Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Consumer debt Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 5:46:40 PM     overheard.. House prices - rising more or less in line with increases in the money supply - and low interest rates made it possible to keep the spending frenzy going. Consumers could 'take out equity' while actually reducing their monthly payments. CNN notes that Wells Fargo now offers NowLine Visa, which gives homeowners access to a home equity line that can be used "for everyday expenses like gas, groceries, clothes, etc." ********

Robert Fisk Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 4:37:44 PM     I highly recommend taking some time to read at Robert Fisk's site. His articles for the London Independent have been among the best (mot penetrating and objective revealing, as shown by later events) of the war. His continuing reporting (a thousand Iraqi citizens killed every week...) is important to cope with. http://www.robert-fisk.com/ ********

Urugayan perspective Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 4:26:50 PM     The view from the US does not incorporate views from other places.. By Eduardo Galeano. Writer, Uruguay Translation. coorditrad@attac.org The economy makes assassinations that don't appear in the newspapers:12 children die of hunger every minute. In the terrorist organisation of the world, protected by military power, a thousand million people suffer from chronic hunger and six hundred million people are overweight. Strong economy, low standard of living: Ecuador and El Salvador have adopted the dollar as their national currency, but their populations are fleeing. Never has so much poverty and emigration been seen in these countries. The sale of human meat abroad creates disturbance, sadness and divides. In 2001, the people of Ecuador obliged to seek work elsewhere sent more money back home than the amount of exports in bananas, shrimp, tuna, coffee and cacao.Uruguay and Argentina are excluding their young men. Emigrants, grandchildren of immigrants, turn their backs on destroyed families and memories that hurt "Doctor, my soul hurts": which hospital has the cure please? En Argentina, a television show allows watchers to win a top prize: a job. The waiting lists are eternal. The program chooses candidates and the public votes. The candidate spilling enough tears to make the public cry wins. Sony Pictures is selling the successful program throughout the world. ********

The american psyche Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 4:11:34 PM     overheard "The real symbolic question today is the nature of the two symbols of freedom and equality in the American psyche. For the moment we need to assume that we canít "have our cake and eat it too." In other words, the two visions of America ? the vision of freedom and the vision of equality - are paradoxical visions. Each has a truth but its truth cannot exist at the same time as the other truth." ********

Note on individualism. Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 2:26:01 PM     Given that human beings are characteristically projectors of deeper human qualities either on to gods or heros, we can  see that idividualism is not a nutural stance: it tends to empower individuals with god pojected powers, and to de-divinize the surrounding natural envirnment and its forces. Thus theories of projection tend to support the indivdualist view (projections come from the psyche, rather than being intuitive perceptions of nature). Individualism is not objective: it is a belief system with consequences.   ********

Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 10:32:45 AM     observation Parents are afraid that, if teachers were paid more (as much as the parents make) the teachers would more easily take over the whole role of the parents. Social distance protects the parents' connection with the children. The parents envy of the teachers is supported by their contempt for the incomes. ********

The longer term crisis of capitalism Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 10:04:19 AM     Of course World war 1 and 2 are part of the "crisis of wesern capitalism", struggles on how to organize colonies, and after that, how to use captial and technology. Intra-collegiate ars.... ********

poem Posted here Wednesday, October 15, 2003 at 9:26:52 AM     WE who living die We who living die We do not get death correct It is not to those who go direct But to us who remain To feel the pain Of the other's oblivion That reduces us to nothing Crushes our ego Dwarf's the body and its skills Occludes from us the distant hills The joy of refreshing Trapped as we are in narrow regressing Bathed in tears, still advancing in years. Death is a fact for the living left behind Not those to whom it was rather kind The sadness at their disrupted projects Is ours, not theirs. Yet death we like to think, is unfairly blind. ********