrats favor the current "plutocracy" (to borrow Phillips' decsription):

"Well, the plutocracy ... and I think we have one now.... is when money has ceased just entertaining itself with leveraged buyouts and all the stuff they did in the '80s, and really takes over politics, and takes it over on both sides when money not only talks, money screams. When you start developing philosophies in which giving a check is a First Amendment right. That's incredible." When Moyers suggests that money has always held politics hostage, Phillips replies: "What we've seen in...the '80s and '90s is that it's taken control of both parties, pretty much taken control of the culture, and controls the whole dynamics of politics". In other words, there is no reason to believe that the veil of partisan debate over economic policies will actually cloak more than shared positions and interests. (To be continued...)

2002-09-19T14:55:00.000-04:00

Musings

I always remember particular segments of my life by the music. So I'm going to do this partly for myself-- so I will remember the music that mades my "now"-- and partly for you-- because the music is excellent stuff that you should have downloaded from KaZAa if you haven't already.
1. Steve Earle and Lucinda Williams, "You're Still Standing There"
2. Afghan Whigs, "Something Hot"
3. Elvis Costello, "Alibi"
4. Marianne Faithfull, "I'm On Fire"
5. Robyn Hitchcock, "One Long Pair of Eyes"
6. Tom Waits, "Watch Her Disappear"
7. Marianne Faithfull, "Sex with Strangers"
8. The Flaming Lips, "Fight Test"
9. Tom Waits, "In Between Love"
10. Miles Davis and Thelonius Monk, "Mood Indigo"

2002-09-17T15:10:00.000-04:00

Christopher Hitchens points out that when W.H. Auden wrote his "Letter to Lord Byron", he originally considered writing to Jane Austen instead:
"You could not shock her more than she shocks me;
Beside her Joyce seems innocent as grass.
It makes me most uncomfortable to see
An English spinster of the middle class
Describe the amorous effects of "brass",
Reveal so frankly and with such sobriety
The economic basis of society."
He does her justice, eh?

2002-09-15T21:08:00.000-04:00

Anarchy, Sex, and Ursula K. Le Guin

To step into the world of Ursula K. Le Guin is to be transformed, to reside in multiple worlds and bodies, to lay bare the most indisputable assumptions of human civilization as we know it. Two challenges in particular posed by Le Guin’s work still charm my still-life nights, namely, her anarchism and her blurring of sexual boundaries. Instead of moving from an explanation of one to the other, I will examine both aspects of her work together because they are inextricably tangled. And for good reason.

Le Guin's anarchism is not the big-business or gun-heavy type, which is not to typify it as "feminine" or "soft", but only mark a few boundaries from the start. In her prefatory comments to “The Day Before The Revolution” in The Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Le Guin writes:

“Odonianism is anarchism. Not the bomb-in-the-pocket stuff, which is terrorism, whatever name it tries to dignify itself with; not the social-Darwinist economic 'libertarianism' of the far right; but anarchism, as pre-figured in early Taoist thought, and expounded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. Anarchism's principal target is the authoritarian State (capitalist or socialist); its principal moral-practical theme is cooperation (solidarity, mutual aid). It is the most idealistic, and to me the most interesting, of all political theories."

So what attracts her to anarchism is its fascination with the power relations underlying social structures and conventions. Rather than wax poetic about private defense, Le Guin prefers to place financial relations in just another category of social relations. In an interview with Nick Gevers, she described the books of The Earthsea Trilogy as "in large part, fictional studies of power". While the first three see power mostly from "the point of view of the powerful", the second three see power "from the point of view of people who have none, or have lost it, or who can see their power as one of the illusions of mortality".

Like Michel Foucault, Le Guin traces power relations through sexual and social institutions as well as the more popularly-examined political and economic institutions. This leads to an exploration of biological and political sexual roles that calls into question our current patriarchy and the constraints it imposes on our intellectual, social, and personal freedom. Le Guin thinks:
"We are so good at making life difficult for ourselves, not least by inventing almost impossible customs. Monogamous lifelong heterosexual marriage is such a peculiar institution that it hardly seems to need to be made fun of. But of course if you make marriage even harder than it is, involving four people instead of two, and homosexuality as well as heterosexuality, it gets even more interesting. At least, it does to me. But I find all cumbersome cultural constructs and customs interesting. I am an anthropologist's daughter, after all."
Defending the "sedoretu" from an attack of impracticality, Le Guin asks how monogamous heterosexual marriage is any more "practical". Isn't it only practical because we live in a society organized by institutions built around this very idea of one-man-and-one-woman-united-in-holy-patrimony? She suggests that her own forty-eight year marriage might be chalked up to "luck and a bit of practice".

