In just over fifteen minutes, and in fact less by the time I'll have completed this entry, it'll be "the new year," 2006. I suppose we need these arbitrary measures of the passage of time, and as far as that goes, calling a year by any particular number would be as good as any other, as long as enough of us use the same number to make it a convenient common measure. But really, how is January 1st in any way a rational time, seasonally speaking, or in any other way, to declare it the new year? It's not the beginning of Winter, nor the end of Winter. It's not the beginning of any season. It's not the beginning of anything, except the so-called new year. Call me contrarian, but I frankly just don't get it.
Lauren's folks call New Year's Eve "Amateur Night," which I think needs no explanation. I had a phone call from my friend Annie around 10 (she's back East, so for her it was already 2006 and 1/8,760th). During our hour-long conversation, I saw three cars careen through the parking lot here in Speedbumpville, one of them turning sharply and too quickly into a parking spot and not stopping until it hit the curb. I'm glad we opted for an evening of game-playing, music, George Carlin, and of course the traditional New Year's Eve chicken tacos.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Thursday, December 29, 2005
Slowly, the food paper progresses
Today I finished reading Carlo Petrini's Slow Food, which gives a history and account of the principles of the Slow Food movement. It has an unearned reputation of being conservative, in part because it emphasizes restoring cultural traditions. But the originators of the movement were far-lefties, and their program might best be described as anarcho-hedonic consumer protection. It's an odd mix, but tied extremely well to the centrality of taste and of the pleasures of the table.
Here's Petrini's account of the supermarket:
Our eating habits are both reflected and shaped by grocery stores. What they present to us is an "El Dorado" (Petrini again) of what seems like the greatest possible variety of foods, of consistent quality, healthfulness, color, etc. Shopping in a grocery store trains us to think of food as nothing but a commodity, and its place of origin as nowhere other than the store. A reasonable and expected answer to a question like "where did you get these apples?" is something like "Safeway." Not Washington, or Oregon, or Alberta, or New Zealand, or Timbuktu. The availability of these commodities safely hides their place of origin (which, I suppose in response to some legal requirement, grocery chains now do print on labels in the produce aisle, often in tiny print). We're given little chance, and no reason, to question their origin. Nor their actual quality, healthfulness, nutritive value, or anything else. And we also accept, through the implicit acquiescence of our purchases, the bald-faced lies told to us in the grocery store - for instance, that the wax coating every goddamn piece of fruit or vegetable is to "protect freshness."
We frequent farmer's markets and fruit stands, but we also live in the Central Valley. There's simply no way to compare the fruits and veggies from the stands to what comes from the grocery store, even the "organic" stuff.
In my mind, there's a clear political and moral issue here. We're a society that feeds ourselves crap, to the great benefit of large and multinational corporations. We've become tricked somehow into accepting this as normal, and many of us are stuck with no other options. When I realize I have to consider myself lucky to be able to get good produce, locally grown, in season (at all, let alone for seven months of the year), and when I realize how few Americans eat fresh fruit and vegetables in the first place, I'm disgusted by what Big Food has done to us, and I'm saddened that the lovely tastes I routinely enjoy are out of reach for so many, especially when that's by choice or habit.
Somebody (maybe John Rawls?) once said that a good way to measure the justice of a society is to look at how it treats its poorest and most wanting members. Perhaps a better way is to look at how it feeds itself.
Here's Petrini's account of the supermarket:
Whether it is the season for them or not, there you will find strawberries in winter, pears in the springtime, apples at midsummer, and currants in the autumn. Somewhere in the world, less than twenty-four hours away by air, it is always the right season. Along with these eternal first fruits, we find cheeses and cured meats that seem to come from every corner of the earth (whether they really do or not) on the shelves of small stores and supermarkets. (p. 55)
Our eating habits are both reflected and shaped by grocery stores. What they present to us is an "El Dorado" (Petrini again) of what seems like the greatest possible variety of foods, of consistent quality, healthfulness, color, etc. Shopping in a grocery store trains us to think of food as nothing but a commodity, and its place of origin as nowhere other than the store. A reasonable and expected answer to a question like "where did you get these apples?" is something like "Safeway." Not Washington, or Oregon, or Alberta, or New Zealand, or Timbuktu. The availability of these commodities safely hides their place of origin (which, I suppose in response to some legal requirement, grocery chains now do print on labels in the produce aisle, often in tiny print). We're given little chance, and no reason, to question their origin. Nor their actual quality, healthfulness, nutritive value, or anything else. And we also accept, through the implicit acquiescence of our purchases, the bald-faced lies told to us in the grocery store - for instance, that the wax coating every goddamn piece of fruit or vegetable is to "protect freshness."
We frequent farmer's markets and fruit stands, but we also live in the Central Valley. There's simply no way to compare the fruits and veggies from the stands to what comes from the grocery store, even the "organic" stuff.
In my mind, there's a clear political and moral issue here. We're a society that feeds ourselves crap, to the great benefit of large and multinational corporations. We've become tricked somehow into accepting this as normal, and many of us are stuck with no other options. When I realize I have to consider myself lucky to be able to get good produce, locally grown, in season (at all, let alone for seven months of the year), and when I realize how few Americans eat fresh fruit and vegetables in the first place, I'm disgusted by what Big Food has done to us, and I'm saddened that the lovely tastes I routinely enjoy are out of reach for so many, especially when that's by choice or habit.
Somebody (maybe John Rawls?) once said that a good way to measure the justice of a society is to look at how it treats its poorest and most wanting members. Perhaps a better way is to look at how it feeds itself.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
"Your car is from the future!"
I bought a Jetta!
It's silver, which is one of the colors I had forsworn. However, I got it around $1500 under the asking price. I got the car I wanted, for the price I wanted, just in a color I didn't want (I wanted the "blue graphite"). I'm financing it through VW at 4.5%, which seems decent.
I've never owned a new car before. I've also never owed this much on a car before. The first of these facts thrills me; the second disconcerts.
So after I take the car to a few live music shows, everything should be fine.
