a wolf among wolves

Desire doesn't believe it too terrible to conceive
Of these bodies pressed in warm, intriguing geometries.
Of lending out limbs for cold and hair for rain,
Then lending back breath and parcels of pain.
Having locked up a door and turned on a light,
Being amused at how some flesh changes tonight.
Having located those regions of plenty and more,
Bliss to forget now and never remember before.

A sincerest hope
to be inhabiting the absolute
worst place on the face of the Earth:
Tremoring to ponder
how dreadful it would be
to flee into the gaping maw of life,
wet and taunting, pouting,
"More of the same."
Wise enough to know
the inevitable failure
of hedging such bets,
but clever enough to note
annihilation the sole alternative.
Irrelevant whether objects are perception,
or whether objects or perception,
even if perception alone.
Wise enough to abandon hope,
too human to try,
Amen.

Nick Ziegler
Comp Gov, Borgens
Extra Credit
36. Within Third-World countries, people are flocking to the cities. Overpopulation and few jobs in the countryside push people to the cities, where many live in shantytowns. The Third World already has the globe’s biggest cities, most surrounded by shantytowns.
The top ten largest cities proper are in the Third World, or developing countries. Furthermore, six of the ten largest metropolitan areas are in the developing world. For example, in China prior to the 1970s, the percentage of the population considered urban never exceeded 20 percent ; by the 2000s, the urban population was just over 40% of the total and growing. The explanation for such migration seems common-sensical: wealth tends to accumulate in cities (especially in a growing economy like China’s with a government that invests heavily in infrastructure), while rural opportunities become fewer and fewer. Again turning to China, “between 1988 and 1995, the percentage in poverty increased from 27 to 31 percent for rural Chinese in the western region,” while the rich-poor gap is growing every year. In 2005, the urban/rural income ratio in China was as much as 3.3 to 1.
Trade liberalization, especially as it is practiced and in contrast to the promises of its proponents, tends to maintain or increase economic disparities between countries, and can wreak havoc on a developing nation’s agricultural sector. Trade agreements, such as NAFTA in 1994, are “asymmetric, opening up markets in the developing countries to goods from the advanced industrial countries without full reciprocation. A host of subtle but effective trade barriers has been kept in place.” In NAFTA’s case, within its first decade the income disparity between Mexico and the United States grew by 10 percent. This is partly due to the prevalence of agricultural subsidies in the United States. Unable to compete with subsidized US corn that arrives without tariffs, many farmers are nonetheless unable to switch to other crops, or they reside on land unsuitable for most other crops. Similarly, in 2002 US pork cost 27 cents per pound in Mexico, whereas domestic pork cost $1.14 per pound. In contrast, employment in maquiladora factories along the US-Mexico border producing parts for US firms such as General Motors and General Electric grew 110 percent over NAFTA’s first six years (eventually declining as China began to manufacture parts and products more cheaply). If a nation is flooded with cheap or free (this is a problem for countries receiving food aid as well) food products, those previously making a living by producing food domestically often have to find industrial or service sector employment, which is found in or around cities.
As was mentioned earlier, the urban/rural disparities that contribute to urban migration are affected by public investment. Poor infrastructure in rural areas, aside from illiberal subsidization by exporters, can make food and other goods produced in these areas more costly and, consequently, less competitive. Similarly, education and research are important to economic growth, and on those occasions when developing nations invest substantially in these areas at all, rural areas are often neglected in favor of urban areas. China invests twice as much as Mexico in these areas , which helps explain its rise and Mexico’s fall as factory to the US.
The urbanization trend is a cause for concern because rural persons migrating to urban areas to find economic opportunity do not necessarily find it. Cities cannot accommodate the influx of residents in some areas, and underclass villages with poor sanitation and living conditions accumulate around the city center. There is a political threat of an organized urban class (justifiably) becoming agitated, and potentially revolutionary. Furthermore, the poor conditions are themselves ethically worrisome. Crime is common in such areas, and affects the original city dwellers directly.
If it is accepted that overwhelming urbanization (faster than infrastructure and economic growth can accommodate) is a problem, governments and the world community should commit themselves to alleviating the root causes of it. As there is an intrinsic asymmetry in purported free trade agreements, efforts should be made to ensure they are biased in favor of developing nations. Long-term development aid should be emphasized over economy-crippling food hand-outs. Developing nations should not be afraid to prosecute instances of food dumping (selling surplus agricultural products below cost to other nations to minimize losses) by developed nations. And it needs to be a priority to ensure that rural populations are adequately represented at all levels of government, and are adequately informed about their rights and about the issues affecting them, so that they can demand education and infrastructure investment in their communities. These solutions are attractive because, independent of their effect on urbanization trends, they are the right things to do anyway.

