pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on mon 8 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
...foo-man-choo."
Hi Lili,
Or...
Anyway...enjoying your good mentions below...and inspired by
them, as usual...
To elaborate a little among them...
With affection...as...
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lili Krakowski"
<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>
> "By contrast with other countries,where some residue
> remained of earlier Christian teachings that poverty was a
> blessing that should inspire charity in the rich and
> meekness in the poor, poverty in the United States came to
> be regarded as the obvious consequence of sloth and
> sinfulness....The promise of America was not affluence but
> independence; not ease but a chance to work for oneself,
to
> be self-supporting and to win esteem through hard and
honest
> labor." Robert H Bremmer, From the Depths: The Discovery
of
> Poverty in the United States, NY NYUP 1956, quoted by FF
> Piven in Regulating the Poor.
Interesting quote...all-of-it, but...the last part
especially, viz:
"The promise of America was not affluence but
independence; not ease but a chance to work for oneself,
to be self-supporting and to win esteem through hard and
honest labor."
Oh God...why is it so bloody rare...that anyone understand
that? Or even more rare, Lives it? Or will allow others TO
live it without inimical NOT-it, interference?
I suppose, in 1956, it was still remotely possible, for some
people to remember it in an intellectual way anyway, or in a
passing atavistic spasm or
twitch of some kind which could be medicated if it
persisted...or, in 2004, for others to be
reminded...that they may forget it instantly, whilst to
remember ( as I unwittingly do,) the tee-vee commercial for
'fab', a laundry detergent product, circa 1960 something or
so, of "Oh
Fab! I'm glad !...they put real-lemon-scented-borax, in
yew!"...or...by-now, whatevertookit'splace...bushkerry
republicrats...anthrax-future's market's "portfolios" and so
on...infomercialgodslobbers...splatting down from above...or
is that aeroplane pee? Not 'manna' anyway...or do we need
'Science' to tell us the difference?
...seems curiously
insightful to me...and ironic in light of present
socio-political-unclescam-psychodramainfomercials
slaveobsequies et
al...
...a note of sanity...amid 'em...
A little Bird...tweets and chirps on-a-branch...then flies
away...
..sigh...
Too, as far as I know, the term 'meek', in it's old meaning,
denoted being mannered,
courteous, patient...wholesomely self posessed...not being
driven by
emotionally charged needyness, or it's handmaidens of greed,
resentment,
intimidation, social ambition, covert-agendas, or, surrender
in deed or
imposition upon others, or in whatever
form, to one's own, or to other
people's unpleasantness and cunning...
The promise that they, that the 'meek' will, or may, inherit
the 'earth'
allways seemed ambiguous to me.
Does it mean 'earth' as say, a grave is?
...or 'Earth' as say, the Planet as-a-whole is?
Or 'Earth' as say, a metaphor for
some
broader interior psychological platform?
...or 'Earth' as
soil-tending or humble
Agrarian attentions and tasks may be?
Or 'Earth' in a
somewhat differing
figurative sense, as
some inspired notion of our rightful stance and place ON
this 'Planet' ? Or...?
Anyway, I enjoy ambiguities...sometimes anyway...which is a
good
thing, since there
are so many, many, many of them...
Or...
Sounds like 'Bremmer' was close to grasping something of the
pith, or the cambium...or some of the Leaves even... of a
branch stout enough to swing
on, if
maybe not
quite...the
trunk...
> " Professors produce professionals.
Or, rather than risk errors of taste,
spontenaity, opinion, reponsibility or
judgement, it or they, wish instead, to ensure, insist, and
beurocratically formalize them...
Most people seem to think, that about any corpse, (well,
after the usual formeldehyde or whatever transfusion) with a
little rouge-and-wax, looks "pretty good"...
Or...
See 'jobs' (in the sense of the term as came to be
especially
'recently') for the more humble version of the
same collusional and complimentary anxiety-management,
subjegation, abdication, poverty-ensureing, poverty-shrine,
bullshit-makin', generally soul wiltin', schitzogenic,
looser-makin'
gameboard...
At least with "Parker Bro's"...ye usually get to
roll-the-dice...
Even if they may sometimes fall from the table...in the
tossing...
And if the Dog eats 'em in an a passing opportune moment, ye
can
allways get 'em back...with a strainer...
> (In itself this is
> rather a new process; in the not far distant past
> apprenticeship was the common mode of access to many such
> callings.) And as the number of professionals has
> increased, so has the number of professions.
Too, the grudging succor, accomidation, or tolerance, or
more ghastly yet,
the
outright encouragement,
admiration or advocacy (or of voteing-for) 'professional'
whores and grifters and thespian-criminal front-man types as
assume the
guise of
politicians and elected beurocrats at all levels, also,
'politics' as
catagories or
pathologies of 'professional' endevor
or occupation, was not an anticipation of the aspires or
judgement or sense of the founding of the American
experiment. But may be something of the measure of how far
it has gone sour and awry.
Nor, has it since, been but a concession unto
whoredom and pimpdom, and 'johndom' and trick-roll-dom, and
waiting-in-line
for-a-go-dom...concubinedom...bound-foot-dom...
being appealed to or looked up to in people's surrendered
resort to cynical
others, to 'professionals' running things, provideing
things, running 'them' as
so acquiesced to it, as people forgot,
or abdicated, or sold away in their own dispair, to descend
to petty whoredom and
johndom, ( read spiritual poverty or penury anyway, ) to
aschew the
'experiment' as something worth trying...or
keeping...or having, or discovering...otherwise.
Or...
> More and more
> middle-class persons are attracted to the independence of
> judgment, esoteric knowledge, and relative immunity to
> outside criticism that characterizes professional
> occupations." Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Maximum Feasible
> Misunderstanding, Free Press, (Glencoe? NY?) 1969
Oh bright bulb he...in that morality-play theater's
cantelevered
markee...and certainly in that insight - "...relative
immunity to outside criticism..."
How's that for 'motive'? Beside a reliable involute spiral
to
nowhere...
But then too...THAT just might be, one very VERY operatively
germain thing...to bear-in-mind...it is...a powerful
motivator in-practice, and as such, is a corruption.
