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© COPYRIGHT 2005,2006 by NewRuskinCollege.com
New Ruskin College Lecture Hall:
History’s judgment rendered today!
Lecture Notes: 4-17-07
What must be remembered
about Cho Seung-Hui is how rare he is, at least in America. Iraq has three times his work a day. But think: Why so rare
in America? Not, 'how could he?', but why are there not more! How is it that human relations in America are different from
those of Iraq? How different? For example we are not worried about retaliatory attacks on Korean Americans. We have a system
of relationships that extends all the way out to even the most disturbed. Again, what is amazing is how few people kill.
There were 16.692 murders in 2005 according to the FBI's figures. Only a small fraction were multiple murders.
Crime of all types may
be taken as an index of alienation. For example, 2.2 million people were incarcerated, the highest percentage in the world.
Yet it could be worse:
White incarcerations are 471 per 100.000, but Black incarcerations are 3.145 per 100.000 and Hispanic incarcerations are 1.244,
approximately 7 and 3 times as high as the White rate. It could be much worse. What is it that keeps the White rate at 471
and not 3.145?
Lecture
Notes: 4-07-07
"I said a bad thing; I'm not a bad person."
To paraphrase an old Chinese
saying, 'the man who thinks he is not a bad person is a bad person, the man who thinks he is a bad person is not a bad person.'
As has been said before, Don Imus can never again demand justice. He acted with
deliberate malace to ruin my life. He may go on to some other network and replace his lost income. But however that may
be let us not hear one word from him about justice.
Lecture Notes: 3-6-07
Dan Rather: "Chicken hawks."
Chris Matthews: "What
does that mean?"
Dan Rather: "They are trying to have it both ways."
Well at least I made Eleanor
Clift choke on her "chicken hawks."
Lecture Notes: Martial Law
11-30-06
Yes, martial law, exactly.
It is a war zone after all.
Now we know. You can fool 29% of the people all the time.
Lecture Notes: I Told You So
02-24-2006
Or, is it too soon to say so?
The greatest challenge in Iraq was always how to keep them from killing one another.
I proposed taking prisoners of war and organizing them to help rebuild Iraq. I proposed indoctrination camps with
well thought out programs of “re-education.” Visits to the mass graves
and help excavating the killing fields, for example. Visits to the torture chambers. Films showing the relatives of Hussein’s victims describing their suffering.
And so on. None of this was done. Not even have we seen the interviews with the relatives. No
program of explanation let alone indoctrination. Not even the 50,000 criminals
Hussein let out of the prisons have been recaptured. The borders were not secured
and so now it is pointless to try cross sectioning the country, (isolate the Sunni Triangle), using transponders on both individuals
and vehicles which would allow us to track the movement of suspicious individuals. We
did not want to impose.
Senator Schumer picked up on this point and commented that Mr. Bush was “imposing”
elections on the Iraqi people. (I note but do not always comment. (For example when that other Senator complained that he did not need to be “lectured to.”)
In the middle of a war we ourselves created years of instability by changing governments,
one after the other, instead of having a well worked out plan, a constitution, a government in exile, to establish authority
. . . well, you know the situation.
And so now, having failed to separate the populations and control their interactions you
watch as one act of terror leads to the next in retaliation.
I say again: take control of the situation. Curfews,
finger print biometrics, transponders, internal movement documents, re-education camps, separate the warring populations. I mean have the Iraqi’s take control now that finally there is a permanent government.
Iraq is a wild place. Order needs to be imposed. It is not true that democracies must always disintegrate in the face of coercive violence,
e. g. Weimar. Look to
your on democracy for example. When anarchists passed out handbills protesting
WWI they were arrested and imprisoned for 30 years. (Decision upheld by the Supreme
Court.) In WWII camps held citizens whose loyalty was suspect. Also in WWII all U. S. Mail to Europe was taken to Bermuda and opened and read. All international cables were copied, the copy being
sent to Washington, and this program continued into the 1950s!
In time of war the constitution allows for the quartering of troops, the creation of whole
armies and navies by the several states, and upon invasion the incarceration of anyone, and that without habeas corpus protection. All the dogs of war can be loosed by this democracy including prosecution for treason,
giving “aid and comfort” to the enemy, an obviously broad and dangerous phrase.
Don’t tread on me!
Such are the powers of our Constitution, to allow us to cast off certain rights, in order
to protect ourselves.
I recall hearing Senator Kennedy proclaiming that “freedom always moves forward .