(Oh dear, I seem to have caused grievous injury to my loveliest Lauren with that last pun. However, the quotation that serves as this entry's title was her joke, seeing as the Jetta is a 2006. See, it's December 27, 2005? It's not 2006 yet? So the car, a 2006 Jetta, is a car whose official date is not this year but the next year, being the one proximately following this? To wit: 2006, being not 2005, but in point of fact a year further ahead than 2005, is in fact, from the point of view of those living in 2005, a date in the future, being that time which has not yet transpired. Hence, the 2006 Jetta, dated 2006, not 2005, is not a 2005. It is, if you follow, thus a car whose model year is 2006, not 2005, ergo a date in the future.)
(I could clarify this further upon request. But I should warn that there's all kinds of astronomical facts and theories involved. It's really quite complicated. A background in Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity would be advisable.)
What she said, to be technical, was "Your car is a 2006. But it's not 2006 yet...! Your car is from the future!" (She said it in italics.)
More later, possibly the beast's name, if that occurs to me, and maybe including pictures, although you've seen a silver Jetta before if you're not living under a rock. And if you're living under a rock, what the hell are you doing with Internet access?
It's silver, which is one of the colors I had forsworn. However, I got it around $1500 under the asking price. I got the car I wanted, for the price I wanted, just in a color I didn't want (I wanted the "blue graphite"). I'm financing it through VW at 4.5%, which seems decent.
I've never owned a new car before. I've also never owed this much on a car before. The first of these facts thrills me; the second disconcerts.
So after I take the car to a few live music shows, everything should be fine.
(Oh dear, I seem to have caused grievous injury to my loveliest Lauren with that last pun. However, the quotation that serves as this entry's title was her joke, seeing as the Jetta is a 2006. See, it's December 27, 2005? It's not 2006 yet? So the car, a 2006 Jetta, is a car whose official date is not this year but the next year, being the one proximately following this? To wit: 2006, being not 2005, but in point of fact a year further ahead than 2005, is in fact, from the point of view of those living in 2005, a date in the future, being that time which has not yet transpired. Hence, the 2006 Jetta, dated 2006, not 2005, is not a 2005. It is, if you follow, thus a car whose model year is 2006, not 2005, ergo a date in the future.)
(I could clarify this further upon request. But I should warn that there's all kinds of astronomical facts and theories involved. It's really quite complicated. A background in Einstein's General and Special Theories of Relativity would be advisable.)
What she said, to be technical, was "Your car is a 2006. But it's not 2006 yet...! Your car is from the future!" (She said it in italics.)
More later, possibly the beast's name, if that occurs to me, and maybe including pictures, although you've seen a silver Jetta before if you're not living under a rock. And if you're living under a rock, what the hell are you doing with Internet access?
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Report from Mickey D's
I survived, but only barely. I did in fact become ill after consuming a Quarter Pounder Meal (TM). I've written up some of our observations, to begin the phenomenological account of taste. A couple characteristics really struck us.
First, the Quarter Pounder, and indeed the fries, dissolved more than needed to be chewed. As Lauren put it, the füd can't be masticated. Plus, it dissolves into little fine particles, of more or less identical size and shape, which, while not dry, aren't exactly textured the way whole food or cooked meat is. When you really pay attention to that, it's rather disconcerting.
Second, every bite, and every element of every bite, has the same, even, uniform flavor. It's as though every part of the sandwich, including the bun and the chopped onion, has taken on the overall flavor of the whole thing. Of course, you learn, as a cook, to "marry" flavors, for instance in beouf bourguignonne, where the mushrooms, the beef, the little onions, all take on the flavors of one another and of the wine and stock. But this is something different - the burger doesn't taste like a burger, onions, pickle, etc., married together, but like a McDonald's burger, which is a taste all its own, and not one clearly related to the constituent part of which the thing is supposedly made. (It doesn't taste like beef, for example. Nor does it smell like beef.)
These experiences probably hit me harder than they would most observers, because I so rarely eat any pre-made food of any kind, other than bread. Some would say it makes me a snob, but I don't really see it that way. I don't like pre-made food, and regard it as in general less healthy (and the 1440 mg of salt in the Quarter Pounder meal, to say nothing of the cholesterol and trans fats, back me up on that). But it truly is a matter of my sense of a good life and good health. I feel healthier when I eat food cooked at home; I like to cook my own food; I think it's cheaper, even when I get fine ingredients; I don't use much salt; I produce food that I like, to my own tastes.
After reading most of another chapter of Henri Lefevbre's Everyday Life in the Modern World, it's tempting to go into the notions of "satisfaction" and "pleasure," and perhaps in the paper I'll do that, to discuss Slow Food. I don't know to what extent I'd accept any of this as grounds of serious claims of superior enjoyableness for one kind of food or another. I'm not meaning to say anyone who enjoys a Quarter Pounder is a barbarian and incapable of gastronomic judgment. After all, my pal Imj ("The Most Optimistic Man in a McDonald's, Ever") Williams does Mickey D's, with gusto, and is also, among my friends and acquaintances, the one whose capacities for taste pleasure, discernment, distinction, and all the other arts of gourmandism most closely rivals mine. (See, now that's a snobbish thing to say.)
I realize that in part it's a matter of what you put into the experience. But that's the real point I think I want to get at: not that McDonald's füd is bad, or that my food is necessarily better (according to my tastes, it is, I'll cop to that), but that McDonald's füd attenuates experience. Don't call it bad or good, call it standarized. That has fairly important implications for developing aesthetic and gastronomic judgments, or for being able to take pleasure in food.
First, the Quarter Pounder, and indeed the fries, dissolved more than needed to be chewed. As Lauren put it, the füd can't be masticated. Plus, it dissolves into little fine particles, of more or less identical size and shape, which, while not dry, aren't exactly textured the way whole food or cooked meat is. When you really pay attention to that, it's rather disconcerting.
Second, every bite, and every element of every bite, has the same, even, uniform flavor. It's as though every part of the sandwich, including the bun and the chopped onion, has taken on the overall flavor of the whole thing. Of course, you learn, as a cook, to "marry" flavors, for instance in beouf bourguignonne, where the mushrooms, the beef, the little onions, all take on the flavors of one another and of the wine and stock. But this is something different - the burger doesn't taste like a burger, onions, pickle, etc., married together, but like a McDonald's burger, which is a taste all its own, and not one clearly related to the constituent part of which the thing is supposedly made. (It doesn't taste like beef, for example. Nor does it smell like beef.)