Or...an isolatedly-contextually 'reasonable' enough
adaptation, corruption,
seduction, or
disguise of an
essentially cynical compromise and abdication, or, an
orientation from
within such, as in that sense, is 'reasonable'...as will
(and
reliably will, continue to) erode
any possibilities of any real 'esoteric' apprehensions or
facility, unless we mean by that term, say 'banking' or
money-lending or realestatespeculation or investments or
something...or being victims of them, which, in it's way, is
certainly 'esoteric',
more so even than anybody's so called 'religion' in-practice
is, and
more endemicly germain
and god-like to those upturned eyes of millions upon
millions of people as rely on it, are slaves to it,
appeasers of it, serf-workers in it, on it;s turf...and make
sacrifices to it, and observe
rites and cerimonies of it, far more
than they know, and
as they inhabit the realities 'it' makes for them, it
defines for them, in
which people ('really' do) 'live'...more or less...if
mostly, qualitatively,
'less'...
The 'Zoo'...and the hierarchies of the denuded branches
array, to be climbed, faught over, attained unless or untill
pushed off, of the trees, in the cages...
> "Few of us would claim that the social changes we forecast
> arise out of the blue....Even when they emerge first as
> ideas they have to be embodied in institutions; and to
chart
> social changes is to chart the change in the
characteristics
> of axial institutions." Daniel Bell, The Coming of Post
> Industrial Society, Basic Books, 1973
Or...'people' as an incidental effluvium, exudae, secretion,
excretion, purulence
or
industrial-institutional by-product anyway...of the 'real'
economic processes...of the real waste...or so the Bell hath
tolled...accurately enuf...there...
Me? I'm waitin' for that big old Astroid to come
softe-tumblin' from the ineffible faint purring pulsing
humms of
them endless purple twillights...doing them slow-motion
endos
with the harsh shadows slow crossing it's pecked and
cratered
kidney shaped form's dark sparkled sides, at 50,000
miles-per-second or so closeing velocity maybe, headed our
way from say, where we see
the
Constellation Hercules or so..as if it matterd from
'where'...but...
You know, like what settled the Dinasaur's hash off Yucatan
or whateveritwas...the size of a 'Bus' maybe...or a
'house'...
Like that...
I am patient too...
I look 'up'...ev'ry day...and have since before I were
sent-to-school, too...
That or 'Zed'...more-or-less, you know, like from
"ZARDOZ"...
> " The mastery of great things comes with doing of trifles;
Then maybe...they are not 'trifles'...afterall. Or too,
the ruin of great things, seems also to come about with
trifles being too compelling or convenient an occupation, or
a
distraction...or a resort...or, an imposition, or,
eventually, a necessity...to
the exclusion
of much else...maybe, of all else...and of people's souls,
most-of-all...
> the little voyage is for the timid soul just as formidable
> as the big voyage for the great one. Voyages are
> accomplished inwardly, and the most hazardous ones,
needless
> to say, are made without moving from the spot."
>
> "Each one individually must revolt against a way of life
> which is not his own."
>
> Both quotes from Henry Miller, The Colossus of Maroussi
> New Directions, 1941 (reprint 1975, I think Pocket Books)
Well...
I like Henry Miller...
I think we'd have got along fine.
...fix a lawn-mower together
on a Sunday's afternoon or something while the gals 'bake'
Cookies or something...
Even if 'June' was mean to him sometimes...
I understand...
We could talk about all "that"...too...(Henry-and-me I
mean...
even as they will
tend to do...too...)
...sigh...
> You assume I bash MFAs. Wrong. You assume I want to
> "grandstand on a worldwide public venue" I did not
invent
> Clayart, though I'd be proud if I had, and I think I have
> as much right to voice my strong, albeit "ridiculous"
> opinions as others.
Ohhhhhh...too...rights by agreement, are only excercised by
the claiming, or, claimed by their excercise. Or, whether by
prior agreement or not, or just what kind of agreement may
be supposed for them, as, in which
'rights' are invented, or
claimed ( only)
by the excercise of them...
See the 'Magna Carrta' I s'pose...
See 'June' for that matter...
Or...
If anyone does anything, they there-by invent and or claim
the
actual 'real' so called "right" to do it. Others may contend
or conceed or evaluate or
challange such as they may...and thus claim the right to do
'that'...
Rights by consent, or by reciprocally positive prior
agreement, are a slower or
differing
version or a more reciprocally polite version sometimes, of
this.
Otherwise...there are no "rights", there is (only)
what-we-do...and that we claim the 'right' to do it, by
doing
it.
Thus may manners...find their poise...in these
specific-gravities of ontology's otherwise unilateral
impositions, confusions, indifferences, or
chaos...
> I do not care if people get MFAs, liposuction, tattoos,
> divorces, matching black horses, or whatever. I DO
care,
> and IMMENSELY when these "accomplishments" are set up
as
> qualifiers for recognition and respect in the craft world.
Who defines what for whom...and how-so...has and remains, a
matter of interest to me ( too) ...
And too...
Why should such 'jobs' matter, were it not for how readily
the
gullible or dis-affected may be misled or bullied to seek
some consolation
or other ( among which, are to mislead or bully others),
especially if such consolation is provided and
offered for
sale or other more-or-less ( mostly 'less' of )
negotiated exchange, by the very forces as dehumanized the
victim to begin with? Thus to enable
eachother variously
in co-operative or collective currents and eddies of just
more of it? To so find-their-place...in it, as it...as just
more of it...
Buy or sell another bumpersticker of "Proudparentof" yet one
more biogenetic robotoid psychopathic status driven
reptillian brained genepool cannibal ape dupe...?
Like that 'temple' whatsherface gal and them god damned
chain-hooks-jerkings and
'Cattle Ramps'...?
She got her 'degrees', huh...and no nooky-nooky doe eye
vanity seduce back-seat quicky of the 'anything-that-moves'
quarterback she let get
in her way...no disingenuous moron partygirl sextoy
subsequent bun-in-oven laments for her...or so I would
suppose...?
No?
Sheeeesh!
Whateverhappenned to discernment and patience and care?
Is it not more from the indescernments of the acceptances of
the (thence) gullible or dis-affected, the dehumanized in
essense, whose finer tendrils of conscience had been
amputated, cauterized, stomped-on, blotted
out, hacked-off, insulted...(that they then make-do with
whats left?)
or,
of the ( thence) 'led', that such approximate concensis are
validated
or enabled? Is it not the abdication of their own sense,
their own conscience, in
injury, trauma, wan
surrender or animated desperations of dis-affection's
yearning for stimulous and consolation of some (narrowed
dimmed or
approximate or crude) kind, to feel
'alive' or 'safe' ( in some way) in or with like others,
that the gullible are so led? - and is that not the germinal
locus of your lament?
It is...of mine...sometimes anyway...but then too, I have
many laments...
But too...one must turn the focus-knob to see it...and we
are taught not to do that...
It is not thought to be 'polite'...amid the larger rudeness
of it's not...
Too...it may be useful to recall...that...
Society is not so much made of individuals...
