too long.

28 days. ended.

da-fine

I recently discovered the history of the word paraphernalia: "in former times, items of property given to a wife on her wedding by her new husband and thereafter legally her own."

more on fun state government

General history of initiative use: Started in South Dakota in the mid-1880s by Robert W. Haire. New Jersey was also key

even the economy has mood swings

 when referring to state government issues, business cycle refers to the ups and downs of economic activity. There are shifts between periods of rapid growth of output and then periods of stagnation or decline (recession). what makes the job difficult for the budget office to create an effective state budget is that the business cycle is not easy to predict in terms of patterns. i have realized that writing budgets at this level requires a creative mind capable of great guessing.  “Rainy-day funds” are sometimes established for use during a recession to boost the economy. However, most legislatures do not see why the governor does not use the extra funds to fix immediate problems with the budget or programs. The budget really needs reserves so it does not suffer too much stress when the business cycle turns down. i actually think this is rather worth knowing. not worth participating in, but one must spend copious amounts of time studying what they distain if they wish to destroy it, someday. 

nebraska different, really?

Nebraska is pretty wack as it is.  I used to hang out with some guys in Omaha when i lived in West Iowa. they took pride in their senator being voted dumbest in the nation. i've been reading about the state legislature in nebraska it is the only unicameral legislature in the country. it was set up in 1934, through a constitutional amendment that dissolved the House and granted all the powers to the Senate. the pusher, George Norris,  argued that a bicameral system was based on the British House of Lords and was undemocratic. as this was during the Depression the desire to cut costs also played into the unicameral plan. it was pointless to have two bodies doing the same thing and also a waist of money. some nerdy information is that the Senators serve for 4 years. ½ of the seats are up for election every 2^nd year. they earn $12,000/yr. and are elected in nonpartisan elections with one nonpartisan primary that picks top two to run in the general election. i should put quotations around the word nonpartisan. unofficially the Senate is overwhelmingly republican. oh, and their sessions run 90 working days in odd-numbered years and 60 working days in even-numbered years. this leaves time for running for reelection. 

class dismissed. 

do not block the capitalistic monster

The WTO is a force for globalization. Through WTO policies and the opening up of countries to foreign investments, factories and other companies will go where they can pay the least to produce their product. This happens at the expense of the laborer who, in most cases, cannot turn to a union for disputes of wage and conditions.  The WTO also ruled it illegal to ban a product in how it was produced, such as by using child labor.  

bello bellow

In his writings about conduct of soldiers and their governments once the war has begun, Jus in Bello, St. Aquinas says that there must be proportionality.  The offensive force should not annihilate the defenders if the initial crime resulted in the death of few. Proportional to the wrongs endured. One death is more than should be killed, but when the death toll of Iraqis is beyond 100,000 where as the deaths recorded on 9/11 were nowhere near that. The fact that the country of Iraq is in shambles and the government is essentially in the control of their conquerors, is evidence enough of the obvious disproportional force used. 

"let's take the day off"

     

in the middle of a bombed out street whose business long ago fled and whose residence spend transitory moments on their way to anywhere else, sits this billboard. i was in west belfast. this is not ritzy london where a billboard like this would be possibly more fitting. 

who has the time/money/freedom to wake up and take the day off?

when your city is controlled by a puppet government and when those who have power are in another country how can you expect to be able to spend the day surfing? 

these adds are ways of allowing impoverished areas a glimpse of what capitalistic culture they could achieve by oh, ya know, just a few extra days at work. 

i do what i want

I was reading through some old newspaper articles looking for information about what happened as the war in Iraq was was being concocted. I found an interesting one concerning the knowledge of the British government. Minutes of a private and extremely sensitive meeting held in 2002 between Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair and his close government staff were released in 2005. They show the amount of information that the government knew in the run up to the war. The knowledge that Iraq was not a major threat, as foreign secretary, Jack Straw is quoted as saying: “Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, [sic] and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.”[1] This is a significant and damning admission because the war would not be considered legal in the international community if the U.S. and England went into Iraq to just to depose Hussein.  They are strong states however and have great power on the Security Council in the U.N. Few can stand up to them without fear.

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[1] Smith, Michael. “Blair planned Iraq war from the start,” The Sunday Times. 1 May, 2005.

flower power whoopee

I cannot be too depressing, here are the blissfully happy people who see the world through tie-dye sunglasses.

The Idealists believe that there can be a better and more peaceful world and that, to reach such a time, war will be used as little as possible.  Their philosophy is that human nature is good and moral. Replacing actions of greed, selfishness and viciousness, which can be overcome, are ones of peace, justice and diplomacy.  Idealists view free democratic societies as the most fitting because ideas are worked out through cooperation.  In the alternative states, problems are more likely to arise as national interest forces competition of resources that are not unlimited. Idealists see ideologies of unilateralism and issues of sovereignty as the main causes of conflict between states.

my body swallowed my bone

i broke the c7 vertebrae in my neck. that is the last bone on the way to the backbones. according to some medical dictionary, which does a far funnier job defining than i could, the:

"C7 (cervical vertebra): C7 is the symbol for the 7th cervical (neck) vertebral bone (C7) which is sometimes called the prominent vertebra due to the length of its spinous process (the projection off the back of the vertebral body).

