Another friend sent us a couple of articles by industrial wind development consultant Tiff Thompson about the pesky problem of people resisting the insertion of giant industrial machines near their homes after finding that any benefit is far outweighed by many adverse effects. Below are some quotes from her articles, with comments in italics. Since she has named her consultancy "Nimby Consulting", she clearly assumes that there is no basis for their fears, only selfishness, and that she can therefore bully them into submission ...
"For those waging arguments out of genuine fear, the prospect of an industrial-scale wind turbine within visible distance from their homes appears more important than seemingly distant implications of climate change."
False choice. She thus removes one side of the equation. Opponents are not only concerned that industrial wind's impacts are greater than claimed; they are also motivated to fight more strongly for those concerns because industrial wind's benefits are much less than claimed.
"[S]etbacks over 1 mile will effectively kill any wind project, even in the most rural settings."
Can not even consider accommodating concerns. This statement about "setbacks over 1 mile" is actually disingenuous, since the industry fights every setback, no matter how modest, e.g., the effort in Wisconsin to increase a 1,250-ft minimum setback (less than one-fourth of a mile) to 1,800 ft (just over one-third of a mile).
"The wind farms typically referenced in oppositional arguments are, indeed, poorly sited and often the first the industry erected."
"The first" meaning: last month's. The industry has been saying this as long as it has existed, even as problems are documented with practically every facility built.
"Strategies such as ..., while successful at reducing noise, unfortunately also cause significant power loss."
Again, can not be seriously considered. Or as Ditlev Engel, CEO of Vestas, the world's biggest turbine manufacturer, wrote to Denmark's Environment Minister in complaint about regulations of low-frequency noise: "At this point you may have asked yourself why it is that Vestas does not just make changes to the wind turbines so that they produce less noise? The simple answer is that at the moment it is not technically possible to do so."
"In 1999, international noise standards were created by the World Health Organization’s Community Health Guidelines – set at roughly 40dB(A) averaged over night in one year. And in 1972, the US Environmental Protection Agency established its Office of Noise Abatement and Control, only to be later phased out in 1982, when individual states and local governments were given authority to create noise regulations. Today, in the USA, umbrella legislation – the EPA’s Noise Control Act of 1972 and Quiet Communities Act of 1978 – remains enforced, holding guidelines of permissible indoor and outdoor noise levels at 55dB(A) and 45dB(A) respectively."
Why is the EPA indoor limit (45 dB(A) — the writer apparently got the respective order backwards) 5 dB greater than the WHO outdoor limit? (And inside bedrooms at night, WHO guidelines specify a limit of 30 dB(A).) Note that a change of 5 dB is one that triggers widespread community complaints. Imagine the difference between a rural indoor nighttime level of 25 dB and the intrusion of 45 dB from neighboring wind turbines! And that's A-weighted (see below) averaged levels — add a significant low-frequency component (which is more prominent indoors) and a pulsing character, it's no wonder people get sick.
"In a recent Leicester, UK, article: ‘We were wrong on turbine noise, admit protesters’, a four-turbine project that was greeted by foreboding turned out to be not so threatening after it was erected and operational."
The one and only such report! The typical story is the opposite: Neighbors are reassured, even supportive, and then discover how wrong they were (e.g., Mars Hill and Vinalhaven, Maine; Falmouth and now Fairhaven, Massachusetts; Deeping St Nicholas, England; Waubra, Australia). Furthermore, not everyone is sensitive to noise to a health-threatening degree. This single light report can be weighed against the innumerable reports of problems around the world and increasing attention from the medical community (e.g., editorial in
the March 8, 2012, British Medical Journal [BMJ], special issue [August 2011] of Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society).
"[I]f people do not like wind energy, do not receive payments, have a turbine within their view, or dislike the developer, they are more likely to be annoyed. Hence, accurate noise assessment – from the beginning – is essential not only for a successfully sited project but also for community goodwill."
But remember, it's a (false) choice of turbine or climate change. And remember the impossibility of adequate distances from homes. And the economic cost of quieter and safer operation. And the laughability of noise standards (and the mystery of logarithmic decibels and frequency weighting). In other words, get the bullshit machine cranking early, and keep spreading it thick until the project is on. Be prepared to pay off a few neighbors. Then ... who cares? Once it's up, it will be nearly impossible to halt the multimillion-dollar investment. On to the next marks!
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
May 13, 2012
May 12, 2012
North American Windpower
A friend has sent us these excerpts from the May 2012 issue of the trade journal North American Windpower.
Pressure Applied in States to Widen RPS Allowances
"It's disconcerting to even have the conversation," [George Cannon, a partner at Dallas-based law firm Patton Boggs,] continues. "Any attempt to water down or cancel an RPS has a chilling effect on investment."
Cannon says that any potential elimination or alteration of federal incentives and state mandates places into question the future viability of wind energy.
"The RPS mandates are effectively what creates the market, assuming there are no other structures in place, such as feed-in tariffs," he says. "If you roll back the RPS, then you are eliminating much of the market for the renewable off-take."
Global Wind Market Demands Industry Evolution
To make matters worse [emphasis added], load growth in the U.S. in non-existent, with 2012 electricity consumption projected to remain 1% below 2007 peaks. ...
As a consequence of the aforementioned issues, turbine prices in the U.S. are approaching unsustainable levels. ...
Clipper Windpower's Liberty turbine design was very innovative. However, ongoing doubts remain regarding the durability of its quantum-drive powertrain, which, in turn, lead to concerns regarding long-term warranty exposure and put future sales at risk. Reinventing the group was an option for United Technologies Corp. [who divested its recently acquired Clipper assets], but to do so would require a great deal of time and investment, especially given the unique architecture of the Liberty concept. ...
Nordex recently announced that its joint venture deal [with Vestas] fell through and that it is exiting the offshore wind business completely.
California Wind Market Is 'Not for the Faint of Heart'
... rabid environmentalists ...
Navigating California's Regulatory Maze
Because California's four primary areas for wind farm development are now largely saturated, developers are moving into many new regions of the state that host a combination of renowned natural landscapes, community activism, cultural resources and diligent government oversight.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Pressure Applied in States to Widen RPS Allowances
"It's disconcerting to even have the conversation," [George Cannon, a partner at Dallas-based law firm Patton Boggs,] continues. "Any attempt to water down or cancel an RPS has a chilling effect on investment."
Cannon says that any potential elimination or alteration of federal incentives and state mandates places into question the future viability of wind energy.
"The RPS mandates are effectively what creates the market, assuming there are no other structures in place, such as feed-in tariffs," he says. "If you roll back the RPS, then you are eliminating much of the market for the renewable off-take."
Global Wind Market Demands Industry Evolution
To make matters worse [emphasis added], load growth in the U.S. in non-existent, with 2012 electricity consumption projected to remain 1% below 2007 peaks. ...
As a consequence of the aforementioned issues, turbine prices in the U.S. are approaching unsustainable levels. ...
Clipper Windpower's Liberty turbine design was very innovative. However, ongoing doubts remain regarding the durability of its quantum-drive powertrain, which, in turn, lead to concerns regarding long-term warranty exposure and put future sales at risk. Reinventing the group was an option for United Technologies Corp. [who divested its recently acquired Clipper assets], but to do so would require a great deal of time and investment, especially given the unique architecture of the Liberty concept. ...
Nordex recently announced that its joint venture deal [with Vestas] fell through and that it is exiting the offshore wind business completely.
California Wind Market Is 'Not for the Faint of Heart'
... rabid environmentalists ...
Navigating California's Regulatory Maze
Because California's four primary areas for wind farm development are now largely saturated, developers are moving into many new regions of the state that host a combination of renowned natural landscapes, community activism, cultural resources and diligent government oversight.
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel
Lori Potter reports in the Kearney (Neb.) Hub (via Wind Watch):
Jake Nikle of Wanzek Construction’s Fargo, N.D., office provided the Hub with some details about the materials, machines and manpower required to build the Broken Bow Wind farm.
Wanzek and its subcontractors are preparing sites for 50 wind turbines that will have a combined generating capacity of 80 megawatts. ...
The initial work includes building roads through pastures to the hills where foundations and electrical cables are installed. The concrete foundations now hidden underground are octagon shaped, but high in the middle and sloping to the sides.
Each foundation is about 8 feet below ground and is 56 feet across at its base.
The “pedestal” on top of the ground goes down three feet. Each of the 14-feet concrete circles has 128 bolts in two circular rows. The 8-foot-long bolts are anchored through a ring in the concrete foundation that also has 23 tons of rebar. ...
About 250 yards of concrete were required for each foundation. To support the weight of a turbine, 750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel are used.
More than 45 miles of underground cable will be buried to link the turbines to a substation.
Nebraska Public Power District, which has a power purchase agreement with Edison Mission Group, is building a nine-mile transmission line between the wind farm substation and an existing NPPD substation south of Highway 2 near Broken Bow.
Getting equipment to the turbine sites isn’t easy. About 24 miles of roads have been built, including some that included filling in parts of pasture canyons that must be crossed.
Turbine construction will be done in two phases, with cranes putting a section of each tower put onto the pedestals.
Then a larger, 550-ton-capacity crane will lift the top section — nacelle, rotors and blades — into place. It will require about 30 semitrailer trucks to haul that crane’s components.
Depending on the configuration of the load, it will take eight or nine trucks to haul each turbine.
At times when one of the three 42-meter (about 140 feet) blades extends straight up from the tower, the turbine will rise about 400 feet from the ground.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
Jake Nikle of Wanzek Construction’s Fargo, N.D., office provided the Hub with some details about the materials, machines and manpower required to build the Broken Bow Wind farm.
Wanzek and its subcontractors are preparing sites for 50 wind turbines that will have a combined generating capacity of 80 megawatts. ...
The initial work includes building roads through pastures to the hills where foundations and electrical cables are installed. The concrete foundations now hidden underground are octagon shaped, but high in the middle and sloping to the sides.
Each foundation is about 8 feet below ground and is 56 feet across at its base.
The “pedestal” on top of the ground goes down three feet. Each of the 14-feet concrete circles has 128 bolts in two circular rows. The 8-foot-long bolts are anchored through a ring in the concrete foundation that also has 23 tons of rebar. ...
About 250 yards of concrete were required for each foundation. To support the weight of a turbine, 750,000 pounds of concrete and 46,000 pounds of steel are used.
More than 45 miles of underground cable will be buried to link the turbines to a substation.
Nebraska Public Power District, which has a power purchase agreement with Edison Mission Group, is building a nine-mile transmission line between the wind farm substation and an existing NPPD substation south of Highway 2 near Broken Bow.
Getting equipment to the turbine sites isn’t easy. About 24 miles of roads have been built, including some that included filling in parts of pasture canyons that must be crossed.
Turbine construction will be done in two phases, with cranes putting a section of each tower put onto the pedestals.
Then a larger, 550-ton-capacity crane will lift the top section — nacelle, rotors and blades — into place. It will require about 30 semitrailer trucks to haul that crane’s components.
Depending on the configuration of the load, it will take eight or nine trucks to haul each turbine.
At times when one of the three 42-meter (about 140 feet) blades extends straight up from the tower, the turbine will rise about 400 feet from the ground.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism
May 8, 2012
Mind and Body
Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. ... Ideas take the place of sorrows; when the latter are transformed into ideas, they at once lose part of their noxious effect on the heart and from the very first moment the transformation itself radiates joy.
[Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c’est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l’esprit. ... Les idées sont des succédanés des chagrin; au moment où ceux-ci se changent en idées, ils perdent une partie de leur action nocive sur notre cœur, et même au premier instant, la transformation elle-même dégage subitement de la joie.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom)
[Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c’est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l’esprit. ... Les idées sont des succédanés des chagrin; au moment où ceux-ci se changent en idées, ils perdent une partie de leur action nocive sur notre cœur, et même au premier instant, la transformation elle-même dégage subitement de la joie.]
—Marcel Proust, The Past Recaptured
(1932 translation of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928) by Frederick Blossom)
May 6, 2012
Omnivores?
Today, the New York Times Magazine published the winning essay in their Ethicist contest for the ethical justification of eating meat. As expected, it is lame.
And in a strange fit, the Times “Public Editor”, Arthur Brisbane, decries the contest for making meat-eaters uncomfortable (which strongly suggests that the ethics of meat eating is indeed elusive).
He cites, apparently as reasonable critique, a blog post by Lisa Henderson, a sophomore at Kansas State University, on the Pork Network: “I believe that humans are omnivores and that meat provides protein and other things that are essential for health. Animals utilize the grass. Animals help us utilize more of the earth. I am not anti-vegetarian, but they seem to be anti-meat, and they seem to want to take that choice away from me.”
The omnivore argument actually justifies a vegetarian diet, because, especially since the invention of cooking, humans can thrive in a large variety of environments without meat. Furthermore, while meat-eaters insist that the imperative of being omnivorous drives their eating habits, they are not in fact omnivorous. Do they eat other humans? Do they (at least the majority in the U.S.) eat horses and dogs? The fact is, they too make ethical and cultural decisions about their diet and do just fine.
It is also telling that meat-eaters always feel threatened by the mere existence of a vegetarian diet. That response suggests that the only justification is indeed cultural in that vegetarians are seen as apostates or traitors.
Brisbane then solicits a comment from Calvin Trillin, which again he cites as apparently meaningful: “If they had a chance, they would eat us.”
Those vicious cows and chickens: terrorists in our midst!
Finally, Brisbane had also noted evocations by animal experimenter Linda Cork of life on the Arctic tundra and arid plains, where she sees fishing and herding to be essential to survival. But that only underscores that animal flesh is not essential to survival in Stanford, California. (Science researchers like Cork, for all their avowed objectivity, generally sugarcoat the fate of their victims as “sacrifice”.)
So to the winning essay, by former vegetarian Jay Bost, who, like Linda Cork, apparently saw that life in the Arizona desert would be difficult without eating animals and that therefore it’s OK to eat them in North Carolina and Hawaii, too.
In what Brisbane derides as “awfully complicated”, Bost lays down three conditions (not necessity, not imperative) to feel OK about eating the corpses of other animals: 1) accept that death begets life, that all life is just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form; 2) invoke compassion to choose ethically raised food, vegetable, grain, and/or meat; 3) give thanks.
Bost defines “ethical” as “living in the most ecologically benign way”. He compares boutique organic beef to monoculture/pesticide agriculture and — quel surprise! — concludes that not eating meat may be unethical. He compares the “best” situation on one side (we're not even getting into the horrors of “organic” dairy) to the worst situation on the other. Of course, meat eaters also eat plants, since healthy life without plants is a lot more unlikely than life without meat. They are implicated in both sides.
But let us consider cannibalism again. Since the greatest burden on the earth’s ecology is in fact the burgeoning human population, why wouldn’t it be ethical, by Bost’s definition, to eat other humans? In fact, one might conclude from his argument that not eating humans may be unethical. After all, if grazing animals help the land, it would be unethical to kill them. Whereas the Gospel of John in the Christian testament notes at 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. In the ritual of the eucharist (i.e., “thanks”, Bost’s final condition), believers consume the flesh of Jesus (”just solar energy temporarily stored in an impermanent form”), not a sheep or chicken.
Which leads me to my own (unsent) entry, imagining the only possible ethical argument, namely, the circular one of religion:
Meat: An Ethical Imperative
In the Book of Genesis, Cain slew Abel, because Abel was a meat-eater and thereby found greater favor with G-D. Having distanced himself from the ways of G-D by foregoing meat, Cain’s ethics had deteriorated to the point that his envy turned to murder. After that, he kept to cities, where a greater variety of sin is possible. But as the mark of his crime faded, his envy rose again, and so today urban vegetarians righteously condemn the diet that has sustained humans for millenia. They denounce meat-eaters as cruel, but instead of being cruel to animals, vegetarians must be cruel to other humans, just as Cain was toward Abel.
Violence and murder are a part of the human psyche. If we don’t regularly kill animals — respectfully, gratefully incorporating their spirits into our own — we end up killing other humans, even loved ones, as Cain killed his own brother. To advocate a vegetarian diet is ultimately to advocate murder. To eat humanely raised and slaughtered animals is to promote peace among men, which is why sacrificial meals are at the core of every religion and community.
As the essential bond of society, shared murder is its ethical basis.
To maintain civilization, if we are to avoid human sacrifice, the crime of Cain, we must slay animals and, to honor them as worthy gifts to the gods, eat them.
In choosing a nonviolent diet, vegetarians deny that ethical necessity. In continuing to eat meat, even to our own and the planet’s harm, we recognize the necessary sacrifice that ethical living demands. We must bear the burden of Cain by emulating Abel.
Update, April 7, 2013: Chris Grattan of Brockport, N.Y., writes: “In paleolithic hunting cultures, the rites connected with the killing of game were oriented toward an expression of gratitude to the animal for having given its life and the belief that its spirit would return in another body. In neolithic horticultural and agricultural societies the rites to promote the fecundity of the land were often gruesomely bloody, often in the form of human sacrifice. I try to keep this in mind when being subjected to vegetarian sanctimony.”
Get thee behind me Cain, ye ferking vegetarian!
But, back in reality, as omnivores we can choose what we eat. For most people most of the time, there is no need to eat animals. To choose to eat animals is to choose killing and suffering, and ethical justification for that choice — when it is a choice — is impossible.
As I have quipped before, meat-eaters claim to be omnivores, but they can’t swallow the truth.
environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, anarchism, ecoanarchism
Art and Society
From The Past Recaptured, by Marcel Proust (1932 translation by Frederick Blossom of Le Temps Retrouvé (1928)):
Even in our artistic enjoyment, although sought after for the impressions it gives, we are very quickly content to leave those impressions aside as something that cannot be expressed and confine our attention to those phases which allow us to experience the pleasure without analysing the sensations thoroughly, while thinking that we are communicating them to others with similar tastes, with whom we shall be able to converse because we shall be talking to them of something which is the same for them as for us, the personal root of our own impression having been eliminated. At the very times when we are the most dispassionate observers of nature, of society, love, even art itself, since every impression has two parts, one of them incorporated in the object and the other prolonged within ourselves and therefore knowable only to us, we are quick to neglect the latter, that is to say, the one part to which we ought to devote our attention, and consider only the other half, which, being outside ourselves, cannot be studied deeply and consequently never will cause us any fatiguing exertion; the slight groove that a musical phrase or the sight of a church made in our consciousness we find it too difficult to try to comprehend. But we play the symphony again and again or keep returning to look at the church, until, in this running away from our own life which we have not the courage to face — they call this “erudition” — we come to know them as well, and in the same manner, as the most learned lover of music or archaeology. How many there are, consequently, who stop at that point and extract nothing from their impression, but go to their graves useless and unsatisfied, like celibates of art. They are tormented by the same regrets as virgins and idlers, regrets that fecund labour would dispel. They are more wrought up over works of art than the real artists, because they do not labour arduously to get to the bottom of their emotional state and therefore it is diffused in outward expression, puts heat into their remarks and blood into their faces; they think they are doing something really great when, after the execution of a work they like, they shout vociferously “Bravo, bravo!” But these manifestations do not force them to seek light on the nature of their love; they do not know what it really is. Meanwhile, this unexpended passion exuberates into even their calmest conversation and leads them to indulge in grand gestures, facial contortions and noddings of the head when they talk of art. “I have been at a concert where they played some music which, I admit, did not thrill me. Then the quartette began and, nom d’une pipe, that was another story!” (Here the music lover’s face assumes an anxious expression, as if he were saying to himself, “Why, I see sparks, I smell something burning; there must be a fire somewhere!”) “Good Lord! what a difference! It was exasperating, it was badly written, but it was stunning! It was not something everybody could appreciate.” And yet, ridiculous though these devotees may be, they are not entirely to be scorned. They are nature’s first efforts in the process of evolving the artist; they are as shapeless and lacking in viability as the earliest animals, which preceded the present species and were not so constituted as to be able to survive. These weak-willed, sterile dabblers should arouse our sympathy like those first contrivances which were not able to leave the ground, but in which there was, not yet the means, secret and still to be discovered, but at any rate the desire, to fly. “And let me tell you, old man,” adds the dilettante, as he takes your arm, “that’s the eighth time I’ve heard it and I promise you, it won’t be the last.” And in truth, since they fail to assimilate the really nourishing part of art, they suffer from a continual need of artistic enjoyment, a gnawing hunger that nothing can satisfy. So they go and applaud the same work for a long time at a stretch, believing also that in being present they are performing a duty, an act of piety, as others regard their attendance at a meeting of a Board of Directors or a funeral. Then come works of a different, even quite contrary, character in literature, painting or music. For the ability to launch new ideas and systems and, especially, to absorb them has always been much more widespread than genuine good taste, even among the producers of art, and this tendency is spreading considerably with the increase in the number of literary reviews and journals — and, along with them, of people who imagine they have been called to be writers and artists. There was a time, for example, when the better element of our youth, the more intelligent and more sincerely interested, no longer cared for any but works having a lofty moral and sociological, even religious significance. They had the idea that that was the criterion of the value of a work, thereby repeating the error of such as David, Chenavard, Brunetière, and others. Instead of Bergotte, whose airiest sentences, as a matter of fact, required much profounder meditation, they preferred writers who seemed more profound only because they did not write as well. “His intricate way of writing is suited only to society people,” the democratically minded said, thereby paying society folk a compliment they did not deserve. But the moment our reasoning intelligence tries to judge works of art, there is no longer anything fixed or certain; one can prove anything one wishes to. Whereas the real essence of talent is a gift, an attribute of a cosmic character, the presence of which should first of all be sought for underneath the surface fashions of thought and style, it is by these latter qualities that the critics classify an author. Because of his peremptory tone and his ostentatious scorn of the school that preceded him, they put the mantle of prophecy on a writer who has no new message to deliver. This constant aberration of the critics is such that a writer should almost prefer to be judged by the public at large (if the latter were not incapable even of understanding what an artist has attempted in a line of effort unfamiliar to it). For the talent of a great writer — which, after all, is merely an instinct religiously hearkened to (while silence is imposed on everything else), perfected and understood — has more in common with the instinctive life of the people than with the superficial verbiage and fluctuating standards of the conventionally recognised judges. Their battle of words begins all over again every ten years — for the kaleidoscope comprises not only society groups, but also social, political and religious ideas, which temporarily spread out more broadly through refraction in the large masses but nevertheless are shortlived, like all ideas whose novelty succeeds in deceiving only minds that are not very exacting as to proofs. Therefore parties and schools have followed one another, attracting to themselves always the same minds, men of only relative intelligence, always prone to partisan enthusiasms which less credulous minds, more exacting in the matter of proofs, avoid. Unfortunately the former, just because they are only half-wits, need to round out their personalities with action; therefore they are more active than the superior minds, attract the crowd and build up around themselves, not only exaggerated reputations for some, and unwarranted condemnation of others, but civil and foreign wars, which it ought to be possible to escape with a little non-royalist self-criticism. And as for the pleasure that a perfectly balanced mind, a heart that is truly alive finds in the beautiful thought of some master, it is no doubt wholly sound, but however precious may be the men who are capable of enjoying it (how many are there in twenty years?) it nevertheless reduces them to the condition of being merely the full consciousness of someone else. When a man has done everything to win the love of a woman who could only have made him unhappy and, despite repeated efforts over many years, he has not even been able to obtain a rendezvous with her, instead of trying to describe his sufferings and the danger he has escaped, he reads and rereads this pensée from La Bruyère, annotating it with “a million words” and the most moving memories of his own life: “Men often want to love and do not know how to succeed in so doing; they seek defeat but are not able to find it, so that, if I may so express it, they are forced to remain free.” Whether he who wrote that pensée intended it so or not (and then it should read “be loved,” instead of “love,” and it would be finer that way) it is certain that the sensitive man of letters referred to gives it life, fills it with meaning to the point of bursting and cannot repeat it without overflowing with joy to find it so true and beautiful, and yet he has added hardly anything to it and there remains merely the pensée of La Bruyère.
