public unions versus the public

[caroljane]

Er, excuse me , I happen to be an alto and he happened to be an eagle. Did the term "screaming eagle" fall unabetted from the sky?

[Selene]

Hmmm, I see you were quite taken by that "screaming Eagle."

[caroljane]

Taken is the exact word. He gave a whole new meaning to "swept off your feet".

And sure, the view from his place was breathtaking. And he promised to get rid of all the bones and leashes and turn it into a true "love nest." But it became a prison of the spirit,I tell you. And those nephews of his would peck me half to death and he never said a word. Vile bald little bastards.

He never held a steady job, just preying, and working Fourth of July parades and the odd Objectivist wedding, and never let me come to those because he had to look "alone and independent" and never brought home any decent leftovers.

I just hope my story will help others, who might be tempted by soaring and swooping . Life at the top is not what it looks like from the bottom.

[Selene]

Taken is the exact word. He gave a whole new meaning to "swept off your feet".

And sure, the view from his place was breathtaking. And he promised to get rid of all the bones and leashes and turn it into a true "love nest." But it became a prison of the spirit,I tell you. And those nephews of his would peck me half to death and he never said a word. Vile bald little bastards.

He never held a steady job, just preying, and working Fourth of July parades and the odd Objectivist wedding, and never let me come to those because he had to look "alone and independent" and never brought home any decent leftovers.

I just hope my story will help others, who might be tempted by soaring and swooping . Life at the top is not what it looks like from the bottom.

Well put! Bravo!!!

[caroljane]

Back at you, You are brilliant at improv and I would be nuttin' without you.

[Brant Gaede]

Back at you, You are brilliant at improv and I would be nuttin' without you.

Oh. You weren't talking about me.

--Brant

what a bummer

[Frediano]

Dear Dance Layman:

The eyes are always the first to go.

You dated an eagle with a nest full of bones? The Hell you say. I always picture eagles swooping down over lakes and pulling fish out of the water; they don't dive, they kind of just grab what they can from near the surface, unannounced. They eat what I think must be curious fish, as in, 'hey, what is that big shiny up there?" So surely those weren't catfish bones littering the nest. As curious as they are, catfish are bottom feeders. Just sayin'.

And as that fine Canadian gentlemen could have once said, sorry for being surly when I was calling you Shirley.

There are probably several mispellings (there's one) and grammar mistakes in my latest stream of consciousness effort. There have been many. But my dictionary defines futility as trying to make an engineer/nerd feel either bad or badly for occasionally mangling the language in what streams from his fingers-- fingers often observed to have minds of their own when banging on keyboards. There becomes their...its becomes it's...whom becomes who...and so on. They figure, that is what spellcheck and editors are for. Hell, most engineers/nerds are still trying to master punctuation,

Damn.

If literacy is going to be questioned, then shouldn't we should test across all modes? My stream of consciousness bon mots, offered up as my cheap alternative to much needed therapy, vs. others grasp of linear algebra or non-linear partial differential equations. We'll average the results. It will be fun.

Is there even such a thing as technological or technical literacy? I suspect the guardians of literacy might say not. I wonder why? Yet if we take even a short spin through modern political debate on topics like the economies or climate change, clearly there is no need for technical literacy to weigh in.

Nope. In the brave new world of egalitarian ideas, grade school grammar and spelling is the only literacy required. One GED, one vote.

[caroljane]

Dear Shirley,

I never expected my comments to make you feel bad and I'm sure they didn't. You gave me an opportunity to make cracks and I took it.

I am technology illiterate, and well aware of it.

The Eagle riff arose from your helpful translation of your own comment, which cracked me up and for which thank you.

[Frediano]

I never expected my comments to make you feel bad and I'm sure they didn't

For sure. As in the engineer's dictionary and its definition of futility. But you would be on a double Fool's Errand. I'm not just a prick, but an Ivy League/MIT prick, and for God's sake, trying to make an Ivy League/MIT prick feel inadequate is for sure a tough row to hoe, even for ho's who can hunt. I even laugh at Howard Wolowitz.

They used to say that McGill was the 'Princeton of Canada.' But they never say that Princeton is the McGill of the US. How impolite and unfair. Why is that?

