Category: Quotable

Caveat: I’m with Goethe on this one

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

I find most conspiracy theories – whether left, right, center, or way-out-there – implausible. My own response to most conspiracy theories can be summarized by the old quote from Goethe, "misunderstandings and neglect create more confusion in this world than trickery and malice. At any rate, the last two are certainly much less frequent." This idea has circulated more recently as "Hanlon's Razor": "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Mostly, I have given up trying to explain why conspiracy theories are implausible to those who espouse them, however. It seems a fruitless exercise, and anyway it's a lot of work.

I ran across an excellent debunking of the recently emergent conspiracy theory (being propagated by Trump et al.)  that Democrats are rigging the upcoming US election. Written by a commenter who goes by "CrunchyFrog" on the Clintonist left-of-center blog "Lawyers, Guns & Money," it is so well reasoned I felt like sharing it. Not that I have the mistaken belief that someone who believes Trump's voter-fraud theory would be persuaded by this to change their minds, but I cite it just because I admire this kind of reasoning. I think the author would not mind having most of it reproduced here (I clipped off the gratuitous insults and Trumpist-baiting at either end as detracting from the clarity of argument). 

Regarding the black voter busing scheme. Let’s think about this logically (not possible for the GOP, I know, but bear with me). If I were running such a scheme what would I have to do to make an effective dent in the results? As a starting point, a lot of Colorado wingnuts think that Obama won there in 2012 by cheating. He won by 138k votes, so let’s use 140k votes as a starting point. So let’s say I have a bus full of black voters – say 66 people (common capacity limit on school buses). So if every bus is filled to near capacity that’s about 2200 bus-visits to the polling stations. How many polling stations can a given bus hit in a day? Well, your typical precinct has 2-3 people checking voters in and each one processes about 2 per minute, so that’s over 30 minutes just to check in (of course there will be other voters, too), plus time to drive between precincts. Seriously, if you are counting on more than 10 precincts per bus per day you’re going to be disappointed. So that’s 220 buses chartered for the day, and a total of about 14k fraudulent voters.

Holy freaking crap. The logistical problems of arranging that many fraudulent voters, ALL of whom are risking felony sentences and NONE of whom have ever talked about it to anyone. Now plan to arrange for 140k fake registrations using the matching photos for each person and arrange it so that the manager of each bus makes sure that every voter gets the exact fake ID for each precinct. And NO MISTAKES – remember no one has ever been caught doing this because Democrats, who are inept in government, are utter geniuses when it comes to vote fraud. So that means there NEVER can be a situation where a fake voter encounters a registrar who says “Hey, I live on that street, I’ve never seen you” or similar.

By the way, the absolutely easiest logistical part of this scheme is arranging for photo ID. Assuming you have that many people willing to commit felonies for whatever you are paying them and have arranged everything else in detail, getting fake photo IDs for them is simple and routine. So photo ID laws do absolutely jack shit to stop massive vote fraud – but of course that wasn’t their real intention, was it?

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: fireflying around in unexpected and impossible trajectories

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

Is this quote interesting? You decide… 

That’s the extremely interesting thing: Everything is interesting. Potentially. Sometimes it may not seem so. You may think a certain thing is completely without interest. You may think, or I may think, eh, dull, boring, heck with it, let’s move on. But there is someone on this planet who can find something interesting in that particular thing. And it’s often good to try. You have to poke at a thing, sometimes, and find out where it squeaks. Any seemingly dull thing is made up of subsidiary things. It’s a composite — of smaller events or decisions. Or of atoms and molecules and prejudices and hunches that are fireflying around in unexpected and impossible trajectories. Everything is interesting because everything is not what it is, but is something on the way to being something else. Everything has a history and a secret stash of fascination. – Nicholson Baker (American novelist, b 1957)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: 마음에 드는 방이 없었다

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean)

So, I was reading a random blog, and ran across this little meme, which is not that new:

“Pick up the nearest book to you, turn to page 45. The first sentence explains your love life.”