. .” and thinking, ‘No it doesn’t. Some times it is retrograde. Some rights evaporate in times of war.’
But this is what we are up against: a spoiled
and pampered elite. An elite that thinks we do not have a right to “impose”
on the Iraqi people a democracy, a stable and well organized government. (One
characteristic of a well organized government would be provisions for its reorganization by the Iraqis. But this reorganization did not have to come first with all the instability which it has caused.)
For one simple example, the division of the oil revenues could better be decided, I mean
more fairly been decided in London in 2002, with fair shares guaranteed to all based on need, instead of leaving this decision
to 2005 to be decided in acrimony and hostility.
Now is the time to implement the policies recommended before the civil war. Guide the young struggling democracy to safety. Show them
how to protect themselves and to reduce the
violence. Pity is our elite does not know how.
# # #
"Most of them were members of the same tribe and came from the
same area," Jabr said, but he refused to give specifics because of the ongoing operation. Neither Jabr nor the Defense Ministry
official would give details on any arrests.
"The 421 were supposed to be in control of the entrances to the Green Zone
and internal squares. I mean they were going to be in charge of security in the Green Zone in the future," Jabr told the AP.
"They were going to carry out operations. Most of them are wanted terrorists" using false identification.(AP)
More evidence if needed . . . Bush's failure to establish Iraqi
leadership has caused not only the growing catastrophe there but the adventures of Hizbollah and Hamas.
Within weeks of invading Iraq the Pentagon started withdrawing the tanks instead of placing them along the Iranian and Syrian
borders sending a clear signal that the U.S. had no intention, and in fact with the withdrawal of the tanks, no
ability to advance into either country. Now thanks to Bush's incompetence we are caught up in a civil war, and Hizbollah and
Hamas see this and . . . but then no more evidence was needed.
Tue Jun 6 2006
Implosion (forbes.com)
. . . This is the first nationwide housing
bubble since the 1920s, and it's driven by three nationwide forces: low interest rates, loose lending practices and the desperate
search for a stock substitute after the 2000--02 debacle. Previous real estate bubbles were regional, spurred by economic
cycles like the rise and fall of the oil patch in the 1970s and 1980s, and southern California's aerospace leap in the late
1980s during the Reagan defense buildup, ending with the Cold War's demise.
The speculative housing craze is crashing from its own excesses,
not Federal Reserve action. . . .
Already inventories since last year have jumped 91% in Boston, 236% in Miami and 149% in Los Angeles. Asking prices
have been cut on one-third of listings in Boston, San Diego, Sacramento, Los Angeles and Miami. Nationwide median prices will
probably fall at least 20% before the break is over. It will take a 35% fall to return prices to their long-run link to the
Consumer Price Index; markets overshoot on the downside as well as the up.
Even a 20% price decline will be devastating for many homeowners. On average, those with mortgages have 37% equity
in their abodes. Of those who borrowed or refinanced in 2005, 29% have zero or negative equity, calculates First American
Real Estate Solutions. . . .
Posted on Fri, Feb. 24, 2006
Average incomes in U.S. fall for first time since early '90s
By Martin Crutsinger
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - After the booming 1990s when incomes and stock prices were soaring, this decade has been less of a thrill ride for
most American families.
Average incomes after adjusting for inflation actually fell from 2001 to
2004, and the growth in net worth was the weakest in a decade, the Federal Reserve reported Thursday . . . (http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/cctimes/news/13951632.htm)
Contrarian
Chronicles
If there's no inflation, why do we fight it?The Fed insists inflation isn’t an issue, yet it juggles the numbers and laps up applause as a
tough inflation-fighter.
By Bill Fleckenstein, 2-27-06
. . . As regular readers know, I believe that the CPI is woefully understated,
for reasons related to hedonics (see my column "How the government manufactures low inflation"), owner's-equivalent rent and substitution.
(On the last point, see "Yet another way the government hides inflation." As my friend Joanie once defined substitution: "Basically, this approach allows the Bureau of Labor Statistics mathematicians to substitute lesser-price
items for those that might have had price increases. They assume, for example, that if tuna is pricey, you might just switch
to cat food.") . . . (http://moneycentral.msn.com/content/P143793.asp)
Washington Area Housing Prices Witness Small Dip
(Note: Littl' Miss. Warner got out in time but did she share with her viewers
the "news" of the turn down?) Monday, February 27, 2006; Page D02
Washington area housing prices dipped in the fourth quarter, according to new
data from the National Association of Realtors, though it's too soon to tell for sure whether prices are truly on the way
down in a softening housing market.
