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News From Elsewhere
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Wynton Marsalis presents the Faubourg Treme Documentary Projectwww.tremedoc.com
Posted: May 12th, 2008, 12:26pm EDT by (author unknown)
In the Faubourg Treme the sit-ins began in the 1800s, the Harlem Renaissance started before the Civil War and the roots of jazz music and Creole cuisine were being nurtured every Sunday in Congo Square. Faubourg Treme is a historical documentary film about the enduring legacy of this incredible New Orleans neighborhood. -
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Great tits cope well with warmingnews.bbc.co.uk
Posted: May 9th, 2008, 8:13pm EDT by (author unknown)
Great tits in Britain seem to be adapting to climatic change, scientists report, unlike some other birds.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Why I love Rock and Roll
Posted: May 9th, 2008, 2:21pm EDT by Phineas
The other night we went out to dinner at a local Mexican restaurant. They were playing these mournful Mexican ballads and the service was really slow. The music was endless moaning and wailing, it started to seem like a ghost in a haunted house. We came home and put on rock and roll and played scrabble.
You see, rock and roll just doesn’t fuck with you like those Mexican ballads do. Rock and roll is there for you. It’s like your bad friend who mocks your soft middle class ways and takes you out on an adventure. Before your night is through, you look like Frankenfurter and the cops and the mafia are after you.
This is why I love Rock and Roll.
Phineas Foo, Age 45.
News From Elsewhere
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The Arcturuswww.thearcturus.com
Posted: May 9th, 2008, 1:41pm EDT by (author unknown)
Shared by phineas
Bears, songs & vids. And Bears. And stars. -
Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?www.simulation-argument.com
Posted: May 8th, 2008, 7:53pm EDT by (author unknown)
Are You Living in a Computer Simulation?www.simulation-argument.com -
Fox's Faux Populism vs A Shadow Elite--Pt. 1Open Left - Front Page
Posted: May 3rd, 2008, 2:56pm EDT by Paul Rosenberg
Yesterday, at DKos, No one could have predicted..., Kagro X noted how Clinton and Obama's appearances on Fox were covered by the LA Times ("Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton embrace Fox News") and the NY Times ("Democrats and Fox News Make Friends"). Particularly noteworthy was the LA Times deck: "Both Democratic contenders have stepped up their appearances, reaching out for swing voters who might be watching the populist-oriented channel."Kargo X noted:
Populist-oriented?
Oh, my head!
But hey, no one could have predicted that Fox would use these appearances for PR purposes, right?
So there you have it. For everyone who was so sure this was brilliant, because the candidates were "reaching out," apparently we forgot that the traditional media would still have an opportunity to define for America to whom they were reaching out. Fans of the candidates assured us that it was (pick one): 1) swing voters; 2) open-minded conservatives (ha!), or; 3) people who had lost their TV remotes. But gosh darn it if the Fox PR machine hasn't schooled us all. It was populists! Which means both Clinton and Obama -- and all Democrats, by extension -- are elitists.
While the notion of Fox News as "populist" is a ludicrous rightwing perversion in one sense, it is quite accurate in another sense we dare not ignore--and that is, quite simply, that it reflects the truest test of elite power--the ability to define the essential contours of populist thought, and to cast someone else as the dreaded "elite".
This is a very old game, and it's way past time we got a better handle on it. Before getting into any sort of messy details, it's important to note--ala my diary two weeks ago, "The Ontology of Snark: A Prelude"--that there's a common ego defense mechanism in play here:
- Displacement: Defence mechanism that shifts sexual or aggressive impulses to a more acceptable or less threatening target; redirecting emotion to a safer outlet; separation of emotion from its real object and redirection of the intense emotion toward someone or something that is less offensive or threatening in order to avoid dealing directly with what is frightening or threatening. For example, a mother may yell at her child because she is angry with her husband.
Real, actual conservative elites have been using displacement as a stock in trade for millenia, creating ghost elites for unwitting populists to misdirect their anger at. It was virtually inevitable that Obama's "new politics" of "change" would be targetted with this ancient charge. It was not inevitable that it would have such a weak response. But, then, the consultant class that crafted it really is part and parcel of the Versailles elite. So what could we expect?
A little historical consciousness, perhaps?
Elites Create Their Demon OthersIt's relatively easy for an elite to create a "shadow" elite, meaning something akin "shadow" in the Jungian sense of the unacknowledged dark side of the self. The mass of people resent the elite for things the elite cannot admit or accept about itself--above all, the arbitrariness and injustice of its position in the world--and so it projects its shadow onto another group. Because this involves disowning something fundamental of itself, the mechanism involved for the elite is more projective identification than projection, per se:
Projective identification is used to project the bad object into (not onto) another person so it becomes a part of that person.
The person then identifies with that other person, and hence has means to control them.
The person projected into may consequently be pressured to behave congruently with the projective phantasy.
This description captures quite well the enormous investment of time, energy and money we see on behalf of conservatives pushing the meme of "liberal elites", and devising various ways of getting "liberals" to act out their appointed roles. In his new book, Great American Hypocrites: Toppling The Big Myths of Republican Politics (interview here, review here), Glenn Greenwald focuses long-overdue attention on the most salient aspect of this shadow-projection dynamic as it applies to presidential politics.
As I noted in my review:
Greenwald begins by noting a striking disconnect--on the one hand, voters broadly favor Democratic Party positions over Republican ones across a wide range of issue, but on the other hand, Republicans have won more elections. The reason?
- The most important factor, by far, is that the Republican Party has used the same set of personality smears and mythical psychological and cultural imagery to win elections. These myths and smears are amplified by the rightwing noise machine and mindlessly adopted by the establishment media. Right-wing leaders are inflated into heroic cultural icons, while Democrats are demonized as weak and hapless losers. These personality-based myths overwhelm substantive discussions and consideration of the issues.
For most of us deeply immersed in the blogosphere, who see examples of this pointed out and discussed virtually every day, this may not seem like such a striking revelation. But even seeing it on a daily basis doesn't mean that we fully appreciate its significance. To the contrary, we're so immersed in it that it's difficult to put into perspective. This is, to my knowledge, the first book to argue that character attacks on Democrats and contrasting idealization of Republicans constitute a core explanation for Republican electoral success over the past three decades. It's this central thesis that gives Greenwald's book a larger significance that deserves attention from everyone concerned about politics, including dedicated policy wonks.
Greenwald's book is still too new for his thesis to have fully gelled, but here I am going a step further, to argue that it's but one facet--albeit a very important one--of a much larger, much longer-lasting dynamic, in which the internal contradictions of elite rule are largely managed via projective identification onto shadow elites, who then become the ongoing subjects for ritualized displacement of populist discontent.
