If liberty and equality, as is thought by some, are chiefly to be found in democracy, they will be best attained when all persons alike share in the government to the utmost."
Showing posts with label meditations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label meditations. Show all posts
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Biological Determinism.
Still, to the extent that you really do believe that cognitive abilities are (a) important, and (b) strongly biologically determined, shouldn't you also believe that the poor are more unlucky than anything else, and haven't done anything to deserve hunger, lousy housing, poor medical care, or crappy educations? If genetic luck plays a big role in making us who we are, then support for income redistribution from the rich to the poor is almost a logical necessity for anyone with a moral sense more highly developed than a five-year-old's.
Long story short, belief in biological determinism should make you into a liberal. And yet, here in the real world it mostly does just the opposite. Go figure.
(Words of Wisdom courtesy Kevin Drum of MotherJones magazine)
Long story short, belief in biological determinism should make you into a liberal. And yet, here in the real world it mostly does just the opposite. Go figure.
(Words of Wisdom courtesy Kevin Drum of MotherJones magazine)
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Wage slave, lay down your chains
One of the most important facts about present-day American politics is that poor people have essentially no political “voice” in Washington. They do, however, vote. And they’re also human beings with moral worth and interests who count
Reading this made me realise*, this last century has been in part a story of how the power elites have learned to fission, delude and sucker poor people into voting against their own interests, and in subverting and/or crushing groupings of poor people trying to exert their own political power. This is largely true every in the first world, but is so nakedly and breathtakingly visible in US history as to be a perfect object lesson. The vicious hatred and unbelievably cruel treatment of the union movement in this country, both historically, and still being enforced, is pretty much a perfect example.
If this line of thought is carried much further, I might turn into a 'bomb-throwing radical' hahah. I do wish I'd realised this stuff 40 years ago, or not been so deafened myself as to fail to hear those who were saying it at the time. Plus de souvenirs, plus de regrets.
* or remember!
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Good news from all over
Or rather, not too much.
On Tuesday I took Cat to the hospital, to (as it turns out) get a biopsy of her cervix - she's been having abnormal pap smears for a couple of years, and the viral infection (some version of HPV) has apparently taken a serious turn. From what the doctor said, they're expecting to find a 'pre-cancerous' lesion, which should be removable via a LEEP operation - a fairly minor outpatient procedure, we're told. Well, far better to have it treated and removed before it turns into a cancer, I guess.
Which, parenthetically, just made me goggle in abhorred wonder at all the nutcase parents in the US who are vowing and declaring never to let their teenage daughters be innoculated against HPV, despite its effect at reducing cervical cancer. The basis for this seems to officially be that being innoculated against a sex-born virus will just encourage them to have sex, and if they only have sex with the one man they ever marry, they will be in no danger of contracting HPV.
Which may be true, IF their husband has never had sex with anyone at all ever, either. And assuming they never divorce and remarry, or - heaven forbid - have an affair while married.
In fact, as far as I can detect, the real reason for this refusal is a far more visceral patriarchal reaction of 'Eewww, lady-parts, yukky!' .... which actually pretty much describes the reaction of these nuts to most female-related issues.
Enough hypocrisy and rank deception to choke a hippo, really.
Oh, and speaking of hypocrisy, we have this little fiasco in Louisiana at the moment too: Experts now estimate that five times more oil has been spilling into the water from that oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana than they thought before:
On Tuesday I took Cat to the hospital, to (as it turns out) get a biopsy of her cervix - she's been having abnormal pap smears for a couple of years, and the viral infection (some version of HPV) has apparently taken a serious turn. From what the doctor said, they're expecting to find a 'pre-cancerous' lesion, which should be removable via a LEEP operation - a fairly minor outpatient procedure, we're told. Well, far better to have it treated and removed before it turns into a cancer, I guess.
Which, parenthetically, just made me goggle in abhorred wonder at all the nutcase parents in the US who are vowing and declaring never to let their teenage daughters be innoculated against HPV, despite its effect at reducing cervical cancer. The basis for this seems to officially be that being innoculated against a sex-born virus will just encourage them to have sex, and if they only have sex with the one man they ever marry, they will be in no danger of contracting HPV.
