We Sat For A Long Time, Confused in Central Park

The view was nice, though.

Dissident Mourns Fall of Wall

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall brought to an end Soviet hegemony over half the world, a well-known expert on walls tearfully wrote on his blog:

"That Wall was the ONLY HOME I EVER KNEW!"

Elsewhere, a young French philosopher wondered if Capitalism's triumph as Communism fell -- described popularly in the 1990s as "The End of History" -- was not in fact the beginning of a far more invidious dark night of the soul. His bleak thoughts resonate throughout his book, Coming of Age At the End of History:

Camille de Toledo burst onto Paris’ intellectual scene in 2008 with his brilliantly incisive manifesto, examining present-day counterculture from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the present. He asks what it is, exactly, his generation is protesting against and contemplates how revolt against western capitalistic values has been neutralized since the time of Francis Fukuyama’s landmark 1989 article “The End of History.” Providing historical context from The Surrealists to Jean-Luc Godard; Guy Debord to Johnny Rotten, Gilles Deleuze to Kurt Cobain, he reveals how the diffusion of political power as well as media co-option have robbed all forms of cultural dissent of their critical potential, leaving behind a new generation of rebels unsure of their cause.

This is more important than you, dear reader, may think, more important than I can express. I can only say, with humor, that we are more doomed than ever before. And if proof is required, just look at the latest news:

"'Bobbitt' Case: I Cut Off Dad's Penis and Burned It, but I Didn't Want Him to Die, Queens Woman Says"--headline, Daily News (New York), Nov. 5
"Woman Forced to Wear Diapers to Work"--headline, Philadelphia Daily News, Nov. 5
"Adopt Me: Prince Charles Looking for Someone to Love"--headline, El Paso Times, Nov. 6

From the Fall of the Wall to the Fall of the Towers is just over a decade, but the 1990s will be one of the most significant era in recent history. In the end, we all fall down.

Ignorance is Bliss

"I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit... For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." -- Ecclesiastes 1, 17-18.

"The Doc said he would inoculate me with a vaccine, then I'd be immunized"

With Swine 'Flu (don't forget that apostrophe, folks!) and regular 'flu stalking the land, conversation this Fall has often turned to the subject of the 'flu shot. Or indeed shots, plural, because regular influenza requires a different (... uh... vaccine? inoculation?) shot from the more scary H1N1 virus, also known as Swine 'Flu.

What is the difference, I wonder, between these verbs, which we all use interchangeably? To vaccinate; to immunize; to inoculate?

Inoculation, strictly speaking, means putting something into another organism where it will grow or reproduce. It is used most commonly to refer to putting serum, vaccine, or antigenic substance into the body of a human or animal, especially to produce or boost immunity to a specific disease.

Vaccination: the word originates with the work of Edward Jenner, sometimes known as the Father of Immunology, because he figured out that milkmaids did not seem to catch Smallpox (and had fair, unmarked skin), because their work with cows (French: la vache, from Latin: vacca), caused them to catch a milder variety of the disease, Cowpox, which produced an immune response. Ergo: they could not catch Smallpox.

Immunization means the process by which an individual's immune system becomes fortified against a disease or pathogen.

After all that, I sort of see how each word differs in its definition, but also how they overlap. It's time for a joke: last winter, a man says to his friend, "I said that Americans would never elect a black man as President, never in a million years, pigs will fly before that ever happens! And the next thing that happens? Swine 'Flu!"

[Adding a final word or three to this post: a fairly common expression at home in Ireland, aimed at anyone who talks a lot, is: "Where you inoculated with a gramophone needle when you where a child?" It seems to be a common expression across the English-speaking world].

Like a slow sledge hammer!

"You are a terrible woman; but I love your pulse!"

I recently watched — and loved — The Millionairess, a play by George Bernard Shaw, in a 1972 BBC production starring Maggie Smith as a monstrous English woman in the title role. Tom Baker hilariously plays an Egyptian Muslim doctor, who is her polar opposite.

She is stinking rich; he gives every penny he earns away to the poor. Shaw uses the play as a vehicle for his Socialist ideals, ramming home point after point about the evils of the wealthy accumulating their money/power while the poor starve, fall sick, suffer and die. He is acute on every point, and though almost too didactic, he is far more subtle than say, Arthur Miller, whose plays are blunderbusses to Shaw's scalpel (and with none of Shaw's humor).

