cheese it, the cops!

boomer invasion

it's easy to forget that this idea of generations and their personalities is just a trope. human beings reproduce according to human estrous cycle or, over a population, more or less continuously, rather than all at once every twenty years. admittedly, that would be fun. also if you think you're going to sell 'entitlement reform is our pearl harbor,' you can go ahead and give it a shot: i was bored with it before you formulated it. no! our pearl harbor is climate change. education. childhood obesity! as long as it ends in thermonuclear annihilation, i am down.

worst of all worlds

mitt romney is a kind of incomprehensible candidate. he's at once robotically inclined to recite talking points while taking only extremely safe positions, if any. and yet he's non-stop gaffe machine. anyway, the way these folks on the right think about israel these days is just very disturbing.

The Castle is really The Hospital and we're all headed for The Cancer Ward

 With apologies to Kafka, George C Scott and Solzhenitsyn, Crusader AXE must clarify that I do not begrudge Ann Romney her horse. I begrudge her husband the right to pretend that there's no difference betwen her service horses and the baby doll an old woman clutches in a filthy rest home...Since that sort of blindness is endemic to Romney and his party, I begrudge them their fucking existence...and now, it's personal. 

splanatory

People have given many explanations for the massacre in Aurora. Gun control laws, lack of compulsory universal use of psychiatric medication, the effects of red hair dye on the human brain: all have been explored with that stunning mixture of certainty and stupidity that only the social sciences provide.

Here at Crispylabs, however, we have solved the problem. With a very high degree of probability, we can declare that climate change is the culprit. 

We came up with this hypothesis because we can't stop thinking about climate change. That people we agree with about everything called it a national security crisis made us realize that climate change is to blame for everything and anything: it's a universal crisis: the cause of everything that goes wrong. 

To test our stunning conclusion, we stuck precisely a passel of extremely cute babies - a diverse population of black and white, male and female, punk and preppy, straight and gay (born that way) babies - in a room and slowly increased the heat to 136 degrees fahrenheit: yesterday's high temperature in northern Greenland. Before they expired, the babies got super fussy. Imagine what would have happened if we had issued them assault rifles! It would have been baby armageddon, just like last time.

As the world grows ever hotter, flatter, and more flatulent, things continue to be really fucked up. Coincidence? We think not, and our regression paralysis confirms us in our speculation.

If things continue at the rate established by James Holmes at 12:28 AM, everyone will have shot everyone else by 2051.That said, the tipping point will very frankly be a disconnect, or The Disconnect: a yawning abyss in which all that exists is annihilated utterly, as though by the anti-will of the inverse of God.

but glock is psyched

smith & wesson executives must be mortified that their ar-15 jammed. 

pause before explaining

governor hickenlooper of colorado yesterday said of holmes: 'this person...almost a creature.' i understand this impulse: we want to make something and someone like this alien, inhuman, completely incomprehensible. one thing we're doing when we express this is saying i would never do something like that, which is indeed an important thing to say to oneself and to other people. i certainly do not want to connect to someone like that, but on the other hand i do want to say that the indiscriminate rage and obsessive thinking cannot be entirely incomprehensible to people who have had a range of human experiences. i think that the first step would be to try to understand how an action like that emerges from human beings like us. consciously, pointedly rendering it incomprehensible isn't fully honest and it's not helpful in trying to understand what happened.

right now the cliche explanation is 'social isolation.' again it's amazingly non-explanatory, and just another fad. even if it's true that most people who do something like that at least feel themselves to be socially isolated, it's at least as likely that they are isolated because they're weird as that they're weird because they're isolated. it gives you the vague idea that everyone would be ok if they were just relentlessly social: well, that's your own vision of what human life should be. but this is really what happens with something like aurora: without regard to the facts, we just feed it into our machine and explain it in a way that would, if taken seriously, drive our other agendas. on the morning after the massacre, i heard some 'expert' on cnn blaming "facebook, text messaging, and iphones," portrayed as elements in social isolation. that's probably even less engaged with reality than instantly blaming marilyn manson for columbine without any information about anything. you might see if you can respond by letting the event be what it is, at least for a few moments. a plausible explanation would begin by taking the specific, bristlingly complex event seriously as something you do not yet understand. one problem is that we want a sense of control over events like that and what they suggest about events in the future, so we leap instantaneously to any explanation we have already pre-cooked. 

it's worth saying that the two impulses - 'of course we cannot make sense of someone like that at all' and 'it's facebook' - are completely opposed: the event is both inexplicable and explained instantly. these are responses of people who are called upon to talk but who just do not actually know what to say. 

a tribute too all the empty instant explanations, via greatest hit, philly inquirer 2001:

I Was a Disgruntled Male Loner

"FBI believes angry male loner sent anthrax letters." When I saw that headline, I assumed that there was an actual suspect, but what they have in custody is a profile, developed by forensic specialists.