In our opinion the world stood still.
Like two thighs, and fire, O
Inviting and easy, warm for steel, hot.
Two missiles aiming easy.
The majesty, and terror, O
Symbols and ideas in flames now.
Nothing changes, nothing's changed.
Fire cannot consume our ideas, O
Trembling on, weary and afeared.
Missiles spin round pointing East.
Nothing changes, though trying, O
Let us tremble on, and fire into minds.
Persisting, they taunt and strengthen.
Nothing changes, but magnitude, O
How magnanimously provoked it is.
Drawing on best armor and better myth.
Another language, in another world, O
How do they not bow to us yet?
Leaves in September, soil by spring.
A tree is choking new growth, O
None knowing the depth of its roots.

by claiming that other animals do not have souls.

Nonetheless, this pig has soul.



And perhaps these ones would, too.



I warn you, though. Do not be misled by the shots of free cattle, pigs, and chickens near the end of the video. The proposition would not ensure this. Animals could and would still be produced using battery and intensive methods, but they would be allowed the minimal space necessary to turn around and extend their limbs. Imagine if you were, from infancy, kept in a cage in which you could not lift your arms or extend your legs. This is the reality of these beings. Behaviors, such as wing flapping and dust bathing, are hardwired in chickens, and similar behaviors are in other animals. Psychosis routinely disturbs these animals; chickens beaks are seared off to avoid chicken death (lost profits), and pigs must have their tails removed because after such confinement their fellow pigs behind them will out of boredom and confusion painfully gnaw off the tail in front of them, leaving festering, infected wounds.

Furthermore, the law ONLY COVERS pregnant pigs, veal calves, and egg-laying hens. All other pigs will be produced under the same conditions.

Additionally, the law does not apply to procedures deemed "scientific or agricultural research," nor of course during transportation, nor for entertainment uses ("rodeo exhibitions, state or county fair exhibitions, 4-H programs, and similar exhibitions"), nor for the seven days prior to the "expected" day of birth of a mother sow.

Breaking this law is a misdemeanor with a fine not to exceed $1,000 and county jailing not to exceed 180 days.

This would not do nearly enough to ensure that animals would live lives that, though short, were flourishing and fulfilled. This does not ensure that their basic interests are seen to. This is a minimal measure that would be cynical were the situation not, at present, so dire.

It is also worth noting that by outlawing battery practices, this can ultimately take a small step towards increasing competition amongst farmers and upset our class system as smaller producers enter the market. But most likely this will not have great effects on the animal agriculture market.

But it will have a great effect on the lives of millions of animals. Animals that will still be miserable and will still require our advocacy, but will be one step closer to a relative liberation.

Vote YES on Proposition 2. And continue to support animals. Make California a leader in extending our sphere of moral consideration to species that, though they cannot speak human languages, can feel as much as you or I.