This pattern--dependent as it is on basic pyschological mechanisms and group social dynamics--almost certainly goes back far beyond the beginnings of recorded human history. It certainly played an important role throughout the centuries in the European elites' use of Jewish agents to take on various roles that drew particular animosity from the masses. Similarly, throughout the British Empire it was a common practice to use minority ethnic groups to enforce and administer policies over larger ethnic groups, thus shielding the British, while fueling inter-ethnic hostility.
A particularly significant watershed in Western political history was the French Revolution, which apologists for the deposed aristocracy blamed on a wholly imaginary anti-Christian, secular humanist elite--the notorious Bavarian Illuminati, who had been disbanded a decade earlier, and who, of course, operated in Bavaria and other German states, not France. So popular was this narrative among reactionary--and even merely conservative elites--that it even spread to America as the Federalists lost power in reaction to their tyrannical over-reach epitomized by the Alien and Sedition Acts. The myth of the Illuminati has in turn informed countless different forms of conspiracy theory throughout American history.
What the Illuminati mythos did for aristocratic elites was explain away the popular unrest with their incompetent rule, which was most extremely evidenced by the French Revolution. According to the implicit logic of the mythos, there was nothing whatsoever wrong aristocratic rule, blessed as it was by God and the Church. All the apparent problems were the results of scheming by a hidden hierarchy which was the very mirror image of the visible hierarchy, and organized with the express purpose of overhtrowing it. Such a tale functioned to (a) deny the reality of social and economic ills, (b) deny the capacity of ordinary people to think and act on their own perceptions and analyses of the misrule they suffered under, (c) deny the legitimacy of any proposed new political order based on bottom-up consent of the governed, as opposed to top-down "divine right."
Over time, of course, conspiracy theories have served a wide range of different purposes, sometimes even nominally progressive ones. Yet, they always involve an appeal to hidden forces of great, unfathomable power, which is itself a recipie for irrational modes of thought and disempowered political stances, which are ripe for exploitation by powerful others--particularly the actually existing (as opposed to shadow) elites.
Constucting America's Racial Order
Clearly, one cannot talk about Barack Obama's presidential bid without talking about race. All efforts to do so have clearly now come to grief. Roger Wilkin's book, Jefferson's Pillow: The Founding Fathers and the Dilemma of Black Patriotism contains an instructive account of the origins of Virginia's social order, centered around Bacon's Rebellion (1676), which in turn has a central place in shaping the whole nation's racial order.
Prior to this brief uprising, Virginia was still a rather fluid society, whose upper echelon had only recently clawed its way to the top. When a variety of factors led to open rebellion, with Nathaniel Bacon at its head, there was a broad alliance of those left out of power--freemen with poor prospects, indentured servants and slaves, all of whom were relatively close in social standing, since slavery was neither permanent, hereditary, nor identical with being black. Bacon's rebellion fizzled out after Bacon died of dysentary, but the elite was justifiably shaken, and undertook a two-fold strategy to prevent a recurrence.
On the one hand, it sought to culturally define itself as superior, by adopting a culture oriented around classical Greece and Rome, requiring either tutors imported from England, or else the transport of young men to England for their education there. By itself, this would only serve to intensify the sense of difference and stoke populist hostility. The other side, however, had the opposite effect: blacks were utterly shut out of the white social order, condemned to permanent slavery as a hereditary condition. By marking the black as totally others, totally beyond the pale, the elites could now portray themselves as quintessentially white, and therefore necessarily immune to populist hatred, since hating them meant hating yourself as a white person.
Walters writes:
Interestingly, just as poor whites were being invited by the lords of the colony to join a sort of white social club, the actual social distance between them and the rich was widening. They would be explicitly reminded oftheir lower status by the increaing rigidities being constructed into the social system and by the barriers developed to protext the positon of holders of power and privilege. As social mobility decreased, personal frustration grew. The rage inspired by the personal suspicion of not being good enough to reach the top--a rage that might otherwise be transformed by a skillfull demagogue into rebellious impulses--was now directed at the "others" whose manifest failures were even greater than those of the lower-class whites. Poor whites were thus given two things by the new system: a floor of failure below which they could not fall, and human targets at whom they could direct their own self-loathing.
In this manner, social and economic conservatism were both inscribed into the contours of White southern populism. And just because their own elites were off-limits for hatred, this didn't mean that southern populists had no elite hatred--rather, such hatred was reserved for the elite rivals of their own elites--be they northern merchants or the monopolistic powers of the British East India Company. Over the centuries, this basic structuring has been updated a number of times, but never fundamentally altered. The actual ruling conservative elites are "organically" connected to the white masses by their whiteness/conservative identity. The blacks are the repositories for the shadows of the white masses--their phantasies of lawlessness, rebellion and moral depravity. Foreigners and Northern elites are repositories for the shadows of the white elites--their denied realities of lawlessness, rebellion and moral depravity.
Back To The Present
The foregoing is admittedly only a rough sketch, but it's enough to see the broad outline of this current minidrama in historical terms. The conservative hegemony of the past several decades, finally bursting all bounds of restraint, has produced an unmitigated disaster the likes of which our country hasn't seen since the GOP was last fully in charge, under Herbert Hoover. The degree of misrule is at least broadly comparable to the failures of the French monarchy in the late 18th Century, and Bush's record disapproval ratings--over 70 percent--despite continued fawning attention by the Versailles media is both evidence of that and a striking warning of regime change to come. The actually existing elite is thus highly motivated to rev up all its mechanisms of blame-shifting to the shadow elite, which is precisely what we have been seeing over the past several weeks.
Failing to comprehend this dynamic, Obama has walked right into the rhetorical trap of seeking absolution from the Faux populists. He will either have to wise up fast, or face the prospects of an incredible intensified recapitulation of every move that's ever been used against shadow elites for the past 200+ years.
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Was Moses on Drugs?Breaking News
Posted: May 2nd, 2008, 2:32pm EDT by (author unknown)
Source: http://www.bitsofnews.com (3-26-08)
Professor Benny Shanon of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has written a paper arguing that Moses, the Jewish prophet, was on drugs. Shanon argues that Moses was on Ayahuasca, a mixture of the Acacia tree and harmal plant in conjunction. He argues this based on some very easily obtainable facts. In South America, shamans take a mixture of chemicals as Ayahuasca, a different mix than available in the Middle East, to generate mystical experience. The writer, Professor Shanon, a professor of psychiatry, himself has experienced the kind of highs that are obtainable from this particular drug and in conjunction with other anecdotal evidence, he suggests that lots of the experiences of this type of drug convince those who take it that they are speaking to God or to approaching death. This particular drug creates an impression which is incredibly impressive for the taker but the point is that Shanon doesn't produce any evidence within literature or from studies for this, just the evidence of anecdotal impression.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Day of the International Solidarity of Workers
Posted: May 1st, 2008, 12:42pm EDT by Phineas
Well it’s May 1, Day of the International Solidarity of Workers, so be sure and find some way to stick it to the man when you can, and spend a little time with The Internationale.
