Web Comics

Web Comics often have a pretty specific sense of humor. They could be on vastly different topics, but they are often the subtlest of subtle you can find. And if not subtle-subtle, they're a meta-joke, a joke about the joke, a joke about comics, drawings, the characters making the jokes unknowingly at themselves,

And, I think, to find them funny, you have to be in a pretty fricken good mood. For example: Dinosaur Comics (www.qwantz.com). I used to read it every morning. I loved it. Now I read it, and I understand why I would crack up every morning, but I don't right now. I'm just not in a good enough mood to find the subtle play between the character's awareness, his words, and the comic's premise "lolable."

Try it. I could be totally wrong. But next time you're in a really good mood, on a kind of high I suppose, go to qwantz.com. It's hilarious. You just sit there thinking about the guy writing it, and how many tiny jokes he's putting in, and you recognize them, and they all combine to be ridiculous AND hilarious, and so there's a lot to appreciate.
But then go when you're not feeling high--can you relate to the mindset of the guy writing it? He had to be happy while writing the comics...and I think you have to be happy while reading them. Otherwise, they're just not that funny.

Favorite Albums?

I'm just posting this to have a non-loseable way of keeping track of this.

But, I wanted to write down some of the albums that I think of as my favorite. Where no matter how many times I listen to them, they have a similar effect as when I first heard them.

* Acrobatic Tenement - by At the Drive-In

* Young Effectuals - by The Helio Sequence

* Broken Social Scene - by Broken Social Scene

* The Garbage Man and the Prostitute - Kill Me Tomorrow

That's it for now, I'll have to categorize these. In fact Broken Social Scene may not even fit in this category of "have listened to a million times but still has same effect."

privacy vs. non-privacy

So, is the idea with privacy really as simple as:

If we don't have privacy, things we'd normally do in private, we'd HAVE to do in public, and so they'd become acceptable (they'd have to), not frowned upon as things to hide.

and so therefore, we wouldn't be living in a society that often ignores real issues and desires of the people. Currently, we deal with issues, but since they are private and technically not admitted, they are much harder to deal with.

So, if things were forced into the public, issues would be more clear and easy to take on.

is that the idea?

our dollars go 35% less far

we're eating lunch, having a grand old time, talking laughing, and then

it's time to pay.

All conversation stops, faces become grave. The transition from gaiety is severe and heavy.

do we need to do away with currency to solve this? OR, should we simply pay before eating?

*.) oh yeah, and um, why I think conservatism is shot term thinking...

I'll probably come in and revise this, but for now, here are a few snippets of why I've developed that view that a conservative philosophy is based around short term thinking and a liberal (that is, socialist, anarchist, etc.) philosophy is based around long term thinking.

--This brief article by Joshua Clover: http://janedark.com/2008/10/apocalyptic_capitalism.html

--that conservatism seems to be based around the idea of a free market. The free market rewards the now, pretty much always since, that seems to be human nature, and so a philosophy based on this will functin like this.

Ok, I just realized something. Right now. And I'm not going to edit this entry.

I think that, to me, I associate conservative ideals with free market ideals, that is, capitalist ideals. And so when I say conservative vs. liberal, I'm mostly saying capitalism vs. marxism/socialism/whatever.

I say mostly because even within the realm of the capitalist world, liberal parties tend to invest resources in the long term (certainly not always) while the conservative fix tends to take the non-near future and community into account.

So, sorry about any confusion!

3.) "Truth has a liberal bias"

Please just hang in until the end:

So, throughout human history, people tend to act with short term self-interest, right? Apparently they prefer it.
However, acting for the long term is always a better idea, and eventually morein everyone's self-interest, right?

But it's harder to prefer this. Just like it's harder to prefer a tabloid headline to a dense essay----Immediate short term gratification is hard to resist and easy to hold onto and get behind.

And, is not short term self-interest at the center of conservative philosophy?

And, is not long term community interest at the center of liberal philosophy

And, is not conservative radio, like tabloids, much more profitable and harder to resist than well...the basically non-existent liberal radio?

Basically what I'm saying is that conservatism appeals more to base urges of humans and takes less intelligence to latch onto. It thinks more like someone on a coke binge, ignoring the inevitable come down as long as possible.

Max, anybody, plz tell me I'm wrong. I feel like an ignorant ass making these assertions, but, I also feel very logical.
________________________________

Rupert Murdoch's father succeeded in the newspaper industry by printing tabloid headlines in "real" newspapers. People couldn't resist. Murdoch himself said, "If it made money, I'd have a liberal TV station tomorrow."

The thing to note is, people like what is easy. Some say, give people what they want, if they want tabloids why not give it to them? Well, if you're a parent and your kid is exposed to heroin and wants more, are you going to give him/her more? No.

