degringolade

I think the one thing that I have to be on guard against is the wrongheaded idea that I am most certainly correct. This little soupçon of anti-wisdom is one that I find exceedingly difficult to guard against. It is a clever foe, sneaking past my defenses easily and lodging itself in my brain when I get thinking about whatever subject I am currently trying to digest.

Like most old men (actually all old men and an extremely high percentage of old women) I think that I actually have much less depth and breadth of thought than I give myself credit for. Simply put, I do believe that I am no smarter now than I was fifty years ago (I think that in terms of pure horsepower, I am way down compared to fifty years ago). I am sophisticated enough now to stuff in sufficient qualifiers that if (when) I am caught in an inconsistency, I can weasel-word my way out of it.

The hard part about the weight of years is that you start realizing that your thoughts and ideas are molded by the cultural and intellectual freight of the society that spawned you. You can think that you are free of that imprinting, but there are vanishingly few folks out there who are capable of ignoring the weight of the past and thinking beyond the intellectual and moral baggage that you have carried over the decades.

All of us in this out of the way cul de sac of the internet are trying to figure out which way to go. Nearly all of us think that we are onto something. That may or may not be true. But ascribing to your thoughts the label of correct just makes it that much harder to draw out the useful bits of thought found in every instance of thoughts that disagree with yours.

Regionalism / Grant Wood/ January

Looks to be that Oregon is going into another soft lockdown. Great. Can’t really say it is a terrible idea, but I am not at all certain that the price to be paid is worth the value of what we get out of it.

I wear my mask all the time except when eating or drinking or in a place where I can not breathe on other people (you see, as I work in the hospital where the first Covid case in Oregon landed, I am acutely aware that I have a decent chance of being one of the asymptomatic carriers), you gotta put up with some inconvenience if you have any love of your fellow man(LYFM). While I am well below the mean on the LYFM, it is still there and I have to deal with it as best I can.

Lockdowns are another issue. I am having a lot of trouble coming to grips on the ramifications of such and their overall efficacy. I have spent some time today trying to digest the statistics over at the CDC and trying to figure out just what is going on.

I am trying to figure out how to post a file here on Dreamwidth that folks can look at. I have went through and digested all the CDC data for COVID and broke it down in a way that makes sense to me. Mostly I am working on the mortality data.

If you are interested, send me a comment with your e-mail. I will send you the file and the source and you can take a look. Don’t worry, I’ll delete your comment and won’t publish your e-mail.

Current Location: In front of the happy lamp

Nowhere is the basic requirement so indispensable as in psychology that the observer should be adequate to his object, in the sense of being able to see not only subjectively but also objectively. The demand that he should see only objectively is quite out of the question, for it is impossible. We must be satisfied if he does not see too subjectively.

Jung -- Psychological Types

I have been pondering our use of the words “Subjective” and “Objective”. Seriously. Go look them up and think about them hard. Then think about the use that those words get put through in our “Intelligent” discussions.

For some weird reason, we seem to have made these two critters separate moieties. After reading some of the stuff that Mike gives me (which BTW sometimes makes my brain hurt and forces me to drink) I am starting to question this distinction more than a little bit. Since I am making a valiant effort to keep my brain functioning, puzzles like this are a good neuronal workout.

So, Since my latest theory involves looking at time as a driver for what we call “conciousness” I am going to try and integrate these two little concepts into that hypothesis. The analogy I am going to use here is still photos and movies.

When we are being “Objective” we are looking at a still photo. We take a snapshot and demarcate the thing being photographed at a specific time and place. We discuss this thing in depth and feel that our view of it at that moment in time and at that physical place as the “correct” definition, which it is.

When we are being “”subjective” we are a damn sight busier in our brains. We now take the object being observed out of the “timeslot” that it was assigned and place it into the real world, where time moves and things are in a state of constant flux. In Riccardo’s world (Manzotti, not the goddamn economist) he had an interesting analogy of memory being an echo, directed from the object to the person remembering it in the future.

That is why I am steering slightly away from the supremacy of the objective that our culture attempts. It is only accurate to a point. When we become subjective and look at the leaves above and take them out of their timeslot, they become more interesting. One sees the bird eating a berry close by and then flying over the ground below this shot and taking a dump. The seeds, fertilized by the birdshit and watered by the rain grow for a couple of years and then the leaves turn brown and fall off the cane and wait for the next year. The plant that it grew up next to and climbed up the call with the cane throws off the weird little tendril flowers at the end of the year and for a week or so in mid-autumn, a photo like the one above is possible.