News From Elsewhere
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Report: Chinese factory producing "Free Tibet" flags for exportBoing Boing
Posted: April 30th, 2008, 8:34pm EDT by Xeni Jardin
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Albert Hofmann, LSD inventor, RIPBoing Boing
Posted: April 29th, 2008, 2:26pm EDT by David Pescovitz
Albert Hofmann, who first synthesized Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), has passed away. He was 102 years-old.
"I believe that if people would learn to use LSD's vision-inducing capability more wisely, under suitable conditions, in medical practice and in conjunction with meditation, then in the future this problem child could become a wonderchild." -- Albert Hofmann (1906-2008)
Link to Wikipedia article, Link to Hoffman.org (Thanks, Wayne de Geere III!)
UPDATE: News of Hofmann's death may have been greatly exaggerated. But boy, that's sure a great quote and we're happy Dr. Hofmann still seems to be riding his mental bike around Switzerland.
UPDATE: Over at The Stranger's blog, Dominic Holden says that the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies has confirmed Hofmann's death. Link (Thanks, NaFun!)
UPDATE: The fine folks at Erowid have also confirmed. Apparently, Hofmann died this morning of a heart attack. Link
UPDATE: And an obituary from The Telegraph. Link
The Fever Of Phineas
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Ouch
Posted: April 28th, 2008, 2:40pm EDT by Phineas
That 6 mile hike, 2000 elevation gain along steep gravelly trails around Mt Diablo (Eagle Peak) that I took yesterday today has me questioning the wisdom of my new standup desk configuration.
News From Elsewhere
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Hundreds of Iraq schemes 'failed'BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition
Posted: April 27th, 2008, 11:30pm EDT by (author unknown)
An audit of US-funded reconstruction for Iraq finds millions of dollars were wasted on incomplete projects.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Der Golem
Posted: April 26th, 2008, 2:18pm EDT by Phineas
Last night I saw the great film The Golem: How He Came Into the World at the Castro Theater in SF. It was scored by Black Francis which made it all the more amazing. The film is incredible — the set designs, the costumes, every visual aspect was just memerizing. Frank Black’s original songs and live performance were awesome. The emcee felt obliged/permitted to make what he must have thought were clever witticisms throughout the film. Really lame, un-comic material like “this scene is on youtube — heh heh.” Really stupid and annoying. That created this goofy atmosphere of incessant chuckling. This being the San Francisco International Film Festival, I would have expected a more reverent tone. We’re here to celebrate cinema, not make fun of things which are unfamiliar to us. OK, maybe the Castro is not where you go to be reverent, but still laughing at an outmoded style of acting, treating everything as camp is so missing the point of that specific movie. It’s an intelligent, thoughtful, beautiful film, not some silly relic from Grandma’s memento chest.
But all in all it was a really cool venue and great film and a fun way to see it. This makes the fourth time I’ve seen Mr. Black perform, I’m slightly embarassed to say.
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Cinema Annoyances
Posted: April 25th, 2008, 4:03pm EDT by Phineas
Two for the “Cinema” category of “Pet Peeves”:
1) you know the thing where they show you a thing for a second, then fade to back real fast, then show you a thing, then fade to black real soon, over and over? Often times its a really interesting visual — you really want to see it, but they fade to black almost as soon as they show it to you. You know that effect? I hate that effect. Please make them stop doing that. If they think it makes you more curious, it doesn’t. It mainly makes me pissed off. It suggests to me that far from having anything interesting to show, they have nothing interesting to show, so they make uninteresting things seem important by taking them away from you. Sort of creating a scarcity of image, creating a demand by leaving you wanting more. I see it as cliched, uninspired, a trick to deceive you into believing there’s more where that came from, a tease. The more they do it, the more pissed off I become.
2) Really, really dark scenes. Perhaps it’s night time. Perhaps we’re in a dark room. Perhaps its some sort of dreamland or outerspace, but the filmmaker decides what’s really required is a really dimly lit scene. Newsflash: a dimly lit scene does not evoke darkness. It does not create or sustain an illusion of darkness. It diminishes any illusion at all — what I see in a dimly lit scene is my own living room, which is very far from being ominous or suspenseful. I see my own shape on the sofa, my own bowl of potato chips. I see a reminder to do some situps. I don’t care if you are David Lynch or Andrei Tarkovsky or Ingmar Bergman or the Coen brothers: dimly lit, dark scenes absolutely do not achieve the apparently desired effect.
News From Elsewhere
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Grounds of Jeff Davis homestead open to the publicBreaking News
Posted: April 24th, 2008, 12:52am EDT by (author unknown)
Source: http://www.sunherald.com (4-8-08)
BILOXI --Forty visitors showed up for the unannounced soft opening of the grounds of Beauvoir on Monday, and by 10 a.m. this morning there was another dozen waiting to take what the museum staff calls the "disaster tour."
Just the grounds, not the National Landmark 1850s Beauvoir House, is open to the public until the grand reopening of the restored house on the June 3 birthday of Jefferson Davis. -
Bear gave off no reasons for concern before trainer's deathSFGate: Bay Area News Stories
Posted: April 23rd, 2008, 9:15am EDT by (author unknown)
The grizzly bear that wrestled Will Ferrell's character in the recent film "Semi-Pro" seemed to obediently follow cues _ which made its killing of its trainer with a bite to the neck all the more stunning. Three experienced handlers were working with the... -
Tomgram: 12 Reasons to Get Out of IraqTomDispatch
Posted: April 20th, 2008, 3:55pm EDT by Tom Engelhardt
Unraveling Iraq 12 Answers to Questions No One Is Bothering to Ask about Iraq
By Tom EngelhardtCan there be any question that, since the invasion of 2003, Iraq has been unraveling? And here's the curious thing: Despite a lack of decent information and analysis on crucial aspects of the Iraqi catastrophe, despite the way much of the Iraq story fell off newspaper front pages and out of the TV news in the last year, despite so many reports on the "success" of the President's surge strategy, Americans sense this perfectly well. In the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll, 56% of Americans "say the United States should withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties" and this has, as the Post notes, been a majority position since January 2007, the month that the surge was first announced. Imagine what might happen if the American public knew more about the actual state of affairs in Iraq -- and of thinking in Washington. So, here, in an attempt to unravel the situation in ever-unraveling Iraq are twelve answers to questions which should be asked far more often in this country:
1. Yes, the war has morphed into the U.S. military's worst Iraq nightmare: Few now remember, but before George W. Bush launched the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, top administration and Pentagon officials had a single overriding nightmare -- not chemical, but urban, warfare. Saddam Hussein, they feared, would lure American forces into "Fortress Baghdad," as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld labeled it. There, they would find themselves fighting block by block, especially in the warren of streets that make up the Iraqi capital's poorest districts.