Everything passes:
Little comfort in a time of little comfort.
Tell how it's not as it seems,
However it is that it seems to be.
Some say unmoored, but
Anchored, yes, merely floating.
On a too-slackened rope,
On a too-turbulent surface.
Beneath here is calm,
And beneath here is death, it seems.
But an anchor undisturbed by
The choppy undulations of
Some worldly sea, I,
If I could be. But no:
Everything passes.
Yet on this surface, everything
Is the same the more it ebbs.
But then, some say,
It's not as it seems.
However.

So I think my employer is beginning to hate me?

A few days ago, I asked if I could take my fifteen minute paid break. I had a mere four hour shift, and I had just hit my second hour. There were no customers, so I thought it was a respectable and respectful (and legally optimal) time to take it. I asked the owner if I could take my break.

"Yeah, whatever, do what you want."

Because obviously I'd have to be some kind of communist to, you know, want to honor the laws that protect people like me (worker) from people like him (capitalist).

"Well, it is the law after all."

"What did you say? Huh?"

"I said that it is the law."

"Did I say no? Huh? Did I say no?"

Now, some background: intimidation really doesn't work on me. Especially when people are so obviously wrong and arrogant, I by default just kind of deadpan and state truths. Further background: this owner has somehow convinced some co-workers of mine to work for him FOR FREE sometimes. One will come in early and work several hours before clocking on. He asked another to come and and cover the shift of two girls who were going to his wife's baby shower for free as well. This is illegal, as are other things he's doing, but we'll get back to that later. But the point is, I think he's so used to people allowing themselves to be exploited that me even taking advantage of my breaks is distasteful to him.

Maybe I exacerbated the situation, though, when I stated plainly that he did not say no, because he can't say no, because, again, it is the law?

[Aside: I'll grant that the California labor code protects ten minute breaks for shifts over 3.5 hours, taken halfway through the shift, but the documents we signed at time of employment allow us fifteen minute breaks, and these documents are legally binding themselves.]

So then I just read for my break, then went back to work, and didn't act any differently or anything. But I could tell he was kind of annoyed.

So I've worked every day since, and nothing really came up. Today he reminded me to take my break. I counted it as a victory for awesomeness?

But there was a meeting at 8:30pm today. I was scheduled until 8pm, but was asked to assist in closing. I obliged, and it would've been foolish to not close considering I'd have to stay for the meeting, which was mandatory.

It did not even occur to me to clock out for a mandatory meeting. Again, meetings of this nature count as "hours worked":

46.1.1 The DLSE Interpretation Of Hours Worked which provides that: “[U]nder
California law it is only necessary that the worker be subject to the ‘control of the
employer’ in order to be entitled to compensation” was found by the California Supreme
Court to “be consistent with [the Court’s] independent analysis of hours
worked.” Morillion v. Royal Packing Co. (2000) 22 Cal.4th 575, 583 [citing to DLSE O.L.
1993.03.31].

...

46.6.5 Training Programs, Lectures, Meetings. The Division utilizes the standards
announced by the U.S. Department of Labor contained at 29 CFR §§ 785.27 through
785.31 in regard to lectures, meetings and training programs:
Time spent by employees attending training programs, lectures and meetings are not
counted as hours worked if the attendance is voluntary on the part of the employee
and all the following criteria are met:
1. Attendance is outside regular working hours;
2. Attendance is voluntary: attendance is not voluntary if the employee is led to
believe that present working conditions or the continuation of employment
would be adversely affected by nonattendance;
3. The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee’s job:
training is directly related to an employee’s job if it is designed to make the
employee handle his job more effectively as distinguished from training him for
another job or to a new or additional skill; and
4. The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.

Conditions 2 and 3 were not met.


Anyway, apparently most of the people had clocked out. About ten minutes into the (boring) meeting, the owner's henchman, the one who works for free all the time (in exchange for a feeling of superiority and justification in telling others what to do), I guess mentioned that he didn't see me clock out, then he says "Nick, did you clock out?" I looked to the owner to ask his own questions, because that information is not really the business of someone with the same position as me. He repeated the question, to which I replied "no."