Which may be true, IF their husband has never had sex with anyone at all ever, either. And assuming they never divorce and remarry, or - heaven forbid - have an affair while married.
In fact, as far as I can detect, the real reason for this refusal is a far more visceral patriarchal reaction of 'Eewww, lady-parts, yukky!' .... which actually pretty much describes the reaction of these nuts to most female-related issues.
Enough hypocrisy and rank deception to choke a hippo, really.
Oh, and speaking of hypocrisy, we have this little fiasco in Louisiana at the moment too: Experts now estimate that five times more oil has been spilling into the water from that oil rig explosion off the coast of Louisiana than they thought before:
Okay. Here's how much they estimated was leaking before this evening: 42,000 gallons a day.
Five times that amount means approximately 210,000 gallons a day have been leaking into the Gulf.
If this spill continues unabated for two months — and that seems to be the most likely time frame at this point — we're talking about 12.6 million gallons.
Exxon Valdez? That was 10.8 million.
Enjoy your evening.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Kyrgyz conniptions
Hardly anyone in the West is celebrating Bakiyev’s overthrow (he has now offered to resign), singing the praises of Kyrgyz “people power” or writing lengthy, glowing profiles of acting PM Roza Otunbayeva. Having foolishly cheered the imposition of a far worse dictatorship on Kyrgyzstan than the authoritarian president the country had before, Western enthusiasts for popular revolution have become remarkably quiet as a real bloody tyrant has been deposed by a popular uprising.
Looked at one way, this muted reaction is a very good thing. It might suggest that Western observers are beginning to appreciate that violent political clashes on the other side of the planet are usually not what we believe them to be, and we might acknowledge that the reasons for the clashes have little or nothing to do with us in most cases. Our need to take sides or invest with one side with moral and political superiority almost always gets in the way of understanding what is happening, and it always gets in the way of correctly assessing what the American interest is. The fewer Western personality cults built around little-known foreign leaders, the better it will is abe for the quality of our foreign policy discussions and our political discourse generally. Of course, the muted reaction is also a reminder that democracy promoters and enthusiasts tend not to be interested in celebrating the downfall of despots aligned with Washington.
Nonetheless, it is striking how ready some are to complain that Russia contributed to the uprising. Bakiyev was a terrible ruler, the leadership of the new government appears at least marginally better, so far there is little reason to believe that the new Kyrgyz government will cut off U.S. access to Manas, and we now have the rather odd spectacle of Moscow aiding popular uprisings to remove governments that it believes are working against its interests. These all appear to be reasonably good developments by the very standards democracy enthusiasts usually apply.
Russian support for a popular uprising against an authoritarian regime reinforces my view that the Russian government is a pragmatic authoritarian populist government that will act to establish and maintain itself as a major world power, and it will not have ideological objections to aiding opposition movements against authoritarian rulers. Russia’s role in Bakiyev’s overthrow is one more reason to doubt Robert Kagan’s theory of a clear-cut ideological rivalry between democracy and authoritarianism (or what he insists on calling autocracy) defining great power politics in this century. It seems just as likely that continued democratization will lead to the alignment of new democracies and rising democratic powers with the authoritarian defenders of state sovereignty and the status quo. On many contentious international issues, we are already seeing cooperation among the BRIC states against the U.S. and Europe, and other large democracies are following suit. The major authoritarian powers are beginning to take advantage of the reality that democratization has tended to undermine rather than enhance U.S. hegemony, and they are exploiting the opportunities provided by the stronger expression of divergent interests resulting from democratization around the world.
The new situation in Kyrgyzstan leaves open the possibility that the U.S. and Russia might come to an understanding that Russia has far greater interests and influence in post-Soviet space, in part because this is apparently how many people in former Soviet republics want it, but that this does not have to preclude constructive relations between former Soviet republics and the United States. As the Gallup poll Greg cites also tells us, there are substantial constituencies in almost all former Soviet states that support maintaining good relations with America and Russia.