Even in our artistic enjoyment, although sought after for the impressions it gives, we are very quickly content to leave those impressions aside as something that cannot be expressed and confine our attention to those phases which allow us to experience the pleasure without analysing the sensations thoroughly, while thinking that we are communicating them to others with similar tastes, with whom we shall be able to converse because we shall be talking to them of something which is the same for them as for us, the personal root of our own impression having been eliminated. At the very times when we are the most dispassionate observers of nature, of society, love, even art itself, since every impression has two parts, one of them incorporated in the object and the other prolonged within ourselves and therefore knowable only to us, we are quick to neglect the latter, that is to say, the one part to which we ought to devote our attention, and consider only the other half, which, being outside ourselves, cannot be studied deeply and consequently never will cause us any fatiguing exertion; the slight groove that a musical phrase or the sight of a church made in our consciousness we find it too difficult to try to comprehend. But we play the symphony again and again or keep returning to look at the church, until, in this running away from our own life which we have not the courage to face — they call this “erudition” — we come to know them as well, and in the same manner, as the most learned lover of music or archaeology. How many there are, consequently, who stop at that point and extract nothing from their impression, but go to their graves useless and unsatisfied, like celibates of art. They are tormented by the same regrets as virgins and idlers, regrets that fecund labour would dispel. They are more wrought up over works of art than the real artists, because they do not labour arduously to get to the bottom of their emotional state and therefore it is diffused in outward expression, puts heat into their remarks and blood into their faces; they think they are doing something really great when, after the execution of a work they like, they shout vociferously “Bravo, bravo!” But these manifestations do not force them to seek light on the nature of their love; they do not know what it really is. Meanwhile, this unexpended passion exuberates into even their calmest conversation and leads them to indulge in grand gestures, facial contortions and noddings of the head when they talk of art. “I have been at a concert where they played some music which, I admit, did not thrill me. Then the quartette began and, nom d’une pipe, that was another story!” (Here the music lover’s face assumes an anxious expression, as if he were saying to himself, “Why, I see sparks, I smell something burning; there must be a fire somewhere!”) “Good Lord! what a difference! It was exasperating, it was badly written, but it was stunning! It was not something everybody could appreciate.” And yet, ridiculous though these devotees may be, they are not entirely to be scorned. They are nature’s first efforts in the process of evolving the artist; they are as shapeless and lacking in viability as the earliest animals, which preceded the present species and were not so constituted as to be able to survive. These weak-willed, sterile dabblers should arouse our sympathy like those first contrivances which were not able to leave the ground, but in which there was, not yet the means, secret and still to be discovered, but at any rate the desire, to fly. “And let me tell you, old man,” adds the dilettante, as he takes your arm, “that’s the eighth time I’ve heard it and I promise you, it won’t be the last.” And in truth, since they fail to assimilate the really nourishing part of art, they suffer from a continual need of artistic enjoyment, a gnawing hunger that nothing can satisfy. So they go and applaud the same work for a long time at a stretch, believing also that in being present they are performing a duty, an act of piety, as others regard their attendance at a meeting of a Board of Directors or a funeral. Then come works of a different, even quite contrary, character in literature, painting or music. For the ability to launch new ideas and systems and, especially, to absorb them has always been much more widespread than genuine good taste, even among the producers of art, and this tendency is spreading considerably with the increase in the number of literary reviews and journals — and, along with them, of people who imagine they have been called to be writers and artists. There was a time, for example, when the better element of our youth, the more intelligent and more sincerely interested, no longer cared for any but works having a lofty moral and sociological, even religious significance. They had the idea that that was the criterion of the value of a work, thereby repeating the error of such as David, Chenavard, Brunetière, and others. Instead of Bergotte, whose airiest sentences, as a matter of fact, required much profounder meditation, they preferred writers who seemed more profound only because they did not write as well. “His intricate way of writing is suited only to society people,” the democratically minded said, thereby paying society folk a compliment they did not deserve. But the moment our reasoning intelligence tries to judge works of art, there is no longer anything fixed or certain; one can prove anything one wishes to. Whereas the real essence of talent is a gift, an attribute of a cosmic character, the presence of which should first of all be sought for underneath the surface fashions of thought and style, it is by these latter qualities that the critics classify an author. Because of his peremptory tone and his ostentatious scorn of the school that preceded him, they put the mantle of prophecy on a writer who has no new message to deliver. This constant aberration of the critics is such that a writer should almost prefer to be judged by the public at large (if the latter were not incapable even of understanding what an artist has attempted in a line of effort unfamiliar to it). For the talent of a great writer — which, after all, is merely an instinct religiously hearkened to (while silence is imposed on everything else), perfected and understood — has more in common with the instinctive life of the people than with the superficial verbiage and fluctuating standards of the conventionally recognised judges. Their battle of words begins all over again every ten years — for the kaleidoscope comprises not only society groups, but also social, political and religious ideas, which temporarily spread out more broadly through refraction in the large masses but nevertheless are shortlived, like all ideas whose novelty succeeds in deceiving only minds that are not very exacting as to proofs. Therefore parties and schools have followed one another, attracting to themselves always the same minds, men of only relative intelligence, always prone to partisan enthusiasms which less credulous minds, more exacting in the matter of proofs, avoid. Unfortunately the former, just because they are only half-wits, need to round out their personalities with action; therefore they are more active than the superior minds, attract the crowd and build up around themselves, not only exaggerated reputations for some, and unwarranted condemnation of others, but civil and foreign wars, which it ought to be possible to escape with a little non-royalist self-criticism. And as for the pleasure that a perfectly balanced mind, a heart that is truly alive finds in the beautiful thought of some master, it is no doubt wholly sound, but however precious may be the men who are capable of enjoying it (how many are there in twenty years?) it nevertheless reduces them to the condition of being merely the full consciousness of someone else. When a man has done everything to win the love of a woman who could only have made him unhappy and, despite repeated efforts over many years, he has not even been able to obtain a rendezvous with her, instead of trying to describe his sufferings and the danger he has escaped, he reads and rereads this pensée from La Bruyère, annotating it with “a million words” and the most moving memories of his own life: “Men often want to love and do not know how to succeed in so doing; they seek defeat but are not able to find it, so that, if I may so express it, they are forced to remain free.” Whether he who wrote that pensée intended it so or not (and then it should read “be loved,” instead of “love,” and it would be finer that way) it is certain that the sensitive man of letters referred to gives it life, fills it with meaning to the point of bursting and cannot repeat it without overflowing with joy to find it so true and beautiful, and yet he has added hardly anything to it and there remains merely the pensée of La Bruyère.
April 30, 2012
new translation of first 2 lines of the divine comedy
In the midst of the walk through our life
I found myself by a hidden forest
When I had left the right way.
(Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai
Per una selva oscura ché la via diritta era smaritta.)
I found myself by a hidden forest
When I had left the right way.
(Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai
Per una selva oscura ché la via diritta era smaritta.)
April 25, 2012
Vermont Congress members and big wind
The American Wind Energy Association's WindPAC has donated the following to Vermont's congressional delegation, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission
Barton Merlesmith of North Ferrisburgh, Director of Business Development, NRG Systems, donated $500 in 2011.
Thomas Gray of Norwich, VP of AWEA, donated $3,450 from 1997 to 2004.
Earth Turbines also accounts for $5,000 donated directly to Peter Welch so far in the 2012 election cycle.
Turbine manufacturer General Electric has directly donated $8,000 and its employees $8,750 to Patrick Leahy so far in the 2012 election cycle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont
- Representative Peter Welch: $1000 in 2009
- Senator Patrick Leahy: $1000 in 2010, $1000 in 2011
- Senator Bernie Sanders: $3500 in 2009
Barton Merlesmith of North Ferrisburgh, Director of Business Development, NRG Systems, donated $500 in 2011.
Thomas Gray of Norwich, VP of AWEA, donated $3,450 from 1997 to 2004.
Earth Turbines also accounts for $5,000 donated directly to Peter Welch so far in the 2012 election cycle.
Turbine manufacturer General Electric has directly donated $8,000 and its employees $8,750 to Patrick Leahy so far in the 2012 election cycle.
wind power, wind energy, Vermont
April 20, 2012
Hope, a Tragedy
From Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander:
Pessimists, Professor Jove replied, don’t start wars. It was hope, according to Professor Jove, that was keeping Kugel up at night. It was hope that was making him angry.
Give Up, read the sign on the wall behind Jove’s book-covered desk, You’ll Live Longer.
But you’ve been to Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, said Kugel.
That’s how I know, said Professor Jove.
Kugel had waited weeks for an appointment.
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.
Kugel wasn’t sure he understood. Professor Jove smiled warmly.
Tell me, he said. Hitler was the last century’s greatest what?
Kugel had shrugged.
Monster?
Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was. A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four? That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist. Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
I just want my family to be safe, said Kugel. I just want the world to leave us alone. Is that asking too much?
What, asked Professor Jove, did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
I don’t know, said Kugel. What did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
He said Ouch, said Professor Jove.
I don’t get it, said Kugel.
There’s nothing to get, said Professor Jove. It hurt. First they whipped him half to death, then they held him down and nailed iron spikes through his wrists. If he was lucky, they did the same to his feet. The weight of his body bearing down on his chest made it difficult to breathe, and he died, slowly and agonizingly, from respiratory distress.
I still don’t get it, said Kugel.
There is hurt in this world, said Professor Jove. There is pain. Hoping there won’t be only makes it worse.
Pessimists, Professor Jove replied, don’t start wars. It was hope, according to Professor Jove, that was keeping Kugel up at night. It was hope that was making him angry.
Give Up, read the sign on the wall behind Jove’s book-covered desk, You’ll Live Longer.