These experiences probably hit me harder than they would most observers, because I so rarely eat any pre-made food of any kind, other than bread. Some would say it makes me a snob, but I don't really see it that way. I don't like pre-made food, and regard it as in general less healthy (and the 1440 mg of salt in the Quarter Pounder meal, to say nothing of the cholesterol and trans fats, back me up on that). But it truly is a matter of my sense of a good life and good health. I feel healthier when I eat food cooked at home; I like to cook my own food; I think it's cheaper, even when I get fine ingredients; I don't use much salt; I produce food that I like, to my own tastes.
After reading most of another chapter of Henri Lefevbre's Everyday Life in the Modern World, it's tempting to go into the notions of "satisfaction" and "pleasure," and perhaps in the paper I'll do that, to discuss Slow Food. I don't know to what extent I'd accept any of this as grounds of serious claims of superior enjoyableness for one kind of food or another. I'm not meaning to say anyone who enjoys a Quarter Pounder is a barbarian and incapable of gastronomic judgment. After all, my pal Imj ("The Most Optimistic Man in a McDonald's, Ever") Williams does Mickey D's, with gusto, and is also, among my friends and acquaintances, the one whose capacities for taste pleasure, discernment, distinction, and all the other arts of gourmandism most closely rivals mine. (See, now that's a snobbish thing to say.)
I realize that in part it's a matter of what you put into the experience. But that's the real point I think I want to get at: not that McDonald's füd is bad, or that my food is necessarily better (according to my tastes, it is, I'll cop to that), but that McDonald's füd attenuates experience. Don't call it bad or good, call it standarized. That has fairly important implications for developing aesthetic and gastronomic judgments, or for being able to take pleasure in food.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
We're going to McDonald's today - ugh.
A couple years ago I committed to putting together an anthology on food and philosophy with my Finnish pal Matti Itkonen. That time has arrived. Unfortunately, my plan for a paper involves a comparative phenomenological account of two meals - one fast food, another slow food. I'll get to the slow food stuff another day. As for today, the plan is to go to a McDonald's, maybe around 2, and order and eat some manner of food (or, as we call such fare, "food with an umlaut," or "füd"). The things I do for art.
Maybe, instead, we'll go to a VW dealer so I can test drive a Jetta, the car I've just recently become obsessed with buying. I can't actually buy anything at the moment, but the 1999 Neon which doesn't make that high-pitched whining sound (dealers and repair shops have steadfastly sworn to this) now consists of nothing but high-pitched whining sounds. Now, I'm as weird as the next guy, but even I have a limit of tolerance. Plus, frankly, I suspect that high-pitched whining sounds have rotten side-impact collision ratings.
Maybe, instead, we'll go to a VW dealer so I can test drive a Jetta, the car I've just recently become obsessed with buying. I can't actually buy anything at the moment, but the 1999 Neon which doesn't make that high-pitched whining sound (dealers and repair shops have steadfastly sworn to this) now consists of nothing but high-pitched whining sounds. Now, I'm as weird as the next guy, but even I have a limit of tolerance. Plus, frankly, I suspect that high-pitched whining sounds have rotten side-impact collision ratings.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Dinner report
It turned out to be six courses. I didn't take any pictures, but I'll describe a coupla things.
The first courses were two hors-d'oeuvres: a grilled tomato with mozzarella browned on top of it, and little tartlets with fennel, raddichio, feta, green onions, and a savory custard. There then followed the soup course, a light consomme made with lamb and beef stock (the beef stock, I confess, was store-bought; when I make beef stock, it's with the intention of making demi-glace, so it doesn't stay beef stock for long).
Then the entree - sauteed shrimp with beurre blanc. The beurre blanc came out wonderfully, and the shrimp loved it. Lauren had had the idea, and didn't quite insist on it at the grocery store. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do otherwise, so we bought 9 big shrimp and I went for the beurre blanc. (Beurre blanc is what happens when you take shallots, simmer them in vinegar and wine until there's just a couple tablespoons of liquid left, then whisk in about a stick of butter. That probably sounds like a heart attack in convenient sauce form to lots of people, but if you only spoon out a dram of it onto shrimp, the cardiac effects aren't that great a consideration compared to what you get to eat. Life is always full of compromises like this. Get used to it.) I had also tossed a little saffron onto the shrimp, but I'm not sure what impact that had other than to be cute red threads.
Then the salad course, a simple one: romaine and arugula, a little more raddichio, and pine nuts, dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. When you're eating six courses, simple salads and soups seem like a great idea. I mean, I'm not trying to kill anybody.
Finally, the main course, roast leg of lamb, mashed blue potatoes (they come out periwinkle colored, very amusing), and roasted vegetables. The lamb was overdone, by which I mean it was cooked through, which we tend not to like around here.
Lauren ground some decaf coffee with a bunch of spices, which is delicious even to someone like me who prefers coffee black and spoon-dissolving. We drank that, I played a couple songs fairly badly, we talked of the traumas of the semester past and our hopes for semesters yet to come (or, in Lauren's case, possibly not to come, at least, not at Cow State Santa Claus).
I think the shrimp was the best thing.
Now, we're going to Lopez Imports. I'm not sure how you can make money importing Lopezes, but I don't have much of a head for business anyway.
The first courses were two hors-d'oeuvres: a grilled tomato with mozzarella browned on top of it, and little tartlets with fennel, raddichio, feta, green onions, and a savory custard. There then followed the soup course, a light consomme made with lamb and beef stock (the beef stock, I confess, was store-bought; when I make beef stock, it's with the intention of making demi-glace, so it doesn't stay beef stock for long).
Then the entree - sauteed shrimp with beurre blanc. The beurre blanc came out wonderfully, and the shrimp loved it. Lauren had had the idea, and didn't quite insist on it at the grocery store. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do otherwise, so we bought 9 big shrimp and I went for the beurre blanc. (Beurre blanc is what happens when you take shallots, simmer them in vinegar and wine until there's just a couple tablespoons of liquid left, then whisk in about a stick of butter. That probably sounds like a heart attack in convenient sauce form to lots of people, but if you only spoon out a dram of it onto shrimp, the cardiac effects aren't that great a consideration compared to what you get to eat. Life is always full of compromises like this. Get used to it.) I had also tossed a little saffron onto the shrimp, but I'm not sure what impact that had other than to be cute red threads.