Curious to have my love life explained, I immediately did this.
The book nearest to me was TOPIK in 30 days – this is a book for self study of Korean vocabulary, intended for preparation for the TOPIK test (Test Of Proficiency In Korean – and as a side note, ¿why in the world does the main Korean language proficiency test have an English acronym?). Not that I’m preparing for the test, but I do try to compel myself to study Korean vocabulary sometimes.
On page 45, the sentence was an example of usage of the verb 구하다 [gu.ha.da = “get”]. The sentence read,

오후 내내 방을 구하러 다녔지만 마음에 드는 방이 없었다.
I’ve been looking all afternoon to get a new room, but there’s none that are appealing.

In fact, this is quite plausible, as a kind of metaphorical explanation of my love life.

A thought for the day, if that’s what it is:

“What if we’re not conscious, we just think we are?”

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: superstition

Quotable

"It is a kind of social superstition, to suppose that to be truly friendly one must be saying friendly words all the time." – Herman Melville

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: The world was a library

Not My Poetry / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

"From Wakan Tanka there came a great unifying life force that flowed in and through all things – the flowers of the plains, blowing winds, rocks, trees, birds, animals–and was the same force that had been breathed into the first man. Thus all things were kindred and brought together by the same Great Mystery . . . . Kinship with all creatures of the earth, sky, and water was a real and active principle . . . . The animal had rights – the right of man's protection, the right to live, the right to multiply, the right to freedom, the right to man's indebtedness – and in recognition of these rights the Lakota never enslaved the animal, and spared all life that was not needed for food and clothing . . . . Everything was possessed of personality, only differing with us in form. Knowledge was inherent in all things. The world was a library and its books were the stones, leaves, grass, brooks, and the birds and animals that shared, alike with us, the storms and blessings of earth. We learned to do what only the student of nature ever learns and that was to feel beauty."
– Luther Standing Bear (Lakota author, 1868-1939)

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Found Online / Quotable

Know thyselfEvery now and then I run across something where I think that – if I didn't already have a good name for my blog - it would make a good name for a blog. 

There is an ancient Greek expression, γνῶθι σεαυτόν ("know thyself"). Recently I ran across something I think I'd seen before, which is an interesting, skeleton-themed mosaic from an ancient Roman villa (see at right, but note the Greek in that mosaic is missing the "ε").

This was in the context of news about a different, recently-discovered, skeleton-themed mosaic near Antioch in Turkey, below, whose inscription apparently could be translated as "Be cheerful and live your life" – although there are more pessimistic readings, too. I was unable to find a clear transcription of the original Greek, a language which I have occasionally pursued as a kind of low-key hobby – I won't even attempt to transcribe it here. 

Yolo_greek

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: 雷逢電別

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I learned this four-character idiom from my elevator last night.

雷逢電別
뇌봉전별
noe.bong.jeon.byeol
thunder-meet-lightning-split
“Thunder meets, lightening splits”

I found this definition of the verbalized form of the idiom (i.e. 뇌봉전별하다):
(비유적으로) 잠깐 만났다가 곧 헤어지다. 천둥같이 만났다가 번개같이 헤어진다는 뜻에서 나온 말이다.
I tried to makes sense of this definition, but I’m not very happy with my effort.:
“(Figuratively) Although a moment is met, it soon divides. The saying comes out meaning that although thunder meets, lightning divides up.”
I guess this would refer to the philosophical conundrum of the ephemerality of the “present.”
“Time is not composed of indivisible nows any more than any other magnitude is composed of indivisibles.” – Aristotle. Physics VI
[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: 산토끼를 잡으려다가 집토끼를 놓친다

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable / 한국말을 배움 (Failing to Learn Korean) / 한국어 속담 (Aphorisms & Proverbs)

I learned this aphorism from my friend’s blog.