Now the FBI meant this announcement to be reassuring, to show that they're all over the case. But it had exactly the opposite effect: it made it clear that they haven't been able to do a damn thing, though I guess we can now eliminate your mom and the Dalai Lama.

FBI "behaviorist" Jim Fitzgerald said he hoped members of the public might recognize these characteristics and give the bureau some leads. But to be honest, most of the people I know are disgruntled male loners. Come to that, I am myself an disgruntled male loner. Consider that a tip, Jim.

Possibly it is time to stop interning Arabs and start interning disgruntled male loners. We'll set up a network of camps where loners can be gruntled. We'll have a bowling league and a drum circle.

The disgruntled male loner has truly become an icon of American culture. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence, yet it seems that assassins and terrorists such as Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Lee Harvey Oswald, Tim McVeigh and so on were all disgruntled. On the other hand, our heroes - such as the characters played by Clint Eastwood and John Wayne - are also disgruntled male loners. We love our disgruntled male loners, yet we fear them too.

It's so damn hard being a disgruntled male loner these days. We receive mixed messages from the media, which disgruntles us further. We used to be admired, even venerated, but in the post-September 11 world, our heroes aren't cowboys, but friendly, well-adjusted bureaucrats.

Profiling is an interesting business. It consists in reading character from its effects, inferring who someone is by what they do. In fact, we're all profilers. To figure out who people are, all we have to go on is what they do.

A character in a play by Moliere, asked why opium makes people sleepy, says with a grandly scientific air that it has a sleep-inducing property. To say that someone is angry isn't much of an explanation for their violent behavior: rather their violent behavior is the explanation for our attribution to them of anger.

In the FBI profile, the "male" part comes from the fact that most people who send threatening mail are men. According to these experts, the perp probably also has "some scientific background." I'm hoping that the bureau didn't actually use my tax dollars to pay someone to tell them that the person who did this was angry

When we infer a personality with as little specificity as that attributed by the FBI to the bioterrorist, it seems evident that we are dealing with a ghost, a mere abstract postulate. When you're dealing with your best friend, the ghost in the machine seems more vivid, but it's no less an artifact of imagination.

Even our sense of ourselves is more or less an inference from our own behavior, and an inference from what other people infer about our behavior.

The FBI might believe that they are piecing together "who" the perpetrator is. But all they're doing is restating the information we all have in slightly different terms. We are all skilled at this kind of paraphrase, and any of us could have done as well with less information.

Let me see: the perp is not an Al Gore supporter. He's liable to be over ten years old and to have at some time been in the state of New Jersey. He has a conflicted relationship with his Dad. He's not a tee-ball coach or a member of the Loyal Order of Moose. He isn't a very good ballroom dancer. He's resentful. He's unhappy. He's not much of a talker. He's not on anti-depressants, or if he is, he needs his medication adjusted. It's unlikely that he's a native of New Guinea; after all, most people aren't. He's not regarded as sensitive. Women have treated him badly. He probably does not like opera.

If you know this person, call your local FBI field office.

 

the real issue

That's Infotainment

By Crispin Sartwell

 

In 1980, Ronald Reagan famously asked, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" That question is about the past, but what the American people care about is the future. Thus, as I try to figure out how to cast my vote for president, I ask myself and America an even more profound question: Who would you prefer to watch on television for the next four years?

    The candidates remind us that the stakes are high: social justice as against individual liberty; a positive vision of all of us helping each of us as against a release of the entrepreneurial spirit that made this country great; subordination to a gigantic government as against subordination to gigantic corporations. The American dream itself, or at least the precise form of its annihilation, hangs in the balance.

    On the other hand, the way the candidates and their parties embody these gigantic and inspiring values in actual policy consists of minor adjustments to the tax code, which they can't actually achieve.