As long as our government does not insist that these states define their relationship with Washington with hostility to Russia and Russian influence, and as long as Washington understands the limited and temporary nature of security cooperation with many of these states, there does not need to be contest for influence that ultimately harms these states and poisons our bilateral relations. Before 2005, Akayev had maintained the balance between Washington and Moscow fairly well. The previous administration’s inexplicable anti-Russian obsession helped to wreck this. Perhaps now there is an opportunity to repair that damage.
Obviously, Kyrgyzstan is geographically very close to Russia, around one million Kyrgyz work in Russia, and as a result economic and political ties between the two are very strong. Russia will naturally exercise influence over a small, impoverished neighbor such as Kyrgyzstan, just as it exercises influence in all of the former Soviet republics. Was it a planned uprising? There is reason to think so, but it is improbable that the uprising would have succeeded as quickly as it did had there not been a significant groundswell of popular discontent with Bakiyev’s rule.
Following the war in Georgia in 2008, Yanukovych’s election in Ukraine earlier this year, and now Bakiyev’s overthrow, supporters of the “freedom agenda” as a vehicle for advancing U.S. hegemony in post-Soviet space have to acknowledge that their concerted anti-Russian campaign has failed completely. In the process, U.S.-Russian relations were badly damaged and are only now beginning to be repaired, and in the meantime the United States gained nothing we did not already have and contributed to the rise of three failed governments, at least two of which were more brutal and authoritarian than the ones that preceded them, and all of which have presided over terrible periods of misrule. It is now time to try to retrieve something from the wreckage, and that begins by establishing full relations with the new Kyrgyz government and making clear to Moscow that we are not going to try to prise former Soviet republics from its orbit.
Looked at one way, this muted reaction is a very good thing. It might suggest that Western observers are beginning to appreciate that violent political clashes on the other side of the planet are usually not what we believe them to be, and we might acknowledge that the reasons for the clashes have little or nothing to do with us in most cases. Our need to take sides or invest with one side with moral and political superiority almost always gets in the way of understanding what is happening, and it always gets in the way of correctly assessing what the American interest is. The fewer Western personality cults built around little-known foreign leaders, the better it will is abe for the quality of our foreign policy discussions and our political discourse generally. Of course, the muted reaction is also a reminder that democracy promoters and enthusiasts tend not to be interested in celebrating the downfall of despots aligned with Washington.
Nonetheless, it is striking how ready some are to complain that Russia contributed to the uprising. Bakiyev was a terrible ruler, the leadership of the new government appears at least marginally better, so far there is little reason to believe that the new Kyrgyz government will cut off U.S. access to Manas, and we now have the rather odd spectacle of Moscow aiding popular uprisings to remove governments that it believes are working against its interests. These all appear to be reasonably good developments by the very standards democracy enthusiasts usually apply.
Russian support for a popular uprising against an authoritarian regime reinforces my view that the Russian government is a pragmatic authoritarian populist government that will act to establish and maintain itself as a major world power, and it will not have ideological objections to aiding opposition movements against authoritarian rulers. Russia’s role in Bakiyev’s overthrow is one more reason to doubt Robert Kagan’s theory of a clear-cut ideological rivalry between democracy and authoritarianism (or what he insists on calling autocracy) defining great power politics in this century. It seems just as likely that continued democratization will lead to the alignment of new democracies and rising democratic powers with the authoritarian defenders of state sovereignty and the status quo. On many contentious international issues, we are already seeing cooperation among the BRIC states against the U.S. and Europe, and other large democracies are following suit. The major authoritarian powers are beginning to take advantage of the reality that democratization has tended to undermine rather than enhance U.S. hegemony, and they are exploiting the opportunities provided by the stronger expression of divergent interests resulting from democratization around the world.
The new situation in Kyrgyzstan leaves open the possibility that the U.S. and Russia might come to an understanding that Russia has far greater interests and influence in post-Soviet space, in part because this is apparently how many people in former Soviet republics want it, but that this does not have to preclude constructive relations between former Soviet republics and the United States. As the Gallup poll Greg cites also tells us, there are substantial constituencies in almost all former Soviet states that support maintaining good relations with America and Russia.