Where Le Guin's position/s begin to befuddle is also where they begin to duel, sometimes even contradict, each other. For example, after saying that anarchism is "the most idealistic" and "the most interesting" political theory, she turns around to state:
"All ideals are positively dangerous. All idealists are dangerous: Pol Pot, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jefferson, Lenin, Osama Bin Laden, Francis of Assisi. What is endangered, and how it is endangered may, however, vary. And there may be a difference -- a subtle one, a crucial one -- between idealists and ideologues."
This is not a case of self-nullifying arguments-- Le Guin would be the first to admit the danger of her own ideals, as well as those of others-- but a normative question about what it might be better to risk, given an assumption of loss.Consistency doesn't compensate for a lack of substance, as I learned by listening to the political arguments favoring a war on Iraq, and the fact that many of Le Guin's works are formulated as thought-experiments excuses (maybe even explains or justifies) her decision to sacrifice consistency or transparency to what she dubs "process".

As noted by Margaret Atwood in a recent review, Ursula Le Guin usually doesn't "concoct her worlds: she finds herself in them, and then begins to explore them". In Le Guin's own words: "First to create the differences...then to let the fiery arc of human emotion leap and close the gap: this acrobatics of the imagination fascinates and satisfies me as almost no other". Like Foucault, Le Guin toys with process, with the "getting there", with the meticulate description of the path so that we might better understand why we chose it (or why it was chosen for us, or institutionalized, etc.)

Also in a manner resembling that of Foucault, teething happily on her chains, Le Guin revels in the study of that which constrains us as human beings. When asked in an interview by Slawek Wojtowicz where and when she would most like to live, Le Guin doesn't miss a beat: "Right now, right here. Why? Because this is where I am and when I am and my "being" is here and now. I think the fact that we have no choice in this matter is extremely interesting and important."

I could not agree more, and feel compelled to note the similarity between her views and that of Romanian dissident Nicu Steinhardt, whose preferred his periods of imprisonment under the communist dictatorship to the false freedom of life in the "worker's paradise". Realizing and accepting his chains helped Steinhardt overcome them mentally, or see beyond them, which is often the most precious freedom in that it depends on nothing (or little) outside of one's self. To know one's limits is to be familiar with one's limitlessness.

Let's return for a moment to the quotation in which Le Guin names her intellectual influences as early Taoist thought, and anarchism as expunded by Shelley and Kropotkin, Goldman and Goodman. The influence of Taoism should be considered in the context of her political commitment to pacifism, her intellectual commitment to understanding, and her personal commitment to fascination.
In an interview with Mother Jones Le Guin says:

"I read Lao-tzu and the Tao Te Ching at 14. My father had it around the house in the old edition with the Chinese text. I sneaked a peek and was and remain fascinated. Taoism is still an underlayer in my work. It begins talking about what we can't talk about -- an old mysticism that intertwines with Buddhism and is practical and not theistic. Before and beyond God. There's a humorous and easygoing aspect to it that I like temperamentally and that fits in with anarchism. Pacifist anarchism and Lao-tzu have a lot in connection with each other, especially in the 20th century." By flirting with mysticism, Le Guin's speculative archaeology and anthropology of possible worlds retains its fluidity.

Mary Shelley's influence, whose Frankenstein is considered by many to be the first "science fiction", is more direct, for it can be ascertained in the ethical questions teeming through Le Guin's work. Atwood remarks that Shelley's work asked a question popular to sci-fi ever since, namely, "what is the price that must be paid by Promethean Man for stealing fire from Heaven?". Insofar as this question deals with the problematics of power in human society, Le Guin's clever strategy is to disguise the problem in such incredible form that we are surprised, almost disappointed, to find how much it explains.

2002-09-15T18:17:00.000-04:00

"Your answers will count. You must show your work. Pay attention."

The sexiest short I've encountered this year, Darcy Cosper's "A Story Problem", strains the lust from an average evening with aquaintances by focusing precisely on that aspect that makes desire so amazing-- its logic. What kickstarts those dangerous thoughts that swerve around a woman's hips or a man's lips at speeds quicker than sight? By untangling the equations of heat, Cosper ventures into an algebra so profound that pinning down the variable promises no solution. We forget that 2x=4 does not solve as x=2, but rather, as x=+/-2. Cosper reveals the questions of probability plaguing the algebra of modern desire. Rather than find an answer to what turns you on, next time that hot flush puts its hand under your skirt, just go with it. Instead of fighting it, let the spaces stand for something charged...allow yourself the guilty pleasure of engaging in non-ends-directed sexual algebra. Then slip into something more comfortable.