Who knows if I am onto something or not. But, who cares? Even if I find out or am informed of being wrong about this in the none-too-distant future, it doesn’t matter.

So, closing down now, finishing up my coffee and wandering off to work calls. Tomorrow is a paid holiday and I think I will go about and see what I can get for free as I celebrate having had the poor decision-making skills to join the Army forty-one years ago

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee

Getting up on Thusdays is a problem of mine. For some reason, this is where I kinda collapse.

Family is doing well. Youngest is adjusting to the end of a long-term relationship. He will be fine. This kind of thing is never great.

No change from in the bile being spewed about due to the elections. Country is still divided. Both sides are vying for power at any cost.

Sigh

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee
Current Music: Steve Miller Band: Going to Mexico

I think that posting the pictures that I take everyday wandering around is coming back. I did my artiste phase where I tried to impress with artwork done by others, but that is definitely beginning to pall. Since I am dinking around with the not-improved but now available text editor in Dreamwidth, I am finding that the uploaded files are the easiest way to go about the problem. Since I am uploading anyway, I might as well go back to the taking pictures of my world and show folks where I am.

Been doing a lot of thinking about where to light. I am now chewing over the less than palatable possibility that I am stuck where I am and here is where I will ride out the storm.

It could be a lot worse. A lot worse. But being truthful with myself and a serious analysis of the world around leads me to believe that the whole country is going to be well and truly fucked and I am going to be forced to watch the shitshow go down. I have to strongly consider the possibility that fewer of the fewmets will hit me here than other places.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Maybe I need to stop planning and get ready to take the punch.

I have been getting ready for years. I think that I have been doing it the sensible way. Keep a low profile, use less, keep my ears and eyes open. I have to strongly consider the possibility that dancing with who brung me might well be the best option.

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee
Current Music: The Felice Brothers: Whiskey in My Whiskey

Expressionism / Gustave de Smet/ The ripe cornfield

Settling in for the long haul. I think that I am going to make plans to hunker down for the next year. Truthfully speaking, it won't be all that much of a difference in lifestyle for your humble correspondent. I think that we are just now getting the bare minimum of knowledge about the events of late, and even now ambiguity is the byword.

This weekend is flour and sugar. I went in to look at the little farm in Winthrop website to see about maybe learning to use emmer flour, but a two buck plus a pound, it seems unlikely. So I will head off to find a fifty pound bag of good bread flour and a bag of sugar to match. I figure that I have to channel my Nona's and have such things available around the house. If I am going to stay inside, I will most definitely need to develop a cooking regimen that will allow me to live within means.

Truth be told, it probably is great practice for my dotage.

Screed:

I think that I am odd.

Most of my friends would agree with me.

But truthfully, even though the chances of me being one of Rona's harvest doesn't bother me a bit.

Look, we have been Celebrating Earth day here in the US for the longest time, but we kind of celebrate it like we celebrate our dog's birthdays, patting a faithful pet on the head and giving it a cookie. Then we go out and try to train it like a pug to wear little outfits and do tricks for us.

Gaia is a wolf. Gaia doesn't get trained. We have here in the West tried to convince ourselves that our shit matters, that we are in fact in charge. I think that Rona is the first of many events letting us know that we have a place here in the world and not ownership. I don't know what that place is, but it isn't going to be the Star Trek universe.

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee
Current Music: Iris Dement: Our Town

Art Nouveau / Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva/ Admiralty under the snow

I just figured out that my recent "fix" of Bessie is actually an upgrade. Really now, how many of you are being continuously pestered by our cybernetic overlords to sign up for "two factor verification"? Well, Since I have unhooked the battery and you have to put the cable back on before starting, and still have to have the keys. I am doubly secure.

Cookies Today:

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup Butter

1/2 cup molasses

2 egg

2-1/4 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoon "Pumpkin Pie Spice"

3 tablespoons ground ginger

white sugar for rolling

The usual is in order here....wet stuff and sweet stuff and eggs and butter all get creamed. Then the dry stuff goes in and then, when everything is mixed, the dough goes into the fridge for a couple hours to set up.

Use a cookie scooper thingy to make the balls of dough and roll the balls in sugar if you want them to be pretty or just onto a cookie sheet if your aren't into it. They will get eaten either way.