People don't always want what is good for them, they want what is easiest and most readily appealing.

Conservatism is easiest and most readily appealing. This does not mean it's good.


Am I overlooking anything major here?

(oh yeah, and, this basically all also applies to the "free market," just because it sells doesn't mean it's good...McDonald's, KFC, etc.--diabetes and obesity didn't exist in China before these places came in.)

2.) looking at community through Spain

Ok, so Spain does not elect a Man--a president--they elect a party, and that party comes with a president.

That is so symbolic.

I understand Barthe's Death of the Author so much better now. The USA is all about authorship, which really is about personal importance, not about authors of books, the idea that the individual is stronger than or an exception to his environment. For example, most stores here are just the name of what they sell "Cervezeria, Cafeteria, Paneria, Posteleria," etc. The name brand, the author of that store, is not so emphasized.

But damn, I'm American and I love those brands. Really. But I see how this can be detrimental. You can rally behind a name, treat the name as though it is responsible, the only one capable. It reduces the community and environment. It takes the credit. Is this necessarily wrong? I understand how it is argued that it is, but it definitely APPEARS that individuals can be quite powerful, however, that doesn't equal rising above the environment I suppose. As Clover says, we don't have free will, and, he makes a pretty convincing case for that.

What I'd like to think about further is what this says for "the meaning of life." For example, the meaning of life in the US seems to be 'to achieve and amass as much as you can.' So then in a place like spain would be be more along the lines of 'to live as happily as you can," ??

so, 'living' vs. 'accomplishing' ??

If things go smoothly in the world, there isn't as much need to 'achieve.' And what I mean by achieve is that drive to always be moving forward and progressing, versus enjoying the now, or something.

Although, do things ever go smootly? that's partly answered by your take on death. Should it be as big a deal for ONE person to die? Caring about each individual deaths makes things a lot harder...

So then is "no on should die," a common modern liberal idea pertaining to war, etc, then preventing progress towards a more "liberal" community oriented world?

It wants to take care of everyone, but when everyone is SOOO important, that's tough.

But people like feeling important. Just like they like being conservative...which'll be my next post.

1.) Privacy

So, I had all these ideas about privacy. I was going through how when people are private everyone's more isolated, how no one knows what everyone's experiencing and how a norm is then super-imposed by media/business/government, How it's easier to exploit such a private people lacking a self-derived identity, and how this relates to culture, to socialism--
And then, I realized this was just Private Property. I had just stumbled upon the foundations of socialism through a different type of property: information.

Oh well.

At the very least, I think it goes to show how thoroughly an ethos infuses itself in a society; I see the lower emphasis on privacy, whether it be personal privacy or private property, almost everywhere in Spain. I would never have expected it to be so consistent. That's the next post though.

epiphany of the moment

I'm told that in Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers it says that a person must generally do something for 10 years before being really good at it.

I've been rambling for almost 10 years now. I'm going to be a professional rambler.

I'm no poet, I can do alright with stories and essays, but MAN, I could be a damn prolific rambler.

Could I then forgo a PhD? or better yet, maybe I could get a PhD in rambling, and thus have hundreds of pages legitimizing my rambles.

I like this.

theft at El Rastro

this morning I got off at La Latina and ordered a cafe con leche and a slice of cake at a cafe, and sat outside. I hoped that in the time I was eating, someone would call me to meet up and we could wander the market.

At the table next to me a mother started VERY loudly telling her daughter to be calm, repeating "it's replaceable honey, it's ok" although she didn't have a very reassuringly "it's ok" voice. The little girl, maybe 4 or 5 let out a little crying, but her older brother helped her be calm a little bit. The dad showed up and was less calm than anyone. He was pissed. Both parents would speak/yell very loudly to the daughter who's "favorite stuff" was in the stolen purse: "BE QUIET!"

Turned out that while they were sitting at the cafe someone came up to talk to them, and on the other side, their purse on the ground was taken. I overheard (it wasn't hard to overhear) the mom ask the dad if he thought they would drop the purse somewhere. I chimed in and told them it's common for them to leave purses in trashcans (I had heard that).

They eventually calmed down, the mom especially, who when coming back from looking in trash cans, told the whole family that it was all replaceable. The dad said something like "he's a horrible person" and the son said something with the word bitch in it (surprising for an 8 or so year old). The dad told him not to say that, hah.

ANYWAY, the part that struck me was how stereotypical it all was.

1. OF COURSE the young American family was the thief's target.
2. OF COURSE they were very upset, and the little girl wanted her things back.
3. OF COURSE they assert that the thief is a bad person.