산토끼를 잡으려다가 집토끼를 놓친다
san.to.kki.reul jap.eu.ryeo.da.ga jip.to.kki.reul noh.chin.da
wild-hare-OBJ catch-PURPOSIVE/TRANSFERATIVE tame-rabbit-OBJ miss-PRES

This means, “Losing rabbits at home while running after hares in the mountains.” My friend Peter points to Korea Times senior editorialist Choi Sung-jin having used the expression in translation, commenting on the opposition party’s strategy – prior to the election. Thus the translation is due to that editorialist. The phrase could also apply to other misguided business strategies, I think. I need to remember it for the next time I feel annoyed in a work-meeting.
In retrospect, I think this was not the right sort of aphorism to quote, given the opposition’s surprising electoral upset. It turned out the wild hare made a better meal.
[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: the dog’s problem

Quotable

Thought for the day.

"When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem." – Edward Abbey

Yesterday, I noticed that spring has sprung.

Springsprung

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: like God’s own Mentos and Diet Coke

Found Online / Internet & Blogging / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

A blogger who blogs under the pseudonym Patrick Non-White recently channeled William S. Burroughs pretending to be Donald Trump. He writes as if Trump had hit upon the idea of running for president while doing bong hits with his friends. This alternate-universe Trump meditates on his plan, thinking of himself, of course, in the third person:

"There is nothing so crazed as a politician in rut, screeching whatever thoughts burst into his coke-addled brain like a radioactive weasel before thousands of ignorant nimrods, on total auto-pilot, completely in the now, popping off like God's own Mentos and Diet Coke."

This fine picture appeared in another spot online. You may wish to connect it, at your own mental risk, to the above.

Donald-hillary-bill-melania

[daily log: walking, 6]

Caveat: choking on escapable darkness

Found Online / Not My Poetry / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

Holly Wood (her real name, apparently), is a political and social commentarist operating in the twitteresque postblogoid realm called "medium.com". But her writing is quite astute. She leans more radical than I, but I respect radicalism, and often find it inspiring. She posted this untitled bit of poetry:

Freedom requires cultivating
the peculiar and completely irrational
faculty for projecting imagination
beyond the horizon of common sense.

We have to drive out beyond the city limits of hegemony
away from the light pollution of neoliberal ideology.

Men do not rule.
Men have never ruled.
Only legitimacy has ruled.
End man’s legitimacy and
you end the rule of man.

To end man’s legitimacy, child,
you must become exceedingly fluent
in what today is only unfathomable.

Hurry, though,
we are choking on escapable darkness.

[daily log: walking, 6.5km]

Caveat: naufragia fecerunt in marique perierunt

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

At Diagoras cum Samothracam venisset, atheus ille qui dicitur, atque ei quidam amicus: "Tu, qui deos putas humana neglegere, nonne animadvertis ex tot tabulis pictis, quam multi votis vim tempestatis effugerint in portumque salvi pervenerint?"

"Ita fit," inquit, "illi enim nusquam picti sunt, qui naufragia fecerunt in marique perierunt."

— Cicero, De Natura Deorum

Diagoras, who is called the atheist, being at Samothrace, one of his friends showed him several pictures of people who had endured very dangerous storms; "See," says he, "you who deny a providence, how many have been saved by their prayers to the Gods."

"Ay," says Diagoras, "I see those who were saved, but where are those painted who were shipwrecked and perished?"

— Cicero (106 BCE – 43 BCE), On the Nature of the Gods

This, in fact, addresses what is sometimes called the "survivorship fallacy," a logical fallacy that frequently arises in even high-level formal research in economics and the social sciences.

[daily log: walking 6.5km]

 

Caveat: killing unarmed animals

Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

Justice Scalia died, I've seen in the news. I have some curiosity about this, just in the sense that I tend to follow American politics despite my frustration with it.

There has been some of the typical hagiography of Scalia that, given his record, seems a bit unjustified. He wasn't really a great person, as far as I can figure out. He was bitter, legally insonsistent, and pointlessly combative. I saw this humorous quote about Scalia, attributed to Clarence Thomas, of all people: "He loves killing unarmed animals." That's snark from one supreme jerk to another.

Unrelatedly – two days ago, it was snowing as I went to work. More climate volatility, among the redwoods (metasequoia) of Ilsan.