Tom Baker (yes, Doctor Who!) is seen above after discovering that stinking rich Epifania, the Millionairess of the title (Maggie Smith), has kicked someone down a hotel staircase, then pretends it is she who is in need of medical attention. He checks her pulse, and gasps. For she has a pulse "like a slow sledge hammer..."

I love Baker's voice when he delivers this beautifully alliterative line. Of course, the doctor falls in love with her:

THE DOCTOR [coming to her and feeling her pulse]: Something wrong with your blood pressure, eh? [Amazed] Ooooh!! I have never felt such a pulse. It is like a slow sledge hammer.

EPIFANIA: Well, is my pulse my fault?

THE DOCTOR: No. It is the will of Allah. All our pulses are part of the will of Allah.

ALASTAIR: Look here, you know, Doc: that wont go down in this country. We dont believe in Allah.

THE DOCTOR: That does not disconcert Allah in the least, my friend. The pulse beats still, slow, strong. [To Epifania] You are a terrible woman; but I love your pulse. I have never felt anything like it before.

PATRICIA: Well, just fancy that! He loves her pulse.

THE DOCTOR: I am a doctor. Women as you fancy them are nothing to me but bundles of ailments. But the life! the pulse! is the heartbeat of Allah, save in Whom there is no majesty and no might... One, two, three: it is irresistible: it is a pulse in a hundred thousand. I love it: I cannot give it up.

BLENDERBLAND (whom she had kicked downstairs): You will regret it to the last day of your life!

Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity

My friend Drucilla Cornell has written a new book: Clint Eastwood and Issues of American Masculinity.

Briefly: Professor Cornell, a former union organizer and professor of feminist jurisprudence is the presently occupant of the national research foundation chair in customary law, indigenous values and the dignity jurisprudence (that's a mouthful) at the Law Faculty at the University of Cape Town.

She has been interested in the transition of Eastwood (below, with his wife) from his Dirty Harry days to the introspective, even ineffectual men of his more recent movies, grappling (she says) with the classic male American stereotypes — cowboy, cop, soldier, boxer — and, she argues, he has helped sink these images as they were already foundering.

There Are Some Things Money Can't Buy

There are so many reasons to vote that little shit Bloomberg out of office tomorrow, as he attempts to buy a third term (should we say steal a third term?), but here I present two. The first one is the above photo; need I say more?

The second is this fact: at a time when 'ordinary' people are struggling with hard times, poverty, lay-offs, no cash or not enough cash to go around, "Bloomberg is spending $35,000 an hour out of his own pocket on his campaign." [NY1]

Riverside Church Labyrinth

Riverside Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan is the tallest church in the U.S. and also — to my fascination when I first discovered it years ago — has a labyrinth or maze outlined on the floor of the nave.

The labyrinth is designed to be walked by those of faith while pondering and meditating. In the largest sense, it represents the twists and turns of the road of life, those times of confusion or moments of uncertainty, when, in reprising them by walking the labyrinth, one gains at very least perspective on one's problems. Two images of the actual Riverside Church labyinth, below.

From the Past, and Thoughts of the Future

Dear readers, here are a few random images from the past, ending with a book recommendation for the future.

Keith Haring's "Ten Commandments" was exhibited in the U.S. for the first time ever (at the Deitch Gallery in Long Island City, on loan from Nice, in France).

Remember when the world was ruled by folks who looked like those ones (above)? Don't worry, it soon will be again. That's if people like him (below) keep on putzing around (it seems to me) with the delusion that bipartisanship is possible with the radical clerics of the Republican Party of Hatred, Bigotry and No.

Meanwhile, for what it matters (a lot, actually), the New York Times Magazine presents a big article on the Obamas' Marriage.

All of this, and none of it will matter soon enough. For the future, I recommend a read of the book below. An excerpt from the preface follows.

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon

I never heard of these islands before: Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, "where France meets North America!" as the islands' excited web site says. The islands lie just south of Newfoundland, and 800 miles north-east of Boston, in the North Atlantic (see map below). Being close to French-speaking Canada, of course the islands are francophone, but they are also still French territorial possessions! In other words, Americans and Canadians have to pass through French (E.U.) passport control to visit the islands.

Tiny islands indeed. But size matters, and while in fact there are more than two of these petit morceaux, they are collectively known by the names of the two largest islands, naturally. Do not forget that after St Pierre and Miquelon there's also Ile aux Marins, Langlade,and many other little spits of rock.