But you’ve been to Yale, Harvard, Cambridge, said Kugel.
That’s how I know, said Professor Jove.
Kugel had waited weeks for an appointment.
We are rational creatures, Professor Jove explained; hope is irrational. We thus set ourselves up for one dispiriting fall after the next. Anger and depression are not diseases or dysfunctions or anomalies; they are perfectly rational responses to the myriad avoidable disappointments that begin in a thoroughly irrational hope.
Kugel wasn’t sure he understood. Professor Jove smiled warmly.
Tell me, he said. Hitler was the last century’s greatest what?
Kugel had shrugged.
Monster?
Optimist, said Professor Jove. Hitler was the most unabashed doe-eyed optimist of the last hundred years. That’s why he was the biggest monster. Have you ever heard of anything as outrageously hopeful as the Final Solution? Not just that there could be a solution — to anything, mind you, while we have yet to cure the common cold — but a final one, no less! Full of hope, the Führer was. A dreamer! A romantic, even, yes? If I just kill this one, gas that one, everything will be okay. I tell you this with absolute certainty: every morning, Adolf Hitler woke up, made himself a cup of coffee, and asked himself how to make the world a better place. We all know his answer, but the answer isn’t nearly as important as the question. The only thing more naively hopeful than the Final Solution is the ludicrous dictum to which it gave birth: Never Again. How many times since Never Again has it happened again? Three? Four? That we know of, mind you. Mao? Optimist. Stalin? Optimist. Pol Pot? Optimist. Here’s a good rule for life, Kugel, no matter where you happen to live or when you happen to be born: when someone rises up and promises that things are going to be better, run. Hide. Pessimists don’t build gas chambers.
I just want my family to be safe, said Kugel. I just want the world to leave us alone. Is that asking too much?
What, asked Professor Jove, did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
I don’t know, said Kugel. What did Jesus Christ say when they nailed him to the cross?
He said Ouch, said Professor Jove.
I don’t get it, said Kugel.
There’s nothing to get, said Professor Jove. It hurt. First they whipped him half to death, then they held him down and nailed iron spikes through his wrists. If he was lucky, they did the same to his feet. The weight of his body bearing down on his chest made it difficult to breathe, and he died, slowly and agonizingly, from respiratory distress.
I still don’t get it, said Kugel.
There is hurt in this world, said Professor Jove. There is pain. Hoping there won’t be only makes it worse.
April 16, 2012
Arbeit macht nicht frei
“My wife has the occasion, as you know, to campaign on her own and also with me, and she reports to me regularly that the issue women care about most is the economy and getting good jobs for their kids and for themselves. They are concerned about gasoline prices, the cost of getting to and from work, taking their kids to school or to practice and so forth after school. That is what women care about in this country and my vision is to get America working again.”
That's what Mitt Romney said in a speech on April 4 to the Newspaper Association of America.
Here's what Hilary Rosen said on CNN on April 11:
"What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, 'Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that's what I'm hearing.' Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She's never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future."
The rest is history, with most people revealing that they have thrown away their humanity in picking what political team they root for.
Mitt Romney and Hilary Rosen are saying the same thing. They deny the other's right to say it, because they are both expressing false concern. And both are wielding their comments as a weapon against the other.
What this whole stand-off illustrates is the false divide in U.S. politics.
Hilary Rosen is a right-wing corporate flack, famous for leading the Recording Industry Association of America's campaign against people sharing the music they've bought with friends. She still advises Obama on the issue. After quitting that job, for a short time she was interim director of Human Rights Campaign, which awarded their 2011 Workplace Equality Innovation Award to Goldman Sachs. While working at the Huffington Post, she was outed as a consultant for BP.
Ann Romney is married to one of the predatory capitalists that Rosen serves. They may not have anything in common in personal style and beliefs, but they both serve the same master.
At least Ann Romney only raised a few children and supported her husband on behalf of that system, whereas Hilary Rosen has actively contributed to its evil. Her dismissal of Ann Romney appears to be because the latter has only listened to women on the campaign trail, without a history of actively working to maintain their economic misery.
Many "liberal" commenters on this issue have expressed a hatred for women who choose to stay at home as a betrayal of feminism, as if feminism is only about a few women getting to the top of the exploitative pyramid and everyone else being forced to toil in "service" jobs as somehow liberating.
Rosen's strong support of Obama and the Democratic Party is clear evidence that the only difference between the parties is that one is slightly more tolerant of gays.
That's certainly a good to be counted, but it does nothing for the 99% of the people, women and men, gay and otherwise, who are not striving to triumph in a cut-throat system. It's good that Goldman Sachs extends benefits to gay partners, but that hardly makes it a benign force in the world. Human rights are rather a broader issue.
What is work for? Actively raising a family should not be the privilege only of the rich. Is either Mitt or Hilary suggesting an economic system that makes raising a family easier for everyone (as in many European countries)? They are both against women, against men, against families, against humanity.
Arbeit macht nicht frei. Work does not make you free.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
March 31, 2012
The Four or Five Funny Books
1. The Poor Mouth: A Bad Story about the Hard Life (translation of An Béal Bocht) by Myles na gCopaleen (Brian O’Nolan a.k.a. Flann O’Brien)
2. A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
3. Fisher’s Hornpipe by Todd McEwen
4. Come to the Edge by Joanna Kavenna
5. Cooking with Fernet Branca by James Hamilton-Paterson
6. Hope: A Tragedy by Shalom Auslander
7. The Ascent of Rum Doodle by W. E. Bowman
March 28, 2012
The Arrogance of Industry
The state of New South Wales in Australia has drawn up draft guidelines to regulate further construction of "wind farms". Wind turbine manufacturer Vestas Australia duly submitted comments to decry them and denounce those supporting them. (The alleged latter, however, do not find the guidelines to be very good, either: see here, here, and here.)
Ken McAlpine, Director of Policy and Government Relations, writes:
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
Ken McAlpine, Director of Policy and Government Relations, writes:
Vestas opposes the Draft Guidelines, primarily because of the sheer number of new and additional requirements and barriers that would be placed in front of the wind energy industry without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need for this additional regulation.In other words, after removing requirements and barriers facing development of previously protected land and instituting favorable regulations and tax breaks and other financial benefits to make our industry profitable, without any clear evidence, justification or demonstrated need, and seemingly motivated primarily by an attempt to appease pro-industry investors, how dare you consider anyone else's concerns or wishes, let alone the people you pretend to represent!
The Draft Guidelines appear to be in conflict with the New South Wales (NSW) Government’s own renewable energy policies and seem to be primarily motivated by an attempt to appease anti-wind protest groups.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines, wind farms, environment, environmentalism, human rights, animal rights
March 23, 2012
Judy Callens: Good Riddance!
A friend writes:
The principal (no "pal" of mine!) of Hartland Elementary School, Judy Callens, is retiring at the end of this academic year (because her contract was not renewed?). We have therefore been subjected to a barrage of encomia for her devotion to learning and her inspirational leadership.
In fact, her vision is limited to producing little soldiers. She is obsessed with disciplinary trivialities and eager to punish anyone who does not fall in with her rigid program of indoctrination. Her paeans to "community" in a weekly newsletter were no more than self-aggrandizing assertions of her school as defining the limits of that community. She epitomizes the reasons that so many people are not just dissatisfied with their public schools, but flee them in horror.
When we reached out to the teachers to help us through a bad patch in our son's academics, asking them to warn us earlier than at grade-reporting of any problems, to suggest extra work that might be helpful, etc., we were met almost entirely with silence. The guidance counselor who further brought it up on our behalf was met with defensive anger. Finally, Judy Callens, with our son in her office to inform him of her latest punishment for poor grades, told him that his teachers have no responsibility to communicate (same root as "community"!) with us beyond entering grade data into the online "Powerschool" program.
She even prefaced her comment to this child with a sarcastic "With all due respect". Too cowardly to face his parents, she revealed her true lack of respect for, even hatred of, children. And that attitude characterized the entire school. Her "leadership" encouraged a blithe laziness among the teachers, an environment that expected respect to flow one way only, especially when not deserved.
The community of Judy Callens' vision is a narrow one indeed. It is entirely shaped by her own personality: mean, resentful, small. It is defined by deference to authority above all else, perversely tested by giving every reason to disdain it. Hers is the logic of an abusive parent: ensuring the very disrespect she demands in a vicious spiral of violence and failure.
Spring came early with the announcement of her departure. Let us hope that Hartland Elementary will do much better with her replacement.
I wish Ms. Callens all the misery and misfortune she deserves for the violence she has done to the many young lives entrusted to her.
School Choice Vermont!
The principal (no "pal" of mine!) of Hartland Elementary School, Judy Callens, is retiring at the end of this academic year (because her contract was not renewed?). We have therefore been subjected to a barrage of encomia for her devotion to learning and her inspirational leadership.
In fact, her vision is limited to producing little soldiers. She is obsessed with disciplinary trivialities and eager to punish anyone who does not fall in with her rigid program of indoctrination. Her paeans to "community" in a weekly newsletter were no more than self-aggrandizing assertions of her school as defining the limits of that community. She epitomizes the reasons that so many people are not just dissatisfied with their public schools, but flee them in horror.
When we reached out to the teachers to help us through a bad patch in our son's academics, asking them to warn us earlier than at grade-reporting of any problems, to suggest extra work that might be helpful, etc., we were met almost entirely with silence. The guidance counselor who further brought it up on our behalf was met with defensive anger. Finally, Judy Callens, with our son in her office to inform him of her latest punishment for poor grades, told him that his teachers have no responsibility to communicate (same root as "community"!) with us beyond entering grade data into the online "Powerschool" program.
She even prefaced her comment to this child with a sarcastic "With all due respect". Too cowardly to face his parents, she revealed her true lack of respect for, even hatred of, children. And that attitude characterized the entire school. Her "leadership" encouraged a blithe laziness among the teachers, an environment that expected respect to flow one way only, especially when not deserved.
The community of Judy Callens' vision is a narrow one indeed. It is entirely shaped by her own personality: mean, resentful, small. It is defined by deference to authority above all else, perversely tested by giving every reason to disdain it. Hers is the logic of an abusive parent: ensuring the very disrespect she demands in a vicious spiral of violence and failure.
Spring came early with the announcement of her departure. Let us hope that Hartland Elementary will do much better with her replacement.
I wish Ms. Callens all the misery and misfortune she deserves for the violence she has done to the many young lives entrusted to her.
School Choice Vermont!
March 21, 2012
Security Threat — Stand Your Ground
Are George Zimmerman and Robert Bales very different from Barack Obama?
George Zimmerman was protecting his gated community — and in the evening of February 26 shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, because he didn't recognize him.
Barack Obama was protecting his country — and bombed and killed 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (and nine others) on October 14, 2011, because his father had said mean words against U.S. arrogance (and who (along with three others) had already been killed for it on September 30, 2011). Although their murders would be inexcusable no matter their country of origin or residence, both al-Awlakis were U.S. citizens. But Obama did not recognize them as part of his community and considered that to be justification for murder.
George Zimmerman was protecting his gated community — and in the evening of February 26 shot and killed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, because he didn't recognize him.