"Then you can go home."

"Ok, bye. Have a good night!"

Now, if we look at this situation: the meeting was mandatory. If I had refused to attend, clocking out after my shift then leaving, there would be repercussions. So I stayed for the meeting, but didn't clock out, and was sent home as "punishment." Coercion much?

The annoying thing about this is that a serious situation is being created at work when there shouldn't be one. One would hope employers would not try to pull these sorts of things just to save on labor costs, but I guess you can't expect much from a franchiser. ("Let's see... I have some money, and I don't want to work, but I want to make more money, but I don't have any ideas that will contribute to the culture of my community... I'll just buy someone else's logo, products, and concept and sell them under the guise of entrepreneurship!" Does that sound bitter? ;])

What bothers me is that some of the kids he hired haven't had jobs before. So they won't realize they're being exploited.

Maybe this doesn't seem like a big deal to other people, but I think we need more labor protection in this country/state, not less. I really do have a huge problem with people who wield their money like moral authority and try to get more than they justly deserve out of individuals who are just trying to get by. I exclude myself from this group, as I'm perpetually-hanging-out, to be honest. But on principle I won't sit at some dumbass meeting off the clock as if it's for my own edification just because my employer thinks $8/hr is too generous.

Sooo yeah I'm basically the Rosa Parks of coffee shops?

I've read some books this year! I'll try to list most of them!

The Fall by Albert Camus
Development as Freedom by Amartya Sen
Pathologies of Power by Paul Farmer
Tao Te Ching by Lao tzu
The President of Good and Evil by Peter Singer
We Wish To Inform You that Tonight We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch
Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong
Language in Motion by some people I don't remember (a simple book on Sign Language)
Forbidden Signs by Douglas C. Baynton
Complications by Atul Gawande
The Universe in a Single Atom by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
The Wisdom of Insecurity by Alan Watts
The Trial by Franz Kafka
Debating the Death Penalty edited by Hugo Adam Bedau
No Logo by Naomi Klein
Animal Liberation by Peter Singer
Symposium by Plato
Money Sex War Karma by David R. Loy
The Way of Zen by Alan Watts
Introduction to Metaphysics by Martin Heidegger
Alone With Others by Stephen Batchelor
The Communist Manifesto (Norton Critical Edition) by Karl Marx (and, some would say, Frederick Engels, though that's probably not true) (This edition has a bunch of awesome extra essays in the back that are collectively larger than the Manifesto, and more informative/provocative. It's hot.)

And now I'm reading Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism by Chogyam Trungpa.

Not bad for half a year, I think. This is most of them, possibly all of them. They're kind of in order a little, but not quite.

-Existential crisis, re: alienation
-New job
-I fall in love with girls who don't reciprocate friendship fully...
-...(cont.) and my "falling in love" is actually a misinterpretation of a desire for friendly reciprocity
-i.e. I find disappointment sexy (and wish I didn't)
-Hope

Tell me about your day.

Sit alone and you can hear the machines. The makers hum a tune neither sad nor of joy. The dog is chained behind the fence, and her rebellion is mocked. The wind whistles as it passes over the ceramic and wire. The window is cold to the touch of the sun, opaque in the glare, housing something. I sit alone and I can hear the machines, making something that we haven't a name for. Alone, sitting, with a name for each part, but no arithmetic to uncover the mystery of a whole. Makers humming, something housed in the vibration of a window, cold to opaque. The dog rebels against her accusers, unaware of her crime. A car goes by, the lawn is mowed, hum, hum. The sun feels right in the wind that passes over tile and steam it never meant to touch. A door is shut, a door opens, the cool spills out and then is gone. Spring, spring is here. The asphalt blooms in pools of heat, and the nameless sings a maker's song, on behalf of someone somewhere housed inside. Dewdrops carry the promise of a change, chained behind a fence in rebellion, crying against the idea of it all.