As it is made of their subscription or subserviences to
varioue kinds of agreements as mediate
their (acquired or
how-so-ever of ) interests...the reciprocities or effects of
the interacting
gravity-wells and spell-twangers of their
emotional-trauma's disguises, mostly, in our culture
anyway...which traumas find new hosts
to
internalize in with the qualities of attentions given to
every new Birth by them...or, it, 'Society', for us anyway,
is made of the
mediations as so intervene...and as do so...reliably,
compellingly, too...to make just more of them...
> There is nothing "completely ridiculous" about asking
> whether craftsmen who have been recognized as master
artitst
> (Though Leonardo Da Vinci goofed up the Last Supper by
> careless experimental frescoing)
> should have been processed
> through academia.
Well, argueably, the Church goofed it up even
more...processing it through their own decidedly post-edonic
fan-driven
breeze and flourescent tooth colored sunshine kissed
potted 'groves' of indoor non-Serpent climbin' non-Apple
( or 'Pomegranite' as older texts would have it) danglin' of
'academia'...'Eve' ( or 'June') or no Eve...'Serpent', or no
Serpent...but...
...the 'Last
Supper' I mean, or the whole thing I mean, or, respecting
the so-called "Last Supper" anyway, (or, no mo' o' dem
"suppers"
after that,
huh? Why, HE done went-an'-gone and all...sniff...but his
boss is watchin'! So yew better-be-good! and what-is-good?
why we'll tell-yew-sell-yew, so step-right-up...!) but
"they" set up ponderous institutions to tell us
all-uhhhhhh-bout-it...killed millions of 'heathens'...built
vast city-states of 'marble' and conquests
and slave tradin' and gold-gettin', to comemmorate
purportation's edited stalilnized platitudes attributed to
heresays long after, about a poor-man-in-a-desert who got in
trouble with the law...or, so long as we pay
admission anyway, with our good sense most, or first, of
all...
...see Will'm Blake for that matter...
He knew the difference...
...but,
as one
tableaus-vingette abstraction of the whole-thing, as an
event
they 'made' (use of) which was other than, or rather than, a
fresco, per-se, or other than, or rather than, a
theatricised
political management tool as had assumed a kind of
comemmoration in whatever formalizations as seemed handy...
(Just what were all these Shrines built 'to'? Are we
'really' all that satisfied we know? )
...much
more in fact...with various sub-sequently expedient or
experimental
interpolations, deletions,
substitutions, stand-in-casting, and various
production-value editing and shadeing...(you know, kinda
like photographs
of people standing around Stalin, where, 'later' some of the
'faces' and bodies-as-a-whole, were, well...'adjusted' to
respect new favor, or new revisions, new themes, new
appointments, and old
one's having been excised,
revised...rubbed-out...re-touched...pastisched, eventually
to
include the absence...or exclude the presence, of 'Stalin'
himself even...and he didn't get no "glass Coffin' now did
he? No wax-'n'-rouge for that boy...nope...)
Some of which
( figurative as well as literal, of wax-'n'-rouge or what )
'fresco',
also has flaked off, cracked, pimpled, or pentimento'd,
with time and
moisture...not enough, but 'some'...or interior urges of
some kind of alkaline quality have quietly
sought expression or egress anyway, or to ammend 'reality'
or claim it...or to exudae somehow through the
pores of the slathered
veneer's portrays, and will continue to...to reveal
something also in the pop-outs and blooms, of the sandy
grayish
basis
on
which the white lime ground had been slathered to recieve or
up-hold the superficially applied
image...an image, we may recall, as is 'on'...a 'wall'...or
substituted stand-in propped-up imago as may
be...or immemorative comemmorative
of...something...or of something as thence conceals or
misrepresents...and occulates...something...
Or...
Who defines what for whom...(and out of what) remains
something of interest...to me anyway...or to us all, in some
way or other...
maybe...or can...if we are interested...to think of it that
way...
Too...
I think the origin of the term 'academia', was to denote the
grove of Trees in which Socrates, or was it Plato? once
walked,
sat, stood, napped, peed, or sometimes tripped on a root or
fallen branch or
rock, and or
found Ants discovering their sandwhiches or snacks or
otherwise, to have had thoughts or non-thoughts, to have
conversed with
others about them...or, the grove ( if not the thoughts or
non-thoughts themselves) in which they conversed, with or
without
him...no?
Trees..open air...Sunshine...the songs of
Birds...conversation between individuals...the
Sky...in
which, more than anything, ( or with Socrates anyway, or
maybe Plato even, and others, and Jesus for that matter )
they
wished to explore how one
think, to then evaluate the accidents and mishaps in that,
of what-one-think...(The way-of-the-Hemlock, or,
of-the-Roses, as may be, if different, remain similar as
well...so far as there were allways guys-with-big-arms as
get the eye signal from some hollow-cheeked skinney boss
in-a-robe,
nod-pointing
with their chins as to say 'what' the options are) and to
know the
difference between the two ( that is, how we think, vs what
we
think, rather than Hemlock vs Roses per-se, or skinny-robe
vs
'big-arms' per-se, or maybe...all three, I mean all six, for
that
matter), tho' with the latter, the 'what-we-think', as
could-be
optimumly not allowed to become too much
a vested
interest to depose the former as worth paying any attention
to...
...nor, to despise the 'Trees' and open Air and Sunshine and
Birdsong,
nor
to
have, in their stead, as we have now, ghettos of sequestered
victims in windowless
rooms, and tooth-colored flourescent 'lighting' or 'Candles'
even, and to
'teach' them how to respect vested interests, or captivity,
or fatuous compliasencies of chattel domesticity
maybe, or the accrueing redundance of the confluent
qualities of them...
When old Jesus say'd "Follow ME"...
I do not think HE was a-headin'...'there', do you?
...and or taught to be so overmuch obligeingly subservient
to them, or
to try and exploit their captors 'in' discreetly resentful
or
rebellious subservience to-them,
and to be subservient to the institutions as house and
define ( us?) them, as define (our) their 'options' for (us)
them...or
are housed by them ( or by our psyches succour and interior
accomidation of them), or
to learn to experience gratitude for such being done
to (us) them...
Worse yet for (us) them, (the) how to need to
aspire to join or insinuate themselves/ourselves into them
( them-into-us), as
recourse of the desperate or the
cornered or the getting-rubbed-out, thence as
subservients, to try and
avoid or be on the good-side of...the
approximate violence, ostracism, exclusion, invalidation,
protection-rackets, influence among collusionally
surrendered others, bullying or
invalidations of them and their influence...
No?