The average existing single-family home sold for $432,900 in the region in the
final three months of 2005. That's up from $359,000 in the comparable period of 2004, but it's down from an all-time high
of $441,400 in the third quarter of 2005. The drop between the third and fourth quarters could signal that a rising supply
of homes is pushing down prices. But there are other possibilities.(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/26/AR2006022601175.html)
Starting this year and picking up speed in 2007, as much as $2.5
trillion of non-conventional mortgage debt is scheduled to be repriced. Millions of Americans will soon face significantly
higher mortgage payments. Unfortunately, many can barely afford their current payment.
(http://www.thetrumpet.com/index.php?page=article&id=2050)
Q: What would eventually happen to the world economy should Japan's
surplus continue to expand and the U.S. deficit keep growing?
A: There would be a point where the current upward trend of the
U.S. deficit and Japanese surplus would reverse.
It seems that Washington is now entering a phase in which it no
longer finds it easy to allow the further expansion of the deficits that support its brisk growth led by domestic demand.
U.S. debt--including that of governments, firms, financial institutions
and households--is enormous. Its ratio of debt to GDP now exceeds 300 percent, nearly the same as during the Great Depression.
Homeowners are the largest borrowers, taking advantage of the increasing
collateral values of their houses. Yet the bubble of the housing loan market is nearing its end.
Japan, too, is approaching a turning point. It may soon no longer
be able to continue increasing its surplus, so far sustained by keeping the yen weak. The central bank will not be able to
print enough yen to buy dollars to maintain its ultra-easing credit policy. ( http://www.asahi.com/english/Herald-asahi/TKY200602170164.html )
When supply increases prices fall:
2.5% rise seen in county; new housing takes big hit
By Roger M. Showley and Lori Weisberg
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITERS February
14, 2006
Home prices in San Diego County continued to cool off last month with a gain
of 2.5 percent over January 2005 levels, DataQuick Information Systems reported yesterday.
But new-home prices took the sharpest month-to-month dive ever recorded . . .
(http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/business/20060214-9999-1b14housing.html )
Foreclosures on the Rise Nationwide: Check the Latest Trends
in Your Area Nationwide foreclosures
are beginning to rise above the record-low levels they’ve been at in recent years, providing confirmation . . . http://www.realtytrac.com/pub/articles/aol/rising_foreclosures.asp?a=b
Marin Co. CA Home Sales Plunge In January
Marin Home Sales and Prices Plunge
With
only 114 homes sold in January, sales were off 28% from December and 24% from January 2005. . .The median price of single-family
homes in Marin County also took a nose-dive in January, falling 8.6% from December to $877,500, and, gasp, down 5.7% from
January 2005. This is the first year-over-year drop since June 2003. . . . http://www.westbayre.com/newsletter.htmhttp://quinhouse.blogspot.com/
| What is Wrong with this Picture? (Picture is Link) |
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| What is Wrong with this Picture? (Picture is Link) |
Fewest in O.C. on record can afford a single-family house
Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley
. . . Unfortunately, the
asset-based spending model has given rise to many of the distortions and imbalances evident in the US today. . . . US house-price inflation has since surged to a 25-year high. . . . hard-pressed consumers went deeply into debt to monetize the windfall. As a result, household sector indebtedness surged to nearly 90% of US GDP -- .
. . That’s
why the personal saving rate has collapsed and currently stands near zero. Asset-based
consumption is also at the core of America’s
current-account problem .. .(http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20050425-mon.html)
Home inventories rise sharply in many major markets Wednesday,
February 08, 2006 By Ruth Simon and James
R. Hagerty, The Wall Street Journal . . . there
is now a 5.1-month supply of existing homes on the market, . . (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06039/652164.stm)
Money in Circulation
| Real Income Chart is Link |
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| Real Income Chart is Link |
Lecture Notes:
The Cross: Christian and Buddhist Meditations
on Death
"Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail / Whistle about
us their spontaneous cries; / Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness." This physical world, an endless round of birth, death,
and the seasons, is more lasting than any interpretation of it. Religions, myths, philosophies, and cultures are all fictions
and pass away, but "April's green endures." "Sunday Morning" is Stevens' most eloquent description of the moment when the
gods dissolve. . . . continued at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/sunday.htm
Notice:
Plinio Designori
was arrested by the San Francisco Police on 09-30-05 a block from the KQED building in San Francisco. His .357 Magnum was confiscated. He recently said, “This changes nothing."