Then the salad course, a simple one: romaine and arugula, a little more raddichio, and pine nuts, dressed with balsamic vinegar and olive oil. When you're eating six courses, simple salads and soups seem like a great idea. I mean, I'm not trying to kill anybody.
Finally, the main course, roast leg of lamb, mashed blue potatoes (they come out periwinkle colored, very amusing), and roasted vegetables. The lamb was overdone, by which I mean it was cooked through, which we tend not to like around here.
Lauren ground some decaf coffee with a bunch of spices, which is delicious even to someone like me who prefers coffee black and spoon-dissolving. We drank that, I played a couple songs fairly badly, we talked of the traumas of the semester past and our hopes for semesters yet to come (or, in Lauren's case, possibly not to come, at least, not at Cow State Santa Claus).
I think the shrimp was the best thing.
Now, we're going to Lopez Imports. I'm not sure how you can make money importing Lopezes, but I don't have much of a head for business anyway.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
That strange feeling
I'm not enitrely sure I'm well. You know the feeling - I don't exactly fit together properly, I'm drifting through the day, etc. Personally, I blame grading.
And yes, I'm grading. I'm grading like there's no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, and tomorrow is the absolute end of it. We're leaving when Lauren's final is over, to acquire foodstuffs to cook up a whiz-bang supper for Valerie, with all of the potential food-porn ramifications that entails. Gonna try to do something frou-frou.
That's about as in-depth as my consciousness can get at the moment. Just a few more tonight, please, brain?
And yes, I'm grading. I'm grading like there's no tomorrow. But there is a tomorrow, and tomorrow is the absolute end of it. We're leaving when Lauren's final is over, to acquire foodstuffs to cook up a whiz-bang supper for Valerie, with all of the potential food-porn ramifications that entails. Gonna try to do something frou-frou.
That's about as in-depth as my consciousness can get at the moment. Just a few more tonight, please, brain?
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
My new laptop
I got a new laptop. I'll give a brief account of it in convenient, E-Z-2-read Q&A format:
Q: What kind of laptop did you get?
A: I gots me a G4 iBook.
Q: What?? A friggin' Mac?
A: Yep. Call me weird, -
Q: You're weird!
A: Stop that. I say, call me weird, but my three-year-old laptop running Windows XP and freezing up every hour, especially when I'm trying to do something especially taxing to it, like print a document, was getting pretty damn boring.
Q: Why not one of them super-cool titanium PowerBooks?
A: Because they're $600 more, and the extra power is probably not something I need.
Q: Oh, you think so?
A: Yes, I do. Isn't that obvious?
Q: Who's asking the questions here?
A: That wasn't a question, it was more of a rhetorical threat.
Q: Oh yeah?
A: Look, I've had it with you. I have papers to grade.
Q: Are you going to continue using the E-Z-2-Read Q&A format in your blog?
A: Heck no. You've cured me of that particular impulse. Jerk.
Q: Neener-neener-neener!
A: Grow up, man.
Q: PLPLPLPLBBH!
Q: Hey! Come back here!
Q: Wuss! Come on and fight me, if you don't like it!
Q: HEY!
Q: Huh. He really left. Oh well. Dum-de-dum-de-dum-dum... Crap, no more orange juice! He left the empty carton in the fridge!
Q: What kind of laptop did you get?
A: I gots me a G4 iBook.
Q: What?? A friggin' Mac?
A: Yep. Call me weird, -
Q: You're weird!
A: Stop that. I say, call me weird, but my three-year-old laptop running Windows XP and freezing up every hour, especially when I'm trying to do something especially taxing to it, like print a document, was getting pretty damn boring.
Q: Why not one of them super-cool titanium PowerBooks?
A: Because they're $600 more, and the extra power is probably not something I need.
Q: Oh, you think so?
A: Yes, I do. Isn't that obvious?
Q: Who's asking the questions here?
A: That wasn't a question, it was more of a rhetorical threat.
Q: Oh yeah?
A: Look, I've had it with you. I have papers to grade.
Q: Are you going to continue using the E-Z-2-Read Q&A format in your blog?
A: Heck no. You've cured me of that particular impulse. Jerk.
Q: Neener-neener-neener!
A: Grow up, man.
Q: PLPLPLPLBBH!
Q: Hey! Come back here!
Q: Wuss! Come on and fight me, if you don't like it!
Q: HEY!
Q: Huh. He really left. Oh well. Dum-de-dum-de-dum-dum... Crap, no more orange juice! He left the empty carton in the fridge!
Friday, December 09, 2005
United States of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart is objecting to a campaign, apparently funded by unions, which raises the theological question of whether Jesus would approve of Wal-Mart's policies.
I do enjoy the effort of some to suggest that profiteering isn't exactly Christian, but I think it never goes far enough. I know I heard and read dozens of times that a rich person has as much chance of reaching heaven as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle. Whatever it means in terms of commerce as a fundamental means of organizing production and consumption, it's a fascinating notion for thinking about the nature of happiness and salvation (even for someone like me who doesn't believe in salvation).
So, while I chuckle whenever anyone makes fun of Wal-Mart, it seems to me the real message is to ask the reflective question of my own complicity. I didn't spend Thursday picketing in front of retail outlets; I spent Thursday roaming around inside them, buying goodies for Christmas. I'm involved.
Still, in all, hee-hee.
I do enjoy the effort of some to suggest that profiteering isn't exactly Christian, but I think it never goes far enough. I know I heard and read dozens of times that a rich person has as much chance of reaching heaven as a camel has of passing through the eye of a needle. Whatever it means in terms of commerce as a fundamental means of organizing production and consumption, it's a fascinating notion for thinking about the nature of happiness and salvation (even for someone like me who doesn't believe in salvation).
So, while I chuckle whenever anyone makes fun of Wal-Mart, it seems to me the real message is to ask the reflective question of my own complicity. I didn't spend Thursday picketing in front of retail outlets; I spent Thursday roaming around inside them, buying goodies for Christmas. I'm involved.