It's exactly because it's all replaceable for them that the thief chose them. Yes, it ruined their day, maybe the next day too, but after that they will be fine. For the thief, this is acceptable. He knows they can afford it, and he doesn't care if it ruins their day because most of his days are probably just as miserable.

and so, I thought how interesting it is that people always blame it on the person being deranged or abnormal, when really, it's due to easily explainable circumstances. (I'm not saying I'm FOR stealing from individuals, I'd hate it if my stuff was stolen.) I started to think, "hey, people blame individuals because it's easier to think that it's the one individuals fault. What if we made it easier to blame the circumstances, the system, the situation? wouldn't that lead to some change! maybe people would try to change those systems!"

but then I realized that LOTS of people blame the system for EVERYTHING, to a ridiculous and annoying extent.

And so man, I don't know, why do dumb people have to dumb everything down and distract everyone from the real points. Dumb stuff just is way catchier.


And then I looked down in my coffee and there were two little seeds. I got up to leave, brought my plates/cup inside to put on a counter and pay for, but asked a manager looking guy "que es este?" pointing in my cup, and he wondered, then said "limon seeds" and I said "ok" then got out my wallet: "cuanto cuesta" but he said "no no, lo siento" and I said "gracias" and left without having to pay.

Nice.

questions about "Culture"

I'm trying to decide exactly what culture is. Maybe I should read a book on it, but for now I'm just thinking through what I have observed.

If you can add to, please do. I know very little about this.
:::::::

My first definition of culture was "that which can thrive without money" For example, very little in Orange County thrives without money.

Ok, beyond that, I'm thinking it is that which exists between ppl, is created by the interactions of ppl, then dictates the actions/behavior of those ppl. It requiers participation to exist, not money.

What controls culture? well, art comes from it but also directs it. it expresses sentiments of the culture, therefore increasing the memes of that aspect of culture.
Art is more important when culture is more important. Ppl look to it for direction, more or less. It won't feed them.

Ok, so, that's my basic premise of thought. Culture is then acting as a form for people to live and act in, like a government. Cultural rules can become very strong (tradition).
Can culture be controlled by a few?
----->Enter Commercialism:
Only that which makes money thrives. All sentiments, actions, thoughts reduced to money. It is a measurable, quantifiable, commodifiable, exportable culture. Money measures the will of the people.
Clear issue: all people have will, not all people have money.

----->Enter Violence:
To increase cultural memes, physically force it, or at least, physically punish those that disagree. Eventually the culture becomes what the strong decide it is.
Clear issue: violence hurts!

--->Enter Art?:
Make art that reflects your cultural ideals and hope people like it. If they do, the ideals will become more common (memes spread).
Clear issue?: not everyone is good at art?

---
Ok, so, culture eventually develops tradition.
Is this good?
Is it necessary? (or, unavoidable)
And isn't tradition just ideology and hegemony to the max?

In Spain, tradition/culture dictates actions. They work less, drink more(?), smoke more, eat fatty foods, disinfect less, but LIVE LONGER. It seems that the ability to relax and fall back on cultural drives(which don't cost money, and therefore don't need to be worked for) makes them live longer.

BUT:
Some traditions are bad. Some severely injure (bad pork) or maybe are bad for the Earth/sustainability.

So, when is tradition bad? Commercialism, like in the US, is very adaptive to new information, the latest research (although only if it can make money). Is commercialism the only adaptable social form?

I hope not. I think for the answer, I'm going to have to see how the form of the internet/internet culture could apply to "analog" culture.

oi.

*$

You can't just get tea everywhere here, let alone a non-generic black tea.  So when I got off the metro and saw Starbucks (*$) I thought "goddamnit, I'm going to have to try it here at some point," and I knew they would have green tea so I got it.

Fricken 2.30 Euro.  That's almost $3 for a tea bag and hot water.  All I could think was, what are the other prices.  Ok, so, at first the prices for lattes, etc. don't appear too outrageous with numbers like 2.70 for a small, but when you consider that a cafe con leche is the same thing as a latte, then its a little strange that starbucks charges 2.70 for a small and EVERY cafe I've been to is in the range of 1.10 - 1.80,  it's irksome.  

Does that mean starbucks presents themselves as a specialty coffee place here?  At home I'd never buy a coffee product from Starbucks (I'll take it for free though).  Their lattes taste like cheese.  At least in the US, they charge the same price as every other place that serves lattes made by barista's who are trained to prioritize speed over quality.

Maybe the lattes here are excellent.  I just don't know if I can get myself to waste the money on it, when I'm still searching for a decent place to order spanish style coffee here.  Pretty much every place has been dissapointing, but at least with these local places I'm not knowingly paying a premium price for something I'm 99% sure is going to dissapoint.

_________

See this is the kind of post that makes me not want to keep a blog.  If I rant this to friends, they know I'm not an irreconcilable snob.  Man, but what if a non-friend reads this.  I'm gonna feel so lame.