375 F. Oven. 12-14 minutes, Cooling racks make things work better.

Eldest is snoring on the floor. He is working out his commutes and sleeping arrangements and right now he seems to be planning to couch surf a bit at my locale. I don't mind a bit, but it takes some getting used to.

Screed:

I am always kinda surprised by folks who think that we will get "back to normal" soon. Hey, it might happen, but truthfully I tend to think that this is going to be a lot more drawn out than people think. I see a below-20% chance of things "returning to normal" anytime in 2020. I hope that the optimists are correct, but I sure ain't putting any money on that.

I think that the way that we were running our lives was approaching it's "pull-by" date anyway. Of course, those of you who know me and read this little vanity occasionally know full well I am a glass is half empty and it is cracked and leaking anyway kind of guy.

Nope, what we have ahead of us is a new normal. and it looks to be a normal with far fewer toys and luxuries than we have become accustomed to.

Now, don't get me wrong for a minute, we will be just fine, but there are a lot of people out there who are going to be very pissy that their toys are taken away from them. It is those folks who bear close watching. Those folks who have managed to hang onto their toys will wonder what all the foofooraw is all about.

Current Location: happy lamp and coffee
Current Music: Elton John: Daniel

Baroque / Francesco Guardi/ Nighttime Procession in Piazza San Marco

I keep fishing about for something worth spending some time jotting down my thoughts. Lately the clown car that is American politics has been so stupid that I steer away from the imbecility and look elsewhere for my cantankerous muse. But the overall muse has been escaping me. I appear to be lost in the weeds of the mundane. Higher thoughts are keeping a respectful distance.

I am not so much complaining as stating the facts on the ground. I am certain that the muse will return, but when and if that bitch returns I am not at all certain I will be fully appreciative of the gifts she will bring.

Current Location: Happy Lamp and Coffee
Current Music: Zoe Muth and the Lost High Rollers: Not You

Baroque / Nicolas Poussin/ Autumn (The Spies with the Grapes of the Promised Land)

Going to play a little bit of hooky today, I am figuring to take off around 13:30 and head to have bevvies with an old friend, Sure sounds good to me.

Things are getting to the point where I will have to buckle down even tighter than what I have done thus far. I am thinking that that I amy have to spend quite a bit of time with a spreadsheet starting in February. Got a row to hoe, and the means to do so, just have to make the plan good. I realized yesterday that I didn't have to go through to the end of 2020, I can bail three months earlier at the end of September. 33 months. I can do that easy.

Screed:

Well, I'll be curious how this works. Like it or not, Trumpy's hit order may well not have the intended results (Imagine that). I find it curious that the media has been so muted, perhaps they have realized that the drones strike strategy has run it's course and maybe the Iranians were calling a poorly played bluff.

Things might go a bit dicey now. I am waiting for how the expulsion order from the Iraqi Parliament plays out. I am waiting to see how the reformation of the Mahdi Army plays out. I am waiting to see how Trump reacts.

I'll be curious

Current Location: In front of the happy lamp
Current Music: Fleetwood Mac: Oh Well (Part One)

Regionalism / Norman Rockwell/ Boy and Girl gazing at the Moon

It's my fucking birthday. I'm 66. Shit.

Screed:

I laughed inside when I was the Rockwell above. In a lot of ways, the paintings of Rockwell defined my youth. I wish that we could wish our way back to the now maudlin, somewhat fatuous days where America was Rome.

I guess that is the way she goes. Lives rise and fall, empires rise and fall.

I am hoping the decline goes a little shallower in the none-too-distant future. I wouldn't mind the finishing up the movement from Student to Householder to Hermit. If it is OK with any and all, I will forego the Aesthetic.

Current Location: happy lamp, wistfulness and coffee
Current Music: Jimmy Buffett: Lage Nom Ai

Michael:

Leaving aside the bottom ~20%, it is the next big group up (the lower/middle and middle segment of income earners/spenders in the US) who determine which jobs stay in the US and which don’t; it is not the “elite” (unless “elite” means this big group - which is a reasonable use of the term if it is meant to relate to those who do not care enough about the lower 20% to help them).