2016-02-16 snow2

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: Things Koreans believe about immigration

Banalities & Journaling / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable / Teaching & Methodology

Since I teach debate, I sometimes have the situation where students express views or even “facts” with which I don’t agree or which I dislike. Only with the most advanced students have I ever tried to go into the realm of evidentiality and “sourced” arguments – mostly I focus on using debate as a means of expressing opinions using English and without regard to the veracity or even acceptability of what they’re saying. Also, since I often make students “switch sides,” I can hardly complain if they end up coming up with some implausible argument for a position which they wouldn’t have chosen in any event on their own.
The below, however, is not one of those cases – the student chose the position apparently sincerely, and furthermore, I can sadly say that the opinions he echoes are quite widely held. Most interesting, vis-a-vis the question of immigration to Korea, is the seemingly circular argument that foreigners should not come to Korea because, since Koreans are racists and nationalists, immigrants would therefore have a bad experience here. It boils down to: “Don’t come here because we don’t like you, and so it would be bad for you to come here.”
Still, perhaps the most bizarre are the beliefs about how dangerous foreigners are. Yet this kind of thinking is hardly unique to Korea – just look at the American discourse around immigration, and such views are easy to find.

There are many people who are coming from other country these days. Korea can develop by accepting these kinds of people, but there are many people in different opinion that disagree about accepting these kinds of people.

People who are coming from another country have different religions. IS which is one of the most dangerous groups of people in the world have the Islamic religion. They are very dangerous, so most people do not like to live in the same country with them. Korean people often eat fork after work, but Islamic people can not eat pork. Hindu people can not eat beef, so they can not join in the Korean company dinner. Many people who are coming from other countries can not live with Korean people.

There is the wall between Korean people and foreigners. This wall is called nationalism. Korean people express a very powerful nationalism. For example, Korean people do not like black people because they think that black people make scary situation. Korean people are also disregard immigrant workers who are coming from Philippines or Vietnam. Immigration is harmful for foreigners.

Foreigners make crimes. American soldiers make crimes almost once a week. They kill many Korean women and rape them. Chinese are psycho. Chinese kill Korean people, cut into their bodies and also they eat human meat. Foreigners are dangerous to live with.

In conclusion, immigration is sometimes helpful but not always. Foreigners have different religion and make many crimes. Korean people also have nationalism, so foreigners can not endure it. People should know that immigration is not always good for our country.

I can say that among my students, such views as these are not that common – just by virtue of being a middle-school student who is in the top quartile of English ability (such as is the case with my students, since I don’t teach the lower levels) means that one’s views of things like globalism and internationalism are probably moderate. Nevertheless, in the broader public, I can also say that such views are probably more common than anyone would like to admit.

“While the secret knowledge is only available to some members of the society, there is an ideology, an ethics, and a phenomenology of ignorance that is shared, to some degree, by all.” -Jonathan Mair

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: Soy un libro de nieve

Not My Poetry / Quotable

Jardín de invierno

Llega el invierno. Espléndido dictado
me dan las lentas hojas
vestidas de silencio y amarillo.

Soy un libro de nieve,
una espaciosa mano, una pradera,
un círculo que espera,
pertenezco a la tierra y a su invierno.

Creció el rumor del mundo en el follaje,
ardió después el trigo constelado
por flores rojas como quemaduras,
luego llegó el otoño a establecer
la escritura del vino:
todo pasó, fue cielo pasajero
la copa del estío,
y se apagó la nube navegante.

Yo esperé en el balcón tan enlutado,
como ayer con las yedras de mi infancia,
que la tierra extendiera
sus alas en mi amor deshabitado.

Yo supe que la rosa caería
y el hueso del durazno transitorio
volvería a dormir y a germinar:
y me embriagué con la copa del aire
hasta que todo el mar se hizo nocturno
y el arrebol se convirtió en ceniza.

La tierra vive ahora
tranquilizando su interrogatorio,
extendida la piel de su silencio.