As long as our government does not insist that these states define their relationship with Washington with hostility to Russia and Russian influence, and as long as Washington understands the limited and temporary nature of security cooperation with many of these states, there does not need to be contest for influence that ultimately harms these states and poisons our bilateral relations. Before 2005, Akayev had maintained the balance between Washington and Moscow fairly well. The previous administration’s inexplicable anti-Russian obsession helped to wreck this. Perhaps now there is an opportunity to repair that damage.
Obviously, Kyrgyzstan is geographically very close to Russia, around one million Kyrgyz work in Russia, and as a result economic and political ties between the two are very strong. Russia will naturally exercise influence over a small, impoverished neighbor such as Kyrgyzstan, just as it exercises influence in all of the former Soviet republics. Was it a planned uprising? There is reason to think so, but it is improbable that the uprising would have succeeded as quickly as it did had there not been a significant groundswell of popular discontent with Bakiyev’s rule.
Following the war in Georgia in 2008, Yanukovych’s election in Ukraine earlier this year, and now Bakiyev’s overthrow, supporters of the “freedom agenda” as a vehicle for advancing U.S. hegemony in post-Soviet space have to acknowledge that their concerted anti-Russian campaign has failed completely. In the process, U.S.-Russian relations were badly damaged and are only now beginning to be repaired, and in the meantime the United States gained nothing we did not already have and contributed to the rise of three failed governments, at least two of which were more brutal and authoritarian than the ones that preceded them, and all of which have presided over terrible periods of misrule. It is now time to try to retrieve something from the wreckage, and that begins by establishing full relations with the new Kyrgyz government and making clear to Moscow that we are not going to try to prise former Soviet republics from its orbit.
Thursday, September 3, 2009
Friends, a little more
Busy day in prospect today, lots of changes and installs scheduled (and of course, none can ever wait for another day once they have been approved, naturally).
But I was thinking about friends again last night, after trying to soothe one of my online friends. I need to explain a little: I've been playing an online game, World of Warcraft (or WOW), for the last 4 years, and essentially it is similar to playing Dungeons & Dragons or such games, online rather than face to face, and with a computerised Games Master providing automated quests and challenges.
A large part of succeeding at the game is finding and cultivating people to team up with and rely on, and the game has a mechanism (called Guilds), which allows you to create your own online home-rooms, and longstanding (or not) groups of people to cooperate with. Naturally, for the more long-lasting of these associations, these relationships spread out beyond just the game and immediate requirements and assistance, and flows out into the rest of your life - you share tidbits of what you're doing, why you're feeling bouncy (or grumpy), & what's happening, and generally establish friendships.
Of course, like all online friendships, these are much more fragile and transitory than personal, real-life friendships, but that's largely just a matter of degree (I sometimes think of the internet as not much more than a giant keyhole to peep through, you get such one-sided and limited views of anything, and anyone).
Anyway, one of the women in the guild got upset last night, because she felt she was always being asked for assistance (quite accurately) and was taken for granted and not properly valued (which I didnt think was accurate, but it's her perception): and her son, also in our guild, was being exalted and praised while she felt mostly ignored. I suspect the feeling is largely an artefact or spillover from whatever it is that is happening in her actual life (you get a lot of that projection on the 'net, it seems), but in the end that hardly matters, from my point of view, so naturally I spent time trying to calm her, and make her feel more appreciated and valued, and encouraged some of the others to try to do likewise.
Just one of those frustrating situations where there's not much you can do, except try your best and wait for the storm to pass. I'll have to wait til tonight, or later, to see if it had any lasting effect.
I must say, one of the hardest bits of the game is simply, many - perhaps most - of the players are teenage boys (or boys stuck in teenage mode despite their age). Man! are they ever hard work. Not that they are all, or always, dreadful, but the proportion of arrogance, ignorance and vicious cruelty is just enormous with them. Possibly the hardest bit for me to adjust to is, in earlier years anyone I encountered on the net was likely to be essentially like me, i.e. another technophile geek. Nowadays they let all sorts of riffraff on the net (just to add my own touch of arrogance!) Overall, though, I must observe: being a teenager looks every bit as appalling as I remember it.