Barack Obama was protecting his country — and bombed and killed 16-year-old Abdulrahman al-Awlaki (and nine others) on October 14, 2011, because his father had said mean words against U.S. arrogance (and who (along with three others) had already been killed for it on September 30, 2011). Although their murders would be inexcusable no matter their country of origin or residence, both al-Awlakis were U.S. citizens. But Obama did not recognize them as part of his community and considered that to be justification for murder.
American soldier Robert Bales "snapped" in Afghanistan and, allegedly alone, methodically killed 16 people and injured five in the dark morning hours of March 11. In one house, he killed a woman, four girls aged 2-6, four boys aged 8-12, and two other relatives. He then set their bodies on fire. In another house, he killed a 55-year-old man. In another village, he killed four members of another family, including another child. [Click here for their names.]
Bales had quit his career as a stockbroker to sign up with the Army after the hijacked airplane attacks on September 11, 2001. His fortunes as a capitalist were obviously not going well, and now he had something to blame. Eradicate that eternal enemy and his honor and prosperity would be restored, the latter at least in the expanded war market.
"Restoring America" — implying attainment of the personal "success" every citizen/consumer feels entitled to, somehow never wondering how everyone can triumph over everyone else — is the normal cry of every election in the U.S.A. That means that social and economic breakdown is the normal situation. It's as if politicians and every other huckster (the only people that do in fact "make it") want it that way! They market fear so they can sell you redemption.
It is the eradicating of an enemy — any enemy — that promises honor and profit. Without that enemy, where are you?
The message is the same from all of these killers: Stand your ground, America. It's never your fault. You have good reason to be scared, because other people aren't like you. Don't ever change! Don't ask questions! Shoot first! You're not a failure if you can kill! Your readiness to kill proves you're right!
[Ten years later: “Warshington Warlords”]
March 18, 2012
All that remains
From "Going, Going" by Philip Larkin:
And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.
Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.
environment, environmentalism
And that will be England gone,
The shadows, the meadows, the lanes,
The guildhalls, the carved choirs.
There'll be books; it will linger on
In galleries; but all that remains
For us will be concrete and tyres.
Most things are never meant.
This won't be, most likely; but greeds
And garbage are too thick-strewn
To be swept up now, or invent
Excuses that make them all needs.
I just think it will happen, soon.
environment, environmentalism
March 17, 2012
Into the tumbril!
Jeffrey St. Clair writes:
The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.
Next, let us eliminate the Mephistophelean phase win-win solution, a verbal potion of the Clinton era that was used to justify oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the redwoods, and rollbacks in air pollution standards. In win-win solutions, industry gets what it wants and environmental groups get paid in grants to go along with the deal.
Finally, let us jettison the term holistic, especially when affixed to “ecosystem” or “resource management.” Holistic is a merely a New Age-update of the venerable term “multiple use,” one of the oldest cons in the history of conservation. Multiple use was the ludicrous notion that public lands could be all things to all people (or more properly all industries). In other words, wildlife could peacefully co-exist with mining, logging, livestock and off-road vehicle use. Holistic ecosystem management posits the same battered notion, but escalates the deception by suggesting that logging and grazing are actually beneficial to the long-term health of the ecosystem.
environment, environmentalism
The environmental movement has become freighted with more and more deceptive terms. Let’s begin by banishing the tiresome phrase sustainable development. Coined by NGOs in the 1970s, this discreditable term has been used to put a green gloss on everything from mega-dams to rainforest logging. Endless development is a more accurate description.
Next, let us eliminate the Mephistophelean phase win-win solution, a verbal potion of the Clinton era that was used to justify oil drilling in the Arctic, logging in the redwoods, and rollbacks in air pollution standards. In win-win solutions, industry gets what it wants and environmental groups get paid in grants to go along with the deal.
Finally, let us jettison the term holistic, especially when affixed to “ecosystem” or “resource management.” Holistic is a merely a New Age-update of the venerable term “multiple use,” one of the oldest cons in the history of conservation. Multiple use was the ludicrous notion that public lands could be all things to all people (or more properly all industries). In other words, wildlife could peacefully co-exist with mining, logging, livestock and off-road vehicle use. Holistic ecosystem management posits the same battered notion, but escalates the deception by suggesting that logging and grazing are actually beneficial to the long-term health of the ecosystem.
environment, environmentalism
March 14, 2012
A friend writes
Good god, women have enough problems and then to be "defended" by the likes of this Queen of Banality Maureen Dowd. Disgusting and dull as always, a free ad written for the too awful to even adequately describe Hillary Clinton. Maureen Dowd writes this embarrassing, dumb ode to female power, yet more men are mentioned in the column than women, and the only two who qualify to be in this faux-feminist bit of dreariness are military/industrial complex good soldiers Hillary Clinton and Olympia Snowe. O saintly Hillary Clinton, she has "fought for women's rights around the world", she has. And O, the "mass misogyny" of the Republicans! Poor ole Olympia Snowe -- fed up and leaving, and she be a woman! O if ye be female clasp your hands and shake them at the bitter heavens in despair and rage, rage rage at the Republicans, except if they be women.
Hillary should run for President in 2016, opines the ever vulgarian Dowd. Women are beginning to think Obama is not enough -- (surely not!) so, naturally, "they " are turning to Hillary, who as we know is so different from Obama in that she is apparently a female. She writes "If women are so vulnerable, they may need one of their own. Is she inevitable?" Excuse me while I throw up. I am channeling Santorum now. Wow. This monster known as Hillary Clinton is a champion for women's rights, as long as they are in her peer group, and they certainly don't include the women and female children she has consigned to a violent death in her endless war-mongering and support of drone attacks -- was it not she who said she would obliterate Iran? And applauded her vile husband's ending of welfare for poor mothers, and decided that desperate people, many of them undoubtedly women, should not be allowed to declare bankruptcy? How in any way is this charlatan lauded as being for women's rights? Is feminism defined as merely a privileged class of women "taking over", identical in nearly every way to the men who now hold power? How sad and pathetic.
The Republicans are barbarians when it comes to women, there is no doubt. But they have gotten this far in erasing abortion rights because the Democrats never fought back viciously and relentlessly against these deadly thugs. The Dems, including Clinton, (who described abortion as a "tragedy") apologized every fucking step of the way and pathetically tried to seek "common ground" with anti-abortion, anti-women forces, and so they lost this war, and THAT is a tragedy for women.
WHAT IS THE WORST thing is not Dowd's ignorant, trashy chick-lit-style column -- it is that every single commenter agrees with her -- every single one. Not one person not extolling Cinton to the skies, not one person pointing out what a war-mongering piece of shit she is -- opining all over the place that the head of the World bank is the place for her, the Supreme court, the presidency -- oh my god! The place for her is in the dock answering for her war crimes, but as these comments indicate, what passes as the "left" is essentially dead in this country -- they are brain-dead, banal, only think in the lifeless, claustrophobic terms handed to them by the media, can no longer think critically and have become Republicans albeit ones that believe in abortion rights (to a degree) and the difference between the parties has been essentially erased but the team players on both sides are so brainwashed they don't even see it. Now because Repubs hate women, the Dems now LOVE women (except for those women who made the bad decision to be Palestinians or Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans, Yemeni, Iraqi, Irani, etc etc....) Dems even lauding that vicious creep Snowe, who quit only because she and her corporate sleaze husband are facing a big corruption lawsuit.
I despise the repubs for their hatred of women, but I despise the Dems for the same. I know that women are just as vile as men, and take no comfort in the prospect of seeing "one of my own" as President, unless perhaps it was Green party candidate Jill Stein, which will never happen. The only kind of woman who would be electable in this backwards kind of culture are women like Clinton, who are utterly indistinguishable from the men who run this country -- psychopaths all.
Hillary should run for President in 2016, opines the ever vulgarian Dowd. Women are beginning to think Obama is not enough -- (surely not!) so, naturally, "they " are turning to Hillary, who as we know is so different from Obama in that she is apparently a female. She writes "If women are so vulnerable, they may need one of their own. Is she inevitable?" Excuse me while I throw up. I am channeling Santorum now. Wow. This monster known as Hillary Clinton is a champion for women's rights, as long as they are in her peer group, and they certainly don't include the women and female children she has consigned to a violent death in her endless war-mongering and support of drone attacks -- was it not she who said she would obliterate Iran? And applauded her vile husband's ending of welfare for poor mothers, and decided that desperate people, many of them undoubtedly women, should not be allowed to declare bankruptcy? How in any way is this charlatan lauded as being for women's rights? Is feminism defined as merely a privileged class of women "taking over", identical in nearly every way to the men who now hold power? How sad and pathetic.
The Republicans are barbarians when it comes to women, there is no doubt. But they have gotten this far in erasing abortion rights because the Democrats never fought back viciously and relentlessly against these deadly thugs. The Dems, including Clinton, (who described abortion as a "tragedy") apologized every fucking step of the way and pathetically tried to seek "common ground" with anti-abortion, anti-women forces, and so they lost this war, and THAT is a tragedy for women.
WHAT IS THE WORST thing is not Dowd's ignorant, trashy chick-lit-style column -- it is that every single commenter agrees with her -- every single one. Not one person not extolling Cinton to the skies, not one person pointing out what a war-mongering piece of shit she is -- opining all over the place that the head of the World bank is the place for her, the Supreme court, the presidency -- oh my god! The place for her is in the dock answering for her war crimes, but as these comments indicate, what passes as the "left" is essentially dead in this country -- they are brain-dead, banal, only think in the lifeless, claustrophobic terms handed to them by the media, can no longer think critically and have become Republicans albeit ones that believe in abortion rights (to a degree) and the difference between the parties has been essentially erased but the team players on both sides are so brainwashed they don't even see it. Now because Repubs hate women, the Dems now LOVE women (except for those women who made the bad decision to be Palestinians or Afghans, Pakistanis, Libyans, Yemeni, Iraqi, Irani, etc etc....) Dems even lauding that vicious creep Snowe, who quit only because she and her corporate sleaze husband are facing a big corruption lawsuit.
I despise the repubs for their hatred of women, but I despise the Dems for the same. I know that women are just as vile as men, and take no comfort in the prospect of seeing "one of my own" as President, unless perhaps it was Green party candidate Jill Stein, which will never happen. The only kind of woman who would be electable in this backwards kind of culture are women like Clinton, who are utterly indistinguishable from the men who run this country -- psychopaths all.
March 6, 2012
March 3, 2012
Vestas V112 uses less power
A full page ad from Vestas in the March North American Windpower (below, or the part that fit in my scanner) boasts that its 3-MW V112 wind turbine "uses less power", that it has a "unique system that uses the wind's own energy to cool the nacelle and reduce power consumption".
This is interesting because the industry and its apologists have long insisted that power consumption by large wind turbines (which can not operate without power from the grid) is insignificant.
But if it is insignificant, then the energy savings of the Vestas "Cooler Top" design would be insignificant. Yet they devoted a full-page ad to promote it.
Which clearly suggests that energy consumption by wind turbines is indeed substantial.
Update: The new design may not work so well to prevent overheating, as a model in Germany was destroyed by fire of "undetermined" cause.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
This is interesting because the industry and its apologists have long insisted that power consumption by large wind turbines (which can not operate without power from the grid) is insignificant.
But if it is insignificant, then the energy savings of the Vestas "Cooler Top" design would be insignificant. Yet they devoted a full-page ad to promote it.
Which clearly suggests that energy consumption by wind turbines is indeed substantial.