Still, in all, hee-hee.
A brief note on December 7
I realize this is a couple days late, but I didn't get around to posting it on December 7th.
That afternoon I spent some time in my office, hitting the "next blog" button on the top of Blogger pages, to get an unscientific survey of what's out there. I kept coming across references to Pearl Harbor, since, of course, it was December 7th, the anniversary of the attack in 1941. But I didn't come across any references to December 7, 1975, which is the date of the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, and the start of a campaign that killed, conservatively, over a hundred thousand East Timorese. The invasion is subject of media criticism controversy, since the story was barely covered in US news media, while the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia were covered extensively. The key difference in the two stories, according to many media critics, was that Indonesia was a client nation of the US, and incidentally a major trading partner, and Cambodia was a communist bloc nation.
Anyway, here's a piece from Democracy Now about December 7.
That afternoon I spent some time in my office, hitting the "next blog" button on the top of Blogger pages, to get an unscientific survey of what's out there. I kept coming across references to Pearl Harbor, since, of course, it was December 7th, the anniversary of the attack in 1941. But I didn't come across any references to December 7, 1975, which is the date of the invasion of East Timor by Indonesia, and the start of a campaign that killed, conservatively, over a hundred thousand East Timorese. The invasion is subject of media criticism controversy, since the story was barely covered in US news media, while the Khmer Rouge killings in Cambodia were covered extensively. The key difference in the two stories, according to many media critics, was that Indonesia was a client nation of the US, and incidentally a major trading partner, and Cambodia was a communist bloc nation.
Anyway, here's a piece from Democracy Now about December 7.
Saturday, December 03, 2005
Mainly relief
Yesterday I got divorced. It was messy; it was ugly; it was all a divorce should be, I suppose. So I'm relieved it's over, and I can get on with my life. There's plenty to say about how this is going to be perceived, who will say what about it or about me. The fact of the matter is that I walked away with a chunk less share of community property than was my legal right.
And what did I go and do, the very next morning, completely unable to restrain myself? I went and bought a new car! And here it is:
And what did I go and do, the very next morning, completely unable to restrain myself? I went and bought a new car! And here it is:
I've been wanting to make a joke like that for a looooong time.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Now we're getting somewhere!
Here's an interesting story on the government's lack of real measures of success in the so-called war on terrorism. Raphael Perl makes two vital points in the report discussed in the story.
First, any raw number presented as a measure of success doesn't have the context to explain its meaning. The number indicates something is being done, but that gives a potentially misleading picture, since "we measure progress retrospectively against what we've done. And of course since we've done some stuff, we've made progress."
That reminds me of a great Max Frisch story I read in an elementary German class in college, where a bureaucrat's day is detailed. The maxim of the man's action is "etwas muss geschehen" - something must be done. If that's your motto, then anything you do is an achievement, regardless of its effect.
But Perl makes another, more subtle point: what counts as a measure of success to the US government may count as a measure of failure to someone else - for instance, to an adversary. Is increasing defense spending a success? Is removing Saddam Hussein from power and reducing Iraq from tyranny to chaos a success?
What this points out, on a deeper level, is the unexamined, unquestioned perspective of US media presentations of the events called "the war on terrorism" (or, in Bushspeak, "the war on terror"). Reporting on "insurgency" in Iraq, for instance, as part of the ongoing "war on terrorism," only makes coherent sense under the assumption of the same set of beliefs about US motivations and interests that are presented by officials. The Iraq-terrorism connection is presumed, not demonstrated, and the constellation of these notions, repeated in media, cloaks them in "objectivity" and all the other virtues of contemporary journalism. It's a currency without credit.
**
Another item: Rep. Cunningham (R-Calif.) resigned after pleading guilty to accepting bribes. Cunningham said he was sorry, and that he was resigning because he "compromised the trust of [his] constituents." I hate to be picky, but since he had proclaimed his innnocence as recently as July, what Cunningham really means here is that he's resigning because he got caught compromising the trust of his constituents.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
How can I tell whether the President is lying?
As George Carlin put it in one of his HBO specials, some people need practical advice. So, here's some practical advice concerning when to believe what President Bush says about Iraq: never. This will save you time and energy you might otherwise spend in vain, attempting to sort out what tiny germ of truth there might be in some dimly-lit subparagraph of a subsection of one of his statements; or trying to work out what, if anything, the President actually believes.
The current case: Not two days after raising doubts about John Murtha's honor and credibility, President Bush made protestations of his respect for Murtha. It turns out that calling Democratic critics of the Iraq war names didn't help calm anyone down. Go figure. But of course, this is the same President Bush who kept coming up with different rationales for attacking Iraq before finally just bulling his way forward, the same President Bush who declared that "you're either with us or against us" as a way of casting aspersions on the patriotism of anyone who criticized the Iraq war, the same President Bush who announced in May of 2003 that we'd won in Iraq. If there's anyone with less credibility in the US government, I think it might be Dick Cheney.
In fact, even in lying about his respect for Murtha, the President couldn't stop himself from lying about what he was lying about. Murtha called last week for a 6-month schedule to withdraw from Iraq. Republicans in Congress pushed for a vote on an immediate troop withdrawal, basically as a political stunt to force Democrats to vote against withdrawing troops, since an immediate withdrawal would be rather chaotic. In saying he respects Murtha on Sunday, President Bush imputed to Murtha the proposal for immediate troop withdrawal, as though Murtha supported it.
There's a principle of scientific reasoning called parsimony, which says that the simplest explanations of phenomena are the best. Its ancient precedent is called Occam's razor, named after the philosopher who gave us the idea that explanations of phenomena that posit the fewest causes or origins are the best. Applying this to the President's statements about Iraq, one would assume everything the President says is untrue, because it's simplest to explain his statements this way. And not only is it the simplest explanation, it's also most prudent: If what the President says (consistent with his pattern of five years) is a lie, then we are not tricked by it. If it is the truth, then there will be evidence that demonstrates its truth, and we are not harmed by disbelieving it. If we were faced with the still more logically vexing problem of what we might call "modal lies" (not direct lies, but lies concerning what the President actually believes to be true -- that is, lies about his state of belief rather than lies about the world or the facts), our vexation would be dispelled by our simply regarding everything that the President says to be untrue.