> As to the "professional show" at the end
> of the MFA! To the best of my knowledge, it is part of
the
> program, it is NOT a sending out slides to galleries who
do
> not know one...
Trick-rolls...of a sort...or their demonstrations and
virtuosities,
anyway...of the more
sodden or entrenched or leathery practioners...as may or may
not impress
the
gullible...or their peers or betters, one way or the
other...
A far cry...from Speldor-in-the-Grass...
> I dislike so-called "litmus tests" I dislike is the
> notion that certain jobs are closed to qualified people
> because they have not gone through the Academic Sausage
> Maker.
Oh...if only the Caustic, or the Acid...were much much more
'pure'...much more concentrate...for the experiment of the
'dunk'...you know, so it'd be more like an 'alkaseltzer' or
something...
Maybe...if they saw, and or thought, a little more
clearly...or carefully...they would not
want those 'jobs' as are closed to them...after all...
Or, to paraphrase and alter something said by Groucho
Marx...
"Of the many clubs
potentially receptive
to my membership, there are very few which I would actually
join..."
> FYI some of my best friends are PhDs, my sister is
> one and a professor at a great college at that, my late
> brother was one....
I am so sorry...
> But they chose professions for which a
> PhD was a requirement just as knowing how to swim is a
> requirement for a lifeguard.
Hmmmmm...
Fish and Cetacians and various others...seem to
manage....just fine...
Or too...so called 'professions' whose knowledge foundations
and pioneering and preponderance of content, were all
done...by amateurs and independant minded people...to be
infested later by banalitymaking moneygrubbing pedants.
> What was being asked on Clayart was whether a 50ish woman
> long and sincerely in clay should get an MFA, and what
> were her chances of employment as a tacher thereafter.
This
> was a two-pronged question: What would the MFA qua MFA do
> for her; and would a 50 year old with an MFA have a chance
> of getting a teaching job?
Any acqiescence to what is away-from, or detracting in
premis,
from paying attention to how we think, to evaluate
what-we-think, is, a solution as
rejects the real questions...of what we think...or if we
should do either...at all...
Or as well: Who defines what...for whom, and how-so they do
so...and out-of-what...and what one may wish to make, or do,
or think...about
"that"...is...
...either way...
We choose...and chooing 'go'...somewhere...
Or as Rilke had once kindly observed..."Where-so-ever you
go...there arise a place."
A very astute observation I think...a very subtle thing, to
have noticed...
Too...some places are hard to see out of...
Physics flirts with that observation, while finding it an
exhasperation...but they are working on it...if with numbers
and grocery-lists and lotsa dough...and some way way wacky
discoveries...too...
Maybe...we all are...each in our own way...workingonit...or,
we are 'it' wondering of it's own dilemmas...
But then, they made the 'Bomb'...("they")
...and Rilke, if memory serves...make a walk amid the
Trees...and sometimes elected to share some notes about it.
Whilst millions are told implicitly, (chin nods to the
'rack') 'which' to admire, or
work-for, or,
more ghastly, implicitly, yet, 'why'...("$"?...sort
of...algebra, anyway...in which 'equations' are made, and
managed...) Or shown 'how' they may find and be given the
most effective
violences as shall encourage them to seek protection from
such viloences...by joining such...as lackies of it...
The etiology of victimhood...is well worth while...to
assay...
> To the second question there were several answers ranging
> from "well, it's like this...." to " are you on
> hallucinogens, or what?"
I do not know much about hallucinogens, but, I think I will
one day make their acquaintance to see if they like
me...once I move from 'here' anyway...
Sundry Plants allways liked me pretty much...so did 'Bugs'
and
other Creatures and some other less casually identifiable
Intelligences I crossed paths
with sometimes...so...maybe...we shall see...or are we
thinking of synthetic arranges of molecules...?
...either way I guess...
Oh well...
I think I know someone as knew Albert Hoffman
after-the-war...or as knew Humphrey
Osmond even, was it ? - he was a
gentleman...they both were...anyway...I could ask them
sometime...maybe some little pointy-end ampule lolling in
one
of those catch-all 'Kitchen Drawers' or the like, you know,
from
the old-days or
something...
(Oh well, shucks, jus' did a quick 'google' look-see
and...guess he left-the-building...too...)
http://www.bruceeisner.com/new_culture/2004/02/humphrey_osmond.html
Otherwise, I see little in the 'realities' and spells and
gravity-wells of trance-emotion, as
are (otherwise) abundantly occupied, inhabited, actualized
and pretty thoroughly covered to-a-tee by
so many others...to feel there is anything much 'there' to
recommend 'them'...to me...
Or, I am tangled in my own anyway of way(s)...
There is not much of anything as would anylonger make sense
to anyone,
that I want very much, or want anylonger at all...
If I can not tell in the song of Crickets, "what" they say
of to-morrow's Weather and the 'where' of it's whats...or
bits of other geomagnetic, Solar-electromagnetic and
meteorological tid-bits as
they are interested in and sing about...or as with the Ants
in their way(s)...
I may as well just press a revolver to my temple and be done
with it...to do less, would be less than...'polite'...
We have billions of less-than-polite, stupid-breeding
wasteful slave-minded criminal-minded people in this
world...already. I could only wish they should 'do' the
genuinely
polite thing one-way-or-another.
How they accomidate their own, and eachothers
less-than-politeness, overall, is, justmoreofit...
They seem to have "that" pretty well covered I think...I do
not think they need my or anyone's help to do more of it, or
to do 'it'...to do 'that'...
'better'...
I do not want their 'jobs'...
And if they had any sense, neither would they.
> My first post, Oct 19, "Making a Living, MFA, how old is
> old?" said, and I still agree, that one should think
> carefully before investing that much money in exactly
what.
> I think it was Tony Clennell who voiced a similar view.
Too
> many people d'un certain age go get an MFA to enjoy the
> companionship of the very young, the constant ferment of
> college campuses, the pseudo childhood of being a student
to
> a teacher--and the learning .Were I more into psychobabble
I
> would guess that it is part of the "empty nest" syndrome,
> replacing the scruffy teenagers who have left home, with a
> new set of scruffy teenagers.
I do not feel drawn to attend classroom's instructs...in
anything...
If I am not too depressed to do so, I can find anything I
may ever want of knowledge or experience, by, saying 'yes'
to
it...letting it pull or guide me...letting it show me.
Grab-a-Book...or try-and-think...or not-think...some
walk-amid-the-Trees...and...
In
that, maybe, I can share-notes with others, or, walk among
them Trees anyway, one way...or another...'with' anybody or
not...trip-on-a-root...lay amid the nodding weeds...feel the
Ants or Birds saying "who-is-this?"...now and
then...even if it is 'with'
the Birds or Crickets, and Ants...who live 'there'...and
never left...
