As I Consider the Possibility of Eviction...
Many thanks to the nine people who have donated in response to the preceding post. As things stand now, I won't be able to pay the June rent. I guess there's a real possibility I'll be dealing with a three-day notice and eviction proceedings before long.
I understand that most blog readers are solely interested in posts published nownownow, and that anything published even a week or two ago is considered old news. I might be slightly sympathetic to that view if what most bloggers (and twitterers) write was actually new, but of course 99.99% of what's "new" is recycled, erroneous, frequently stupid crap that was recycled, erroneous, usually stupid crap before any of us appeared on this planet. Ah, well. I lost that battle long ago.
Nonetheless, and since I'm still getting my writing legs back after this health-induced hiatus, I was thinking about the hundreds and hundreds of posts lurking in my archives. I also understand that most current readers never venture into the archives. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to direct you to some articles you might find of interest, despite the lamentable fact that they predate Gutenberg. I think these particular entries have stood the "test of time" quite well, if I were to be grandiose about it.
The first post I'll mention is "Applauding Maestro Fleisher -- With Both Hands." It's a particular favorite of mine, and I've been meaning to point it out for a while. The essay concerns an interesting intersection of art and politics; it also provided me a chance to write about an unusually fascinating chapter from an Oliver Sacks book. Because classical music and the piano are great passions of mine (I briefly studied full-time to be a concert pianist when I was a teenager), it was a joy to write that piece. I'm sure almost no one even remembers it.
The next article is "When Awareness Is a Crime, and Other Lessons from Morton West." I discuss a group of courageous and deeply admirable high school students who peacefully protested the (then) ongoing Iraq occupation. The reward for their awareness -- and their willingness to do something about it -- was to be threatened with expulsion. The episode was outrageous and sickening, but it provided an illuminating example of the multiple lessons being delivered to the students, and to all the rest of us, every day.
"'Regrettable Misjudgments': The Shocking Immorality of Our Constricted Thought" is an overview of the sickening superficiality of our "national discourse," with an emphasis on foreign policy. The essay also reviews the history and development of the false and exceedingly dangerous notion of American Exceptionalism.
I had a lot of fun with the next one: "Unreasoning Hysteria as the Default Position: Joan Crawford Does Foreign Policy." The title accurately conveys the subject matter, and I remain inordinately fond of the little speech I devised for Ms. Crawford as she discourses on the complexities of human entanglement.
"Best. Government. Ever." is a sardonic take on the lunacy and idiocy of the FISA bill passed in the summer of 2007. I found it grimly amusing to read it now, after the past year of the "Great Debate" about government surveillance. For those who were paying attention, all of the issues about which every nincompoop has fervently brayed and bleated in recent months were entirely clear at least seven years ago (when I wrote this post), and actually long before that.
Finally, "Unwelcome History -- Religion, the Progressives, Empire, and the Drug War" offers a review of some history which is unknown to most people (including most people who write about contemporary politics). Among other issues, the article discusses the centrality of an "aggressive, evangelical form of pietism" to the Progressive moment of the early twentieth century, and to Woodrow Wilson's presidency and the drive to involve the United States in World War I. That pietism had other grievous results as well, including the Prohibition movement. I include a description of the astounding and startling results brought about by the combination of the ascendant authoritarian state, peitism and prohibition, and the appetite for vicious war propaganda, including one prohibitionist's impassioned declaration: "We have German enemies," he warned, "in this country too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller."
I note two further points about the articles described above. Not one of them appears in the list of Major Essays on the home page of my blog. In fact, with the exception of the Leon Fleisher essay (which, as I say, I'd intended to mention for a while), I found all of these articles essentially at random -- just following links around, until I came across a piece that made me think, "Yes, that might be a good one to mention." But I could have chosen many others; there are many hundreds more from which I could have made my selection.
Oh, well. Old news, right? Who gives a damn.
So I'll return to planning for eviction, and making sure my cats have homes.