An utterly unrelated news item of note: Iran says it will not accept nuclear checks. Yes, but will Iran continue to accept nuclear Visa or nuclear MasterCard?
The current case: Not two days after raising doubts about John Murtha's honor and credibility, President Bush made protestations of his respect for Murtha. It turns out that calling Democratic critics of the Iraq war names didn't help calm anyone down. Go figure. But of course, this is the same President Bush who kept coming up with different rationales for attacking Iraq before finally just bulling his way forward, the same President Bush who declared that "you're either with us or against us" as a way of casting aspersions on the patriotism of anyone who criticized the Iraq war, the same President Bush who announced in May of 2003 that we'd won in Iraq. If there's anyone with less credibility in the US government, I think it might be Dick Cheney.
In fact, even in lying about his respect for Murtha, the President couldn't stop himself from lying about what he was lying about. Murtha called last week for a 6-month schedule to withdraw from Iraq. Republicans in Congress pushed for a vote on an immediate troop withdrawal, basically as a political stunt to force Democrats to vote against withdrawing troops, since an immediate withdrawal would be rather chaotic. In saying he respects Murtha on Sunday, President Bush imputed to Murtha the proposal for immediate troop withdrawal, as though Murtha supported it.
There's a principle of scientific reasoning called parsimony, which says that the simplest explanations of phenomena are the best. Its ancient precedent is called Occam's razor, named after the philosopher who gave us the idea that explanations of phenomena that posit the fewest causes or origins are the best. Applying this to the President's statements about Iraq, one would assume everything the President says is untrue, because it's simplest to explain his statements this way. And not only is it the simplest explanation, it's also most prudent: If what the President says (consistent with his pattern of five years) is a lie, then we are not tricked by it. If it is the truth, then there will be evidence that demonstrates its truth, and we are not harmed by disbelieving it. If we were faced with the still more logically vexing problem of what we might call "modal lies" (not direct lies, but lies concerning what the President actually believes to be true -- that is, lies about his state of belief rather than lies about the world or the facts), our vexation would be dispelled by our simply regarding everything that the President says to be untrue.
An utterly unrelated news item of note: Iran says it will not accept nuclear checks. Yes, but will Iran continue to accept nuclear Visa or nuclear MasterCard?
Tuesday, November 15, 2005
Revelations
Two stories in the last couple days related to the ways the Bush administration has inserted a heavily partisan political agenda into federal agencies. This isn't news: it was clear from the very beginning of Bush's first term that he intended to use federal agencies as political pressure groups. After all, he made Gale Norton head of the Environmental Protection Agency - a clear sign that EPA would be protected the environment for extracting industries - oil, natural gas, and mining. (She had been sued by the EPA when she was head of Colorado's bureaucracy overseeing mining there, because she had simply refused to apply pollution control laws on mining companies. Putting her in charge of EPA is like hiring a methhead to keep watch on the Sudafed.)
First, there's the story of the FDA having decided to prohibit over-the counter sales of the "morning after" pill before hearing scientific evidence. This isn't news. The administration's position on scientific questions is consistently the same: don't confuse them with the facts, they've made up their minds. The world is flat.
Then, there's this morning's news that Bush's appointee to be head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting used the post to attempt to interfere politically in the way public radio and television operated. Again, this isn't news: remember the GOP operative inserted into the White House media corps to ask softball questions? This is part of a long-standing pattern.
I suppose what bugs me about this is the notion that suddenly this pattern is worth paying attention to, now that Bush is a lame duck, and we're stuck with him for another three years and two months.
First, there's the story of the FDA having decided to prohibit over-the counter sales of the "morning after" pill before hearing scientific evidence. This isn't news. The administration's position on scientific questions is consistently the same: don't confuse them with the facts, they've made up their minds. The world is flat.
Then, there's this morning's news that Bush's appointee to be head of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting used the post to attempt to interfere politically in the way public radio and television operated. Again, this isn't news: remember the GOP operative inserted into the White House media corps to ask softball questions? This is part of a long-standing pattern.
I suppose what bugs me about this is the notion that suddenly this pattern is worth paying attention to, now that Bush is a lame duck, and we're stuck with him for another three years and two months.
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
Now that that's over
It was a long night. We stayed up way past late, watching voting returns tabluate on the Secretary of State's web site. It looked like Propositions 76 through 80 would be defeated by midnight. But Proposition 75, the big one in my opinion, didn't settle into the "No" column until about 1:30. I was able, at that point, to go to bed, comfortable in the knowledge that I wouldn't be spending countless hours every fall gathering signatures on union cards granting permission to CFA to use members' dues for political action.
CFA is probably in a stronger position to bargain for a contract as a result. The solidarity built by the election effort has to help. Plus, we've proven again that we won't be pushed around, and that those who try are in for a fight.
I'm exhausted, but today is also the last day of my official working week. The election has me in a good mood, helped further along by the bright autumn sky, the kaleidoscope of leaves, and new strings on Bennett Cerf, my office guitar. I can handle a little exhaustion today.
CFA is probably in a stronger position to bargain for a contract as a result. The solidarity built by the election effort has to help. Plus, we've proven again that we won't be pushed around, and that those who try are in for a fight.
I'm exhausted, but today is also the last day of my official working week. The election has me in a good mood, helped further along by the bright autumn sky, the kaleidoscope of leaves, and new strings on Bennett Cerf, my office guitar. I can handle a little exhaustion today.
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Sick
I'm home sick today. I did drag myself out of bed this morning, to find something even more sick, but frankly not surprising. If I'm well enough I'll write about it later. I'm referring, of course, to my government's detaining, torturing, and killing suspects (and non-suspects) in a kind of spree of twisted, panicked reaction to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Porn in convenient mint form
From a package of Velamints:
Go ahead, enjoy a special moment
Indulge yourself with rich, smooth chocolate, kissed by a refreshing breath of cool mint. Its unique square shape fits perfectly in your mouth. Feel it glide across your tongue and glide back again. Now, just sit back, relax and enjoy your smooth, chocolate mint experience.
Welcome to Velamints. Experience a world of smoothness in a little chocolate mint.