I just watched Noah Baumbach's (The Squid and the Whale, Kicking and Screaming) latest film, Margot at the Wedding. I enjoyed it immensely. I am out of the cinema loop, but I saw it by chance at Blockbuster and when I saw who wrote and directed it I immediately decided to rent it, since the Squid and the Whale is quite possibly the best screenplay of the decade and one of the best films.

The film is notable for being systematically and intentionally uncomfortable. Cinema is a medium of surfaces, and Baumbach exploits this by not giving the viewer any cues whatsoever. Most of the film takes place within an around a home, and the anxious camera moves and locations intensify a sense of claustrophobia as a family self destructs. This is a great film about a contentious sibling relationship. Siblings are the first people we feel rivalry and competitiveness with, and the film's unstable characters with traumatic pasts cannot handle being trapped together. The sisters are endlessly suspicious and even vile towards each other.

It is interesting and commendable how Baumbach keeps his audience completely in the dark. Aside from there being no establishing shots or conventional progression of scenes, the character relationships and histories are not made explicit. Rather, it is only the excellent performances and an implied undercurrent of hostility and separation that echo of a lingering anxiety. Each of these characters warrant a thousand words, though every person who sees the movie will probably come up with a different thousand words than the next.

The film reminds me of Persona, and Woody Allen films like Interiors or September, and Altman's 3 Women. You should probably watch it :)

When the warrior dies in battle, does he do it for honor or because he knows that once a battle is fought nothing else will make life worth living? The difference between safety and imprisonment is choice. Born into a place where there are no battles, merely pathetic frivolities elevated to give them significance, we have to ask: is this safety, or is this something else? There are no enemies to repel, no fortifications to raise. There are no lives to save, only lives to lose. There is only escape. Sometimes it is hot, sometimes it is cold, but never are we compelled to notice. Sometimes it is raining, but that is always happening far away. We can get there in minutes, but for some reason it is impossible to stay. Born in tethers, we claw. We are so safe there is no need for a blade, even if to cut these bonds. The enemies are these walls, our heritage but not our request. The enemy is this cozy nothing that unoccupies meaningless time. To sacrifice is to take a negative force and make it positive; what if the world is a dull, lifeless body with nothing to transform? There is no sacrifice, merely resignation. There is no battle, there is only to wait.

All I want in a place to live is that it does not force me to participate in someone else's idea of a life worth living.

Clichés are either words without meaning, or meanings without words. To use them in the former sense is insulting; to use them in the latter sense is the purest form of spoken communication.

Faith is misunderstood. Faith has no object; faith is a process. Faith is the process of letting go.

Abraham took his son to the mountain. His son let go, carrying the utensils for sacrifice. Abraham tied his son, raised his arm, and let it fall. He allowed it to fall. But also, he allowed it to rise. If Abraham had tried to hold on, he would not be Abraham.

God is not necessary. Faith is the process of letting go.

We do not need faith that somesuch thing exists. We do not need faith that somesuch thing will occur. We do not need faith that things will be better. Faith is to not concern oneself with certainties. Faith is the process of letting go: of certainty, of the future, of the past, of the object, of faith. Faith destroys itself.

If Abraham had become attached to the notion of his son surviving, his son would have died. If Abraham had become attached to the notion of his son dying, his son would have died. Only by not concerning himself did his son live.

If his son had resisted, he might be dead. Only by not concerning himself did he live.

If we accept the Kierkegaardian notion that Abraham is the very model of faith, in parable, then Abraham need not be a man, the mountain not a mountain, and the son not a son. Through an act of faith, we let go of specifics, and ultimately let go of the symbols. We let go of God.

God stands in the way of faith. Let go of God. God is an object, faith is the process that negates him.

And by his negation, we are free. Only without God are we free.

Faith is misunderstood.