I understand that most blog readers are solely interested in posts published nownownow, and that anything published even a week or two ago is considered old news. I might be slightly sympathetic to that view if what most bloggers (and twitterers) write was actually new, but of course 99.99% of what's "new" is recycled, erroneous, frequently stupid crap that was recycled, erroneous, usually stupid crap before any of us appeared on this planet. Ah, well. I lost that battle long ago.
Nonetheless, and since I'm still getting my writing legs back after this health-induced hiatus, I was thinking about the hundreds and hundreds of posts lurking in my archives. I also understand that most current readers never venture into the archives. But I thought I'd take this opportunity to direct you to some articles you might find of interest, despite the lamentable fact that they predate Gutenberg. I think these particular entries have stood the "test of time" quite well, if I were to be grandiose about it.
The first post I'll mention is "Applauding Maestro Fleisher -- With Both Hands." It's a particular favorite of mine, and I've been meaning to point it out for a while. The essay concerns an interesting intersection of art and politics; it also provided me a chance to write about an unusually fascinating chapter from an Oliver Sacks book. Because classical music and the piano are great passions of mine (I briefly studied full-time to be a concert pianist when I was a teenager), it was a joy to write that piece. I'm sure almost no one even remembers it.
The next article is "When Awareness Is a Crime, and Other Lessons from Morton West." I discuss a group of courageous and deeply admirable high school students who peacefully protested the (then) ongoing Iraq occupation. The reward for their awareness -- and their willingness to do something about it -- was to be threatened with expulsion. The episode was outrageous and sickening, but it provided an illuminating example of the multiple lessons being delivered to the students, and to all the rest of us, every day.
"'Regrettable Misjudgments': The Shocking Immorality of Our Constricted Thought" is an overview of the sickening superficiality of our "national discourse," with an emphasis on foreign policy. The essay also reviews the history and development of the false and exceedingly dangerous notion of American Exceptionalism.
I had a lot of fun with the next one: "Unreasoning Hysteria as the Default Position: Joan Crawford Does Foreign Policy." The title accurately conveys the subject matter, and I remain inordinately fond of the little speech I devised for Ms. Crawford as she discourses on the complexities of human entanglement.
"Best. Government. Ever." is a sardonic take on the lunacy and idiocy of the FISA bill passed in the summer of 2007. I found it grimly amusing to read it now, after the past year of the "Great Debate" about government surveillance. For those who were paying attention, all of the issues about which every nincompoop has fervently brayed and bleated in recent months were entirely clear at least seven years ago (when I wrote this post), and actually long before that.
Finally, "Unwelcome History -- Religion, the Progressives, Empire, and the Drug War" offers a review of some history which is unknown to most people (including most people who write about contemporary politics). Among other issues, the article discusses the centrality of an "aggressive, evangelical form of pietism" to the Progressive moment of the early twentieth century, and to Woodrow Wilson's presidency and the drive to involve the United States in World War I. That pietism had other grievous results as well, including the Prohibition movement. I include a description of the astounding and startling results brought about by the combination of the ascendant authoritarian state, peitism and prohibition, and the appetite for vicious war propaganda, including one prohibitionist's impassioned declaration: "We have German enemies," he warned, "in this country too. And the worst of all our German enemies, the most treacherous, the most menacing are Pabst, Schlitz, Blatz, and Miller."
I note two further points about the articles described above. Not one of them appears in the list of Major Essays on the home page of my blog. In fact, with the exception of the Leon Fleisher essay (which, as I say, I'd intended to mention for a while), I found all of these articles essentially at random -- just following links around, until I came across a piece that made me think, "Yes, that might be a good one to mention." But I could have chosen many others; there are many hundreds more from which I could have made my selection.
Oh, well. Old news, right? Who gives a damn.
So I'll return to planning for eviction, and making sure my cats have homes.
posted by Arthur Silber at 12:32 PM