The spinous process of the top thoracic vertebra (T1) just below C7 is sometimes even more prominent than that of the 'prominent vertebra'."

i broke off the part that they call the "spinous process" that makes it the "prominent vertebra." i lack prominence. the prominence is floating in my cavernous body awaiting to be consumed by the little munchers that dissolve dissident bone matter.  what kept these janitors from sweeping the bones away while they are in their proper place. i suppose a medical degree will not be greeting me this may.

reality

here  are some of my latest depressing thoughts on political science. particularly relating to the current folks in power.

Realists look at the world with less emphasis on ethics and more on balance of power and the idea that human nature is fundamentally bad and must not be trusted. This is because they believe people will always pursue their own self-interest. Realists wish to attain power, domestic or international. There is also the Darwinian influenced idea that strong states will take over those that are incapable of supporting or defending themselves and that in essence might is right.

is peace created through fear?

Hobbs is known well for his grim outlook on humanity: that people are brutish and mean, crude and act only for their self-interest. He believed that what urges man towards peace is his fear of death and being killed.  So get rid of the others and you will live eternally.

moldy peaches

my father used to house-sit for an old priest when he lived in japan. the other day he told me the poor guy was ordered not to eat day-old bread by his doctor because his stomach could not digest it and the bread would mold in his belly. imagine the day you could no longer dumpster dive for fear of cultivating fungi farms in your tummy.  

Some pretentious b.s.

Women's roles in art are traditionally portrayed as weak, emotional, and with emphasis to their ability for reproduction. A feminist would argue that these creative renditions of women are purely that, interpretations, not reality. The roles portrayed by women in pieces like David's The Oath of the Horatii are not biologically based, they are created by a society (dominated by males) to impose on and use the female form to please the male funder/viewer.

A feminist approach to looking at art means analyzing the peice in terms of its portrayal of gender-how men and women are rendered in their social roles through use of stance and color choice, among other things.

In the above mentioned painting by David, the men are confident, controlled and powerful. This contrasts the helplessness of the women, huddled together and openly displaying their emotions. The men are created using strong, hard angles rather than the slopped and soft shapes of the female forms.

Analyzing the color with a feminist approach would see David's choice to use subdued and languid tones on the women as representing them with less respect than the men whose clothing colors are vibrant and commanding confidence and self-conference. 

Hmmmm.... is this total crap. Well, yup. I think I forgot to think about history.

Escape to Tottenham

Today I found out an interesting fact about one of the founders of the Guinness Book of World Records. Ross McWhirter was a racist political activist who thought that there should be restrictions on the rights of Irish in England. On November 4, 1975 he offered £50,000 Pounds to anyone who would rat on the Irish Republican Army. He was shot dead  during a year long shooting campaign in London by the IRA in Nov 27th. 

Humph.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

 I thought that Sleep was eight continues hours of John Giorno sleeping. Sleep has been much of my thoughts these days, and I was reminded of my long wish to view this film. I was reading a memorial of the filming and found out that the Bolex movie camera that Warhol used was only able to shoot 4-minutes of film at a time. He shot six and a half hours (thank you drugs) and the rest, to make up eight hours, was looped.

Andy Warhol:

"I could never finally figure out if more things happened in the sixties because there was more awake time for them to happen in (since so many people were on amphetamine), or if people started taking amphetamine because there were so many things to do that they needed to have more awake time to do them in... Seeing everybody so up all the time made me think that sleep was becoming pretty obsolete, so I decided I'd better quickly do a movie of a person sleeping. Sleep was the first movie I made when I got my 16mm Bolex."

wheres the vodka

we had band practice. i couldnt move my arms. and we couldnt tune the violin. and we were missing our other guitar player. we did have a loyal lovely listener. we need an accordion player.... any takers?

blockade

It is easier to hide the death of native demonstrators than the deaths of foreign demonstrators.  So the attraction to have individuals from the U.S. or other powerful countries is high. Violence is less likely to be used around demonstrators in, for example Israel, when they “act as ‘human shields,’ positioning themselves between members of the IDF [Israel Defense Force] and the Palestinians, standing in the way of bulldozers poised to demolish houses and placing themselves in crowds so that the IDF will be less likely to use real bullets if violence breaks out”[1]

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[1] Wenig, Gaby. “Human Rights Activists of Aids to Terrorists.” Jewish Journal. Sep. 11, 2003 

if we dont see it, does it matter?

If the government squashes a peace movement and there is no independent media, political leaders suffer little consequence. However, if the world watches a nonviolent group be murdered, support (not necessarily foreign governmental support) seems to grow for the victim.