Am I going anywhere with this? Not really, more just blithering on about what's on my mind :)
================================
Totally changing the subject, it still astonishes me how much music reaches in and twists, changes me. For the last couple of years, I've found when I get upset, listening to Astral Weeks just helps me detach myself, calm down, and feel comforted.
If I ventured in the slipstream
between the viaducts of your dream
where the immobile steel rims crack
and the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
to lay me down
in silence easy
to be born again,
to be born again
From the far side of the ocean,
if I put the wheels in motion
and I stand with my arms behind me
and I'm pushing on the door
Standing with the look of avarice
talking to huddie ledbetter
showin' pictures on the wall
whispering in the hall
and pointing a finger at me
There you go, there you go
standing in the sun darlin'
with your arms behind you
and your eyes before
there you go
takin' good care of your boy
seeing that he's got clean clothes
putting on his little red shoes
seein gyou know he's got clean clothes
and here I am
standing in your sad arrest
trying to do my very best
looking straight at you
coming through, darling
If I ventured in the slipstream
between the viaducts of your dreams
where immobile steel rims crack
and the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me,
Would you kiss-a my eyes
Lay me down
in silence easy
to be born again,
to be born again
in another world,
in another world
in another time
Got a home on high
Aint nothing but a stranger in this world
I'm nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
in another land
so far way
so far away
way up in the heaven
in another time,
in another place
But I was thinking about friends again last night, after trying to soothe one of my online friends. I need to explain a little: I've been playing an online game, World of Warcraft (or WOW), for the last 4 years, and essentially it is similar to playing Dungeons & Dragons or such games, online rather than face to face, and with a computerised Games Master providing automated quests and challenges.
A large part of succeeding at the game is finding and cultivating people to team up with and rely on, and the game has a mechanism (called Guilds), which allows you to create your own online home-rooms, and longstanding (or not) groups of people to cooperate with. Naturally, for the more long-lasting of these associations, these relationships spread out beyond just the game and immediate requirements and assistance, and flows out into the rest of your life - you share tidbits of what you're doing, why you're feeling bouncy (or grumpy), & what's happening, and generally establish friendships.
Of course, like all online friendships, these are much more fragile and transitory than personal, real-life friendships, but that's largely just a matter of degree (I sometimes think of the internet as not much more than a giant keyhole to peep through, you get such one-sided and limited views of anything, and anyone).
Anyway, one of the women in the guild got upset last night, because she felt she was always being asked for assistance (quite accurately) and was taken for granted and not properly valued (which I didnt think was accurate, but it's her perception): and her son, also in our guild, was being exalted and praised while she felt mostly ignored. I suspect the feeling is largely an artefact or spillover from whatever it is that is happening in her actual life (you get a lot of that projection on the 'net, it seems), but in the end that hardly matters, from my point of view, so naturally I spent time trying to calm her, and make her feel more appreciated and valued, and encouraged some of the others to try to do likewise.
Just one of those frustrating situations where there's not much you can do, except try your best and wait for the storm to pass. I'll have to wait til tonight, or later, to see if it had any lasting effect.
I must say, one of the hardest bits of the game is simply, many - perhaps most - of the players are teenage boys (or boys stuck in teenage mode despite their age). Man! are they ever hard work. Not that they are all, or always, dreadful, but the proportion of arrogance, ignorance and vicious cruelty is just enormous with them. Possibly the hardest bit for me to adjust to is, in earlier years anyone I encountered on the net was likely to be essentially like me, i.e. another technophile geek. Nowadays they let all sorts of riffraff on the net (just to add my own touch of arrogance!) Overall, though, I must observe: being a teenager looks every bit as appalling as I remember it.
Am I going anywhere with this? Not really, more just blithering on about what's on my mind :)
================================
Totally changing the subject, it still astonishes me how much music reaches in and twists, changes me. For the last couple of years, I've found when I get upset, listening to Astral Weeks just helps me detach myself, calm down, and feel comforted.
If I ventured in the slipstream
between the viaducts of your dream
where the immobile steel rims crack
and the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me?
