this week i

pay attention to the ministry of truth.  scientific consensus needs amplification against these bottom-feeders

watched the birds (1963), not enough blue jays.  "why are they trying to kill people?"  "i wish i could say"  bodega bay aka australia

recognized madeleine peyroux singing in the shape of water.  are togas just low quality kurtas?  the polish spell vodka wodka.  and aren't we all?

ask if spiders see candles as we see volcanoes?  multitasking should have started and ended with picture in picture

watched betty blue.  milkman mopped up eyeblood handprints just because it was the neighborly thing to do.  mid-eighties france paradise

 

read..

(1) a society of perpetual referenda

 

representative sampling was designed by statisticians in the 1920s, making it possible for social scientists to discover the attitudes of millions of people by surveying just a small - but mathematically representative - fraction of them.  a new industry of opinion polling, audience research and market research grew over the course of the 1930s, led by companies such as gallup

in a plebiscitary democracy, power lies with the person who designs the questions

(2) arrival in turkmenistan

at istanbul, a team from turkish airlines had arrived at the boarding gate two hours before the flight and set up a perimeter around the desk using stretchy queue barriers.  the entrance was guarded by a number of ground staff.  as soon as i began walking towards it carrying my passport and boarding card, the reason for the precautions became clear.  i was approached by one turkmen after another, each of them cursing when i refused to accept the bubble-wrapped packages they tried to press on me

(3) an unimaginable future

(4) enough to destroy all life on the planet many times over

the us and the soviet union survived the cold war, living on a knife edge of fear that drove each to accumulate more than 30,000 nuclear weapons

(5) transformative justice

mariame kaba, a police and prison abolitionist, emphasizes that a society without such institutions is not so far-fetched: affluent communities-where police do not patrol school halls, where misbehavior in schools results in counseling rather than jail, where people do not worry for their safety, and where addiction and mental illness are treated rather than criminalized-are"living abolition right now," she has said

in a survey of people released from prison in boston.."40 percent...had witnessed someone being killed, nearly half were beaten by their parents...16 percent reported being sexually abused," and half said they had been "serious injured...growing up...almost no one's entry point into violence is committing it"

8/27

this week i

sent two president donald j trump stimulus check sized donations to the dscc.  the older i get, the less i have to lose

bought myself a birthday present (reflexive verb), as if jailed bannon weren't enough (notice his copy).  "noam chomsky:  my favorite newspaper"

 

note james harris lasted less than twelve hours from her selection.  he died august 9th, 2020

 

watched da 5 bloods, not recommended.  big stinky f on the bechdel test, though appreciated flashbacks without age distortion

damn otis, just put the gold on craigslist

received one of my favorite dishes best served cold

speculated on ropeswings and interconnected root systems.  disney saw kongo in buenos aires, vbd one and all

 

read at war with asia, about the extent of deceit.  1969 american counterinsurgency spending in laos overtook that country's gnp

in contrast to the anti-intellectuals, the applied social scientist understands that it is perfectly proper to "rain death from the skies upon an area where there is no war," so long as we "succeed fast"

"so-called communist territory is little but a shooting range"

the bombing is "the most restrained in modern warfare" (as mcgeorge bundy so elegantly put it at the time when virtually every structure in north vietnam, outside of the centers of hanoi and haiphong, was being demolished)

it is this "communist threat" that we have been combating in vietnam, where, as has frequently been noted, vietnamese communism threatens the new order that we have been trying to construct in asia with japan as junior partner, linked to asia by essential colonial relationships.  as president eisenhower expressed it: one of japan's greatest opportunities for increased trade lies in a free and developing southeast asia....the great need in one country is for raw materials, in the other country for manufactured goods.  the two regions complement each other markedly.  by strengthening of vietnam and helping insure the safety of the south pacific and southeast asia, we gradually develop the great trade potential between this region ... and highly industrialized japan to the benefit of both.  in this way freedom in the western pacific will be greatly strengthened

continued mass actions, patient explanation, principled resistance can be boring, depressing.  but those who program the b-52 attacks and the "pacification" exercises are not bored, and as long as they continue in their work, so must we

the bombing of northern laos takes place in a region far removed from the "ho chi minh trail" and has no direct connection to the war in south vietnam.  it is, in fact, directed against civilian targets and has resulted in almost total destruction of most settled areas and forced evacuation of much of the population.  where people remain, they live, for the most part, in caves and tunnels