When American forces actually entered Baghdad in early April 2003, however, even Saddam's vaunted Republican Guard units had put away their weapons and gone home. It took five years but, as of now, American troops are indeed fighting in the warren of streets in Sadr City, the Shiite slum of two and a half million in eastern Baghdad largely controlled by Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army militia. The U.S. military, in fact, recently experienced its worst week of 2008 in terms of casualties, mainly in and around Baghdad. So, mission accomplished -- the worst fear of 2003 has now been realized.
2. No, there was never an exit strategy from Iraq because the Bush administration never intended to leave -- and still doesn't: Critics of the war have regularly gone after the Bush administration for its lack of planning, including its lack of an "exit strategy." In this, they miss the point. The Bush administration arrived in Iraq with four mega-bases on the drawing boards. These were meant to undergird a future American garrisoning of that country and were to house at least 30,000 American troops, as well as U.S. air power, for the indefinite future. The term used for such places wasn't "permanent base," but the more charming and euphemistic "enduring camp." (In fact, as we learned recently, the Bush administration refuses to define any American base on foreign soil anywhere on the planet, including ones in Japan for over 60 years, as permanent.) Those four monster bases in Iraq (and many others) were soon being built at the cost of multibillions and are, even today, being significantly upgraded. In October 2007, for instance, National Public Radio's defense correspondent Guy Raz visited Balad Air Base, north of Baghdad, which houses about 40,000 American troops, contractors, and Defense Department civilian employees, and described it as "one giant construction project, with new roads, sidewalks, and structures going up across this 16-square-mile fortress in the center of Iraq, all with an eye toward the next few decades."
These mega-bases, like "Camp Cupcake" (al-Asad Air Base), nicknamed for its amenities, are small town-sized with massive facilities, including PXs, fast-food outlets, and the latest in communications. They have largely been ignored by the American media and so have played no part in the debate about Iraq in this country, but they are the most striking on-the-ground evidence of the plans of an administration that simply never expected to leave. To this day, despite the endless talk about drawdowns and withdrawals, that hasn't changed. In fact, the latest news about secret negotiations for a future Status of Forces Agreement on the American presence in that country indicates that U.S. officials are calling for "an open-ended military presence" and "no limits on numbers of U.S. forces, the weapons they are able to deploy, their legal status or powers over Iraqi citizens, going far beyond long-term U.S. security agreements with other countries."
3. Yes, the United States is still occupying Iraq (just not particularly effectively): In June 2004, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), then ruling the country, officially turned over "sovereignty" to an Iraqi government largely housed in the American-controlled Green Zone in Baghdad and the occupation officially ended. However, the day before the head of the CPA, L. Paul Bremer III, slipped out of the country without fanfare, he signed, among other degrees, Order 17, which became (and, remarkably enough, remains) the law of the land. It is still a document worth reading as it essentially granted to all occupying forces and allied private companies what, in the era of colonialism, used to be called "extraterritoriality" -- the freedom not to be in any way subject to Iraqi law or jurisdiction, ever. And so the occupation ended without ever actually ending. With 160,000 troops still in Iraq, not to speak of an unknown number of hired guns and private security contractors, the U.S. continues to occupy the country, whatever the legalities might be (including a UN mandate and the claim that we are part of a "coalition"). The only catch is this: As of now, the U.S. is simply the most technologically sophisticated and potentially destructive of Iraq's proliferating militias -- and outside the fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, it is capable of controlling only the ground that its troops actually occupy at any moment.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Paris 1991
Posted: April 20th, 2008, 12:36am EDT by Phineas
Rain drops smack upon the boulevard
roof tiles crackle in the sun
I don’t think I’ll ever go so far
as I did in Paris in 1991I don’t know who was President
I don’t know what war we were in
but it was all going on
in Paris in 1991
The Parisians were so busy
and the tourists were so busy
and the immigrants were so busy
but me I had a revelation
in Paris in 1991
You ain’t seen Paris
unless you saw Paris
in 1991 -
Bitterness
Posted: April 16th, 2008, 1:07pm EDT by Phineas
OK, at the risk of participating in the echo chamber of non-issues, I’ll enter the guns/religion/bitter/elitist fray to make one small remark.
The second amendment provides the right of the people to bear arms. People who own and use guns do so thanks to this amendment. People who feel very strongly about often argue that this right is to protect them against the government among other threats. People who make such arguments generally do not think well of the government if they feel the need to defend themselves against it with weapons.
So to suggest such people are bitter about the failure of government and as a response cling to weapons is not elitist, but is perfectly in line with this very same line of reasoning that some gun owners themselves make, none of whom are ever accused of being “elitist”.
News From Elsewhere
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British pub tradition in trouble?Breaking News
Posted: April 15th, 2008, 2:34pm EDT by (author unknown)
Source: International Herald Tribune (4-14-08)
Dr. Johnson declared a tavern seat "the throne of human felicity." The Frenchman Hilaire Belloc, who spent his life in England, said: "When you have lost your inns, drown your empty selves. For you will have lost the last of England."...
Some say the pub is in crisis. A few years ago, The Guardian reported that for the first time since the Norman Conquest fewer than half the villages of England have a pub. Chains of horrendous corporate-owned "vertical drinking establishments" — giant Identikit bars — threaten the real pubs, and the real pubs are mostly owned by equally horrendous "pubcos," companies invented to dodge laws against brewing monopolies. Yet somehow real ale, championed by Camra (the Campaign for Real Ale), and real pubs do survive.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Racer 5
Posted: April 13th, 2008, 2:27am EDT by Phineas
O hai.
A six of Racer 5 is awesome!
Thanks!
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Straw Dogs
Posted: April 7th, 2008, 5:15pm EDT by Phineas
Just watched the movie Straw Dogs (1971) with Dustin Hoffman. An amazing, intense and strange movie. Hoffman plays an American mathmetician married to a young British woman who relocate to her tiny village so he can work on a book. It’s a gothic sort of thing with these ominous menacing local characters in the town and working on repairing the couple’s garage roof.