And don't forget to experience a world of smoothness in a cool and refreshing Velamints Peppermint.
Visit www.velamints.com
**
I still think I'm missing something about Velamints. I try, but somehow, I dunno, I just can't seem to get turned-on.
Anyway, one quick Google search later, the phrase "glide across your tongue" appears on numerous wine-tasting humor sites, where the joke is the same - wine-tasting as porn. There were also a few other blogs whose auteurs felt the Velamints box wrapper merited digital posterity.
Go ahead, enjoy a special moment
Indulge yourself with rich, smooth chocolate, kissed by a refreshing breath of cool mint. Its unique square shape fits perfectly in your mouth. Feel it glide across your tongue and glide back again. Now, just sit back, relax and enjoy your smooth, chocolate mint experience.
Welcome to Velamints. Experience a world of smoothness in a little chocolate mint.
And don't forget to experience a world of smoothness in a cool and refreshing Velamints Peppermint.
Visit www.velamints.com
**
I still think I'm missing something about Velamints. I try, but somehow, I dunno, I just can't seem to get turned-on.
Anyway, one quick Google search later, the phrase "glide across your tongue" appears on numerous wine-tasting humor sites, where the joke is the same - wine-tasting as porn. There were also a few other blogs whose auteurs felt the Velamints box wrapper merited digital posterity.
Grousing about daylight saving time
Allegedly, daylight saving time (and it is daylight saving, not daylight savings time) serves the purpose of preserving hours of daylight around workday clock time, and a modicum of energy, at least in the summer. But I don't believe it, and I especially disbelieve claims that a majority of Americans like daylight saving time.
I don't know of a single person who likes daylight saving time. It's a nuisance to have to remember, more of a nuisance if you forget, and losing the hour of sleep every Spring is terrible.
Alternative sources of information suggest that daylight saving time was always the sick underworld conspiracy most clear-minded individuals believe it is. A cursory Google effort yielded no online source to cite here, but what I understand the theory to be is that manipulating clock time permitted a timing advantage for commodity brokers. I would also be inclined to believe it's a conspiracy to keep working people off-kilter. It's hard enough to organize, let alone when we keep having to change our clocks.
Oh, and by the way, the Bush adminstration has apparently decided to extend daylight saving time. Soon, we'll spend less of the year in "standard" time than in daylight saving time. Doesn't that mean we've just decided to make daylight the standard?
I don't know of a single person who likes daylight saving time. It's a nuisance to have to remember, more of a nuisance if you forget, and losing the hour of sleep every Spring is terrible.
Alternative sources of information suggest that daylight saving time was always the sick underworld conspiracy most clear-minded individuals believe it is. A cursory Google effort yielded no online source to cite here, but what I understand the theory to be is that manipulating clock time permitted a timing advantage for commodity brokers. I would also be inclined to believe it's a conspiracy to keep working people off-kilter. It's hard enough to organize, let alone when we keep having to change our clocks.
Oh, and by the way, the Bush adminstration has apparently decided to extend daylight saving time. Soon, we'll spend less of the year in "standard" time than in daylight saving time. Doesn't that mean we've just decided to make daylight the standard?
Tuesday, October 25, 2005
One of the great paradoxes about students
Tonight I've been reading 1-2 page responses I had students in my Philosophical Inquiry class write to Book III of Plato's Republic. Not every student wrote a response (a chronic problem in this class, which may be another student paradox to discuss later), but of the 15 or so I did get, every one of them had an interestingly different take on the reading.
Book III is where Socrates discusses the "myth of the metals," which is the "necessary lie" told to the people of the ideally just city in order to let get the people to accept the system. Socrates further explains the social status and role the ruling "guardian" class will have, and the communal focus of the entire effort. The ideal city is ideal in its overall justice, in Socrates' argument, and every group must play its appropriate role. There's a discussion of natural predisposition to certain tasks or traits, and the development of those traits, but this is only the beginning of Plato's long discussion of proper education for just leadership.
The papers have challenged the lie, challenged the restrictive class system, questioned the communal conception of justice. They've delved into the strange minutiae of Socrates' argument, asking why it would be necessary to exert such firm control over musical rhythm, for instance, or why only telling stories where the gods are good helps the guardians understand justice.
Now, here's the paradox. These engaged, interesting, provocative, thoughtful response papers have so far not corresponded to engaged, interesting, provocative, thoughtful class discussions. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, I don't behave in a way that discourages contributing to class discussion. In fact, I encourage it. I ask at the beginning of class what surprised them about the reading, what their impressions were, what they found important, but with few exceptions, despite their evidently having found something surprising, impressive, and important, they don't tend to speak up.
So I need to develop a further element to the response paper technique, and move from those papers into finding ways those papers can structure class discussion. Partly, I am absolutely sure, this is a matter of experience: students in my upper-division general ed classes, particularly Professional Ethics, make this connection and jump into discussion on this basis.
Book III is where Socrates discusses the "myth of the metals," which is the "necessary lie" told to the people of the ideally just city in order to let get the people to accept the system. Socrates further explains the social status and role the ruling "guardian" class will have, and the communal focus of the entire effort. The ideal city is ideal in its overall justice, in Socrates' argument, and every group must play its appropriate role. There's a discussion of natural predisposition to certain tasks or traits, and the development of those traits, but this is only the beginning of Plato's long discussion of proper education for just leadership.
The papers have challenged the lie, challenged the restrictive class system, questioned the communal conception of justice. They've delved into the strange minutiae of Socrates' argument, asking why it would be necessary to exert such firm control over musical rhythm, for instance, or why only telling stories where the gods are good helps the guardians understand justice.
Now, here's the paradox. These engaged, interesting, provocative, thoughtful response papers have so far not corresponded to engaged, interesting, provocative, thoughtful class discussions. Unless I'm horribly mistaken, I don't behave in a way that discourages contributing to class discussion. In fact, I encourage it. I ask at the beginning of class what surprised them about the reading, what their impressions were, what they found important, but with few exceptions, despite their evidently having found something surprising, impressive, and important, they don't tend to speak up.
So I need to develop a further element to the response paper technique, and move from those papers into finding ways those papers can structure class discussion. Partly, I am absolutely sure, this is a matter of experience: students in my upper-division general ed classes, particularly Professional Ethics, make this connection and jump into discussion on this basis.