En Espana, habla Espanol!

We're walking to get an unlimited Metro pass for the month of Abril, and this very small and very old (old and small tend to go together in Madrid) says something to us.  She's having trouble walking and seems to need our help.

We're not exactly sure what she wants because she says a phrase quickly then sticks here tongue out between her teeth.  Not like a kid stickin a tongue out at you, but her teeth are bared and she bites down a little on it.  I swear that her teeth were actually a little pushed apart where she puts her tongue.  Thank god I didn't know enough Spanish to ask her if she had something wrong with her tongue (I thought that's why she was showing it to us).  Turns out it was just her thing.

After some frustrated confusion we discover she just wants to hold onto someone's arm to help her walk to....we didn't know.  Jeremia lets her grab his arm.  So the pace is about 1 inch./1 sec. and we have no idea when it will end.  She keeps saying things and "Jota" keeps trying to talk to her.

Over and over she angrily says "En Espana, habla Espanol!"  We try to explain that we just started class and are learning spanish.  We've explained it to others and they appreciated the effort, hah.

Ok, but, Jota starts to laugh at the whole situation, and man, she gets pissed.  "Por que *hahaha*"  She repeats her little credo again and throws Jeremia's arm away from and just rests against the wall instead.  We're in the shop just down the street for 10 minutes.  I walk out and she's still there, BUT some men hold each of her arms, walk her the very short distance to her apartment gate (right before our shop) drop her off, and giggle at each other a bit and hurry to their destinations.

Man, she was cranky.  Hella cranky.  Hell of cranky.  Muy cranky.  Bite your tongue between your front teeth after every sentence cranky.

Maybe I would be too if, after receiving assistance, I still moved that slow.  Or, since I live in the US, I might ride a Rascal.  I don't see any Rascals here.  I don't even know how I feel about those.  They're dorky as hell, but then again, old people don't care, but man, If I was old and rode that in Spain I'd get beat up fast I'm pretty sure.  I'd beat myself up.  These old people walk forever here.  I know one lady in Davis who walks her HUGE bull dog from her front door to the sidewalk, and they just stand in place for 15 minutes...

What would this lady do if she had a Rascal?  What if she was still as cranky?  Would she ride around hitting young whipper snappers (cheeky chicos?) with her, at such a point, unneccessary cane?  How do you fight back to that?  Hmm, if in Spanish, I don't know, but in English, if some old person was doing that and really pissing me off, I'd have some fightin' words.  And if they turned around, I think I could out maneuver that Rascal's wheels. 

Of course, the taunting would only be fun until they fell out of the chair--or worse.  Man, I'd be the worst person in the world if it got to that point.

Luckily, I think this situation is impossible.  Just like I'm lucky that gargantuan insects are impossible, because they're what I find the most frightening.

Man, I'm pretty lucky.  

I'm almost sure I would've got a cane smack if I had known enough Spanish to ask if her tongue was OK.

(I really thought she was trying to show us something wrong with it)

I love how weird old people can get.

glass

I bought MarieLu Original cookies and an Alt Bamber Dunkel at the 24 hr. market by me. The cookies are those thin, sometimes buttery, plain cookies that you only get in europe or international grocery stores. I muy like them.

I thought I'd see if I could get cash back and avoid the withdrawal free of 3 or so $s. As expected, the communication didn't go so well, and it turned out I had to purchase at least 10 Eur. of items to use a card. I went to the ATM, came back, and the guy at the front grabbed my crackers and beer for me.

When he put the beer on the counter we both heard a CRACK, it was the glass top of the counter. I looked worried, and he made a "woops" face and smiled. There was a big dent on the edge of the counter top now. I just want to know what willresult from that.

When I go back will that crack be fixed? Could someone cut themselves on it (I don't think so)? Is he going to be held accountable for it? How's it going to work, or, what I really mean is: how will it work here versus how would it work at home?

Maybe when my spanish is better I'll find out.

homeless

There aren't many homeless in Madrid.
Or they're good at hiding
Or they're bad at begging
Or they're inside hospitals
I don't know because I don't know Spain,
but I don't see many homeless in Madrid.

__________________________________________

I think I should learn a bit about Spain in order to better understand what I see, or, feel like I understand it. I mean, I could read a Rush Limbaugh book and walk around the US and think, "ohh, this poverty is because they don't have family values. I understand." you know and, I wouldn't really understand. Maybe this John Hooper book I have assigned is a bit better than a Rush book--also, maybe the NY Times is better than the National Enquirer, I should look into these things.

Madrid

Mhm, I'm in Madrid. yep, I am in Madrid. who am I writing for? family, Professora Sentillana, friends? We shall see.