"Just because you have silenced a man, does not mean you have convinced him..." ----- Lord Liverpool
(see Liberal Toryism, www.HistoryHome.co.uk)
“The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and
a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.”
--- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Bullying in the Workplace - An acceptable cost?
By Andy Ellis, Ruskin College, Oxford, UK
Introduction.
In 1994, Staffordshire University Business School published the results of a survey indicating
that 1 in 2 UK employees have been bullied at work during their working life. This particular statistic is just one of many
which have been piling up across the world attracting little or no interest from either the politician or the businessman.
The hypotenuse which I intend to cover during this project
report is that workplace bullying is not only unhealthy for those being bullied but also for the organisations which are allowing
it to continue. I intend to show that even many of the employers which are leading in this area by adopting anti bullying
policies are allowing their line management to ignore the policy and instead provide an atmosphere of uncertainty within their
organisations. . . . continued at :
http://www.workplacebullying.co.uk/aethesis.html
Note: New Ruskin College is not affiliated with Ruskin College,
Oxford.
Lecture Notes:
The Cross: Christian and Buddhist Meditations
on Death
Part One
After all these years someone finally comes forward.
Right at the end.
The last minute.
Why?
On the cross there is a small shelf, just a board. It
is placed there for the condemned. Just above their buttocks. (This is
the diagonal bar on the Russian Cross. (The second of the two cross bars represents The Christ on the cross.)) They could lift themselves up and hold themselves on it. So the condemned could take the weight of his body off of
his arms and chest. If it weren’t there
even the strongest would soon die. Their hearts and lungs would not be able to
take the strain of all their weight from their arms and upper torso focusing down on the chest. Their hearts and lungs would soon stop. So the board.
But each pause, each rest, only prolongs the suffering.
It was reported that none could resist though. They would squeeze themselves
up, again and again, and rest for a moment taking the weight off their chest, reviving, then slipping back down.
From:
Anonymous comment blogger com
To: PlinioDesignori
9-14-2005
wed 14, 2005 11-19-38-pdt
"And Imus, at State Farm, using Shotgun Tom Kelly’s
brother, and then years later Frank Blaha, at GAB Robins, Michael Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson, . . . and Ron Owens, . . . Rick
Alber, . . . the Red comedian . . . Scott Bobro . . . Mengus, . . . Sotos . . . Michael Krasney . . . . . . and now Franken,
what do all these people have in common?"
How
did I get mixed in with that group?---- Rick Alber
---Posted by Anonymous to New
Ruskin
College at 9/14/2005 11:17:42 AM
newruskincollege.blogspot.com 2oo5 05 Frankin McCain at NRC
Part Two:
For those of you who have forgotten Alber is the regular on the O’Donnell show on KSFO who had
monitored the research on Bio-warfare at Kinko’s Copies down in Santa Clara when I was working at Farmers, where Scott Bobro was working for Owens or Weiner. The system designer. Then after I commented on his on air
reference to “blood labs” he commented on my posting here.
But for some reason this is not enough for him. He
wants more.
But then Don Imus is boasting about wanting to “bring it on” because he has paid
a big retainer to some attorney, and Mrs. Jack Swanson is condemning the harassment of conservatives in the work place, and . . . well it goes on and on.
The word “hypocrites” doesn’t do you justice.
The
above anonymous email had HTML code and hot text which I have deleted from here because of potential virus. However I have saved the copy in hopes that if there is a Coroner’s Inquest it can be subpoenaed
and traced back to the senderr.
There has been an email
from Mengus also. (Saved on the Sprint email server.) For years I have suspected his involvement because he placed me at CENCAL, AIMS, AAA, Farmers, but I was
not sure until after GAB Robins and years have gone by without any contact, even
no response to my many emails regarding his advertised openings.
And
now at the end he sent a contact regarding employment. He did not respond when
I contacted him. It seems he just wanted to get in one last hit. Because I am such a terrible anti Semite, such a racist, such a . . . etc.
And the Voinoviches will think so too. ‘Where there is smoke . .
. Please no controversy.’
Oh,
and yes, Kellyservices.com visited again. No, no work! Just checking to see if I am dead yet. Not yet!
Yes, we are all of us checking. Waiting. But not dead yet.
Will he raise himself
up again? Pull his arms up and crouch on the board again? Again? No, not again. Stay down Sir. Stay down. It will all be over a few minutes. Please, Sir, stay down . . .
He suffered all
day on the cross.