The centerpiece of the film is a horrifying rape scene in which two of the workers rape the wife while the husband is away on a hunting expedition. The rape involves one man who believes that he loves her, and that they share an intimate history. As he rapes her, she fights back and resists, but clearly expresses contradictory responses. She responds with apparent pleasure in between fits of struggling and unequivocal resistance. This is obviously a source of controversy. The second worker intrudes upon the scene, and after the first one finishes, the second one rapes her. This rape appears to shock even the first rapist, and the woman this time screams and resists with no ambiguity of response.
So you have a really shocking sequence — a “good” rapist and a “bad” rapist. The “good” one sort of deluded himself into thinking he had a right to her body, that the experience was sexual and not violent, that he cared about her and she cared about him. That “bad” rapist was more of a classic violent act.
Dramatizations of rape in film are obviously fraught with complications. What’s the right way to do it, if at all? I thought it was incredible that Peckinpah was willing to dramatize it this way. A gang rape is not one crime, it’s multiple crimes. And each crime has its own kind of violence. Morally we wish to make no such distinctions. To draw out such distinctions is rare and daring and frankly dangerous.
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Quotes
Posted: April 6th, 2008, 5:15pm EDT by Phineas
People place quotes from other people on their email templates. They put quotes on bumper stickers. Authors sometimes place quotes at the beginning of a poem or a chapter, to prepare the reader for the upcoming themes. It’s neat to learn what famous people have previously said. Einstein said, “God does not play dice.” Neat.
The problem with quotes is that they are removed from context. In removing them from the original context, the suggestion is that the person attributed said this thing. That this thing actually represents their position, their opinion, their belief system. It’s a timeless characterization of that person. It’s an assertion. That that person is endorsing whatever position you are using it to represent on your own behalf.
Some quotes are not really quotes. I’m reminded of something Jimi Hendrix once said. He said, “Scuse me, while I kiss the sky.” Oh he said that did he? He authored it, but he did not “say” it, any more than Shakespeare “said” “Et tu, Brutus?” That kind of quote is the weakest, lamest, most dishonest kind of quote there is. It is also very likely the most ubiquitous. Did Einstein actually “say” “God does not play dice”? Or was that line part of a larger exposition towards a specific point made in specific phase of a debate? He’s not telling you that God does not play dice.
Some people list quotations. Some people think having a web page listing lots of quotes is something. They believe that they have compiled actual knowledge or wisdom. They have not. It’s not something. It’s nothing at all.
News magazines do a really annoying thing. They have a page where they show you the quote in bold, then in italics, have this little paragraph explaining the context. It’s a strange way of reading. It’s like telling a punch line of a joke, then telling the setup. Why not reverse the order? On this day in this setting this person said this thing? Why be so cute about it?
I conclude with a quote from a great author people love to quote, Kurt Vonnegut.
“Some people are assholes.” — Kurt Vonnegut*
*I don’t know the source, but I’m sure he must have said it on more than one occassion. -
Ruper Sheldrake Stabbed At Conference
Posted: April 3rd, 2008, 5:33pm EDT by Phineas
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Stuff Some People Like
Posted: April 2nd, 2008, 12:50pm EDT by Phineas
I won’t go so far as to say I “hate” Stuff White People Like.
And that’s saying something cause I hate just about everything, especially if it’s a website.But I find it rather weak and unfunny. It supposedly skewers a class of people not used to being viewed or treated as a class. However, it’s overly reliant on a single concept, pivoting on that single word “white”. Obviously, simple math tells us that not all white people like all of these things, many white people dislike many of these things; many non-white people do like some of these things; and not all non-white people like many of these things.
Therefore a more accurate wording would be “Stuff some people like.” Just swapping that single word out instantly deflates the humor of the site.
Here’s a simple aid to that end:
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What you know, and what you don’t know.
Posted: April 1st, 2008, 6:23pm EDT by Phineas
There’s what you know, and what you don’t know, and how you feel about it.
I feel pretty good about what I know. I know a lot of stuff. Tons of stuff I’ve learned or observed or memorized, almost all of it basically or potentially useful. Of course, it happens that something you think you know turns out to be wrong, or flawed or incomplete. Often the discovery that you were wrong about something sucks, or is embarrassing or whatever. But for me, most of the time, I’m pretty OK with revising my knowledge. It’s a pleasure to learn. And being open minded about correcting one’s errors makes you smarter and wiser and more confident in what you do know, or think you know. It’s been vetted, through this continual process of discovery and revision. Stubborn mindedness is a problem not only because it’s unpleasant for other people to deal with, but also because it means the compendium of knowledge you’ve acquired is highly suspect. It has not been vetted, so you’re likely to have incorrect, unchallenged propositions resting upon other incorrect propositions, resulting a really skewed and probably stupid world view.
So, hurray for the curious, and onions to the stubborn and stupid.
Then there’s what you don’t know. I feel really, really bad about what I don’t know. I hate feeling ignorant. I hate it when my ignorance is perceptible by others. I hate that struggling sensation when you try to understand something but it’s just beyond your ability. Like when you’re learning a new skill — a foreign language or a programming language or how to fix your plumbing. I hate when I find myself dependent on others to do something I feel I ought to be able to do myself (like hiring a plumber or asking a friend how to tune your computer). This problem is the bane of my career. I know a lot of shit, but no matter how much you know, there’s so much more to learn that other people already have. I spend a lot of time researching, preparing, planning so I will go to meetings ready. I can wing it a lot of the time because a lot of the time I’m in my area of expertise. But it often happens there’s overlap, and there’s all that stuff I know plus one thing I don’t that the other people do. I often feel like I didn’t get the memo. Frustrating.
I suppose it would probably be better to be more OK with what I don’t know, seeing as there’s a whole universe of stuff I don’t know and never will. Maybe other people are aware of what they don’t know and are OK with it. I could learn from them. But I’m suspicious of people who go too easy on themselves in this department.
News From Elsewhere
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What did Da Vinci look like?Boing Boing
Posted: April 1st, 2008, 1:01pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder
This was one of my favorite talks at Ted. It's only four minutes long.Siegfried Woldhek knows faces -- he's drawn more than 1,100 of them. Using sophisticated image analysis and his own skills as an artist, he's come up with a fascinating discovery about Leonardo Da Vinci.
LinkLeonardo Da Vinci's life and work is well known -- but his own face is not. Woldhek used some thoughtful image-analysis techniques to find what he believes is the true face of Leonardo. Here, he walks viewers through exactly how he did it.