No silly 'Pomagranite' (or 'Apple' as some would have it)
ever steered them 'wrong', now did it?
'Lastsupper' indeed...
> Learning however can be acquired by different means.
Yes...
Or something is...
And will be, too...
> Had
> one $40,000 to spend one might buy a couple of acres
> ($5,000) build a small cabin ($10,000) have a well dug
> ($3,000) and build a $20,000 kiln. With the $2000
balance
> one could attend several good woodkiln workshops. Or one
> could build a bigger better studio with some of that
$40,000
> and use the rest to enable one to cut back one one's day
job
> and spend more time potting. And like that.
This makes good sense to me...a very practical wisdom...
> My second post Oct 20, "Tirade about men women, skirts,
Life
> and MFA . Red Alert" addressed the fact that this
emphasis
> on Academic Degrees penalizes women for motherhood.
Everyone gets punished...or, have been punished already.
Some learn to join it, or, to profit by it being
done...others, wilt back.
Talbot Mundy, in 1912 or so, observed..."The Worldly wise
and the unWorldly wise both get punished...but the unWorldly
wise seem to get punished first..."
Some friend of Bertrand Russell, about the same time or so,
in the early 'teens, walking on some beach
somewehere...observed as
well...
"Sooner or later, we all seem to become our favorite
character in fiction..."
Maybe 'that' is something of the etiology of one's reponse
to the punishment...or, is the punishment, unassayed...
The questions just may resolve then, more upon one's taste
in
'fiction', and of just what kind-of-'fiction' it is, than
upon anyone's notions otherwise...of
anything else...as is 'then', actually accomidated 'in' some
fiction, anyway...
Or...the uses one have for something...either
way...as-may-be...if 'from' some point-of-view...or, the
point
of view from which they do so...is...
(...the) 'Wheresoever ye go..."
...and, the 'place', as so arise...
> A man
> who chooses to be a father can go right on studying,
getting
> a job and so on. A woman who gives up studying BUT
RETURNS
> TO IT AT 45, is punished.
Well...
One time I was in a Chinee restaurant with a date, having
some greasy mediocre chowmein 'mop' or something...and, at a
nearbye table, was a Black couple, also endureing a similar
meal...
My date observed something to me of the disappointments she
felt to exist, to which Black People have sometimes been
subect...and how they have not allways been liable to enjoy
those priveleges known to characterise the recognition which
a
first class
citizen may suppose themselves to expect...
To which I replied,
"I would rather be a third class
citizen in a fourth rate, decaying psuedo-democracy of
rabble-condescentions, that
forgot it was a Republic, and can no longer remember it ever
had been one, nor claim the citizenry to do so, than to be
what others would
regard as a
'first class'
citizen, in such a grotesque..."
Maybe that comes close...too in it's way...that little
dialogue I mean, not
the
chow-mein-mop...or, then-again, maybe both...
Is there a 'moral'?
...maybe...
"No Ticky - No Laundry"
> Lili Krakowski, S.A.C.'53
>
>
> Be of good courage
Okay...
But that don't mean anybody gunna like it...!
Love...
Phil
el ve
Earl Brunner on wed 10 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
Change promise to hope. That is what brings/brought people to America, the
hope that they can/could change their circumstances. We forget what many of
the refugees who have come to America left behind for that hope. Just like
people today have little understanding of what it was like to live during
the cold war, after World War 2. Our government did some bad things to some
people, some with and some without their knowledge (germ warfare
experiments, nuclear experiments, etc.). Most at the time, might not have
liked it, but they went along. It's so easy to judge in hindsight, even as
late as 9/11. We are REALLY great at hindsight. You have to judge within
the context. The promise of America has ALWAYS been HOPE.
All that you say may be true Tom, but it is a pessimistic way to look at it.
(And doing what you do and have done so generously for 11 years no doubt
gives your view that color) Not perfect, often far from it, but HOPE.
Earl Brunner
Las Vegas, NV
-----Original Message-----
From: Clayart [mailto:CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG] On Behalf Of Tom Sawyer
Sent: Wednesday, November 10, 2004 4:31 PM
To: CLAYART@LSV.CERAMICS.ORG
Subject: Re: Another "ridiculous" tirade re: MFAs and like that. Long -
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
You wrote ""The promise of America was not affluence but independence; not
ease but a chance to work for oneself, to be self-supporting and to win
esteem through hard and honest labor."
Oh God...why is it so bloody rare...that anyone understand that? Or even
more rare, Lives it? Or will allow others TO live it without inimical
NOT-it, interference?
The above is only true if the playing field is even; UNFORNATELY IT ISN'T.
Having worked as a volunteer physician in our local Homeless Clinic for 11
years, let me bend your ear with a different perspective. Lets start with
I.Q.. The average is 100 meaning that 50% of people are under 100; of those
with I.Qs over 100 some are abused, malnourished, unexposed to meaningful
education, malnourished and permanently damaged, and with medical
disabilities that prevent meaningful participation in our competitive world.
Then there are those with psychological or dependency issues from childhood
years. Isn't it nice that those of us with higher than average I.Q.s and
work ethics because of our upbringing pontificate that "I did it anyone can
do it". As an agnostic, I believe in the brotherhood of man. I have been
blessed with gifts that are humbling and I know that where I am at today is
because of unselfish multitudes living before me that have sacrificed at the
altar of learning and art. Its nice to be self supporting; in fact it's a
moral responsibility if one is able but there are millions that are unable
to meet these standards and humanity demands/begs we bend down to help. Most
on this listserve are blessed with gifts only the less fortunate others
dream about. Where would our art be without our predecessors?
Tom Sawyer
tsawyer@cfl.rr.com
Tom Sawyer on wed 10 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
You wrote ""The promise of America was not affluence but independence; not
ease but a chance to work for oneself, to be self-supporting and to win
esteem through hard and honest labor."
Oh God...why is it so bloody rare...that anyone understand that? Or even
more rare, Lives it? Or will allow others TO live it without inimical
NOT-it, interference?
The above is only true if the playing field is even; UNFORNATELY IT ISN'T.
Having worked as a volunteer physician in our local Homeless Clinic for 11
years, let me bend your ear with a different perspective. Lets start with
I.Q.. The average is 100 meaning that 50% of people are under 100; of those
with I.Qs over 100 some are abused, malnourished, unexposed to meaningful
education, malnourished and permanently damaged, and with medical
disabilities that prevent meaningful participation in our competitive world.