Part Three:
All day. A tremendous will to live.
His suffering is both: the sacrifice that
redeems mankind, by whose resurrection the prophetic promise is fulfilled that sin will be finally vanquished, and God will
no longer be separate from mankind, but we will know Him as a direct experience, this is His body, this is His blood, so that
we will not merely obey The Law form the outside, (God as other), but now live God's Law in our daily lives; and His suffering serves also as an example to us in our suffering, and encourages us to imagine that justice
might yet triumph over injustice even as His teaching has survived his tormenters, the resurrection being completed now in
our lives, our hearts beating now for Him, our lungs breathing now for him, not mystically in somewhere after but right now,
in the actuality of the present moment, our devotion resurrects and saves our teacher even as He saved us.
This then is the Christian meditation on death
which affirms life. For both us and The Christ death is inevitable, this is why
we call is sacrifice. Inevitability, (for every life there is a death), is what makes it sacrifice. ((See also
Iris Murdoch on the nature of the tragic. Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals.) It should be pointed out that in the Jewish tradition the rabbis would be disappointed
with us if we imagined that they favor mere rote obedience to The Law. "God is
a Verb" as one rabbi has put it in the title of his book. Alan Watts has compared
Judaism to Zen Buddhism in that The Law serves only as a means of instruction which will eventually force even the most vain
student to finally admit that legalistic analysis must be superceded as one comes to live The Law in one's heart, just as
the Zen teacher trips and overturns the reticent student into experiencing reality now, in this moment, not after clever analysis
which must always be completed at some point in the future, in time, analysis always requiring some more time to be completed.)
The Buddha's death also illustrates his teaching.
He died a good old age after a lifetime of contemplation
and teaching. He died because, according to legend, he was too polite to refuse
tainted meat that was offered him by his host, a poor goat herder who was honored to have such a personage in his home. When he eagerly offered the Buddha the last piece, the Buddha saw it was tainted,
but not wanting to offend, ate it anyway. He died a few days later.
In the Buddhist meditation on death the inevitability
of death in not regarded as simple an element of the tragic, but is itself taken as another example of the impermanence of
all things. (Corpse are often brought into Buddhist temples and the monks attend the bodies during their decomposition. (Have you never meditated on the transformation of a forest in Autumn? (Never considered that all those colorful leaves are dying? .
. . the beauty of impermanence . . . of death?)) How pretty, impermanence. Then gone.
Indeed this impermanence adds to the Eastern
eye a quality to the moment, this moment, that may well be called beauty in its own right.
All living things must die. Change is inevitable. Are you the same person you were 20
yeas ago? 10 years ago? Yesterday? In
every moment of life there is a death. A constant rising up, and a falling away,
until the day of emptiness when we return to that time before we were born.
In the deaths of Jesus, The Christ, and the
Buddha you can see the difference between the two religions, and I think a symmetry.
Rather than focusing on the contrast I ask you
to consider the similarity. It matters not if one is outspoken in confronting
the Pharisees, or if one deliberately lives a life of poverty and contemplation, death is inevitable. Both accepted death. Jesus struggled all day, the Buddha
reflected on the last piece for only a moment. The inevitability of death and
suffering, and its acceptance by both is an aspect of this symmetry. The inevitability
is an element of the tragic (Western) and an element of beauty (Eastern). He
lives: Z.
Seeing as how it is inevitable, how then could
it be disgraceful?
Sometimes I have confronted the Pharisees and sometimes I have turned
away for a life of contemplation. It made no difference.
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Part Four:
I recently received another email apparently from the same sender
as quoted above. (See also Hate e-mail at the Moynihan Library.)
After I published the above post about the e-mailer who gave his name as Rick Alber. I received a 2nd email, using the same name,
complaining about bloggers who are “Anencephalic babies.”
We do not know for sure who sent the email, (the name can be
falsely entered), but we do know that the e-mailer was a geek.
How? Anencephalic Babies!
Think of the terrible tragedy of having a newborn baby born without a portion of his brain. Imagine the grief. The anguish. How horrible. Yet the geek, (autistic?),
is blind to this tragedy, this suffering. The geek only wanted a “scientific”
name. Something that could be used with “babies.” See a blogger who chronicles 15 years of harassment and abuse, is only a “baby.” Again the geek is blind to other people’s suffering.