Yo vuelvo a ser ahora
el taciturno que llegó de lejos
envuelto en lluvia fría y en campanas:
debo a la muerte pura de la tierra
la voluntad de mis germinaciones.
– Pablo Neruda (Poeta chileno, 1904-1973)

[daily log: walking, 7km]

Caveat: Miracles of Unbelief

Buddhism & Zen / Quotable

There is a tradition in Buddhism of "acts of truth" as being capable of having great power – of healing, blessing, etc.

This is the use of "truth" as a kind of magic. But the examples that circulate in Buddhist tradition are often humorously ironic.

This anecdote is given by Donald Lopez, Jr, in his book The Story of Buddhism.

…a young boy is bitten by a poisonous snake. The distraught parents stop a passing monk and ask him to use his medical knowledge to save the child. The monk replies that the situation is so grave that the only possible cure is an act of truth. The father says, "If I have never seen a monk that I did not think was a scoundrel, may the boy live." The poison leaves the boy's leg. The mother says, "If I have never loved my husband, may the boy live." The poison retreats to the boy's waist. The monk says, "If I have never believed a word of the dharma but found it utter nonsense, may the boy live." The boy rises, completely cured.

This is a near perfect inversion of the miracle stories of some other religious traditions, wherein someone can be saved by professions of faith. Here, a profession of lack of faith brings the miracle, simply because it is honest. This is, perhaps, why I find Buddhism appealing.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: 90 Year Old Prophesy

Internet & Blogging / Quotable / Science & SciFi

"When wireless is perfectly applied the whole earth will be converted into a huge brain, which in fact it is, all things being particles of a real and rhythmic whole. We shall be able to communicate with one another instantly, irrespective of distance. Not only this, but through television and telephony we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do this will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." — Nikola Tesla, in 1926.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: this debate is the archetypal type of aridity debate which sparks instantaneous aging process

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable / Teaching & Methodology

Yesterday was a pretty horrible day at work. Very long, but also, a feeling that for all the polite listening to my ideas, they are fundamentally irrelevant to the decisions that are made. I ended up pretty upset by the time I left at 11 pm. 

The one highlight – in my HSM debate class (9th graders) we had a debate on the "absurd comedy debate" proposition, "This debate is boring." Last class, they chose the topic from a long list, and I explained that in fact, it wasn't such an easy topic. It is as hard to be deliberately boring as it is to be deliberately un-boring, and both are beyond the reach of most second-language-learners such as my students.

Nevertheless, Jihoon made a very impressive effort to actually write comedy in English, combined with taking to heart my suggestion to try to "use as much vocabulary from your vocabulary book as you can – use words you never used before." 

Although, because of his shortcomings in grammar, he doesn't quite pull off the kind of humor he is attempting (which demands near-perfection to be coherent, I guess), the intent shines through and over all it is some of the most subtle writing I have ever received from a student. His wordplay is clever, with a fine grasp of sesquipedalian excess in the PRO and playful alliteration in the CON. 

Pro:

Hi, this is Jihoon. Debate needs logically intrinsic reasons to support. Maybe that correspond boring debate. As you know, spontaneous less debate can cause detrimental consequences, so to speak renounce to do debate but to have relentless equivocal time, like prodigious deviation. Maybe presumable reason that is straight forward to people can do the debate amusing. As a rule of thumb, what is too deep to understand can cause the fragmentation in everything. As you can see as I can see, what is seen in debate that we can see is that prerequisite of tedious debate is all in here, this class. So I think that this debate is the archetypal type of aridity debate which sparks instantaneous aging process and innumerable counterproductive facet.

 

Con:

Hi this is Jihoon. This debate is not as boring as some of you bored. I can prove that this debate class is not boring. Maybe the prove I provide can get approval. I hope to pose poser point to opposite’s point as a poser to point the possibility of positive point. Let me see your ayes from your eyes in the end. We can have useful usability in utility utilitarian use of perspectives about particular propositions properly after having a debate class. Some got bored to go down as a board behind me, and some got anxious that they can’t speak affirmatively as a mute like a mite in class. But think; How happy happening happens to us that we can talk, take a time together to think about topic? Have a sight and see the significant stuff of the specific side of speaking, I think this class is not that boring than we can learn from.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: you cannot escape from reality

Banalities & Journaling / Kids / Quotable / The Wonders of Work

My fifth-grade student who goes by the English nickname Allen wrote an imaginary letter of condolence to my Minneapolitan rainbow monkey. Below, I cut-and-paste verbatim from his essay (which he sent to me via email).

