The Poet of the United States

Cleaning out old AdBusters magazines and found (or perhaps refound) this little story, which someone was nice enough to post online for all to read.

The Poet of the United States

Enjoy.

But it could never happen now ...

Steven Weber assures us this could never happen now ... it is too 19th century.

Ooh! I know! Perhaps the Republicans are playing into some master plan wherein all power is gradually, systematically leeched from the masses and centralized into a snug, capitalistic, corporate version of an aristocracy, keeping The People perpetually strained but entertained by shiny yet easily broken/disposable/replaceable baubles and only minimally involved in the basic running of the country so as to provide the citizenry with an illusion of democratic participation and therefore allowing them to distinguish their lives from that of common, old fashioned serfs.

Read the full-article on the Huffington Post.

Between

Is between inclusive or exclusive?

Dunno why that question just struck me, but I think in perceiving it as exclusive we may be making a mistake. I also think that between is exclusive in Western culture, but inclusive in Asian culture. Though I could be wrong.

I suppose I should acknowledge that the between I am referring to here is the between that is the social and the political. The thing is that the Western tradition puts the social as something that happens between people but is exclusive of those people the social is happening between. While Asian cultures are more like to think of the social that is between as inclusive of the people it is between.

These two models are significant in what they say about the social, the political, and how it is that people interact. And perhaps by thinking of between as exclusive of what the between is between, we are creating a socio-political situation that impedes communication and negatively influences personal involvement. In other words, we are defining the very sources of the between as not part of the between and thus something that stands apart from the process that is between.

Between, in the social sense, is really something that must be inclusive of those that it stands between, so that it does not stand apart from that which defines it, but rather those that define it stand together as a functioning unit of between. I don't mean this in the sense of traditional Asian cultures, because there are other flaws with the model there. Though between is inclusive it it functions to define those who define it, rather than just letting them define the between that is between them. As such, it may be an odd quasi-circumstance where between is both inclusive and exclusive, or is claimed as inclusive but functions as exclusive.

And I have no idea of where I am going with that, it is the just the germ of an idea.

Obsessive Diagnosis Disorder

Is the compulsion to diagnose things other than the statistical mean as aberrant a psychiatric disorder?

You will become mentally ill in 2013 via boingboing.

The Americanization of Mental Illness from the New York Times.

The Best Toys

Wait, since when do environmental activists get to have the best toys?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Afganisu-tan

War made cute. And oddly enough, it still contains more meaningful information than the evening news on the topic.

Why Insurance Companies are Just Plain Dumb

$300 for a portable device that people might find alternate uses for versus $8000 for a stripped-down, custom-built, big-box PC with all the software removed ... you do the math. Now guess which one is the one the insurance companies are willing to provide to those who need them.

Insurers Fight Speech-Impairment Remedy

Apparently people with serious speech impairments only need to communicate when at home, because, you know, they might get discriminated against if they set foot outside the house or something.

How to Stop Gog and Magog

Ermmm .. True or not an interesting read.

The real reason for the invasion of Iraq.

Virtual Discrimination

An interesting article on discrimination against virtual persons via h+ magazine.

NYS Government Adopts Internet Memes

New York State Government adopts Internet memes as the politics of the future. If only they hadn't started with goatse.

Though it would probably help too if they used something other than their own heads to stretch it like that.

I want to know is what are they on, so I can avoid ever trying any of it.

No, really.

They could be doing good, but it is far more important that they argue like spoiled brats whose turn it is to serve the ball. Perhaps it is time they all went back to kindergarten and learned how to share.

Transformation

The Organization for Transformative Works. Making fandom safe for the fans.

On avatar rights and virtual property

An interesting article on why current gaming EULAs are a dead end for virtual worlds and what needs to be done to make virtual world a place where real work can be done.

From

massively.com

Virtual Outreach

Some interesting links on a theme:

• Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds 1
• Understanding Islam Through Virtual Worlds 2
• Virtual Journalism: Inside the Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo
• The Launch of a Journalistic Experiment: The Virtual Newsroom of the American University in Cairo

The Impossible Weirdness of Being

It’s impossible to legislate weirdness, which is a sad thing for the city’s architectural heritage.
from New York Magazine

Reality TV

Note that they don't appear to be installing them in inner cities. At least not for the same reason.

Suburban reality TV.

Word of the Day: Lawfare

Lawfare: The use of law as a weapon of war.

from subtopia

Two Takes on Religion

For those who think the obvious is really surprising, just because it goes against common prejudice, two bits on religion and human nature:

• Scandanavian Nonbelievers from the New York Times
• Re-Engineering Fundamentalism from boingboing

Mark Fiore

I'm gonna put this here so I never have to dig through my bookmarks (scattered across six or so browsers) to accidentally and serendipitously find it again ...

The animated political cartoons of Mark Fiore ... he's awesome.

The Political Arcology

The Continuous Enclave: Strategies in Bypass Urbanism

An interesting, if impractical, idea to use arcologies to redefine and unify fractured political geographies.

From BLDGBLOG

And about time too

Recovery.org

Accountability.

Be happy.

No really. I personally think this calls for a party.