Then there are those with psychological or dependency issues from childhood
years. Isn't it nice that those of us with higher than average I.Q.s and
work ethics because of our upbringing pontificate that "I did it anyone can
do it". As an agnostic, I believe in the brotherhood of man. I have been
blessed with gifts that are humbling and I know that where I am at today is
because of unselfish multitudes living before me that have sacrificed at the
altar of learning and art. Its nice to be self supporting; in fact it's a
moral responsibility if one is able but there are millions that are unable
to meet these standards and humanity demands/begs we bend down to help. Most
on this listserve are blessed with gifts only the less fortunate others
dream about. Where would our art be without our predecessors?
Tom Sawyer
tsawyer@cfl.rr.com
pdp1@EARTHLINK.NET on thu 11 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
Hi Tom,
Interesting mentions...
This is curious...or something...as a
consideration...a sidelight...a poignancy maybe...
I had never thought about IQs to know or have realised that
"100" was the average. Or, as it is for the u.s. or
something anyway.
In the hierarchies of clinical evaluations
(whose details I forget as I proceed to join lower and lower
layers of
them, )
there are representations certainly, of the more than, or
the
less than, the "100"
mean...and if much less,
then to Idiots, Imbesciles, Mongoloids, Morons,
Cretins and whatever
other
traditionally named catagories, kinds, syndromes or degrees
of attributed amentia as there may be.
And too, I understand that now it is
legal for
them to 'vote'...
...for
clinical Imbesciles or their less favored fellows, to
'vote' in presidental elections.
As
it was felt to be discriminating to them, or against them,
to any longer retain the old practice in which they
consentually refrained, or were gently restrained ( if need
be?) from doing so...(I did hear this on the Radio, I am not
making this up...I have not researched it yet and I do not
have time to, so anyone having better or more info, please
point me to it?)
....while, the only 'mensa'
meetings I ever got drug off to, seemed more like an
assembly of representatives of just such room-temperature or
near freezing-point
numeric figure's subjects and their associated
syndromes, than not...or I prefered the former, to the
latter as for charms and empathy anyway...so far.
The 'Playing Field'...seems also to accomidate quite a few
contentions or vieings...as to just what sort of game or
kind of
game...is to be played...which allways confused me...(as
well?)
Oh well...
Tiny bit more...below...
----- Original Message -----
From: "Tom Sawyer"
> You wrote ""The promise of America was not affluence but
independence; not
> ease but a chance to work for oneself, to be
self-supporting and to win
> esteem through hard and honest labor."
( Lili wrote that, quoteing someone...)
> Oh God...why is it so bloody rare...that anyone understand
that? Or even
> more rare, Lives it? Or will allow others TO live it
without inimical
> NOT-it, interference?
( I wrote that...in reply...)
> The above is only true if the playing field is even;
UNFORNATELY IT ISN'T.
It is a complicated topography too...this playing field. It
has many fold and creases and pockets and maybe...some holes
and tears...
Mathematical Savants with an IQ of 28 who not can manage a
'fork' to feed themselves with, who like "Easter", can tell
you "instantly" on
what day of the Week 'Easter' was in the year 846 A.D. or
will be, in the year 2099, (accounting for Leap Years of
course, and also for the transition from the Gregorian to
the Julian Callandar as does bear some import for the
calculations) where, others of higher or high IQ,
or who likewise function to one
another's satisfaction anyway, or as may be in the mundane
world of mundanity making, would
take quite a while with a pocket calculator even, to come to
the same 'answer'.
Such or similar Savants were also used in effect, as
'computers', for manipulating or analyseing foreign
intelligence Code, and
Ballistics data integrations, or other Arithmetic matters in
World War Two...and other
sometimes odd or kindred tasks.
As a Child, I had a friend who had what people said was
called 'PKU'.
She was tiny, pale, never spoke..older than me a little. She
was among the most elegant
beings I have even known, and likely, in her way, the most
'perfect'
human form I ever will have known. I have seen hundreds of
thousands of people since then...who do not come near her
delicate radiant grace and ineffible perfection of
presence...
Her parents used to set her outside on nice days in a old
mellow Honey-colored Wicker Basket, where, if I were around,
I looked
after
her so
she'd be safe and comfortable. She was my best friend for a
long time, and I
spent with her what time I could when she would be outside.
She was 'quiet' and so was I.
I felt she knew everything there was to "know"...she just
did not 'do' anything...about it.
I miss her with an ache sometimes...45 years ago now, more
or less....Jeeeeze...time flies!
How many unpleasant millions instead consume eachother, and
spoil
the Earth as an incidental? Whose attributed IQs allow them
to find advantage
over their fellows in some fold or depression or rise or
crease or other of the playing field they feel was made just
for that?
Some game...
Or..."He got game" I s'pose...like the movie title sez...
We can hire a man for ten million dollars a year to bounce a
'ball' because it is so valuable a thing to do for us to
watch.
...while...I think I do not...'have' it...
> Having worked as a volunteer physician in our local
Homeless Clinic for 11
> years, let me bend your ear with a different perspective.
Lets start with
> I.Q.. The average is 100 meaning that 50% of people are
under 100;
Okay...
> of those
> with I.Qs over 100 some are abused, malnourished,
unexposed to meaningful
> education, malnourished and permanently damaged, and with
medical
> disabilities that prevent meaningful participation in our
competitive world.
I would have qualified to be 'there'...maybe, more than
maybe, I still do. All of it, some more than other of
it...but...
> Then there are those with psychological or dependency
issues from childhood
> years.
...harder or more subtle sometimes...to gauge...but then,
our economy and religions rely on 'that' far more than on
anything else, for the energies of the players of the
'games' it structures in it's genius. The forms it assumes
as that, just could be most of the 'games' as do get
'played'...but this is not easy to see maybe...so will sound
'unsound' or something...
Or...
This sounds like more or less the same as those people one
finds
routinely as are not 'in' Hospital per-se, too.
Say, any DMV line or Post Office line or something...the
grocerystore...whatever...traffic
congestion...offices...gov't jobs...congress and so on, on
and on...
Now that I am thinking about this, maybe the lowest limit to
be
allowed to 'vote' should be something like a base line IQ of
say 180 or something. Aside from health or old 'damage'
issues otherwise.
Which could also be applied as a
requirement to rule
out almost all present 'politicians' too. Hell, the "100"
would do for a cut-off on that one to rule them out...'85'
even, for most of
them.
But then too...I remember those aweful 'mensa' meetings, and
think, hmmmm...it is not so easy to say...
> Isn't it nice that those of us with higher than average
I.Q.s and
> work ethics because of our upbringing pontificate that "I
did it anyone can
> do it".