So the geek uses a word “Anencephalic,” unaware, (or is he just uncaring?),
that this word will over power the rest of his sentence bringing in to it real
tragedy, the agony of parents and their children, dying, into a sentence
which he simply wants to use to “get even.” Even? He thinks: sure he used his influence with Kinko’s
to spy on my use of a computer in Santa Clara, then used the O’Donnell radio program to harass. But like all the others we have encountered, he thinks that for me to complain about the spying and
harassment is intolerable. Who am I to complain?
Such are the egos involved in broadcasting.
But that is enough of that. I no longer care
about our email correspondent. (He gave a little hope that someone had come forward
but now it does not matter.)
George Will has written a private rebuke of some
kind to Don Imus and has now lost the opportunity for that show’s fifteen
minutes with a few millions of listeners during the morning dive. Still if you are selling books . . . So why did George Will
do it? And what did he do exactly. Dr.
Will has not sent me a copy.
Should I feel insulted? He gives up this huge
sales tool, the Imus show, but will not tell us why? Keep it secret? But why secret? Imus who received the rebuke knows what Dr. Will said. Who is he protecting
now? But even this does not matter.
I am trying to quiet my mind again. I will
not die in a furry. I am not leaning back and I am not leaning forward, nor on
one side or the other.
I recall that one of the Senators, back when I first began
writing letters, made a reference to “what is this . . . I suppose even mediocre people should be represented . . .” I had written several letters at that point and something about what the Senator
said, (perhaps it was something he had just said prior to that, I no longer remember the details, not even the Senator’s
name), gave me the impression that he might be referring to my letters. (I think
he was speaking to Senator Moynihan. (The phrase comes from the Judge G. Harold
Carswell confirmation hearings: Senator Roman Hruska: “Even mediocre
people deserve representation on the Supreme Court.”))
I had written a few letters to the Senate, they had gotten some
attention, and that was fine, but what was this: “mediocre”, about? I was just one of 300 million citizens --- no wait, residents, (they are not all citizens),
one of 300 million residents, (longer odds than the California
Lottery), and now I learn that my letters were being judged? Not enough that
they expressed my opinions, that they had attracted the attention of the Senate, the President, etc. but now apparently there
was some other test they must pass.
This Senator presumed to judge my letters? For what? Style? Penmanship? I was a citizen requesting redress of grievance and this old fool presumed to judge
what? Me? As if they were school
masters and I their student. Am
I acceptable? Citizenship counts for nothing.
Do I write in the polished prose of a professional author? Is that what is required? Does
one need a PhD. to be heard? Is this not the case of the best becoming the enemy
of the merely good? A “schoolmarm meritocracy” where only the elite
are to be heard. (The phrase is George Gilder’s.)
I should have stopped right then. After all that has happened subsequently it is now easy, looking back, to see what a maelstrom I was entering. Not enough to be a citizen. No there
is some other standard one must reach in order to have one’s petition heard.
People like Garrison Keillor are the kind of pedants who
succeed in this world. Even Officer Vic (KSFO) was criticizing my spelling after
the theft of the Stolen Notebook, (see Stolen Notebook Archives at the Moynihan Library).
My Notebook was stolen and his only interest was in the quality of the spelling.
The burglary, the publication of the Stolen Notebook, none of this held any interest for him, just that some words
were misspelled: Apocryphal. A-poc-ry-phal.
Garrison Keillor is the type of old woman who would find
a corpse in the woods, the gun in the mouth, the back of the skull blown away, blood still oozing into the ground, the suicide
note on the ground next to the man, and would pick up the note and start checking it
for spelling errors. On his show he has repeatedly mocked and ridiculed spelling
errors, lauded his own academic achievement as an “English major,” yet no where will you hear him discuss his
Masters in Sociology, or his PhD. in Political Science. That is because he ain’t
got one nor neither.
Those to whom much is given, much is expected. No! Not anymore. Our meritocracy is now a one way street. No special duties are thought to attach to those selected to become our rulers. Screw obligations. Duty. No, Garrison never continued his education. And yet Senator
Moynihan, (who did have a PhD. in Sociology), never once mocked my letters, for he understood that he as Senator was the servant
of the People, not the other way around. He once corrected a spelling error in
one of his own papers on the floor of the Senate saying, “just a hand written
correction nothing wrong with that . . .”
I can not reach you. You
are lost in a great hall of mirrors, an echo chamber, absorbed by your own egos. Mean
horrible creatures. And if I attempt to touch you, a letter, just a letter, your scorn, contempt, abuse knows no limits. Mediocre.
So? I am just an ordinary man. Now
tell me --- what is your excuse?