Would you kiss-a my eyes?
to lay me down
in silence easy
to be born again,
to be born again
From the far side of the ocean,
if I put the wheels in motion
and I stand with my arms behind me
and I'm pushing on the door
Standing with the look of avarice
talking to huddie ledbetter
showin' pictures on the wall
whispering in the hall
and pointing a finger at me
There you go, there you go
standing in the sun darlin'
with your arms behind you
and your eyes before
there you go
takin' good care of your boy
seeing that he's got clean clothes
putting on his little red shoes
seein gyou know he's got clean clothes
and here I am
standing in your sad arrest
trying to do my very best
looking straight at you
coming through, darling
If I ventured in the slipstream
between the viaducts of your dreams
where immobile steel rims crack
and the ditch in the back roads stop
Could you find me,
Would you kiss-a my eyes
Lay me down
in silence easy
to be born again,
to be born again
in another world,
in another world
in another time
Got a home on high
Aint nothing but a stranger in this world
I'm nothing but a stranger in this world
I got a home on high
in another land
so far way
so far away
way up in the heaven
in another time,
in another place
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
A passing observation
Amanda quoted:
He argues that far from being merely angry over the “confusion” over stupid shit like who pays the tab at dinner, men who are lashing out at the broadening gender roles are angry that they’ve lost patriarchal power over women.
Which I found very interesting in light of my rave of a couple of days ago. Not that I disagree - not at all! But it seems to me the same rage and temper tantrums is driving the racist storm, and the republican backlash - simple pure anger and outrage at losing apparently-permanent privilege and power (as to why Republicans would think this is eternally theirs, well, they're right, dammit! and everyone else is not just wrong but sinfully and willfully wrong, so of course they deserve permanent power).
Unfortunately, I dont think there's any diminuation in this outrage likely - the anger may be banked and less obvious, perhaps. The solution, rather grimly, is to outlive them: each generation seems just a touch more openminded and egalitarian than the last one (and that seems to go back a long long way).
He argues that far from being merely angry over the “confusion” over stupid shit like who pays the tab at dinner, men who are lashing out at the broadening gender roles are angry that they’ve lost patriarchal power over women.
Which I found very interesting in light of my rave of a couple of days ago. Not that I disagree - not at all! But it seems to me the same rage and temper tantrums is driving the racist storm, and the republican backlash - simple pure anger and outrage at losing apparently-permanent privilege and power (as to why Republicans would think this is eternally theirs, well, they're right, dammit! and everyone else is not just wrong but sinfully and willfully wrong, so of course they deserve permanent power).
Unfortunately, I dont think there's any diminuation in this outrage likely - the anger may be banked and less obvious, perhaps. The solution, rather grimly, is to outlive them: each generation seems just a touch more openminded and egalitarian than the last one (and that seems to go back a long long way).
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
America
Despite what I might write here, things are hardly unbearable here, by any means. I guess it's human nature to focus on the discontents and rant about them, but there's plenty of good here, too: not least, my god! we are rich :)
Well, at least more affluent than I've ever been - we have a brand-new car (my first ever), a pleasant 3 bedroom house in a leafy suburb, and pretty much all the toys and gadgets that we want: and if we feel the pinch a bit financially, that is just a combination of Cat not being permitted to work for pay yet, and paying off the cost of moving here & setting up house again, more or less from scratch. In a year or so, we should have those all done, and be able to buy a substantial house quite easily.
And, there is a sense of, well, unconstrainedness here: calling it freedom is a bit facile, but after the crowdedness of Europe, and in particular after the tight-corseted attitudes of England, things are much looser and easier. If we have periodic clashes with BastardCorp (in all it's different names), well, that happens everywhere - I still remember, bitterly, my dealings with Telebastards NZ, and those crappy architects that screwed the pooch in the Kinghorne street extension.
Plus, we are away from the english passive-aggressive, negative, carping atmosphere: that alone is like getting out of prison. OK, the people here might be racist & sexist, but hardly worse than the grotesquely racist working class english, or the (largely) snide and vicious middle class sexism: and at least here they are friendly and open at first encounter.