I don't know Tom if you quite caught the terms of the quote
Lili had posted? It is subtle...
It said >The promise of America was not
affluence but independence; not
> ease but a chance to work for oneself, to be
self-supporting and to win
> esteem through hard and honest labor."
'Independant', in the sense of the American experiment,
does not mean 'jobs' and 'taxes' and aligned in or owned by
corporations, institutions, pyramid schemes, gangs,
government pretexts of disguiseing chattel slavery or
indenture,
investmentportfolios, realestatespeculation, banks, or
windfalls or
brokering and so on, or exploitive beurocracies or
plutocracies or other federal state country or other
rackets and gangs that rip others off to manage their money
or land or resourses or their own bodies
for them.
Do you think you or anyone else may legally 'own' their own
'body' or neurology or psychopharmocology? and what
you/me/they may put into it? Think again. It belongs...to
'them'. Or at least so far as they see it. You may have a
differing opinion, but they have the guys-with-big-arms and
those who will do the chin nods to remind or instruct...of
'options'.
Or...that...
One elects one's Work...and one does it as a good sport and
in fair play with the Golden rule in mind, and does so AS
the ethos of the 'Independance'. The Social Contarct...was
"that".
Independant, means...meant...independant and implicitly
subservient only 'to' the ethos OF the Agreement. Which is
also implicitly a transcendance of one's mundane or
otherwise petty personhood as may, if left to no higher
interest, as may oblige one to believe more in compete, than
to believe in co-operate.
That was the Idea of America.
Not disguises for usury and enforced chattel servitudes as
people will otherwise 'do' in various ways to eachother or
to themselves, as
make
money, steal resources or land or goods on pretexts, or as
spend it for prestige or status, or as insist to manage it,
or priveleges for the more ruthless or
clever or ontologically brutally naive who situated
themselves into
gangs as run various tributaries of exchange on, or in,
these
playing fields....
Maybe this concept is too elusive or subtle...
For most people...it is unthinkable.
> As an agnostic, I believe in the brotherhood of man.
I am a Christian, if a wacky 'Jane-Like' one...(Janes are an
ancient so called 'Indian' - like India - bunch who are nice
to 'Bugs' and so on, or, well, there is more to it but that
comes close enough I s'pose) or an atavistic one anyway, an
inconvenient one...and with or
without 'that' ( as has nothing to do with any brotherhood
of "man" nonsense, but has rather to 'do' with one's
apprehension of
other matters, in which "man' as an incidental, has, loses,
finds, or declines
from, some poise or cogency or station 'in' )
Man, so called...is the lowest species on this Earth.
But that is a Truth we are not likely to embrace with
amusement or humility or remediation's urgeings to ammend.
Whose embrace of humility to asume an alignment from which
TO evolve intelligently is not happenning, and thus is lost
to recognise wiser and happier others who have been tolerant
of us. But we are a species who has instead, assumed
habitation most of all, in vanity as exclude such. This
makes the World, hard to 'see'...and makes it easy, to kill
and spoil endless others, and endless selves, and endless
things we never knew were "there".
We kill 'Bugs' because we cannot communicate or co-operate
"with" them. We do not even believe it is possible. what is
the IQ I wonder...of a Cricket? We cannot communicate or
co-operate with ourselves...we kill endless Creatures to eat
them from factories made to kill and package and process
them...we do this to everything that is Alive, and we do
this to eachother in a thousand disguises.
Or...
It gets tricky...
I believe in it too...(The 'Brotherhood' of man thing...)
I see it every day.
Or as 'Breaker Morant' said..."I've seen it..."
Or as Carl said, in 'Slingblade'...when he went back to the
chair-by-the-window...
"...too big..."
Or as 'Chief' had said...sitting on the bench where his
friend was scheduled for electro-shock-tratments,
"...Jucy Fruit..."
Or as 'Bo' did not say, when he was standing behind the
Door in the old film 'To Kill a Mocking Bird'...
Or as was not written on the 'Logs' in the rain, but might
have been...in the Rail Road yard, in the old
film, 'Repentance' ...which see for another good reference
on this
ballywick's subtleties...
Or 'Billie'...and the shadow-play in firelight, in the film
'The Year of Living
Dangerously'...
I think I see it quite clearly...even if I stumble sometimes
looking at some part of it and not watching where my feet
are.
If there is any part of it you think I may have missed,
please advise me to improve my attentions to it?
I will gladly do so...
> I have been
> blessed with gifts that are humbling and I know that where
I am at today is
> because of unselfish multitudes living before me that have
sacrificed at the
> altar of learning and art. Its nice to be self supporting;
in fact it's a
> moral responsibility if one is able but there are millions
that are unable
> to meet these standards and humanity demands/begs we bend
down to help.
But too, pragmatically speaking...mundanely speaking...
If you are 'american', 'white' and not affluent, have no
'insurance' and or are middle aged or younger or older...the
institutions you commend, so far as I ever saw, could care
less if you dropped
dead. Unless they can bleed you for all you got or will ever
have...for a few hours or a few days of their attentions or
their iatrogenic iunfecting or killing of you ( Almost three
hundred thousand people killed a year, yes? in medical
"mistakes"? But them tear-or-wrists are said to have killed
three thousand and we spend "Trillions" making our
manufacturers and stock-holders richer, to refute their
impudence...)
Or...unless you are willing to have collection agencies
after you for years for some non-attention and non-help in
an 'emergency room' for which they will want five or eight
thousand dollars for hooking something to you for an hour or
three or four or five on
a guerney and nothing more and no doctor ever shows. Maybe
to give you 'staff' or Hep B or C or something for your
troubles. Or you
die there on the guerney, or just go home and say the hell
with them and sew your own self "up"..or let the 105 or 106
degree fever pass
or whatever. I had 105 or 106 fever one time, they did not
help me and I got tired of waiting...and so I went home.
Girlfriend freaks out when she gets the read on the
thermometer. Maybe that added to some of the already old
damage too. Oh well. It was like...being under 'water'...but
with evwerything covered in 'tin foil'...
But I still take my hat off...for 'Lister'...sigh...and
Clara Barton...and, many, many others...
They charged my mom almost two hundred thousand dollars in
cash ( all and more than I had or I will ever have, and all
she had, and then some,
of me paying off for another ten or twelve years untill I
got almost
old and now poor myself) for doing "nothing" but keeping her
there..untill I took her home to die after the money ran
out anyway. They never did anything to help her, and would
not even
talk to me about her 'case'. I was an only child, and she
had speech problems only I could understand. They never even
spoke with her.