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Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Clergy Speak Out Against The War On DrugsCommon Sense for Drug Policy RSS Feed
Posted: March 31st, 2008, 8:10am EDT by Doug McVay
Common Sense for Drug Policy Chairman Mike Gray, an author and film maker, in cooperation with the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, has created a documentary titled "Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Clergy Speak Out Against The War On Drugs." -
Al Jaffee profile in NY TimesBoing Boing
Posted: March 30th, 2008, 12:10pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder
The New York Times has a loving profile of Mad magazine idiot gang member, Al Jaffee, who at age 87, recently completed his 400th Mad Fold-in!
Link | Interactive Fold-In gallery (Thanks, Coop!)
“When he brings in fold-ins now, a lot of times, it’s, ‘Geez, this guy’s painting better than ever,’ ” said John Ficarra, Mad’s editor.
And Sam Viviano, the art director, seems in awe of Mr. Jaffee’s old-school technique. “I think part of the brilliance of the fold-in is lost on younger generations who are so used to Photoshop and being able to do stuff like that on the computer,” he said. “It’s matching the colors and keeping the sense of what exists at two levels, the original image and the folded-in image. We’ve never actually known anyone else who could do that.”
Mr. Jaffee does have a computer, but its main benefit, he said, has been to make the typographic tricks in the fold-in easier to create. He doesn’t draw with it, which leads to another surprise: the master of the fold-in never actually folds.
“I’m working on a hard, flat board,” he said. “I cannot fold it. That’s why my planning has to be so correct.”
“The computer would make it so much simpler,” he added. “But I think I’m going to remain a dinosaur.”
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Journey + Heart + Cheap Trick at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View on 27 Sep 2008Last.fm Events - System Recommendations For PhineasFoo
Posted: March 28th, 2008, 3:44am EDT by (author unknown)
Location: 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View 94043, United States
The Fever Of Phineas
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U.S. Soldiers Bathroom Graffiti
Posted: March 27th, 2008, 12:03pm EDT by Phineas
Steve Featherstone reports on bathroom graffiti on bases in Afghanistan and Iraq.
( link )
News From Elsewhere
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Soldiers Sound Off with Latrine GraffitiNPR Programs: The Bryant Park Project
Posted: March 27th, 2008, 8:49am EDT by (author unknown)
While on assignment in Afghanistan, Steve Featherstone began taking pictures of latrine walls at an airbase in Kuwait, not far from the border with Iraq. The images, he says, are a rare glimpse into the minds of U.S. soldiers.
» E-Mail This » Add to Del.icio.us
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Coop's paintbloggingBoing Boing
Posted: March 26th, 2008, 3:42pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder
The supremely talented Coop is working on a new painting, and he's letting his blog readers in on his work process and thoughts. Fascinating stuff. I wish more artists would do this.
This painting has been a particularly strange beast, fighting me every step of the way, and revealing itself in unexpected ways. It is now almost completely different in composition that the day I started to apply paint to canvas, one of the major surprises being the most recent step. The line art that first became a stencil, then this Napthol Crimson overlay, was not part of the original plan at all. Strangest of all, it wasn't until I drew the original drawing of "Lil' Mort," that I realized what the subject of the painting was in the first place. When I realized that it was what it was, everything else fell into place. I felt like a safe cracker, listening through a stethoscope as the tumblers fell behind the steel door, locks clanking open to reveal... what exactly? I still don't know. This painting isn't finished yet, though everyone who has seen it so far seems to think that it is complete. I still have at least two major steps to go, one of which will completely change the way the painting looks right now.
LinkWeird, huh? Strange as it might sound, this is all part and parcel of the creative process, and after 20+ years of doing this for a living, it is the only part that still excites me.
The Fever Of Phineas
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Château Briot Bordeaux 2005
Posted: March 25th, 2008, 4:40pm EDT by Phineas
Wine Spectator | Editors Picks | Daily Wine Picks | Under $15 | Château Briot Bordeaux 2005
Mmmm, “lead pencil aromas”. For those with a pica-influenced palate, such as myself…
News From Elsewhere
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Barack Obama Speaking About Medical MarijuanaCommon Sense for Drug Policy RSS Feed
Posted: March 24th, 2008, 4:30am EDT by Doug McVay
Barack Obama, asked by the Medford, OR Mail-Tribune about his position on medical marijuana, specifically regarding state laws allowing access and whether the federal government should interfere with these laws, responded: "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue." -
US Congressman Barney Frank To Introduce Marijuana Decriminalization BillCommon Sense for Drug Policy RSS Feed
Posted: March 23rd, 2008, 6:45am EDT by Doug McVay
US Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) is to introduce legislation to decriminalize marijuana possession. Rep. Frank made the announcement on national TV late Friday March 21. -
Yes at Shoreline Amphitheatre, Mountain View on 19 Aug 2008Last.fm Events - System Recommendations For PhineasFoo
Posted: March 22nd, 2008, 8:15pm EDT by (author unknown)
Location: 1 Amphitheatre Pkwy, Mountain View 94043, United States
The Fever Of Phineas
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The Thrill Of It All
Posted: March 22nd, 2008, 1:30pm EDT by Phineas
I’m enjoying the heck out of the Roxy Music DVD “Thrill of It All: A Visual History 1972-1982″
I read about it in The New Yorker and don’t have a whole lot to add to that. But it’s just beautiful. I love Eno’s various machines, hairstyles and blouses. I also enjoy how incongruous the low-tech video production quality is juxtaposed with these energetic, brilliant, outrageous musical compositions and performances. The songs all rock. Plus I think Bryan Ferry is flirting with me.
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Wottled Butter
Posted: March 21st, 2008, 12:35pm EDT by Phineas
Just another unnecessary untimely and incorrect rant on the bottled water controversy. I may be writing this because I feel compelled to defend myself. The problems with bottled water are many. So let’s identify a couple main ones:
- bottled water is expensive
- production of bottled water is environmentally damaging in terms of energy to produce and the waste byproduct of the bottles, even though they are “recyclable”
- much bottled water marketing is deceptive in appealing to perceptions that it tastes better or is healthier than tap
- people who drink bottled water are therefore dupes who foolishly believe bottled water is different than tap; and, paradoxically, selfish litterbugs unconcerned with the damage their lifestyle causes the environment.
There are more objections but I think those are the main ones which you see restated in one form or another.
I agree with all of them in principle. Things that are too expensive compared to cheaper things of equal quality suck big time - agreed. Things that have horrific and entirely avoidable environmental damage way do suck. Marketing which is fraudulent or deceptive can go off and suck for all I care. Selfish dupes are such dicks.
But I’m here to say, but on the other hand… just cause I’m ornery. On the other hand, every single statement above could be said of many other things. Butter is more expensive than gasoline, that does not make the dairy industry criminal. Lying marketing scams occur in every retail sector. Waste is inherent in consumer life. It’s bad, it’s all bad.