Part Five:
Nagarjuna, the “Second Buddha”, (http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nagarjun.htm),
according to legend killed himself upon royal command using a piece of dried elephant grass.
(His king ordered his suicide it is said because he felt shame at abandoning his old teacher, Nagarjuna, whom he venerated,
for a new teacher. To relieve himself of this anxiety he ordered the death.) But then it has become customary to assign to Buddhist Saints such deaths in order
to highlight their transcendence over ordinary attachments of the mind, . . .
life for instance.
The legend of the death may be apocryphal yet it illustrates the Buddhist view about life
and death. Having compared the Buddha’s death with that of Jesus let us
now compare Nagarjuna's death with that of Socrates. Socrates also obeyed
the command of his rulers even though he might easily have escaped Athens. . .
New members: EJ Dionne of The Washington Post and Time magazine's Joe Klein
join ABC News' Martha Raddatz and George Will on This Week 01-29-06, welcome EJ Dionne, . . . see also Mark Shields
on the Newshour: "rote" , 01-19-06 . . . Mr. Shields is a returning member of
the club . . . welcome back Mr. Shields . . .
Part Six
Wait a minute. . . . What have I been thinking . . .! It had nothing to do with spelling errors did it? That was just another excuse . . .
Now I get it! Just another way to demean me, to diminish, to marginalize . . . and to justify your misconduct. A
justification.
Not enough to break into the Colonial Motel and go through my papers (see Intel Ops., see Psy. Ops.); Michael Weiner had to let me know he had the stolen notebook (drop little hints during his radio broadcast
less then 24 hours after the burglary) . . . and then later we got: ‘Oh,
by the way you misspelled apocryphal.’ (see also The Stolen Notebook Archive at the Moynihan)
It was all part of the same game: The process of destroying a man. As if we needed another demonstration, at the end of the bloody Twentieth Century,
of the principle that if a group of powerful people unite they can destroy another.
Most of you have no excuse . . . --- Ah . . . (By which I mean, that
is, most of the regular visitors here at New Ruskin, for whom the site was originally created; they have no excuse. (This website was originally established for a small group of media elites who were “in the know” about what was being done
to me. I wanted to embarrass the ones who were intentionally interfering with
my life, by drawing the attention of their peers among the media elite, to them and their misconduct. But now we have so many “civilians” (or noncombatants)
visiting this site, we must remember to specify who we are talking to. Now we
have two audiences.)) I am referring to you, the media elite.
Counselor: Oh, two audiences. That must make you feel important . . .
?
You can not excuse yourselves by claiming to be ordinary men. You are
not. You want the standard, our expectations, to be lowered for yourselves now
that it is convenient for you, to escape judgment, and then you want us to raise
the standard for everyone else! (It has been said that the political genius of
Clinton and Bush can be seen in their ability to manage expectations, i.e., to lower them.
Clinton did not accomplish much and we did not expect that he would accomplish much.)
You are the elite but you want to be judged by the same standard as the common man.
Consider for example why you are still visiting this web site? I mean the reason other than the macabre spectacle of a man deprived of his livelihood,
driven into poverty, despair, ending ultimately in his death, . . . however it should turn out . . . Quite a spectacle. (see Last Will and Testament)
Your visits to this site, (and its mirrors, (oh, yes, I track the downloads, page by page)), proves my point. Besides the stolen notebook recall your
keen interest in those letters of mine fifteen years ago to the Senate, and the President, and all the rest of our rulers,
(see the Math Project and New Ruskin College Project Archives at the Moynihan).
Why still visiting? Why such interest? Because of this fundamental fact:
Your grudging acceptance that I
represent, mediocre though I may be, those others, that “other” 95% (or 88%) who are not earning seven figure
incomes, are not on television and radio, do not have newspaper columns, are not millionaires, do not even know any millionaires
at all, who are not you, in fact not like you at all, and all those like you,
your friends and colleagues, the elite. (“I realized that I have not know anyone since High School who had a SAT score
under 1400.”(Name the elite “media personality” for five points extra credit.))
This is after all why Dr.
Murray and Dr. Hernstein wrote their book, The Bell Curve: To remind the elite that their assumptions about the world are only possible because of your statistically
unique genetic combination. Because the base pairs aligned up at a few key locations
of your chromosomes just so, you have “merit.” You vainly think you
“merit” this windfall which is after all only a statistical fluke,
the outlying fringe of the bell distribution. You represent at most 12% of the population, and more likely just 6 or 8%.