Oops, time to hit the road ... Memphis here we come!
Well, at least more affluent than I've ever been - we have a brand-new car (my first ever), a pleasant 3 bedroom house in a leafy suburb, and pretty much all the toys and gadgets that we want: and if we feel the pinch a bit financially, that is just a combination of Cat not being permitted to work for pay yet, and paying off the cost of moving here & setting up house again, more or less from scratch. In a year or so, we should have those all done, and be able to buy a substantial house quite easily.
And, there is a sense of, well, unconstrainedness here: calling it freedom is a bit facile, but after the crowdedness of Europe, and in particular after the tight-corseted attitudes of England, things are much looser and easier. If we have periodic clashes with BastardCorp (in all it's different names), well, that happens everywhere - I still remember, bitterly, my dealings with Telebastards NZ, and those crappy architects that screwed the pooch in the Kinghorne street extension.
Plus, we are away from the english passive-aggressive, negative, carping atmosphere: that alone is like getting out of prison. OK, the people here might be racist & sexist, but hardly worse than the grotesquely racist working class english, or the (largely) snide and vicious middle class sexism: and at least here they are friendly and open at first encounter.
Oops, time to hit the road ... Memphis here we come!
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Meditations on music (1)
Jim Morrison & the Doors are still one of my favourite groups, and I still find a lot to enjoy, and to think about, in their songs - the nonlinearity and powerful imagery, the simple hypnotic rhythms, the occasional haunting melodies.
When Oliver Stone produced his film of the groups' rise and demise, I was fascinated when I watched it - as someone who was too young to have been there, it seemed to me that he captured the spirit and feeling of the times very vividly, even if he exaggerated the monstrosity of the depravity of Jim in the later stages of his career (as the surviving group members all insist). In some ways, I think - of course he exaggerated it, the whole Doors thing was about the exaggeration of emphasis, and how more appropriate to tell the tale.
Despite the fascination of watching it the first time around, it took me a long time before I brought myself to watch it again, because the end of the story is so ugly, and because the actor (Val Kilmer) did such a spectacular job of providing a charming, empathic, winning picture of Jim in the first two-thirds of the movie, that to watch him fall apart so completely, so self-destructively, was just too painful to sustain.
I seem to have developed a way around this now: I simply stop watching after two-thirds of the movie. A cheat, I suppose, to leave the story incomplete, but I know what's coming, and why suffer through it again? I'm not some neophyte that needs to learn the moral of the tale, after all. (and why watch any of it? well, because it is a lyrical, romantic, winning tale up to that point, and gives me great enjoyment).
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the cross fire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger,
You legend, you martyr, and shine!
Hmm, I seem to have wandered off course somewhat.
When Oliver Stone produced his film of the groups' rise and demise, I was fascinated when I watched it - as someone who was too young to have been there, it seemed to me that he captured the spirit and feeling of the times very vividly, even if he exaggerated the monstrosity of the depravity of Jim in the later stages of his career (as the surviving group members all insist). In some ways, I think - of course he exaggerated it, the whole Doors thing was about the exaggeration of emphasis, and how more appropriate to tell the tale.
Despite the fascination of watching it the first time around, it took me a long time before I brought myself to watch it again, because the end of the story is so ugly, and because the actor (Val Kilmer) did such a spectacular job of providing a charming, empathic, winning picture of Jim in the first two-thirds of the movie, that to watch him fall apart so completely, so self-destructively, was just too painful to sustain.
I seem to have developed a way around this now: I simply stop watching after two-thirds of the movie. A cheat, I suppose, to leave the story incomplete, but I know what's coming, and why suffer through it again? I'm not some neophyte that needs to learn the moral of the tale, after all. (and why watch any of it? well, because it is a lyrical, romantic, winning tale up to that point, and gives me great enjoyment).
Remember when you were young, you shone like the sun.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Now there's a look in your eyes, like black holes in the sky.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
You were caught on the cross fire of childhood and stardom,
Blown on the steel breeze.
Come on you target for faraway laughter, come on you stranger,
You legend, you martyr, and shine!
Hmm, I seem to have wandered off course somewhat.
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