the objective of the bombing seems to be to destroy the civil society administered by the pathet lao.  quite possibly, the united states is pursuing in laos the dual policy of massive destruction in areas that are beyond the reach of american-controlled armies, and removal of the population to refugee camps and urban slums wherever this is feasible.  this has been the effect of the american escalation, and it is likely that it was the intended effect, as in vietnam

we in saigon are desperate men.  we are a government of desperadoes

arnett quotes an american commander who says, "my orders are to burn everything," and reports that air raids have partially destroyed the town of memot, villages have been burned, and thousands of civilians have fled.  an observer comments: such actions may drive the vietnamese population of the rubber planations into the ranks of the viet kong, and the cambodian population into the arms of the "khmer rouges," if we are not careful

a pathet lao defector interviewed at sam thong reports that the town of sam neua was destroyed in 1965.  in hanoi, i spoke to a member of a non-communist embassy who had just returned from a trip to sam neua.  he too reported that virtually nothing remains above ground, but that life continues in caves

for a country at war, north vietnam seems remarkably relaxed and serene.  we took long walks, unaccompanied, in hanoi and in the countryside

someday, if the war ends, hanoi will be a beautiful city, with its wide tree-lined streets and many lakes and parks

there is no trace of the former village.  the area has been bombed so heavily that even the craters are not delineated, as they generally are along the road.  only the shell of the building that houses the power station remains in the battered plain.  carved in the hills beyond, just visible from where we stood, are the words quyet thang - "determined to win"

the crime of silence

 

8/20

this week i

updated the !file.exists() failure photo in our bookmaking

saw an american goldfinch among the black eyed susans

grilled first meal of the day, revati sent coffee cake that wasn't chokey, matthew installed a reverse wind turbine, ruffles splashed in the potomac

 

cannot believe how much candy i consumed as a child.  still not 100% confident when using the word prodigious in a sentence

watched blazing saddles

the town saloon was always lively,

but never nasty or obscene,

behind the bar stood anal johnston,

he always kept things nice and clean

watched the son's room.  in early 21st century italy, they blowtorch the caskets shut

buonasera

corpo di cristo

era una domenica

read all in the timing by david ives.  walt whitman high school theatre fest 2000 included sure thing, about infinite possible outcomes

after being hit in the head with a mountain-climber's axe, trotsky lived on for thirty-six hours.  i thought it was the funniest thing i'd ever heard

bill: what's the book?

betty: the sound and the fury.

bill: oh.  hemingway.

(bell)

betty: the sound and the fury.

bill: oh. faulkner

maybe you're only interested for the sake of making small talk long enough to ask me back to your place to listen to some music, or because you've rented this great tape for your VCR, or because you've got some terrific unknown django reinhardt record, only all you really want to do is fuck - which you won't do very well - after which you'll go into the bathroom and pee very loudly

dawn: i see.  and "is" is - ?

don: arf.

dawn: "was" is - ?

don: wharf.

dawn: "had been" - ?

don: long wharf.

dawn: and "will be" - ?

don: barf.  arf, wharf, barf.  pasta, prison, furniture dances. [past, present, future tenses.] clara?

trotsky: is it the britannica?

mrs. trotsky: listen to this.

trotsky (to audience): the universe as viewed by the victors.

mrs. trotsky: "on august 20th, 1940, a spanish communist named ramon mercader smashed a mountain-climber's axe into trotsky's skull in coyoacan, a suburb of mexico city.  trotsky died the next day"

trotsky (impatient): yes? and?

mrs. trotsky: i think that there's a mountain-climber's axe in your own skull right now

if you've got a niche, scratch it

do you know that there are separate asylums to hold all the people who think they're the lindbergh baby?

sigmund freud would've had a picnic

jill: so what are you doing with yourself?

loudspeaker voice: "are you still sleeping with that slut from the community college?"

jack: same old thing.

loudspeaker voice: "it's none of your fucking business."

jill: have you tried the chicken?

loudspeaker voice: "have some salmonella?"

the infinite smorgasbord lies before us.  but what do we do?

jack: i'm just curious.  first base?  second base?  shortstop?

ruth: shortstop?

jack: yeah.

ruth: what's shortstop?

jack: you know what shortstop is.

ruth: i never went to an all-boys catholic school.

jack: that's when she lets you work her through her panties but won't let you put your hand inside

8/13

this week i

lost my friend djalma.  he was cool, i hope to be like him some day, writing income inequality software in a home office high above a chaotic city, pausing for lunch when one's partner says so.  a good life led is one of uncompromising change.  i suppose we were colleagues, but he was my friend

8/6