You gave me an opportunity to make cracks and I took it.

This is scary; you are like my Canadian doppleganger. As in my response to the following.

It is indeed sad that a living wage and job security can be achieved by labour unions, and that the entire world economy is being destroyed by them. Obviously their time is past, as no one today deserves or should expect a living wage, much less the continuation of any wage, unless they continually surpass the expectations of the free markets, those infallible arbiters of excellence.

I don't want to mislead; I don't mean my response a few days ago. I mean, my response 30 years ago.

This is all so much easier for me when I use your words. Thank-you.

[caroljane]

Poor McGill. Why don't they say it nowadays?

Nowadays they say the University of Toronto is comparable to Harvard or Yale, and a lot cheaper to graduate from.

[Frediano]

Who are these people disrespecting the University of Toronto???

[caroljane]

Spoken like a true Princetonian!

[Frediano]

Sort of.

'True Princtonians' are instructed to work in the words "capitalism sucks" into every possible utterance. Some examples:

"Nanook's battle with the walrus was metaphor for the well established historical fact that capitalism sucks."

"Dr., please, my hemorrhoids are killing me, because capitalism sucks."

"I'm not certain if I want the french toast for breakfast or the Cuban omelette, but one thing is certain, and that is... capitalism sucks."

"If the ratio of successive terms is less than one, the series will converge and capitalism sucks."

"Sure, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989, and they were farming with oxcarts right up until the bitter end. Sure, socialist strong arm generals are creating Hell on earth in former Burma. Sure, Assad's Ba'ath Socialists are notmuch prettier than Saddam's Ba'ath Socialists. Sure, that crazy agrarian marxist, Pol Pot, murdered millions on the way to that failed People's Worker's Paradise. Sure, even Sweden in Europe is backing away from the abyss and quietly liberalizing its economies. Sure, Germany doing the same thing with Agenda 2010 and even doubling down on it gave them the opposite trajectory of Greece. Sure, the example of even little Estonia proves the point in Europe. Sure, China realized they forgot the 'need to actually have Capitalism first before you can cannibalize it.' Sure, Cuba and North Korea's economies consist of peasants eating their own shoes. But haven't you heard? Capitalism sucks."

Now that is spoken like a true Princetonian!

[caroljane]

I had no idea it was such a radically political place. I admit I was just thinking of Ivy League intramural ribbing and of the "sense of adequacy" a prestigious alma mater confers. My only real encounter has been through Fitzgerald and O'Hara - neither of them graduates of the places they mythologized! and of course their era with its mythology has passed away.

[Frediano]

Well, for one, the timing was just a little off on both of them. Maybe O'Hara, barely. After all, bronchitis takes a little time to blossom into full blown pneumonia. There was a Cold War, and it was waged by determined enemies, each striving to prevail. America and Reagan didn't so much win the Cold War as catch the cold. Reagan might have danced in the endzone, but his 'grand compromise' with O'Neill -- a little more guns in exchange for a lot more butter, was the deal that put the present wreck on rails. But, that conflict was waged for decades, not just the Reagan 80s.

The Ivies are natural choke points, tiny high-school sized clubs, each with their totally open campus, like all colleges in America. Given a smart and determined global adversary selling an idea -- totalitarianism -- completely anathema to freedom, what would have ever possibly prevented an attack on these choke points?

I call them choke points because that is what they are. For being tiny, high school sized little clubs of exclusivity, they have an inordinate amount of influence on our Congress, the White House, the Supreme Court, and even the faculty of other schools.

And from the 30's on, what would possibly have slowed down, much less, stopped or prevented a focused attack on these choke points? Seriously, what would keep such an attack from happening? Would it be the open campuses? Our open borders? Our non-police state? Would it be the benevolent sense of fair play and well wishing of our global political adversary in the Cold War? Would it be that the thought just never crossed their mind? Would it be our absolute belief in complete academic freedom, which oddly includes an embrace of ideas that eat that very freedom?

What would prevent a successful attack on those choke points?

I have no idea. But I know what the outcome of a successful attack would look like. We are living it.