When your window is high enough,
You can see everything in a glass.
Eternity is more attractive from up here:
Everything is small, and weak, and oh so
Transient, scurrying and searching for a point.
Every thing that matters can be learned
From though your glass when the window
Is high enough. Then you can lay back,
Contented by your superior insight,
Yet curiously still full of anguish, and
Consider whether it is time or not to die.
Eternity does this to people. Tragically,
All that is real is right now, and the only meaning
Is not in knowing, but in experiencing, not in seeing,
But in doing, not in observing, but in participating.
Sooner or later one must descend, it's just a matter
Of the manner of the fall, and how one's body
Kisses the common streets, gently or indignant.
One cannot recline forever in his tower.

A chariot sound swallows the thought I had.
That night a scent gripped the air, and my neck.
The ice is thick on the panes in my glass,
It all tremors in my hand. I belong only to now.
Stray dogs are barking down the street.
The lamplight flickers, cold then yellow.
It all races down the hall, and then its gone.
I try to remember what it was like before,
But I always seem to happen after.
I dreamt that I was dreaming of somewhere,
And in my dream there was a man.
He held out his hand, and in his palm was a bird.
I reached out to hold it and the man made a fist.
The ice is cold and thick in my hand, with little tears.
It tremors and I awake: to a chariot sound,
Dogs barking somewhere, dreaming down the street
A lamp's light flickers in my hand, moving in the hallway
I dream to remember that somewhere...

The difference between religion and metaphysics is that people care about religion.

Things are going well. Not in the ways I've planned, but in unpredictable ways. I'm meeting people. I've noticed that every time I make an arbitrary decision to go someplace, I see or meet someone. It's bizarre but welcome.

I'm probably going to enter a philosophy paper contest at my school. The winner gets $500, which isn't the point really. I wouldn't presume to have a chance at winning, necessarily. I believe I'm going to write one the topic of "Why should one be ethical?"

I was reading Martin Buber's I and Thou at Borders and it was really fascinating, though I can't afford it presently.

"The created work is a thing among things and can be experienced and described as an aggregate of qualities. But the receptive beholder may be bodily confronted again and again." -Martin Buber

This is in the context of discussing addressing the world at large and portions of it as "you"s rather than "it"s. Essentially, a dialogue with the cosmos. As a Jew, Buber was certainly leading to a theological proposition, but I only read like 25 pages.

So anyway, that quote got me thinking about the philosophy of artistic creation for the first time in a long time. I had an epiphany that perhaps one can only love a work of art in which he or she participates in the creation of or has independently "created" the work. For instance, I love the cinema of Ingmar Bergman, but I feel when watching his films as if they had always existed through me somehow. Or the cinema of Gus Van Sant, or Tsai Ming-Liang, that is so elliptical that half the film necessarily requires creation on the part of the viewer. By understanding the principles of the medium, for instance painting, we can understand the process, and actually create the work of art. But that's an experiential misnomer, for art is not created; it creates itself through a medium.

Thoughts?

You wear yellow in my breath as
I exhale you calmly,
So as not to wake you.
You seem to have such wonderful dreams.
There is a ribbon in your hair
I drown to lie beneath,
A scent blazing cool though the window screen.
Enmeshing us, we falter.
Slacken in time, soften through time,
Prostrate in the now.
The encumbering levity of yellow light
You wear beguiled
Fractures into moments.
A faraway cherry scent,
The vibration of a past,
All of everything in the impasse
Of air between us, we breathe
Yellow light softened through the window screen.
We falter, and I drown to be with you.

A man, businesslike to a fault, on his first blind date.

Man: Hello.

Woman: Hi... it's so nice to meet you.

Man: Ok. (pulls out a stack of index cards and taps them on the table to even them out) I don't want to mess around, and I don't want to waste your time. We need to find out if we're compatible on very important and personal issues. We'll start in alphabetical order... Let's see here... (squinting hard at index card, then suddenly looking up with an expectant expression) Abortion.

Cut.