    Various policy initiatives of the next president might affect me, of course; the best recent example I can think of is that I can keep my daughter Emma on my health insurance for a couple of more years thanks to Obama's healthcare law. But by far the most concrete effect of the President of the United States on my actual life is that the occupant of that office has unfettered access to my television screen.  

    Unlike Emma, who lives in Colorado, he'll be right there, in my living room and yours, day after day, week after week, etc. There will be States of the Union, press conferences, emergency addresses to the American people, world travels with the press corps in tow, pseudo-intimate interviews. If I am going to vote my own self-interest, the fundamental issue is entertainment.

    And so America has to ask itself: As President of the United States of America, who is going to be funnier? Who more able to touch your heart and bring a tear to your eye? Whose face would you rather look at all day? The stakes are indeed dramatic.

    There is no doubt that Obama is at his best an uplifting speaker. Not at his best, he is inanimate, delivering a perfunctory teleprompter rendition of his address on the Gulf oil spill or the Supreme Court decision. And the inspiration has faded with the repetition.

    Barack Obama has already been on television all the time for a good five years. Even excellent TV characters run out of momentum around then. An important exception is Carly Benson-Quartermaine-Corinthos-Alcazar-Jacks on General Hospital, who's been chugging along as a classic soap opera super-bitch for the better part of two decades. However, she's been played by at least three different actresses. Obama might want to try that approach.

    Likewise, I was hoping for a more riveting, or at least more amusing, Republican candidate. The madcap hijinks of a Michele Bachmann or a Rick Perry - their zany, Lucille-Ball-meets-Zooey-Deschanel personae - would have made every day a joy and a misadventure. Into what hilarious pratfalls they might have pushed this great nation only Jesus knows, though my own view is that without a filibuster-proof Republican majority in the Senate, they wouldn't have taken us much of anywhere.

     I just don't think Romney can carry a series or indeed a country for a whole season, much less four or eight. The chances of someone like that launching an unpopular war, building an electrified border fence, or banning abortion - any of which would make for good television - seem slim.

     In some respects, Romney certainly has what it takes to succeed on a high-def flatscreen; indeed, he has such facility that he could portray anyone doing anything. He's like a male Meryl Streep, whose performance as Seabiscuit was so convincing that it was never detected. Romney would make a beautiful Seabiscuit. But when he portrays himself, he portrays a very uninteresting creature.

    Romney's problem is that the television audience wants to follow a coherent, compelling character through the whole run of the show. I watch television to connect my deep humanity, if any, to the deep humanity of the characters. I come to think of them - Kyra Sedgwick as The Closer, for example, or the members of Big Time Rush - as my closest, indeed as my only, friends. Mitt Romney is a pretty decent actor. But "Mitt Romney" is a painfully dull character. And politics is about character.

    And so, because I so cherish this picturesque land of freedom and its rich history of television entertainment, I will be voting for Gary Johnson.

 

Crispin Sartwell teaches philosophy at Dickinson College in Carlisle, PA. His most recent book is Political Aesthetics.

 

cack blunts

In his verdict, Riddle said there was "no doubt" that Terry had uttered the words "fucking black cunt" during the final stages of the match at Loftus Road last autumn. He had done so in anger, he said.

But it was "impossible to be sure" both of what Terry said and what Ferdinand had said to him.

Riddle concluded: "It is therefore possible that what he [Terry] said was not intended as an insult, but rather as a challenge to what he believed had been said to him. In those circumstances, there being a doubt, the only verdict the court can record is one of not guilty."

the idea that insults are crimes is insulting, hence criminal. and the idea that an insult directed at one grown man by another is a crime shows that, while we are not all 'fucking black cunts,' we are certainly a beautiful rainbow of little fucking pussies. you actually have a judge trying to lip-read videos and crap. (as well as concluding with magnificent stupidity both that there is no doubt that terry said it and that it's not certain that he did, and that 'fbc,' offered in response to an insult, is not itself an insult; these are the thoughts of a man wondering what the hell he is doing with a case like that in his courtroom.) maybe having said it 'in anger' is an element of the crime? surely terry meant 'fucking black cunt' affectionately. plus maybe he didn't start it! where's the assistant principal when you need him? by what means the government convinces itself that such things are crimes or that it is their legitimate function to intervene, it is impossible to say.