2002-09-15T04:11:00.000-04:00

Chomsky and Intellectual Responsibility

As I get older, I find the notion of "integrity" plays a much larger role in my moral and ethical decision-making, as well as (of course) my politics. This should go without saying, yet the fact that it often does go without saying obscures the reality of why we believe we can afford to assume something which is actually so hard-earned, namely, intellectual integrity. Noam Chomsky makes a point of not living that lie that Vaclav Havel and Czeslaw Milosz warned against by stressing that discussion based on fact is the only decision-making procedure that everyone should respect. In this sense, Chomsky considers truth an emergent quality which characterizes the manner of one's investigation more than the conclusions one finally supports. For Chomsky, this thinking comes as a reaction to personal distaste for ideology and propaganda.More later...I'm sleepy

2002-09-12T13:09:00.000-04:00

The war of the cowboys

It appears as if the Bush family’s epic gunfight with Iraq enters another chapter, as President Jr. argues for “regime-change” before the UN today. Before Bush starts bombing, however, he should acknowledge the fact that the United States has a little PR problem in the rest of the world. Let me be clear: I am not arguing for a PR campaign in the Middle East to better our image—it’s too late for ad campaigns and democratic sloganeering, especially since the “collateral damage” has become harder to hide. Nor am I arguing for a smear campaign to sully what is left of Saddam’s— as the recent ABC “Primetime Thursday” interview with Saddam’s former mistress reveals all that remains of our pitiful excuse for a national debate draws its inspiration from Jerry Springer. According to excerpts from the interview, the ex-mistress provides an excellent synopsis of information about Saddam’s more salient characteristics, including that he “dyes his hair, uses herbal medicine to hide his wrinkles and occasionally takes the anti-impotence drug Viagra. The Iraqi leader favors designer suits and his favorite drink is Scotch. He likes to have milk with honey, eats gazelle meat for dinner and swims everyday to keep fit.” Apparently, Saddam’s “dark side” is closer to a Saturday afternoon in suburbia than previously thought, as he “enjoyed watching videos of his foes being tortured, sometimes wearing a cowboy hat for the occasion”. (Granted, most of the video games our children play don’t come with complementary cowboy hats—but hey—we have our presidential cowboy for that!)

2002-09-12T10:26:00.000-04:00

Who does America expect to rely on for assistance in pursuit of regime-change in Iraq? Even the Bush-friendly leadership of Pakistan refuses to get involved. A recent interview with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf revealed his concerns that “Mr. Bush's doctrine of pre-emptive strikes against hostile nations or organizations armed with nuclear, chemical or biological weapons could incite India to move against Pakistan”.

In other words, the Bush doctrine threatens further destabilization of the Middle East at a time when instability is particularly dangerous. Musharraf noted that "tensions are high”, with many people in the Islamic world and in the Middle East percieving “a U.S. role maybe biased towards Israel”. Given such circumstances, Musharraf believes that “undertaking an operation against another country, an Arab country and Muslim country, will certainly have negative repercussions." While there is always the possibility that Romania will send troops to Iraq, that isn’t saying much, since the Romanian government would fly to the moon in its sole submarine (more of a museum piece than a work of war) in search of the Holy Grail at Bush’s behest.

As Bush makes his case before the UN today, Congressional leaders will be watching for cues that might make their vote on the Iraq war fit smoothly with upcoming reelection campaigns. But the Bush administration’s declaration of war against Iraq, even if it gains Congressional approval, will do no more than legitimate a previously existing situation, since the United States launched Coalition aircraft strikes against Iraqi targets near Al Basrah and An Nukhayb as recently as the 25th, the 27th, and the 30th of August 2002 . It is no secret that the argument for “regime-change” obscures the administration’s intent to begin another nation-building experiment in the Middle East. One might even argue that this regime-change has been "necessitated" by the diverging geopolitical interests of the US and Iraq following the last regime-change, which left Saddam Hussein in power with American support.And so the circle continues-- we prop up undemocratic regimes in the name of national interests, ignoring various human rights violations, until the undemocratic regime makes a decision Uncle Sam does not like, at which point, the administration in power starts cornering this "undemocratic regime", threatening military reprisal. Meanwhile, the lamentable fact that most Americans know very little about international governments and history makes it easier for the media to create some soap-and-lozenge story about the "American mission" or "ideal". Thus, while Bush and Comp. get their war on, most of us will look the other way, since college football, the new CBS sitcom line-up, and another school year make for enticing distraction.

2002-09-12T01:43:00.000-04:00

In my secret life, where I might have been a Chomskyite (Greg, you have my confession now), I would have started my own syndicate and wandered the streets of Manchester in search of the working class life I currently lack. And, of course, this secret life would pair me with none other than Red Wedge hero Billy Bragg who would teach me to call all my friends "blokes" and all my enemies "Thatcherites", all the while alternating between reciting Biblical prophesies and the names of trade union heroes. On a perfectly muggy day, he would lean over the metro turnstile, my ticket in his hand, singing, "Those whose lives are ruled by dogma are waiting for a sign. The Better Dead Than Red Brigade are listening on the line. And the liberal, with a small L cries, in front of the TV while another demonstration passes on to history. Peace, bread, work, and freedom is the best we can achieve.And wearing badges is not enough in days like these." Then he would walk away with my ticket, dropping it nonchalantly into the outstretched fist of a heroin mother leaning against the grimy metro wall, while leaving my heart in the hands of she who least understands it. If you find yourself aching for a good working-class hero in these troubled times, seek out fellow blokes at Billy's show in DC on October 21st at the 9:30 Club . I might be there too-- waiting for a sign from one of my kind....