Update: The new design may not work so well to prevent overheating, as a model in Germany was destroyed by fire of "undetermined" cause.
wind power, wind energy, wind turbines
February 27, 2012
Capitalism versus individual freedom
Capitalism is antithetical to individualism. Capitalism replaces individualism with commodification. People are nothing more than units of production and consumption in the accounting of capital. Even the "masters" of capital are mere servants to the cancer of profit. Individualism is a threat to capitalism.
(Conversely, only with socialism can the individual be free to be him- or herself. See Oscar Wilde's essay "The Soul of Man under Socialism".)
human rights, anarchism
February 26, 2012
Lim’rick
There once was a foolish young clerk
Who was after some fun in the park
Who was after some fun in the park
With two saucy sisters
But three loyal fisters
Had bites that were worse nor his bark.
February 19, 2012
The Dream Awakes
Finnegans Wake is the last novel written by James Joyce. After Ulysses was published in 1922, installments of Work In Progress soon began to appear, the final title being a secret between the writer and his partner, Nora Barnacle. The finished book was published in 1939, and Joyce died less than two years later, leaving a work the reading of which is still very much “in progress.”
The language of Finnegans Wake is confounding; consider, for example, “O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornciationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!” The language is like that of a dream, not quite conscious or formed, shimmering with layers of possible meaning. Yet this is a return to possibility, shaped by the experiences of the world we have fallen (into sleep) from. One of the many sources Joyce drew from is the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, torn apart by his brother or son, Set, the pieces gathered and reassembled by his sister or wife, Isis, and their other brother or son, Horus, slaying Set, allowing Horus to rise as the new day’s sun. So in Finnegans Wake, we have fragments and allusions and confusing messages that the reader must, like Isis, put together into a recognizable form.
The book begins with the fall of Finnegan, a hod carrier, from a scaffold. At his wake, in keeping with the American vaudeville song, “Finnegan’s Wake,” a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan’s corpse, and he rises up again alive. But Joyce has him put back down again (“Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don’t be walking abroad”). Someone else is sailing in to take over the story: Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials HCE (“Here Comes Everybody”) lend themselves to phrase after phrase throughout the book.
HCE is a foreigner and takes a native Irish wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle (whose initials ALP as well are found in phrase after phrase), and they settle down to run a public house in Chapelizod, a suburb of Dublin. HCE personifies the city of Dublin (which was founded by Vikings), and ALP personifies the Liffey river, on whose banks the city was built. Joyce universalizes his tale by making them stand as well for every city-river pair in the world. And they are, like Eve and Adam, the primeval parents of all the Irish and all humanity.
ALP and HCE have a daughter, Issy, whose person is often split, and two sons, Shem and Shaun, eternal rivals for replacing their father and for Issy’s affection (among other things). Shem and Shaun often are seen with a third fellow in which their two halves may join against HCE or in winning Issy.
A scandal in the park threatens HCE’s reputation, perhaps his life. In a midden heap, a hen named Biddy finds the letter that ALP has dictated a letter to Shem which Shaun is charged with carrying to the ruling power of the time, which may be HCE himself. It is a letter that is hoped will redeem his past, just as Finnegans Wake is a vast “comedy” that seeks to redeem human history.
The progress of the book, however, is far from simple as it draws in mythologies, theologies, mysteries, philosophies, histories, sociologies, astrologies, other fictions, alchemy, music, color, nature, sexuality, human development, and dozens of languages to create the world drama in whose cycles we live.
The language of Finnegans Wake is confounding; consider, for example, “O here here how hoth sprowled met the duskt the father of fornciationists but, (O my shining stars and body!) how hath fanespanned most high heaven the skysign of soft advertisement!” The language is like that of a dream, not quite conscious or formed, shimmering with layers of possible meaning. Yet this is a return to possibility, shaped by the experiences of the world we have fallen (into sleep) from. One of the many sources Joyce drew from is the Ancient Egyptian story of Osiris, torn apart by his brother or son, Set, the pieces gathered and reassembled by his sister or wife, Isis, and their other brother or son, Horus, slaying Set, allowing Horus to rise as the new day’s sun. So in Finnegans Wake, we have fragments and allusions and confusing messages that the reader must, like Isis, put together into a recognizable form.
The book begins with the fall of Finnegan, a hod carrier, from a scaffold. At his wake, in keeping with the American vaudeville song, “Finnegan’s Wake,” a fight breaks out, whiskey splashes on Finnegan’s corpse, and he rises up again alive. But Joyce has him put back down again (“Now be aisy, good Mr Finnimore, sir. And take your laysure like a god on pension and don’t be walking abroad”). Someone else is sailing in to take over the story: Humphrey Chimpden Earwicker, whose initials HCE (“Here Comes Everybody”) lend themselves to phrase after phrase throughout the book.
HCE is a foreigner and takes a native Irish wife, Anna Livia Plurabelle (whose initials ALP as well are found in phrase after phrase), and they settle down to run a public house in Chapelizod, a suburb of Dublin. HCE personifies the city of Dublin (which was founded by Vikings), and ALP personifies the Liffey river, on whose banks the city was built. Joyce universalizes his tale by making them stand as well for every city-river pair in the world. And they are, like Eve and Adam, the primeval parents of all the Irish and all humanity.
ALP and HCE have a daughter, Issy, whose person is often split, and two sons, Shem and Shaun, eternal rivals for replacing their father and for Issy’s affection (among other things). Shem and Shaun often are seen with a third fellow in which their two halves may join against HCE or in winning Issy.
A scandal in the park threatens HCE’s reputation, perhaps his life. In a midden heap, a hen named Biddy finds the letter that ALP has dictated a letter to Shem which Shaun is charged with carrying to the ruling power of the time, which may be HCE himself. It is a letter that is hoped will redeem his past, just as Finnegans Wake is a vast “comedy” that seeks to redeem human history.
The progress of the book, however, is far from simple as it draws in mythologies, theologies, mysteries, philosophies, histories, sociologies, astrologies, other fictions, alchemy, music, color, nature, sexuality, human development, and dozens of languages to create the world drama in whose cycles we live.
—Wikipedia, Sept 2–13, 2002
February 18, 2012
O brave new world of false environmentalism
The United States Climate Action Partnership: "We are committed to a pathway that will slow, stop and reverse the growth of U.S. emissions while expanding the U.S. economy."
USCAP Members Include:
USCAP Members Include:
- AES
- Alcoa
- Alstom
- Boston Scientific Corporation
- Center for Climate and Energy Solutions
- Chrysler
- The Dow Chemical Company
- Duke Energy
- DuPont
- Environmental Defense Fund
- Exelon Corporation
- General Electric
- Honeywell
- Johnson & Johnson
- Natural Resources Defense Council
- NextEra Energy
- NRG Energy
- PepsiCo
- PG&E Corporation
- PNM Resources
- Rio Tinto
- Shell
- Siemens Corporation
- The Nature Conservancy
- Weyerhaeuser
- World Resources Institute
February 14, 2012
The divine right of money
Paul Craig Roberts writes in Counterpunch:
Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. ...
Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda.
Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process. ...
Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people. ...
Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.
Austerity is the price charged by the EU for lending the Greek government the money to pay to the banks. In other words, the question was austerity or default. However, the question was decided without the participation of the Greek people. ...
Some say that the EU is using the banks for the EU’s agenda, and others say the banks are using the EU for the banks’ agenda.
Indeed, they may be using each other. Regardless, democracy is not part of the process. ...
Violence begets violence. Violence in the streets is a response to the economic violence being committed against the Greek people. ...
Perhaps future historians will conclude that democracy once served the interests of money in order to break free of the power of kings, aristocracy, and government predations, but as money established control over governments, democracy became a liability. Historians will speak of the transition from the divine right of kings to the divine right of money.
February 11, 2012
Simple Fact
The simple fact is that industrial society is based on ever more concentrated sources of energy that add to both the power of those who control society and the productivity of those whose work makes continually increasing wealth and power possible.
The simple fact is that industrial society can not continue on less concentrated sources of energy, such as the sun and wind. Rather than sharing their abundance out of the secure comfort of their power, those who control society would instead concentrate the benefits of such diminishing energy to maintain their power and comfort at the expense of the rest of society (and the environment).
Rather than help to facilitate that horrible future by advocating "alternatives" and "sustainability", we need to do everything we can to slow things down, deescalate, decentralize, ... deindustrialize.
The simple fact is that industrial society can not continue on less concentrated sources of energy, such as the sun and wind. Rather than sharing their abundance out of the secure comfort of their power, those who control society would instead concentrate the benefits of such diminishing energy to maintain their power and comfort at the expense of the rest of society (and the environment).
Rather than help to facilitate that horrible future by advocating "alternatives" and "sustainability", we need to do everything we can to slow things down, deescalate, decentralize, ... deindustrialize.
February 8, 2012
The Laundromat of Wickedness
Peter de Vries, The Tents of Wickedness (1959) —
He awoke in a strange bed. Not awoke exactly, but felt it penetrate his consciousness that it was a strange bed in a strange place, before sinking into even deeper slumber . . .
. . . Then for some reason he could not explain, except within the logic of dreams where no explanations are required but oddity itself imposes its kind of clarity, he was in one of those places where people take their laundry to wash it in automatic machines. The public Laundromat. It would be a mistake to say he was there in person: he was rather there in spirit, to witness the two old women who were the only customers as they drew the soiled family clothes from their bags and chucked them into the washers. The machines were side by side, the center pair in a glistening white row of perhaps ten. The women sat side by side on a bench to gossip, and as the machines simultaneously commenced the first of the cycles, the drone of their words mingled with the hum of the motors and the wash and splash of the water and the clothes, while all of it seemed to be going on in Swallow’s head itself, where it merged in an endlessly flowing river of dialogue.
FIRST WOMAN
It was a literary friendship. (Laughter from the toothless crones.) Can’t you see them in their trysting shanty, talking about books. Well, it’s the sterne realities they’ll be facing now.
SECOND WOMAN
What he minds most they say is the being a laughing stock. It’s his rire end to be seen sticking through the britches he was too big for.
FIRST WOMAN
And hers out front. They must have known it would illicit comment.
SECOND WOMAN
That sort’s not practical, the artistic — and when it comes to the poets! I understand he could be treacly in his tastes for all that. Not even above a little Tennyson.
FIRST WOMAN
Chacun à son goo. And that’s not all. Think o’ them fancy composers they must have cuddled up listening to. Everything was fine and d’indy then, but I de falla now to see a bright side to the situation. Now don’t fly off the handel about the modern stuff, Molly, that’s not what the subject is about. Let’s stick to it for once, for a luscious one it is, my duck.
SECOND WOMAN
I’m not shootin’ me mouth off about that aspect of it either. There ought to be a law against all these illicit relations. What’s needed is some good plain penal reform.
FIRST WOMAN
Beginning with his. Cut it off without a pity — and don’t stop there either. Let him die intestate, him on his Castro convertible.
SECOND WOMAN
So he’ll never go whole hog again? (Laughter) But he won’t soon again anyway, I’ll be bound. Still, it’d be a stop in the right direction.