To,Monkey

Hi, Monkey.Iheard that you are in the hospital.Because you cut your brain yourself. So you can only use one fourth of your brain. I hope you die. I think you can't read this letter. Because you don't have any reading skills now. Oh My God!!!!. I think it's very terrible thing. But you cannot escape from reality. I think it will be the last thing that I say to you. Good Bye~~~~~~~Monkey

Although most of the writing is mediocre, his perfect use of the phrase "But you cannot escape from reality" was striking and impressed me a great deal, from a fifth grader. I asked him if he had read it or heard it somewhere, but he refused to elaborate. Regardless, he got the pragmatics correct with it.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

 

Caveat: Who is we?

Banalities & Journaling / Found Online / Quotable

I was listening to an interview on NPR the other day, with the actress Niecy Nash (who I'm not familiar with, but anyway). This quote made me laugh.

"I had one of my children ask me, when they were younger, 'Mommy, are we rich?' I said, 'Who is we?'"

I think this is a strikingly American attitude that crosses ethnic and class lines, although it is hardly universal. But regardless, it would almost not make sense in a culture like Korea's – I think I would have difficulty successfully explaining the meaning of this quote to my coworkers or students. The "we" of the family takes total primacy over the individual "I," to the extent that one uses the plural possessives exclusively when talking about family (e.g. "our mom" 우리어머니) – a singular possessive (e.g. "my mom") is a grammatical error. 

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: the furrow that is being plowed

Banalities & Journaling / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

I have been reading (re-reading? I may have read it long ago) Henri Bergson's Creative Evolution. Bergson is a somewhat underrated philosopher, in my opinion. I was led to him by Deleuze. I was struck by this quote (I have transcribed, at length – typos are thus my own):

Human intelligence, as we represent it, is not at all what Plato taught in the allegory of the cave. Its function is not to look at passing shadows nor yet to turn itself round and contemplate the glaring sun. It has something else to do. Harnessed, like yoked oxen, to a heavy task, we feel the play of our muscles and joints, the weight of the plow and the resistance of the soil. To act and to know that we are acting, to come into touch with reality and even to live it, but only in the measure in which it concerns the work that is being accomplished and the furrow that is being plowed, such is the function of human intelligence. Yet a beneficent fluid bathes us, whence we draw the very force to labor and to live. From this ocean of life, in which we are immersed, we are continually drawing something, and we feel that our being, or at least the intellect that guides it, has been formed therein by a kind of local concentration. Philosophy can only be an effort to disolve again into the Whole. Intelligence, reabsorbed into its principle, may thus live back again its own genesis. But the enterprise cannot be achieved in one stroke; it is necessarily collective and progressive. It consists in an interchange of impressions which, correcting and adding to each other, will end by expanding the humanity in us and making us even transcend it. [pp. 191-192 in my Dover edition]

To the extent that it is a coherent refutation of Plato's allegory, I like it a lot. To the extent it seems to embrace an almost naive pantheism, I don't, though I understand the impulse.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: The Nixonian Prophecies

Found Online / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

December, 1971:

Justin Trudeau is born.

April, 1972:

While visiting with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa, Richard Nixon says, with respect to the Prime Minister's newly born son, "Tonight we'll dispense with the formalities. I'd like to toast the future prime minister of Canada, to Justin Pierre Trudeau."

October, 2015:

Justin Trudeau is elected Prime Minister of Canada.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: Discovering A Car

Background Noise / Found Online / Quotable

Recently, it was "Columbus Day."

My thoughts on this could be summarized by this humorous quote: "Columbus discovering America is like a car thief discovering your car." – This is not an exact quote, but I have seen the concept attributed to comedian Chris Rock, in various incarnations.