Don't believe me? Go and see for yourself...there are tens
of thousand such 'cases' at any given moment.
I have...been to so called 'emergency rooms' maybe seven or
eight times now with various hurt or
injured people, two times it was me I brought. Other one
when I though I had had a Heart attack...maybe I did, they
never said, but I noticed after that, the Bump-oomp sound it
used to have, was just 'Boomp......boomp...like half of what
it used to be...so who knows. I got
no
medical treatment at all. Just hours of neglect on a slow
night too, I had told them from
the start I would pay for nothing as I did not get.
I got nothing, and so I paid them for what I got. Wasted
five or six hours there on a monitor with all the ragged
unstable wacky lines of how bad my Heart was beating
irregularly...and I pulled the crap and wires an eyevee off
and went home. Six grand...six grand I did not have and will
likely never have...Okay...
They like resectioning them 'cleft-pallets' of some illegal
Haitian immigrant's 14th child to get into the human
interest
section of Wednesday's paper with. You know, "Human
Interest"
stuff...good pee-arr. Those ads where they have the 'fine'
nylon
hose over the 'lense' and so on too make it all dreamy
looking...how they 'care' and all
that.They used to run lots of 'ads' here on tee vee and
billboards. Stockholders "happy".
Negro and Mexican 'Crack-babies' weighing less than a pound
and ruined anyway, at $8,000.00 a-day for months on
end...uncle sam or the state paying them for it...well,
"you" paying for it of course...hundreds
of them a month in any larger city...then
hundreds
of
thousands of dollars of healthcare each, on follow up to
nurture an neurotically
untenable imbescile...sure...that they will do.
Me? if I got hurt, or some friend of mine?
Forget it...may as well stay home.
America did not used to be like that. There were many county
Hospitals as one could resort to and admire.
My mom was a Nurse in the 'thirties at Cook County General,
( I think it was,) in Chicago.
They used to help people who were hurt or ill even if they
were white or middle aged...did it for
free or for what the person could pay. Good quality Care
too. Prompt. Tincture of Greensoap and )real) Bed Charts and
Nurses and
aides as spoke and could read or understand 'English'...all
the old time stuff.
Ooooopse???? does that make me a "racist? The "English"
mention?
Only if I say so? Or only if I notice?
Go ahead, request doctors and nurses and attendants who do
not understand English next time you are in Hospital. Be
specific, demand your rights! Make sure you do not settle
for less! Your hmo will pay the five or ten grand a day...so
no need to be passive about it.
Otherwise...anyway, now, here anyway, and many places...you
are SOL...you are less than garbage.
...don't believe me? Try it...
I too am glad for all that led up to this.
But not in the same way maybe as the next fellow...
I can 'sew'...
I can abide.
I have so far.
I do not work for them, they do not work for me.
> Most
> on this listserve are blessed with gifts only the less
fortunate others
> dream about.
Yes...I have seen this.
> Where would our art be without our
predecessors?
Well...hmmmmm...
Eden?
The Emerald Forest?
The Great Plaines and Prairies, and the murmer of Doves, or
the thunder humming through the very ground, of the hooves
of the Buffalo?
Nova Park?
The Century of Progress Exhibition?
Just a guess...some guesses...
And please...don't think I ain't grateful...
I wuve my eMTee-vee...(just kidding...)
There's a lot of very decent people Tom, Independant and
moral people, hard working people, for which the stuff you
think is happening, just ain't "happening"...
And what is happenning, is they get screwed into the ground.
Look into about any 'Old folks Home' or whatever they call
them now...
See what 'care' is like for them...for three or five or
eight hundred dollars a-day or so...that is, if there is
someone who did real good on that 'playing field' to pay
'em...
Got a strong stomach?
Yer gunna need it...
The smell of "money"...has many nuances and schools of
charm...on these playing fields.
Or as Breaker Morant hath say'd...when asked if he would
like to 'see the world'...
"I've seen it..."
> Tom Sawyer
> tsawyer@cfl.rr.com
Poignantly,
Phil
el ve
Lee Love on thu 11 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but don't really have the fire...'
Been having computer problems. Having trouble sending mail. Fingers
crossed on this one!
Tom Sawyer wrote:
> I have been
>blessed with gifts that are humbling and I know that where I am at today isbecause of unselfish multitudes living before me that have sacrificed at the altar of learning and art.
>
>
Tom,
One of the prime attributes I have noticed in my best
teachers is humility. That we act in a vacuum and are totally
responsible for where we are, is a complete myth.
One of the things my late teacher Katagiri Roshi used to say
went something like this: "We must respect the life of toilet paper.
If we respect the life of toilet paper, then we don't use it
frivolously or in a wasteful manner. And if we take care of the life
of toilet paper, we will also take care of the other things in our
lives.)
He would also talk about all the things responsible for
making toilet paper a part of our life. Normally, we egotistically
think, "Hey, I bought this with MY money, and with MY hard work.
We completely forget the storekeeper that offered it to us for sale,
the stock boy who put it on the shelves, the truck driver that delivered
it to the store, the factory workers that made it, the wood cutters
that chopped down the tree, the forester who minded the woodlot, and
even the tree itself and the rain, sun, soil and air that made the wood.
Makes you think twice about how much everything else supports
our life and really now we are only a conduit for all their work.
This humility helps us make work that transcends notions of
our "small" selves too.
You know what gave me hope about the past elections in
America? Unlike what the news stations told us intitally, young
people turned out in record numbers! We haven't seen such a large
youth vote since 1968! That's hope to me!
>--
> in Mashiko, Japan http://mashiko.org
>http://www.livejournal.com/users/togeika/ WEB LOG
>http://public.fotki.com/togeika/ Photos!
>
>
Kathi LeSueur on fri 12 nov 04
Or...'Many men smoke, but...
tsawyer@CFL.RR.COM wrote:
> You wrote ""The promise of America was not affluence but independence; not
>ease but a chance to work for oneself, to be self-supporting and to win
>esteem through hard and honest labor.>>>>"
>
><>Isn't it nice that those of us with higher than average I.Q.s and
>work ethics because of our upbringing pontificate that "I did it anyone can
>do it". >>>
>
Tom, I can't agree with you more. I hate it when someone says, "I did it
without any help." I pay over $3000 a year in property taxes so that
person could get a public school education. I pay income taxes to
subsidize the public universities. I fought for civil rights legislation
so that there wouldn't be substandard black only schools, so that one
couldn't refuse to hire people based on race or religion. People gave
their lives for the "privileges" that people today as their God given
rights. And, it all can be so easily taken away by the whims of voters
who, having gotten "their's" want to close the door for those coming
behind them.
Kathi
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