But I think it goes way too far to claim that people who drink bottled water are fooled, duped, and somehow the same as bird-flipping Hummer drivers. I know for a fact, as much as I know anything for a fact, that the bottled water I buy (San Pellegrino, Aqcua Ferrarelle, Perrier) is NOT bottled at the local Podunk municipal water source. Perhaps worse than that, it’s imported all the way from Europe. I know for a fact that it tastes better and is healthier than what comes out out of the many tap sources I pass buy in the course of my day (the tap from the BART station bathroom? No thanks!). I do drink tap water at home, as well as expensive bottled water. When I stay in hotels I usually drink their tap water. But there are lots of places in between whose taps I won’t trust, so I’ll carry my own. I do bottle my own from my tap, but I’m not going to dehydrate if I run out. I’ll not hesitate to buy a bottle at the convenience store.
There’s plainly a difference between crappy bottle water marketed by liars, and good bottled water not marketed by liars. I just hate blanket generalizations, and I hate moral posturing. I am certainly guilty of it myself (fuck Hummers and the arrogant assholes who drive them!). I recognize that spending a lot of money for water is unsustainable — most people cannot afford it, so that’s a bit of a clue of how out of whack things are. Water is like air and should be cheap and available to all. The evil in question is not necessarily perpetrated by the consumers (although consumers can have a huge impact on the industry).
What would you say if the bottling of water could be done much more efficiently? And the recycling of the bottles were 100% effective (no landfill)? And all liars were marched off to Liar’s Island, so only truthtellers remained. Then would it be OK to drink bottled water? What if municipal water supplies could improve to produce much higher quality of water? Just saying bottled water is the same as tap is not quite the same thing as saying tap water is the very best that water can be. Even then different kinds of water have different qualities. It’s the same as wine or air or butter. It’s not all exactly the same. Sometimes I like a sparkling water, sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I like mineral water and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel like a nut. How will these pleasures be satisfied if we’re not allowed to bottle the different varieties of water? I totally recognize how elitist that sounds, but again, it’s absolutely no more true of bottled water than it is of wine. Wine could be delivered to local innkeepers in barrels and only served from there, eliminating the bottling of wine. Maybe the difference between bottled wine and bottled water is scale. You could just drive to a nearby farm and have the butter dumped into your reusable tupperware container instead of buying it at the supermarket. Etc.
My main gripe is really the confusion between the problems of the industry and the consumers who participate in it. If there’s cynicism, deceit, waste in the industry, is it really necessary to demonize the consumer? Isn’t it possible all those statements about the industry per se are true, yet a given consumer could still be making an informed, ethical choice? I feel the same way about cigarette smoking. I am so glad we finally purged that horrible habit from mainstream public space. I am glad we have exposed the cynicism and corruption of cigarette manufacturers and the lobbyists who helped them profit by killing their customers. That said, I sometimes enjoy a cigarette. It’s still possible in spite of everything we know about tobacco, nicotine, and the tobacco industry, that a given individual is making an informed, ethical choice when they smoke. These two things are not incompatible.
How about everything in moderation, (except no Hummers)?
News From Elsewhere
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Lost state of Jefferson ... still has its supportersBreaking News
Posted: March 18th, 2008, 8:15pm EDT by (author unknown)
Source: AP (3-17-08)
YREKA, Calif. - In extreme Northern California, far from the bright lights of Hollywood and the foggy charms of San Francisco, is a place unknown to most people: a handful of counties that once sought to make themselves into a separate state called Jefferson.
The idea lasted only a few days in 1941 before it was quashed by the attack on Pearl Harbor. But for a few who remember its history, the movement embodies the mindset of this sparsely populated country that still longs for more autonomy.
"We've always fostered an independent streak up here," said Pete LaFortune, executive director of the Chamber of Commerce in Yreka (pronounced why-REEK-ah), about 270 miles north of San Francisco.
More than six decades later, many residents of the mountainous region along the California-Oregon border continue to complain that their concerns are overlooked and undervalued by decision makers in more populated areas.
The State of Jefferson began as part publicity stunt, part political gesture. Even today, the movement is made up of tourist-friendly whimsy intertwined with more serious themes of discontent.
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Pulp and Archie détournementBoing Boing
Posted: March 14th, 2008, 1:47pm EDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Here's a clever détournement using panels from Archie comics and the lyrics from Pulp's Common People.
It reminds me a little bit of Graham Rawle's brilliant novel written from snippets of vintage women's magazines, Woman's World.
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Big changes at Tunnel View today.Yosemite Blog
Posted: March 14th, 2008, 2:23am EDT by Edie
Well, I missed it. I wish I could have been at Tunnel View today to photograph the historic moment, but I wasn’t. They cut three large ponderosa pines down that have been blocking the view for many years.
All that is left are the stumps, and for now, the lingering scent of pine sap.
Those old behemoths were handsome in their own way, yes, but my gods, the view now is stunning. I made a point of taking a picture from each block along the low wall.
According to one bystander there tonight, an “environmentalist was p*ssed off* about the felling of the trees.
There is now much more elbow room at the wall.
—
For some reason comments aren’t working and I’m getting a ton of them emailed to me on this article so I’ll post a few here until they’re back up and running. If you have a comment please send it to me: loyd@yosemiteblog.com and I’ll get it up as soon as possible.
Bodieangels wrote in: “Well, I am happy that you think this is progress
I personally side with John Muir and think that the (old behemoth) trees should have been Regally left to live and grow!
Photographically, the branches of the tree were wonderful to frame an image and give perspective.
But, let’s not stop the powers that be destroy that which they are charged with preserving….
a “very sad day” indeed….
Stay tuned, more of your forest to be destroyed soon….
on purpose by man……
God knows……Yosemite was made a National Parkfor it’s Elbow Room….and Stumps!!!”Loyd comments: “Personally I think if you’re a photographer and you cut down a tree just so you can take a photo then you need to put the camera down and do something else. There are plenty of other places that can and do yield much more interesting (and less copied) photographs within 1/2 mile. It just take a little more effort than walking 10 feet from your car.”
John Kirby: “Cathedral Rocks are blocking my view of Half Dome. Please remove them.”
Edie replied: “I tried to present a balanced view of the tree removal at Tunnel View. I’m not keen that they were removed without any public discourse on them. With the exception of one, they were healthy trees, handsome in their own right.
Tunnel view is very accessible, a perfect place for a stunning view for those who aren’t able to climb the 1.3 miles up to Artist’s Point. But there are no curb-cuts for wheelchair access. That REALLY bothers me. Yes, there are the busloads of power-tourist, folks who drive hundreds of miles, get out and take pictures, and then get back on the bus to head to the next vista, several hours away. That really bothers me. However, I can’t regulate other’s behavior, any more that I want to be told to get out of the way because I’ve had my allotted amount of time at the wall.