Unrelatedly…

What I'm listening to right now.

Camera Obscura, "Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken." Who is Lloyd?

Lyrics.

He said "I'll protect you like you are the crown jewels", yeah
Said he's feeling sorrier for me the more I behave badly
I can bet

Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment

Jealousy is more than a word, now I understand
You can't stay a girl while holding a boy's hand

Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment
Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment

I've got my life of complication here to sort out
I'll take myself to an east coast city and walk about

Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment
Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment
Hey Lloyd I'm ready to be heartbroken
'cuz I can't see further than my own nose at this moment

[daily log: walking, 6km]

Caveat: Made

Found Online / Language & Linguistics / Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Quotable

This was interesting, especially the way the story kept "branching" out from the original effort to explain the Zipf phenomenon. This is the the kind of thing I like to think about, "for fun."

I liked the Emerson quote near the end, but, I am unsure if it is truly his. Wikiquote says it's "unsourced," whatever that means.

"I cannot remember the books I've read any more than the meals I have eaten; even so, they have made me." – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

[daily log: stairs, 18 flights]

Caveat: introspecting

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable

I'm stressed because August grades are due today at work, and I procrastinated more than usual because last week was kind of a burnout week, with too much going on. 

So I'll leave it at that. More later.

"If you don't know what introspection is, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself." – Ian Smith

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: the highest form of consciousness

Not My Poetry / Quotable

"In a sense, we are all crashing to our death from the top story of our birth … and wondering with an immortal Alice at the patterns of the passing wall. This capacity to wonder at trifles – no matter the imminent peril – these asides of the spirit … are the highest form of consciousness." – Vladimir Nabokov.

This Nabokov quote serves, probably unintentionally, as a summary of the plot of the poem Altazor, by Vicente Huidobro, which is probably my favorite "long" poem, at least in Spanish.

[daily log: walking, 6 km straight down]

 

Caveat: The ideological foundation of our united struggle is unceasingly solidifying

Philosophy & Cultural Criticism / Politics, Economics & Current Affairs / Quotable

I was led to this "document 9" (formally "Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere") of China's party leadership by a comment thread on an entry at Tyler Cowen's Marginal Revolution blog.

A commenter basically said, "Why do we spend so much time trying to figure out the China Leadership's intentions? Why not take what they say at face value?" with a link to this document. Frankly, this is a very good point. I don't think that anyone with even a limited background in the history of Marxism, Maoism and China could fail to see that the Party leadership isn't really hiding anything here.

Whether one agrees with it or not, an exposure to Marxist thought on questions of ideology, dialectics and theories of history seems like the sine qua non as regards commenting intelligently on the China question. I think the Chinese leadership take a very long view of history, from a still unrepentantly marxian position, and their embrace of "capitalism" is merely a means to an end. The preamble to the last section of the document reads: 

Historical experience has proven that failures in the economic sphere can result in major disorder, and failure in the ideological sphere can result in major disorders as well. Confronting the very real threat of Western anti-China forces and their attempt at carrying out Westernization, splitting, and “Color Revolutions,” and facing the severe challenge of today’s ideological sphere, all levels of Party and Government, especially key leaders, must pay close attention to their work in the ideological sphere and firmly seize their leadership authority and dominance.

They intend to dance with the devil and step on his toes and force him out of the dance competition. 

[daily log: walking, 6 km]

Caveat: On Loneliness

Banalities & Journaling / Quotable

People think I'm weird because I don't seem to suffer from loneliness. Sometimes I feel gloomy or restless or bored, but I almost never experience loneliness. 

I guess that's weird.

I make sure I get a good dose of sociality through my choice of career. And kids make better company than adults, in my opinion. They are "high intensity" social experiences, so you get lots of sociality in a short time. Then I can go home and be alone-but-not-lonely.

"If you are lonely when you're alone, you are in bad company." – Jean-Paul Sartre.

[daily log: walking, 7 km]

Caveat: Keen

Quotable / The Wonders of Work

"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."-Sophocles

Maybe.

[daily log: walking, 6km]

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