What I am certain of, because I experienced it in the late 70s, is that the Ivies have become mandrels of thought, institutions of indoctrination. For every John Stossel that escapes intact and whole, there are a hundred Katrina vanden Heuval-esque marching instructoids rotely spouting the single word mantra "RaceClassGender" as they were instructed to repeat at every opportunity.

When our Ivy Leager POTUS leans across the pillow at night, he is whispered to by a former Princeton radical feminist. His first nominee for the USSC is a former Princeton radical feminist. His second nominee to the USSC is a cookie cuttered former Princeton radical feminist. If you scrounge around the USSC, you will find another Princeton product. And that is just Princeton, not the entire Ivies.

Is it -really- such a bright idea to have so much of our 'self-government' influenced by such a tiny, inbred, mandrel of singular thought? Isn't that exactly why this nation once eschewed monopolies-- because of undo influence by single point of failure entities?

Social Scientology is not an official acknowledged religion on the list of official acknowledged religions maintained by Congress(huh?) But it is a religion, defined by "S"ociety=God and the State is its proper Church. It also has its dedicated seminaries of instruction, and we call them 'The Ivies.'

America, the new Theocracy. How is it looking so far?

[caroljane]

Very well said. You are a good polemicist. It might be a small comfort that a Princeton radical feminist has been reduced to baking organic cookies for the last eight years.

I am not being facetious to say that you should consider writing a contra Fitzgerald Princeton novel, "This Side of Hades"..

[caroljane]

Weird isn't it, you will get rid of Obama in two years, and socialist Canada could be stuck with ardent free-marketer and his Hayekian cabinet forever.

[Frediano]

Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free association, if they opposed forced association? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: forced association? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify forced association?

Otherwise, one's advocacy of free association, ardent or not, would seem quite reasonable.

Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free markets, or economic freedom in general, if they opposed forced association in commerce? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: command and control/the economy running public totalitarianism? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify economic totalitarianism?

The criticisms of free markets often include the argument that 'they are not free markets.' I agree with those criticisms. IBM running to the guns of government by way of Moynihan for special treatment, subsidies/crony capitalism/corporatism is not 'free markets.' But the remedy cannot be the institutionalization of crony state capitalism-- of granting even more power to make crony deals to the always will be naked sweaty apes who make up not only commerce but self government. Self government should be policemen(plural), who 'make regular' commerce, not by directing it, but by enforcing laws based on principles (such as free association.)

Even clean air and water laws regularly follow from the principles of free association vs, forced association. (Foul air and water is an example of forced association with the uninvited commerce of others; the state has an interest, based on a principle, to enforce against acts of forced association.) I don't speak for all libertarians or even any libertarians, but it is not my opinion that libertarians are in favor of anarchy. They espouse laws based on principles, and one of those principles is 'free association.'

So the thought remains; I've asked this of folks many times, never get an answer. Why is free association insufficient, and what is the argument that justifies forced association over a national, state, county, or local scale? (And, are those justifications the same across each of those scopes?)

That isn't an argument against the Civil Rights Acts; in fact, I've argued elsewhere that the CRAs were necessary and an example of enforcement against forced association(with the racist ideas of bigots in the public commons, where a unique responsibility to peers sharing our same freedom exists.)

[moralist]

"capitalism sucks"

Show me someone who says "Capitalism sucks"...

...and I'll show you a failure who produces nothing.

[Frediano]

Show me someone who says "Capitalism sucks"...

...and I'll show you a failure who produces nothing.

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity."

I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you."

The course was "The Human Image in Film" (Busted; I was fulfilling my 'humanities' distribution requirement by auditing this basket weaving thing pass/fail. I remember one of my precept mates was Armand Hill, the basketball player. He was an Anthro major, if I remember correctly...)

The instructor wore a disconnected 35mm SR lens , held around his neck by a tattered multicolored piece of string. Every so often he would stop his lectures in mid-sentence, grab this lens, and 'frame the world.' He was both precious and pretentious all at once. A massive flake.

Or, as you describe perfectly.

[caroljane]

Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free association, if they opposed forced association? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: forced association? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify forced association?

Otherwise, one's advocacy of free association, ardent or not, would seem quite reasonable.