Chomp

Hallowe'en's Most Terrifying Manifestation

...is Wicked Dusty!

Good God, They're Godless

In this most religious of cities*, atheists are having their moment, see above. Curses! Just when I have started believing in God again! I'm always so unfashionable...

*New York City may be recognized worldwide for Wall Street, Broadway and Sex, but it's crammed full of churches, synagogues, mosques, hospel galls, etcetera...

Welcome News for Politicians, Crooks, Crims

Old Grey Lady Cuts 100 Newsroom Jobs

Wall Street Journal, 10/18/09 — The New York Times on Monday said it plans to shed 100 jobs from its nearly 1,300-person newsroom by the end of the year, the latest in a string of cost-cutting moves as the newspaper grapples with steep revenue declines.

The Times hopes to achieve the cuts through buyouts but will resort to layoffs if it can't get the requisite number of volunteers. The buyout offer, disclosed to Times employees in a memo from Executive Editor Bill Keller, will be made to both union and nonunion employees. The Times will distribute the offers to everyone in the newsroom on Thursday, the same day New York Times Co. reports third-quarter earnings.

Anger at US mixed marriage 'ban'

I keep saying that though U.S. voters elected Obama as President, absolutely nothing else changed in America in the last twelve months...

A white US justice of the peace has been criticised for refusing to issue marriage licences to mixed-race couples.

Keith Bardwell, of Tangipahoa Parish in Louisiana, denied racism but said mixed-race children were not readily accepted by their parents' communities.

A couple he refused to marry is considering filing a complaint about him to the US Justice Department.

Mr Bardwell said he had many black friends and frequently married them.

Possible Religious Link Seen in Mystery of Runaway Goats

Are you kidding me?? This headline (above) is from the New York Times! And wait until you read paragraph one!

Another goat, the fourth in the past four months, was found wandering in the vicinity of the Hutchinson River Parkway in the Bronx over the weekend.

Another goat!? And it seems that:

The goats had baffled animal rescuers, because they were not marked in a way that indicated they were from live markets. They did not have metal tags in their ears and were not marked by spray paint.

This is because:

While the goats could have been dumped sick animals or live-market escapees, a number of neighbors have called animal-care officials to speculate that the goats might be part of the sacrificial rituals of Santeria, a religion created several centuries ago by West Africans enslaved in colonial Cuba and imported to the New York area in the 1940s.

She's in the News...

... but she doesn't look quite like this anymore. She is United States Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe. She is also -- alone -- the only Republican senator to vote for a crucial piece of legislation in the current Obama-inspired attempt to reform health care in America.

(NYTimes:) The Senate Finance Committee voted on Tuesday to approve legislation that would reshape the American health care system and provide subsidies to help millions of people buy insurance, as Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, joined all 13 Democrats on the panel in support of the landmark bill. The vote was 14 to 9, with all of the other Republicans opposed.

On that particular issue, Republicans are freakwently screaming about the cost of health care reform, and that Obama's plan would include artificially fixing the market to accept certain prices for prescription drugs, but no one seems to ask the same people about the cost of the Iraq war: I accept that it does not amount to much of an 'argument', but when did you last hear any sense out of a Republican?

And note this as well: the Obama-inspired reforms are a timid, weak-as-water version of the normal health care systems such as exists in the U.K. or Ireland, and so the Republicans are not even opposing universal health care or anything like it; not even one free check-up with a doctor per year -- they are opposed to making health care insurance more affordable to ordinary Americans. Republicans, of course, are extraordinary Americans.

At the Bronx Museum of Art...

There's a remarkable exhibition at the Bronx Museum of Art — photography by Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao. Commissioned to make art to celebrate the centennial of the Grand Concourse, the illustrious boulevard which travels northwards through the borough and along which were built some of the finest apartment buildings in all America... Above are some examples of the artist's large-format work.

Fuddle Duddle

Press: Sir, did you mouth it?

Pierre Trudeau: [visibly annoyed] What does “mouth” mean?

Press: Move your lips.

Pierre Trudeau: Move your lips? Yes I moved my lips!

Press: In the words you've been quoted as saying?

Pierre Trudeau: [half smile] No.

Press: (After murmurs by other press) What were you thinking… when you moved your lips?

Pierre Trudeau: What is the nature of your thoughts, gentlemen, when you say “fuddle duddle” or something like that? God, you guys…! [walks away]