This was done by fiat. I would love to know who decided it needed to be done, and who authorized it. Historic, my ass. Yosemite changes on a daily basis. Are they going to try to put the recent rockfall back up on the wall because it historically belongs up there?
With the arrival of the white folks, things changed dramatically. The valley became overgrown with brush, marshes were drained to make way for cattle and to reduce mosquitos. Trees sprung up in ancient meadows.
The Miwok people used to burn the valley floor every few years to reduce brush in order to hunt deer better. They too changed the valley. This isn’t a white vs. native debate. This is a human vs. nature debate. We’ve all changed the valley.
I do know this: When trees grow too close, disease risk increases. Fires are much worse when the brush is thick beneath canopy. They’ve let this forest go too long, and when they set fires the damage is much greater than they can control. The likelihood of a conflagration is higher now because of the partially burned woods along southside drive.
Culling trees by hand may be the only way to restore the forest health. I’m not sure about that, though; wood cutting has an enormous impact on the soil.
As for putting the wood to good use, the best use for the fallen trees is to let them return to the earth that nurtured them. Removing them from the valley for commercial use robs this ecosystem of the nutrients that went into the growth of the tree. I’d rather that the log be chipped and spread on the floor.”
Photos from kimbojava
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View from my cube
Posted: March 12th, 2008, 4:17pm EDT
The Fever Of Phineas
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View from my cube
Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:17pm EDT by Phineas
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View from my cube, originally uploaded by kimbojava.Not as fun as views from my hotel rooms.
News From Elsewhere
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McCain's Spiritual Guide: Destroy IslamMotherJones.com
Posted: March 12th, 2008, 3:00am EDT by (author unknown)
Televangelist Rod Parsley, a key McCain ally in Ohio, has called for eradicating the "false religion." Will the GOP presidential candidate renounce him?
Photos from kimbojava
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View from my room
Posted: March 9th, 2008, 12:22pm EDT
The Fever Of Phineas
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View from my room
Posted: March 9th, 2008, 11:22am EDT by Phineas
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
View from my room, originally uploaded by kimbojava.In Pismo Beach this time.
News From Elsewhere
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New Study Shows One Adult For Every One Hundred Is Behind Bars In USCommon Sense for Drug Policy RSS Feed
Posted: March 3rd, 2008, 8:45am EST by Jennifer Janichek
Another study has been released demonstrating the absurd number of individuals incarcerated in the United States. -
garfield minus garfieldUnscrewing The Inscrutable - .
Posted: February 28th, 2008, 4:33pm EST by Jim Downey
Whoa - this is *such* an improvement!
Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolor disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against lonliness and methamphetamine addiction in a quiet American suburb.
Jim Downey
Hat tip to Tim! Cross posted to Communion of Dreams.
The Fever Of Phineas
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View from my room
Posted: February 27th, 2008, 9:27pm EST by Phineas
.flickr-photo { border: solid 2px #000000; } .flickr-yourcomment { } .flickr-frame { text-align: left; padding: 3px; } .flickr-caption { font-size: 0.8em; margin-top: 0px; }
View from my room, originally uploaded by kimbojava.What an awesome mardi gras party room this would be!
Photos from kimbojava
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View from my room
Posted: February 27th, 2008, 5:04pm EST
The Fever Of Phineas
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Love Story
Posted: February 23rd, 2008, 1:20pm EST by Phineas
Last night I watched that corny old film Love Story (1970). I love watching films from the 70’s, I guess because I grew up then, and I enjoy relearning all the cultural information coded into the texture of the film, beyond just what the story wants me to know. The fashion, the modes of speech, the clothes, cars, hairstyles, attitudes. This is true of films from any period, but extra true of a period one has lived through.
Anyway, it was a cornball fest with somewhat interesting cultural revelations. Things such as — the characters represent these supposedly modern young people and liberated woman who don’t believe in God and shockingly choose a civil ceremony for their wedding in which they shckingly write their own vows. Yet in spite of the modern new world they live in, when she is diagnosed with the un-named fatal disease, the doctor lies to her and says everything is OK but reveals to the husband that she’s dying, and encourages him to conceal it from her, which he does.
Jesus! So in 1970 it was considered perfectly ethical to lie to patients about their diagnosis and deny them a chance to seek a second opinion? When did the AMA get together and rethink that? I believe that nowadays the doctor tells the patient the diagnosis, even if it’s a woman. Sometime between 1970 and 2008 they got that straight, but I don’t remember it happening.
The other weird bit of cultural information was the use of profanity. They say “goddamn” and “dammit” and “bullshit” a whole lot, in strangely inoccuous ways. Cheerfully, with a smile on their faces, while politely holding the door open for the other or passing the sugar. In one scene she’s leading a children’s choir in a church preparing for a Christmas play, and she says to one of the children, “Don’t bullshit me.” I’m not a prude or much of a Christian, but I believe that a person talking this way to children in a church would be considered a little bit harsh and disrepectful today. Yet we’re supposedly charmed and in love with this carefree young woman.
I’d be interested to learn about how the use of profanity has changed in time. To me all those words, which I use daily, have an edge to them and indicate some degree of harshness, anger or something. To use them in this soft and cuddly way strikes me as very false, but I remember this sort of thing from movies from this time. It’s as though either real people or just film writers were suddenly free to use them, so they overused them, diluting the meaning. And now that we’re over that, they have settled back to their original harsh meanings and usage. Or something.
Anyway, it was a dumb movie, but was still fun to watch with your goddamn girlfriend.
News From Elsewhere
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Obsolete Skillsscot hacker's foobar blog
Posted: February 22nd, 2008, 1:50am EST by shacker
Robert Scoble came up with the idea to make a list of obsolete skills - things we used to be good at but no longer need to be, including:
- Dialing a rotary phone
- Putting a needle on a vinyl record
- Shorthand
- Using a slide rule
- Optimizing 640K-worth of memory
- Refilling a fountain pen
- Operating a dictaphone
- Using the eraser ribbon on a typewriter
A wiki sprung up to flesh out the list, and there are now hundreds listed (I added “Cleaning ball bearings in skateboard wheels without losing them”).
Music: Herbie Hancock :: Edith And The Kingpin feat Tina Turner -
Nick Lowe + Robyn Hitchcock at The Fillmore, San Francisco on 12 Apr 2008Last.fm Events - System Recommendations For PhineasFoo
Posted: February 21st, 2008, 9:55am EST by (author unknown)
Location: 1805 Geary Boulevard, San Francisco 94115, United States