dang

i was wrong about joe paterno.

wordcount

this sort of research gives research a bad name. really? you're going to derive large-scale conclusions about the culture by sheer quantitative enumeration of the words used in books? look one thing this may reflect, for example, is changing conventions of narration or in general authorship. for example, use of the first-person singular has become much more frequent in academic writing. well, that is a shift in the conventions of authorship, but i doubt it reflects anything in particular about individualism: really we were trying to avoid the passive voice. maybe a higher percentage of novels are narrated in the first person now (thank god, few are narrated by 'we'); nothing directly follows about the 'individualism' of the culture. you know, some things still require thinkers with antennae; some things can only be addressed from some point of view or semi-artistically and not by counting. 

individualism again

i meant to respond to this piece by kurt anderson.

What has happened politically, economically, culturally and socially since the sea change of the late ’60s isn’t contradictory or incongruous. It’s all of a piece. For hippies and bohemians as for businesspeople and investors, extreme individualism has been triumphant. Selfishness won.

From the beginning, the American idea embodied a tension between radical individualism and the demands of the commonweal.

not surprisingly, i want to stick up for individualism in what i hold to be the traditional american sense, and i point out that anderson, reflecting the conventional rhetoric of his demographic, conflates individualism, selfishness, hedonism, and laissez-faire capitalism into a single enemy, which is about as ham-handed as could be imagined. i do think that hedonism killed the sixties, by the way, or showed that there was little seriousness in the hippie/peace movement. really the people who represented sex and drugs as the essence of human liberation - oh you know abbie hoffman, timothy leary, even the dead and airplane - have a lot to answer for. and of course many of them did directly answer for it with addiction and death.

but i just want to say that 'individualism' in the way i use the term and certainly as connected with 'america's founding,' or the american character circa 1840, etc. is something else again. now the sixties at its best did recommend it, even reviving thoreau. there was an iconoclastic, skeptical, anti-authoritarian streak of 'non-conformism' in the sixties. there were marxists, of course, striving for the dictatorship of the proletariat, but those were sad chumps. i think of a more 'existentialist' sixties politics. in my book, for example, bradley manning and i.f. stone are american individualists: not rah-rah capitalists, but profoundly concerned with freedom of expression and the articulation of subversive and idiosyncratic viewpoints and the honest expression of the self. 

individualism in this sense is not to be opposed to social cooperation; indeed the mutual respect  for differences that it embodies would seem to me to be a precondition of actual collaboration. and the meaning of none of the terms anderson tosses about should be conflated with any of the others without a long conceptual and historical argument, which would not work out.

if you really want to make the left/right spectrum a matter of individualism as against collectivism in this sense - in the sense that we engage in collective action because we all [ought to] agree or all believe together or act as a social class, then i'll just float right. individualism in this sense is not selfishness or rah-rah capitalism, not sheer self-indulgent hedonism or narcissism: it is a willingness to think against the common wisdom of your age, and to develop and articulate your own point of view, or to realize in external action your own person with all its eccentricities. and there are other, better, leftist traditions, many of them rooted in american soil and in individualism.

our problem now is not that we are too individualistic, as say tony judt argued (and anderson is doing virtually nothing but recapitulating judt), but that we think in herds. that's what turns our politics into meaningless opposed catch-phrases that everyone mutters in unson like automata. or like kurt anderson.

 

 

loathsome sorkin

aaron sorkin worships everything i find loathsome. the west wing was an insufferable romanticization of political power: not much there but a yearning for the kennedy of myth: same face without the basic purpose: to fuck everything that moves. now he yearns after cronkitism: the time we supposedly had one person to tell us what the truth was, or at least tell us what horseshit we ought to believe. remember when we were so united? well, no, i don't, now that you mention it. but aaron: do remember what it was that united us, even if only in your imagination: subordination to vicious authority and implicit belief in whatever jive was shoved in our direction by a tiny hyper-concentrated national media. remember when americans trusted their institutions? no. but i do remember that those institutions were completely untrustworthy.

what we need is an inverse or obverse sorkin. make a series about an i.f. stone figure, or one based on a heroic yet flawed bradley manning, etc.

California and beautiful voiced French buskers...singing Dylan

In which Crusader AXE is fully cognizant of both the irony and the multi-layer stereotyping and really doesn't care.