John:

I would like to refine these definitions a little bit. Now, I like using the folks over at DQYDJ as they have some pretty spiffy statistics and graphs to allow a better set of definitions and allow us to better pigeonhole things as a beginning step for analysis. I do propose that we split the populace into three groups as follows:

GeeWe’reFucked: (income ≤$30,000) bottom quartile

TheFifty: (Income $30,001 to $110,000) middle two quartiles

Elite: (Income > 110,001) top quartile

I feel more comfortable with this from my vantage point of living in a urban area. It also matches up pretty much with the Hoi Polloi that I deal with in the day to day. Here in Portlandia, it appears to me that struggle primarily of failures below 30K.

So, if we use these three groups, the folks >110K have it pretty sweet, the folks below 30K have it pretty shitty. The majority group in between is the swing group. This is the group that we want to discuss.

MICHAEL:

With regards to American jobs staying or leaving, the job given to a CEO of say GM, is to determine what this big group of people want them to do; not what the “elites” want them to do. I suspect that most liberals would scoff at this claim and consider it naïve. The reason why this explanation is not naïve, is because the actual elites (those very wealthy via capitalism) want the same decisions made as the middle class does.

This is where I start to diverge from Michael’s thoughts. I don’t think that the CEO of GM cares not one iota about what TheFifty think. In my honest opinion corporations in today’s America do more to create the image and the thoughts of TheFifty than they spend time listening. Bernays and his ilk have reduced the relationship of the corporation to the consumer to a strictly manipulated affair, with the corporation being the subject and the consumer being the object. The power structure of this relationship is asymmetrical and the power of the corporation’s just keeps growing with the media and the shameless manipulation of the internet contributing to the rise.

Now, oddly enough, this probably causes the hypothetical CEO a bit of internal mental issues because of the contradictions that come next. TheFifty are starting to catch onto the manipulation and are starting to push back. This is causing the CEO to actually pay more attention to consumer thought so that he can better manipulate.

The Elite (of whom the CEO is a card-carrying member) could give a rat-fuck about what TheFifty think. The Elite want three things and three things only:

Return on investment
Return on investment
Return on investment

Because, simply put, the CEO serves as an extension of the elites and is there to provide the rents that constitute the ROI described above. If the CEO does not provide them the ROI, the CEO won’t be one for much longer.

Now, in the mythology spread out like organic fertilizer on this rich land, the Elite will explain the concept as being a boon to all, where the middle and lower class will retire with pleasure and golf due to the can-do American Capitalist system. But the numbers don’t play out.

Here in America, we have shifted the debate to emphasizing the concept of “Income”. I have always felt that this was probably the single most elegant move by the oligarchs that truly run this country. They managed to isolate a minor component of the overall economy and put it to the fore while placing the real money and power off limits. I have taken some of the data from over at DQYDJ (Don’t Quit Your Day Job) and pulled together some tables to illustrate the income variation.

So that really doesn’t show too much. Essentially the top 25% has more income than the bottom 75%. I suppose that I could live with that, but it still isn’t good.

Now, lets look at Net Worth

Now that kinda changes things a little, doesn’t it? The 85% of the net worth in America that calls the tunes for out poor beleaguered CEO cares dick-all what the FiftyPercent think. The 85% of stock wants their ROI.

NOTE: I will get cracking on the next two paragraphs and post when completed, Thursday at the latest.

Current Mood: 減少
Current Location: Kitchen Table:

Talked with Mike last night. This is nearly always a good thing.

As always, got me thinking sideways. We had our talks about Girard and Shopenhauer, I have been reading Clausewitz and Sun Tzu and plowing through other works and thinking way too much about creating a syncretic model that can differentiate the world as it is and the world that I theorize.

I should have been doing this my whole life, but I spent time doing a lot of other different things to keep myself occupied. Raising young men takes some time, science eats away at your time to do the task, school is usually wasted on a callow youth, the military life does not usually lead to introspection.

So you have to wait until later. When the needs of the world don't press so hard on you you can finally take the time. Which is unfortunate, because when you finally have that precious time, what ends up happening is that you waste a lot of time trying to rationalize your past actions.

But then you get over it, and you can put down your scales of judgement and forgive yourself the less-stellar decisions of the past, realizing most of the bad decisions were one (or both) of either of the "it seemed like a good idea at the time" or "choosing between bad choices". Of course, there is always the occasional "I can't believe that I was that fatuous" thrown in for good measure.

But even late, the idea of reconciling the phenomenal world with the mystic is really the only worthy goal. Because, in the end, only the soul matters.

Current Mood: Laundry
Current Location: Kitchen Table
Current Music: Todd Snider: Like a Force of Nature

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Degringolade

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