You confuse your experience of the life, your way of thinking, your world view, for that of the rest of humanity: the
other 88% or 95%.
This is why you are here at this website.
And this is why the original letters received so much attention. Not because
I am such a genius. No! Because
I am ordinary or as that Senator would have it, (I recall he was from Nebraska): mediocre. Reading me is like opening a window to the world, and all those others, the mediocre,
the ordinary, the people.
Learn how the other 88% think.
But of course this is also why some setout to destroy me and why the rest of
you, who knew about what was being done to me, simply watched, did nothing, and found it all so “amusing.” The very same qualities that caused you to read me in the first place were the very
same qualities that allowed you to dismiss me. I did not count. Ordinary. Mediocre.
The bottom 88% have no rights. And
even to say so is to be boringly obvious; it is all mildly vexing. ‘Really, does he expect to be taken seriously?’ Right? ‘Can you imagine? It thinks he has rights?!’
We do not figure into your thinking. Just
look at your laws! The rules of society are all slanted to the advantage of the
elite, the ones who control the government, the corporations, society itself. You were intrigued to learn about those others, and also at the very same time resentful. (I got what I deserved is what you think.)
But then Murray and Hernstein were marginalized also. Racism, sexism, were among the charges thrown at them by this very same elite. Exactly the very same people whom they were trying to reach.
And the real and important issues which their book raised and examined were simply ignored, or demeaned, diminished,
marginalized.
I like that. It gives me some comfort.
I
am in good company.
Part Seven
Yes, in good company.
The people of Darfur are another example of people
you do not care about. The millions of Mexicans who illegally enter the
US and must live a life in the shadows because you do not care about them nor their rights. (They have none.) You do not care enough to control your own borders. Nor do you care what effect the unregulated movement of labor has upon your “fellow countrymen”. Because they are not your fellow countrymen.
You do not care about them either. To
say nothing of the millions in Mexico who might have lived better lives but for your indifference. The children in Pakistan’s mountains shivering in the cold. Africa . . .
At one
time it was thought that economic development, the heaping up of capital for future investment would benefit all, but you
no longer believe in capitalist progress, nor in savings. Just as your social
lives are self-absorbed so this is reflected in your “economics.” It
annoys you to have all these examples conflated. You have distinct and separate
reasons why you are indifferent to all these different people in this world of suffering.
You are indifferent to the blind orphans of Bangladesh, the people of Africa --- all the Third World because --- well, because they are the Third World aren’t they? They are too many for your
sympathy.
You call it compassion fatigue.
You are fatigued. At least you are not openly contemptuous of their suffering. You do not call them the “Turd World” as does Michael Weiner. But you secretly enjoy his “openness.” You can
not yourselves engage in his cretinism but you would like to. You can not keep
from smiling: ‘“Turd World” Yes, that’s good.’
(This is called The Revolt of the Elites (Christopher Lasch, 1996).)
The President of Iran calls for “wiping Israel off the map” and you
go on with your lives oblivious to the danger because you are oblivious to all of us.
The blind orphans in Bangladesh, yes, and your neighbor down the street, the
whole world of suffering and torment . . . it is all so boring for you . . . isolated as you are by your seven figure capital
accounts . . . by your cynicism . . .
The national debt, the housing bubble, the pending collapse of Social Security and pension system, of . . of . . .
of everything and everyone. You ignore me!? You ignore everything!
Mr. Oliphant for example. Another Harvard. How is it that one graduates from Harvard and then spends the rest of ones life writing a newspaper column? Ought we not expect more from a Harvard graduate? The great American novel or something? But again the meritocracy
runs only in one direction. He can set any standard he likes for us, but we dare
not ask him: Where is your life’s work?
Newspaper columns? Is that all?
Shouldn’t a Harvard have done something more with his life?
Mr. Oliphant appears regularly on the Imus show. And like Senator Hatch,
(“I’ve heard what you do to some of your listeners”), Mr. Oliphant knows that Imus has harassed me for years
and he does not care. He knows that Moslems have been called “stinking
animals” on the Imus show, knows that Imus has repeatedly called for the nuclear incineration of the Middle East, knows
and does not care. Imus helps sell Mr. Oliphant’s books. But shouldn’t we expect more from a Harvard graduate? Just
kidding.
Any day now Mr. Oliphant might drop a “Turd World” of his own on Imus or where ever he goes.
(Answer for the extra credit question: Howard Fineman.)
Lehrer and Russert and Schieffer are all Imus regulars . . . to
be continued . . .
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