intractible

Friedman's a goddamn idiot.

back when I was a gradual student studying, get this, sustainability issues in engineering, I used to get together with my advisor once in a while on a Friday afternoon and we'd slap each other's backs and hoot and holler about how if we were in charge a minimum five dollar tax on gasoline would bring about the changes we want to see in the world.  yea, what tools we were.  we wished we had the time to write a book like Kunstler, or some shit, and then everyone would be made to read and understand why change needs to come.  as if, like instantaneously, all zoning code would read as form-based (poof!), localities would shift tax code towards best use, and people would sell their cars - to nobody, or plant them in their yards.  as if transit oriented havens of walkable heaven would spring up like the cheap wood framed mcmansions have over the past decade.  little pockets of hope, or something.  as if more expensive oil is going to make anything else easier to do.  as if anyone cares.  as if it's impossible to move into a city or commute by bicycle as we sit here today. 

I've since refused to be a useful idiot for such idiots, and have instead found a home being a miserable illiterate cog in the mechanics of the current convention.  I am, or I perceive myself, stuck precisely because I cannot see my own way out of the mess, towards anything I might see as a worthwhile occupation of my time.  this affects my demeanor, my personality, my relationships, and so on and on.  I'm utterly and incorrigibly hopeless, aimless, apathetic, cynical and mean.  I also planted this blog's seeds.

so when I read Friedman's corpo-pseudo-intellectual-American-ho! inflections and reflections and unspoken wishes and dreams and so on, as backhandedly applied as they are in this piece, I can't help but think back, and shudder in disgust, like repeating something nasty I've eaten, or smelling a candied liquor that got me sick. 

I was at a very fine dinner awhile back with the wife, herself a former buy-side CFA, a hardworking and very lovely woman I may add, who used to work with on occasion, the host and other guests, all sell-side analysts from some German banke.  one of them mentioned a book he was reading, and I fucking forget what it was about, which kills this anecdote, but press on I will.  at any rate, in the conversation, I wound up mentioning something about how local indigenous people were able to avoid the giant tsunami a year or so back by paying attention to - what we call - nature.  this was interesting and new to them, but something I've known about since eco-gradual school days.  but, the theme was: get this, culture clash!  shock!  it was foreign to them that some other people somewhere else might live and recognize other things about this world, far differently from the western, detached-from-reality-at-the-brain-stem, awareness we've got.  it was amusing, because it bewildered them.  the meal was excellent.

and that's it, isn't it.  Friedman is, in his own way, a mother-fucking cargo-cultist. 

The inception of cargo cults essentially is based on a flawed model of causation, often being the confusion between the logical concepts of necessary condition and sufficient condition when aiming to obtain a certain result.

----

Famous examples of cargo cult activity include the setting up of mock airstrips, airports, offices and the fetishization and attempted construction of western goods, such as radios made of coconuts and straw. Believers may stage "drills" and "marches" with sticks for rifles and military-style insignia and "USA" painted on their bodies to make them look like soldiers, treating the activities of western military personnel as rituals to be performed for the purpose of attracting cargo. The cult members built these items and 'facilities' in the belief that the structures would attract cargo. This perception has reportedly been reinforced by the occasional success of an 'airport' to attract military transport aircraft full of cargo^{[citation needed]}.

Today, many historians and anthropologists argue that the term "cargo cult" is a misnomer that describes a variety of phenomena^{[citation needed]}. However, the idea has captured the imagination of many people in developed nations, and the term continues to be used today. For this reason, and possibly many others, the cults have been labelled millenarian, in the sense that they hold that a utopian future is imminent or will come about if they perform certain rituals.

why, oh why, do I picture a grass skirted Tom Friedman leading seances and chants on some remote island near Fiji or wherever, channeling the great god iPod and lesser god Toshiba, hoping for the great New Day to arrive, where all are one and one is all, forever is forever and ever, amen, in glorious techknowleconodgtopia. 

I think I might just have made myself pleased today, with this.  thus, blog. 

and, Mr.Friedman, re: democracy.  any rational choice theorist will tell you, that if the candidates appeal to the people's base instinct's, they will get elected.

Comments

[Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes]

Bro, it appears that I have more patience with Hobbits than you do. I actually find nothing in Friedman's work all that optimistic. Actually, I really do think that it's all satire. He's kind of like Anne Coulter that way, only more subtle and far,far less scarey. And, his groupies are unlikely to poke out an eye in mock homage or masturbate to The Flight of the Valkyries while staring at his picture.

[gab]

please visit
www.gabrielchristou.blogspot.com

you will see PHOTOS of WHO and WHERE Bin Laden and his NETWORKS ARE….

URGENT…PLEASE HELP…. I CANNOT FROM HERE….. I AM BLOCKED ALL AROUND
FORWARD THIS INFORMATION TO THE FBI.

[email protected]

[Freight Services]

Looking for Freight Services or International Cargo, Auto Transport cargo, Moving Cargo Vehicles try
http://cargoservices.in

[Custom dissertation]

Excellent Blog every one can get lots of information for any topics from this blog nice work keep it up.