(There is a pause and they suddenly turn silent and thoughtful, even sad. There is a transition in the machine and a change of tempo in the wash)
FIRST WOMAN
(Half humming) Ha hee ha ho a low . . . It’s keening the sound of these machines makes me feel like doing. A mournful ancient seadark sound it is, this in the Laundromat, as of all the waters washing all the shores in the weary world. The splash and swish of the suds reminds me of all the rivers running into the sea, yet the sea not full. There, the pre-rinse is over, and now it’s the water frothing and swirling in the seacove, lonely beyond knowing, my Molly, the last outlet of Time . . . the wash everything comes out in as they do be sayin’.
SECOND WOMAN
Stop your lip, woman, and leave the poetry to them as can moan it proper. Poets are born, not made.
FIRST WOMAN
Aye, but we know one was made, don’t we now? And proper too she was. She priapubly had them lined up waiting their turn. Had I the queue for passion she has I wouldn’t be doin’ meown washin’, let alone others’. There’s food for thought there — intravenus injection. Still ’twas she, not I, met with a foetal accident.
SECOND WOMAN
Ah, you’re a foul-mouthed sweet old soul. Yes, made she was I must admit — and made once, maid no more.
FIRST WOMAN
Stop grinning with them two remaining teeth. They remind me of cloves, which reminds me I’ve got to get home and fix a ham for the poor old clod I’ve remaining to me. An incurable rheumatic. Ah well I love him just the same, the same. He’s persona non Groton, but he’s mine, and he wouldn’t go cheatin’ on me even if he had the opportunity, like that other blatherskite.
SECOND WOMAN
Oh, let’s not blacken the lad to the point of using him as a sinonim for all ruttin’ off the reservation. I’ve heard rumors he was the one prevailed upon. The soft sell and then the hard sell, and him so young and rubicund. It’s the company he kept.
FIRST WOMAN
Kept is it now? He keep anyone, that cheapskate, at least to hear tell? He’d never get in that deep — he’d never get fiscally involved if he could help. Furs and flowers, and then Christmas coming round and she up there in the flat waiting over the eggnog, in hopes that St. Necklace soon would be there. And him with his Santa Claustrophobia. No, not him. Just once he slipped and now he’s slapped and that’s the long and the short of it. Slapped around just like that clothes behind the glass there. Did you ever hear the one about the woman who looked at one of these and said, ‘Well, if that’s television . . .’?
SECOND WOMAN
Oh, woman, if you can’t tell jokes at least no older than yourself, button up. Here comes the Spin-dry. Then you can spread your washin’ proper and get home to cook that ham. How do you cook a ham?
FIRST WOMAN
(Growing absent) So little thyme. Sanctuary much, he’ll say ironiclike. He was good for the jests he was, once and many a spare quid for a case of bottles. Remembrance of Things Pabst, that’s the story of our life, and ah, how we lay dreaming on the grass. Him reading to me books with plots. How Greene Was My Valley of Decision then. Yes right off, and him with the wherewithal to hitch us up straight off. Legal Tender Is the Night. Him laying in bed drunk singing as I dropped my shift on the cold hotel room floor, Sister Carrie Me Back to old Virginibus Puerisque. It’s all a welter mitty in my head, thinkin’ back so fondly. For the lad it’s Beth In the Afternoon. As I went walking down the street I metamorphosis. It’s like that Spin-dry in my head as it must be in his too. I hear he’s mental now, aw, let’s have a kind thought for the chap. This is the end for him: delirium: tear-a-lira-lirium: stream of conscience: you pays your money and you takes your joyce.
(His head spins furiously at top speed. Then something mercifully clicks the end of the cycle and the whirling slows. The spectral blur sorts itself out in a circle of faces wreathing the bed, into which he looks up. Dr. Bradshaw is there, then another physician, a nurse, and Crystal too, wiping his brow.)
DR. BRADSHAW
(Raking his boyish gray hair) It’s the most amazing case of auto-suggestion I’ve ever encountered in my thirty years as a family doctor in these parts. To think so strongly you’re a swine as to turn into one! Look at it. I mean the eyes. Like beads.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN
And the red along the face — not just around the eyes. If it isn’t arrested the whole skin surface will be covered with it, which might be fatal. The only case on record like it that I recall is in Tender Is the Night. The woman in Diver’s sanatorium there, remember? [Then this man isn’t a doctor but a critic, and the consultations are literary, not medical. Could it be Blackmur? Or Burke? One of the giants? One of the Symbol Simons of literature?] It was related to the blush. When guilt is so strong it has to be organically realized —
SWALLOW
(Resentfully) You mean this is derivative too? I tell you I won’t —
(Hands press him firmly back onto the bed)
PROBABLE CRITIC
He seems to take it so personally. But there, he’s dropped off again. He must be exhausted. But now to get back to what we were saying, there’s another way of analyzing this particular hysteria. The need to convert himself into a swine may be an indirect way of blaming the woman.
DR. BRADSHAW
You mean the Biblical legend — ?
PROBABLE CRITIC
I was thinking mainly of the Circe scene in The Odyssey, where she changes them all into pigs, remember? Thus it becomes, you see, the woman’s work, the woman who’s responsible.
(Swallow sits bolt upright, profoundly elated)
SWALLOW
We’ve done it! A Homeric parallel. This is it! We’ve made it! We’re in! Tell Cowley, tell Warren, get everybody on the wire, we’re in, do you hear! A Homeric parallel! At last! Get Wilson on the wire, get Hyman and Daiches and Jarrell! Shoot it to the newspapers and magazines. Wire Prescott and Rolo and Gissen and Hobson and Hutchens and Hicks —
VOICE
He’s really delirious now.
(The two washerwomen briefly reappear, keening and chanting “Dear a lear and leerious . . . ”)
FIRST WOMAN
You need to cut it both ways now, with hidden meanings I’m afreud. You Rahv Pater to play ball, and a little Levin levineth the whole ump. Ah well, they were boobs in the wood, those two, like us all, beside this babbling book that has no end. My years ache with the melancholy plaint of footnotes, and my poor head rumbles when the Kazins go rolling along. And that other bunch washing their Lenin in public. Who will resolve all this and bring White peace again? Look look, the desk is groaning, and my poor chair’s gone ashen. What’s left for the likes of us but to draw up our chair to the fire of a night, and munch the tried old crusts again. What ails the new loaf I can tell you straight. It’s too inbread and lax —
SECOND WOMAN
Lacks what?
FIRST WOMAN
That good old William Butler Yeast.
SECOND WOMAN
That does it! I’m going home to Maugham.
(The two women fade, gently moaning “Tear a leer a lirium . . . He’s a merewolf.”)
SWALLOW
Phone Fadiman —
VOICE
Shh . . .
(Another voice is heard offstage, growing louder. It is a Dutch accent of somebody obviously shouldering his way forward)
DR. BRADSHAW
Dr. Van Kuykens, thank God you’ve come. (There is a stir of handshaking all around, while a hand with a cool cloth continually soothes Swallow’s brow) This thing has gotten a little beyond me. I mean while we doctors like to keep abreast of psychosomatic medicine as the situation calls for these days, we’re not geared for anything like this. It’s an amazing case. Organically realized delusion. I’m sure you can tell by one look what he fancies himself to be.
(Dr. Van Kuykens wedges a round, smooth-shaven face into the circle. He looks Swallow over, feeling his forehead and taking his pulse. He lifts Swallow’s left eyelid and lets it drop.)
DOCTOR VAN KUYKENS
I can certainly see what dis is at a glance. Dis man has got trichinosis!
OTHERS
Trichinosis! (They back sheepishly off) I never gave that a . . .
DR. VAN KUYKENS
Severe edema of the eyes. Bad enough to make dem almost disappear. Soreness of de muscles I’m sure from de vay he moofs on de bed . . . (He breaks off, openmouthed a moment.) You mean I have come all de way from Rotterdam to diagnose an case of trichinosis? Och, God in hemel, wat is me dit? Ezels! (Going away) Give him aspirin, a mustard bath to bring de fever down, absolute rest and quiet. Plenty of nourishing food as soon as he can take it, and in a few days maybe a little light readink.
(Blackout)
February 7, 2012
Homecoming, a poem
by Eric Rosenbloom
copyright 2012
Where are you turning toward now? Remember the one that remains You forgot all the names And she rose above the waves |
January 31, 2012
January 28, 2012
Silence Is a Commons
From remarks by Ivan Illich at the "Asahi Symposium Science and Man - The Computer-Managed Society," Tokyo, Japan, March 21, 1982:
On the same boat on which I arrived in 1926, the first loudspeaker was landed on the island. Few people there had ever heard of such a thing. Up to that day, all men and women had spoken with more or less equally powerful voices. Henceforth this would change. Henceforth the access to the microphone would determine whose voice shall be magnified. Silence now ceased to be in the commons; it became a resource for which loudspeakers compete. Language itself was transformed thereby from a local commons into a national resource for communication. As enclosure by the lords increased national productivity by denying the individual peasant to keep a few sheep, so the encroachment of the loudspeaker has destroyed that silence which so far had given each man and woman his or her proper and equal voice. Unless you have access to a loudspeaker, you now are silenced.
Just as the commons of space are vulnerable, and can be destroyed by the motorization of traffic, so the commons of speech are vulnerable, and can easily be destroyed by the encroachment of modem means of communication.
The issue which I propose for discussion should therefore be clear: how to counter the encroachment of new, electronic devices and systems upon commons that are more subtle and more intimate to our being than either grassland or roads - commons that are at least as valuable as silence. Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.
Such a transformation of the environment from a commons to a productive resource constitutes the most fundamental form of environmental degradation. This degradation has a long history, which coincides with the history of capitalism but can in no way just be reduced to it. Unfortunately the importance of this transformation has been overlooked or belittled by political ecology so far. It needs to be recognized if we are to organize defense movements of what remains of the commons. This defense constitutes the crucial public task for political action during the eighties. The task must be undertaken urgently because commons can exist without police, but resources cannot. Just as traffic does, computers call for police, and for ever more of them, and in ever more subtle forms.
By definition, resources call for defense by police. Once they are defended, their recovery as commons becomes increasingly difficult. This is a special reason for urgency.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
On the same boat on which I arrived in 1926, the first loudspeaker was landed on the island. Few people there had ever heard of such a thing. Up to that day, all men and women had spoken with more or less equally powerful voices. Henceforth this would change. Henceforth the access to the microphone would determine whose voice shall be magnified. Silence now ceased to be in the commons; it became a resource for which loudspeakers compete. Language itself was transformed thereby from a local commons into a national resource for communication. As enclosure by the lords increased national productivity by denying the individual peasant to keep a few sheep, so the encroachment of the loudspeaker has destroyed that silence which so far had given each man and woman his or her proper and equal voice. Unless you have access to a loudspeaker, you now are silenced.
Just as the commons of space are vulnerable, and can be destroyed by the motorization of traffic, so the commons of speech are vulnerable, and can easily be destroyed by the encroachment of modem means of communication.
The issue which I propose for discussion should therefore be clear: how to counter the encroachment of new, electronic devices and systems upon commons that are more subtle and more intimate to our being than either grassland or roads - commons that are at least as valuable as silence. Silence, according to western and eastern tradition alike, is necessary for the emergence of persons. It is taken from us by machines that ape people. We could easily be made increasingly dependent on machines for speaking and for thinking, as we are already dependent on machines for moving.