Friday, October 21, 2005
Re-working
It seems like I do a lot of stuff - all that teaching, university service, and union activity seems like a lot to do. I feel busy. Yet from one standpoint, I'm not working at all, because I don't have a lot of scholarly and academic writing coming out. This is a complex matter, for me.
I know what I value in teaching, university citizenship, and union activism. They are intrinsically rewarding to me, and I think they're important contributions to the university and the community. I try to teach well; I'm certainly motivated by a firm conviction in the value of the classes I teach and the validity of the curriculum and methods. I think universities are vital social and cultural institutions, far beyond their purely economic purposes of producing new tax payers and generating commerce, and so I place a high value on being an active member of the university community. Being involved in faculty governance and policy-making is for me an expression of commitment to the democratic ideal of education. As far as union activism goes, I don't see any substitute for it to protect the rights and interests of faculty from an administration that most often confronts the faculty as an adversary, instead of honoring faculty as knowledgeable and concerned experts.
The situation is different when it comes to scholarly and academic work. I spent a few years trying to fit into the academic philosophy world; I presented papers at conferences, published articles, pursued the most remote arcana, and above all else, maintained a continuous presence in what some people in my field call "the discussion." It was fun for a while, but the more deeply I got involved, the more removed from the everyday, the more I felt that there wasn't much point to a great deal of "the discussion," other than the rather arbitrary value placed on it by academics. I saw and heard a lot of weird behavior, from shrill denouncements of others as idiots, to the widespread problem of general social dysfunction. I watched what academia turned some acquaintances into, and how unrecognizable they became as the people I used to know, after, say, spending a year as a research fellow, or while they pitched their manuscripts to publishers.
This might seem like sour grapes, but I have to confess, I cooled to academic philosophy before it cooled to me. I had never had the most positive attitude toward it in the first place (ironically, I can at least partially blame a philosophy professor I had for that attitude, for it was he who convinced me that academics use jargon as a weapon and as a barrier). Not all of it, but more than I'm comfortable with, strikes as fiddling while the city is in flames.
I've been wondering lately if I shouldn't return to that kind of work to some degree. I do sometimes miss getting highly charged email, from people I don't really know, arguing forcefully on one side or another of some ongoing debate, and being part of it. For all their dysfunctions, academics do tend to care deeply about their fields, and jump into them with gusto. It's good for renewal.
The practical problem, for now, is that I can no longer leap into it as a purely intellectual and academic exercise. It has to be integrated into my life, which means into the everyday reality of being a teacher of general education classes, of being a citizen of the university, of being a union activist, and of course a private person. I want to find a way that the academic, scholarly work remains within the sphere of relevance of my daily life, and of the lives I come into contact with daily. I think that means, in part, that I don't want to get involved in writing something if I can't see why what I'm writing about would make a difference to my neighbor Marty, or would be significant to someone cooking risotto with morel mushrooms, or would reflectively inform my teaching practice, etc., etc. This is not easy, because the academic philosophy world tends on the whole to neglect, if not actually to dismiss, everyday life. In fact, academia tends to reward people for performances that require them to be neglectful of everyday life, or of teaching, or of being good citizens of the university. (This is something bell hooks wrote eloquently about in Teaching to Transgress.)
I know what I value in teaching, university citizenship, and union activism. They are intrinsically rewarding to me, and I think they're important contributions to the university and the community. I try to teach well; I'm certainly motivated by a firm conviction in the value of the classes I teach and the validity of the curriculum and methods. I think universities are vital social and cultural institutions, far beyond their purely economic purposes of producing new tax payers and generating commerce, and so I place a high value on being an active member of the university community. Being involved in faculty governance and policy-making is for me an expression of commitment to the democratic ideal of education. As far as union activism goes, I don't see any substitute for it to protect the rights and interests of faculty from an administration that most often confronts the faculty as an adversary, instead of honoring faculty as knowledgeable and concerned experts.
The situation is different when it comes to scholarly and academic work. I spent a few years trying to fit into the academic philosophy world; I presented papers at conferences, published articles, pursued the most remote arcana, and above all else, maintained a continuous presence in what some people in my field call "the discussion." It was fun for a while, but the more deeply I got involved, the more removed from the everyday, the more I felt that there wasn't much point to a great deal of "the discussion," other than the rather arbitrary value placed on it by academics. I saw and heard a lot of weird behavior, from shrill denouncements of others as idiots, to the widespread problem of general social dysfunction. I watched what academia turned some acquaintances into, and how unrecognizable they became as the people I used to know, after, say, spending a year as a research fellow, or while they pitched their manuscripts to publishers.
This might seem like sour grapes, but I have to confess, I cooled to academic philosophy before it cooled to me. I had never had the most positive attitude toward it in the first place (ironically, I can at least partially blame a philosophy professor I had for that attitude, for it was he who convinced me that academics use jargon as a weapon and as a barrier). Not all of it, but more than I'm comfortable with, strikes as fiddling while the city is in flames.
I've been wondering lately if I shouldn't return to that kind of work to some degree. I do sometimes miss getting highly charged email, from people I don't really know, arguing forcefully on one side or another of some ongoing debate, and being part of it. For all their dysfunctions, academics do tend to care deeply about their fields, and jump into them with gusto. It's good for renewal.
The practical problem, for now, is that I can no longer leap into it as a purely intellectual and academic exercise. It has to be integrated into my life, which means into the everyday reality of being a teacher of general education classes, of being a citizen of the university, of being a union activist, and of course a private person. I want to find a way that the academic, scholarly work remains within the sphere of relevance of my daily life, and of the lives I come into contact with daily. I think that means, in part, that I don't want to get involved in writing something if I can't see why what I'm writing about would make a difference to my neighbor Marty, or would be significant to someone cooking risotto with morel mushrooms, or would reflectively inform my teaching practice, etc., etc. This is not easy, because the academic philosophy world tends on the whole to neglect, if not actually to dismiss, everyday life. In fact, academia tends to reward people for performances that require them to be neglectful of everyday life, or of teaching, or of being good citizens of the university. (This is something bell hooks wrote eloquently about in Teaching to Transgress.)
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