Would one say someone was an ardent advocate of free markets, or economic freedom in general, if they opposed forced association in commerce? Nothing wrong with being either ardent or fervent, but could one say that as a criticism without also, at the same time, not being an advocate of its opposite: command and control/the economy running public totalitarianism? Could that be done without at least attempting to justify economic totalitarianism?

The criticisms of free markets often include the argument that 'they are not free markets.' I agree with those criticisms. IBM running to the guns of government by way of Moynihan for special treatment, subsidies/crony capitalism/corporatism is not 'free markets.' But the remedy cannot be the institutionalization of crony state capitalism-- of granting even more power to make crony deals to the always will be naked sweaty apes who make up not only commerce but self government. Self government should be policemen(plural), who 'make regular' commerce, not by directing it, but by enforcing laws based on principles (such as free association.)

Even clean air and water laws regularly follow from the principles of free association vs, forced association. (Foul air and water is an example of forced association with the uninvited commerce of others; the state has an interest, based on a principle, to enforce against acts of forced association.) I don't speak for all libertarians or even any libertarians, but it is not my opinion that libertarians are in favor of anarchy. They espouse laws based on principles, and one of those principles is 'free association.'

So the thought remains; I've asked this of folks many times, never get an answer. Why is free association insufficient, and what is the argument that justifies forced association over a national, state, county, or local scale? (And, are those justifications the same across each of those scopes?)

That isn't an argument against the Civil Rights Acts; in fact, I've argued elsewhere that the CRAs were necessary and an example of enforcement against forced association(with the racist ideas of bigots in the public commons, where a unique responsibility to peers sharing our same freedom exists.)

That is a very, very precious argument. Under segregation whites were "forced" only to associate with whites, \and blacks with blacks. Geddit.

[moralist]

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity."

I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you."

Hissing is highly appropriate behavior as leftism is a feminine ideology. While it's natural for females to belong to the left, it becomes a different story when that same nature resides within males who failed to become men. Movies subliminally reflect this principle in that male antagonists are routinely portrayed as possessing feminine traits.

[Brant Gaede]

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity."

I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you."

Hissing is highly appropriate behavior as leftism is a feminine ideology. While it's natural for females to belong to the left, it becomes a different story when that same nature resides within males who failed to become men. Movies subliminally reflect this principle in that male antagonists are routinely portrayed as possessing feminine traits.

Garbage.

--Brant

and it stays garbage until you adequately support these statements

[BaalChatzaf]

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity."

I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you."

Hissing is highly appropriate behavior as leftism is a feminine ideology. While it's natural for females to belong to the left, it becomes a different story when that same nature resides within males who failed to become men. Movies subliminally reflect this principle in that male antagonists are routinely portrayed as possessing feminine traits.

How did you come to this conclusion? Give some examples, please.

Ba'al Chataf

[moralist]

Actual question from Anthropology course mid-term in 1975 or thereabouts, paraphrased from memory: "Explain how Nanook's battle with the walrus represents the deleterious impact of capitalism on humanity."

I argued several pages of the exact opposite. The course instructor, a flaming marxist radical, actually hissed at me when he handed back my paper: "If you do this on the final, I will fail you."

Hissing is highly appropriate behavior as leftism is a feminine ideology. While it's natural for females to belong to the left, it becomes a different story when that same nature resides within males who failed to become men. Movies subliminally reflect this principle in that male antagonists are routinely portrayed as possessing feminine traits.

How did you come to this conclusion? Give some examples, please.

Ba'al Chataf

Sure, Baal.

Consider the political stands of the left, they all have to do with aversion to risk and seeking the security of being cared for like a decent woman wants a decent man to love her and to take care of her. In lieu of a decency, by default the government becomes husband and father to the female and her spawn.

The feminised left is afraid of firearms, while the masculine right regards them as useful tools for protection.

The left is libertine... while the right is liberty.

The left is emotional... while the right is reasonable.

There are also many other examples of how the left and right represent the male and female archetypes. This is why it is normal for females to be leftists. The destruction to America done by the left is primarily the result of that same nature residing within males who failed to become men.

As a woman, Ayn Rand ran counter to the female norm of leftism.