Such a transformation of the environment from a commons to a productive resource constitutes the most fundamental form of environmental degradation. This degradation has a long history, which coincides with the history of capitalism but can in no way just be reduced to it. Unfortunately the importance of this transformation has been overlooked or belittled by political ecology so far. It needs to be recognized if we are to organize defense movements of what remains of the commons. This defense constitutes the crucial public task for political action during the eighties. The task must be undertaken urgently because commons can exist without police, but resources cannot. Just as traffic does, computers call for police, and for ever more of them, and in ever more subtle forms.
By definition, resources call for defense by police. Once they are defended, their recovery as commons becomes increasingly difficult. This is a special reason for urgency.
human rights, anarchism, ecoanarchism, anarchosyndicalism
January 21, 2012
The piddling contribution of wind power in New England
ISO New England: Seasonal Claimed Capability (SCC), Jan 2012 report
Total New England Claimed Capability (MW)
Winter (March): 34407.889; 125.964 (0.366%) from WIND
Summer (August): 31766.431; 50.735 (0.160%) from WIND
The SCC of Intermittent Power Resources generator assets are determined using the median of net output from the most recently completed Summer Capability and Winter Capability Periods across the Summer (HE 14-18) and Winter (HE 18-19) Intermittent Reliability Hours, respectively.
The ISO-NE report lists 34 wind-powered generators, only 26 providing any winter and 24 summer capability (two of which because they are still under construction or not yet connected and therefore deleted from the list below).
Note that several of these figures are obviously bogus, with round numbers and summer values an even fraction of the winter value suggesting developer reports rather than actual data, and the 80% claimed capacity for one of the Otis Air Force Base turbines is clearly impossible.
Therefore, the ISO-NE report of 0.37% of its power in winter and 0.16% in summer is an exaggeration of the true situation. That piddling contribution includes the output from nine very large wind energy facilities, all on mountain ridges that used to provide important forested habitat.
(Note that the 42-MW Mars Hill Wind Farm in Maine is not included here, because it is outside of the ISO-NE network. And according to the New England Wind Forum of the U.S. Department of Energy, there are two other large facilities currently under construction — Record Hill Wind Project [50 MW] in Byron and Roxbury, Me. and Kingdom Community Wind [63 MW] in Lowell, Vt. — and five more that have been permitted — Cape Wind [468 MW] and Hoosac Wind Energy Project [30 MW] in Mass., Spruce Mountain [19 MW] in Me., Granite Reliable Power Windpark [99 MW] in N.H., and Georgia Mountain Community Wind [12 MW] in Vt.; the Hoosac and Granite projects are in fact under construction, and the Record Hill project is operating.)
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
Total New England Claimed Capability (MW)
Winter (March): 34407.889; 125.964 (0.366%) from WIND
Summer (August): 31766.431; 50.735 (0.160%) from WIND
The SCC of Intermittent Power Resources generator assets are determined using the median of net output from the most recently completed Summer Capability and Winter Capability Periods across the Summer (HE 14-18) and Winter (HE 18-19) Intermittent Reliability Hours, respectively.
The ISO-NE report lists 34 wind-powered generators, only 26 providing any winter and 24 summer capability (two of which because they are still under construction or not yet connected and therefore deleted from the list below).
| generator | capacity (kW) | winter | summer |
| MA: | |||
| BARNSTABLE_DPW_ID1545 | 200 | 80 (40%) | 14 (7%) |
| BARTLETTS OCEAN VIEW FARM WIND | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| BERKSHIRE WIND POWER PROJECT | 15000 | 6988 (46.6%) | 1704 (11.4%) |
| CITY OF MEDFORD WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| HOLY NAME CC JR SR HIGH SCHOOL | 600 | 0 | 0 |
| HULL WIND TURBINE II | 1800 | 458 (25.4%) | 52 (2.3%) |
| HULL WIND TURBINE U5 | 660 | 180 (27.3%) | 46 (7.0%) |
| IPSWICH WIND FARM 1 | 1600 | 342 (21.4%) | 125 (7.8%) |
| JIMINY PEAK WIND QF | 1500 | 0 | 0 |
| MOUNT ST MARY-WRENTHAM MA WIND | 100 | 4 (4.0%) | 2 (2.0%) |
| NATURE'S CLASSROOM WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| NM-STONE | 600 | 6 (1%) | 0 |
| NOTUS WIND I | 1650 | 500 (30.3%) | 187 (11.3%) |
| OTIS_AF_WIND_TURBINE | 1500 | 199 (13.3%) | 125 (8.3%) |
| OTIS_WT_AFCEE_ID1692 | 1500 | 1200 (80%) | 1200 (80%) |
| PRINCETON WIND FARM PROJECT | 3000 | 582 (19.4%) | 157 (52.3%) |
| RICHEY WOODWORKING WIND QF | 600 | 0 | 0 |
| TEMPLETON WIND TURBINE | 1650 | 401 (24.3%) | 74 (4.5%) |
| TOWN_OF_FALMOUTH_WIND_TURBINE | 1650 | 133 (8.1%) | 6 (0.4%) |
| ME: | |||
| BEAVER RIDGE WIND | 4500 | 1240 (27.6%) | 466 (10.4%) |
| FOX ISLAND WIND | 4500 | 159 (3.5%) | 0 |
| KIBBY WIND POWER | 132000 | 34590 (26.2%) | 13375 (10.1%) |
| ROLLINS WIND PLANT | 60000 | 20860 (34.8%) | 6207 (10.3%) |
| SPRUCE MOUNTAIN WIND | 19000 | 9000 (47.4%) | 4500 (23.7%) |
| STETSON II WIND FARM | 25500 | 6740 (26.4%) | 2602 (10.2%) |
| STETSON WIND FARM | 57000 | 15725 (27.6%) | 7056 (12.4%) |
| NH: | |||
| LEMPSTER WIND | 24000 | 8518 (35.5%) | 2457 (10.2%) |
| RI: | |||
| NE ENGRS MIDDLETOWN RI WIND QF | 100 | 0 | 0 |
| PORTSMOUTH ABBEY WIND QF | 660 | 0 | 0 |
| TOWN OF PORTSMOUTH RI WIND QF | 1500 | 159 (10.6%) | 178 (11.9%) |
| VT: | |||
| SEARSBURG WIND (listed in Mass.) | 6600 | 900 (13.6%) | 202 (3.1%) |
| SHEFFIELD WIND PLANT | 40000 | 17000 (42.5%) | 10000 (25.0%) |
| TOTAL WIND | 459420 | 125964 (27.4%) | 50735 (11.0%) |
Note that several of these figures are obviously bogus, with round numbers and summer values an even fraction of the winter value suggesting developer reports rather than actual data, and the 80% claimed capacity for one of the Otis Air Force Base turbines is clearly impossible.
Therefore, the ISO-NE report of 0.37% of its power in winter and 0.16% in summer is an exaggeration of the true situation. That piddling contribution includes the output from nine very large wind energy facilities, all on mountain ridges that used to provide important forested habitat.
(Note that the 42-MW Mars Hill Wind Farm in Maine is not included here, because it is outside of the ISO-NE network. And according to the New England Wind Forum of the U.S. Department of Energy, there are two other large facilities currently under construction — Record Hill Wind Project [50 MW] in Byron and Roxbury, Me. and Kingdom Community Wind [63 MW] in Lowell, Vt. — and five more that have been permitted — Cape Wind [468 MW] and Hoosac Wind Energy Project [30 MW] in Mass., Spruce Mountain [19 MW] in Me., Granite Reliable Power Windpark [99 MW] in N.H., and Georgia Mountain Community Wind [12 MW] in Vt.; the Hoosac and Granite projects are in fact under construction, and the Record Hill project is operating.)
wind power, wind energy, environment, environmentalism
January 18, 2012
Leahy loves fascism
Not only did Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy vote to further codify the USA's march to military dictatorship in the form of the NDAA, he is also the sponsor of PIPA, the Senate version of SOPA, adding censorship of the internet to his acquiescence to fascism.
human rights, Vermont
human rights, Vermont
January 17, 2012
The Washington Post shakes things up
First, on Friday Jonathan Turley wrote "10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free":
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.And the week before (and appearing in our local paper this past Sunday), John Tirman wrote "Why do we ignore the civilians killed in American wars?":
Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves? ...
Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.
These countries also have constitutions that purport to guarantee freedoms and rights. But their governments have broad discretion in denying those rights and few real avenues for challenges by citizens — precisely the problem with the new laws in this country.
The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.
Assassination of U.S. citizens ... Indefinite detention ... Arbitrary justice ... Warrantless searches ... Secret evidence ... War crimes ... Secret court ... Immunity from judicial review ... Continual monitoring of citizens ... Extraordinary renditions ...
As the United States officially ended the war in Iraq last month, President Obama spoke eloquently at Fort Bragg, N.C., lauding troops for “your patriotism, your commitment to fulfill your mission, your abiding commitment to one another,” and offering words of grief for the nearly 4,500 members of the U.S. armed forces who died in Iraq. He did not, however, mention the sacrifices of the Iraqi people.
This inattention to civilian deaths in America’s wars isn’t unique to Iraq. There’s little evidence that the American public gives much thought to the people who live in the nations where our military interventions take place. Think about the memorials on the Mall honoring American sacrifices in Korea and Vietnam. These are powerful, sacred spots, but neither mentions the people of those countries who perished in the conflicts.
The major wars the United States has fought since the surrender of Japan in 1945 — in Korea, Indochina, Iraq and Afghanistan — have produced colossal carnage. For most of them, we do not have an accurate sense of how many people died, but a conservative estimate is at least 6 million civilians and soldiers. ...
Why the American silence on our wars’ main victims? Our self-image, based on what cultural historian Richard Slotkin calls “the frontier myth” — in which righteous violence is used to subdue or annihilate the savages of whatever land we’re trying to conquer — plays a large role. For hundreds of years, the frontier myth has been one of America’s sturdiest national narratives.
When the challenges from communism in Korea and Vietnam appeared, we called on these cultural tropes to understand the U.S. mission overseas. The same was true for Iraq and Afghanistan, with the news media and politicians frequently portraying Islamic terrorists as frontier savages. By framing each of these wars as a battle to civilize a lawless culture, we essentially typecast the local populations as theIndians of our North American conquest. As the foreign policy maven Robert D. Kaplan wrote on the Wall Street Journal op-ed page in 2004, “The red Indian metaphor is one with which a liberal policy nomenklatura may be uncomfortable, but Army and Marine field officers have embraced it because it captures perfectly the combat challenge of the early 21st century.”
Politicians tend to speak in broader terms, such as defending Western values, or simply refer to resistance fighters as terrorists, the 21st-century word for savages. Remember the military’s code name for the raid of Osama bin Laden’s compound? It was Geronimo. ...
Perhaps the most compelling explanation for indifference, though, taps into our beliefs about right and wrong. More than 30 years ago, social psychologists developed the “just world” theory, which argues that humans naturally assume that the world should be orderly and rational. When that “just world” is disrupted, we tend to explain away the event as an aberration. For example, when encountering a beggar on the street, a common reaction is indifference or even anger, in the belief that no one should go hungry in America.
This explains much of our response to the violence in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. When the wars went badly and violence escalated, Americans tended to ignore or even blame the victims. The public dismissed the civilians because their high mortality rates, displacement and demolished cities were discordant with our understandings of the missions and the U.S. role in the world.
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