The Difficulties in Understanding ones Historical Situation

In order to understand your surroundings, you need to have an accurate view of the past, i.e. the events that produced your present situation. You cannot simply look around; you can't turn inward and find a universal, explanatory truth; you must consider the events that came before you to come to this understanding. NOTE: We will not consider the value of this understanding for now, though we will need to consider it at some point. It needs to be confronted, determined. If history has no value for life and if by understanding it we are only limited, weakened, then we should abandon it.

The reason you can't simply look around you to understand your historical situation is that it is impossible to predict the outcome of your actions. They are radically Simply recording your day to day observations may give a pluralistic account of the world--the many insignificant, mundane occurrences of our lives may be summarized by the coming historian in one keystroke, or crystalized by the theoretician as a single social movement--yet their outcome, their effect on history, cannot be discerned yet.
A man living in 1967 might note on his trip through the grocery store that chicken breast costs more than it did in the 1920's, and he might apply the finest economic wisdom of the day to understand this increase, but he will have no way of knowing what this way of life really was...he won't have the necessary frame of reference that comes only with time...he can't differentiate his time from any other, except the past. He might say that goods in his market move faster, the range of products is far greater, than the 1920's economy, and therefore make the conclusion that the 60's are far more commercial--trade has increased, the flow of goods has increased, the sheer mass of goods has increased, the speed at which they are produced has increased, and other such conclusions---

but he can only make these conclusions by comparing it to the economically slower, less commercial 1920s.

Memory of a Goldfish

Today you said that Strickland had the memory of a goldfish. in other words, he forgets about past fuck-ups and confronts his new task of serving the ball. When the serve doesnt go in, he hops in the passers line and promptly tries to pass a dime. When he doesn't pass the dime he goes to the setter's spot and tries to set a peach and finally he does. This is model volleyball player behaviour, and you say that this peach set happened because Strick had literally forgotten about his recent serving and passing blunders. They'd left his mind. But this repression isn't good enough for those of us who don't also have Strick's boyish enthusiasm, which is the reason I think he set the peach. Aadvising us to "forget your mistakes and concentrate on the new ball" is negative, not in the sense that it is discouraging, but in that it advises us to NOT do something rather than to DO something. When we hear this advice, we automatically remember our last mistake and try not to let it crowd our mind when passing the next ball. Our minds are cluttered. Its like saying 'don't think about your neighbour's wife'...it might or might not have happened before, but after hearing that advice, it certainly will. So whats the solution then? What advice do I think is most effective for the 8 players on our team, in order to produce the best results?
"Approach each ball with confidence. Make it your bitch; Love the pass youre about to make; Love your serve; If you fuck up, try harder and be even more confident; use it as motivation; look forward, always look forward."

resisting the urge to title this post, I will begin by saying: wouldnt it be cool to be the guy who came up with the algorithm that determines the nhl schedule. I mean clearly they don't have a person who hums on this important layout with a hot coffee, saying 'wouldnt it be nice if the lightning had a stretch during rochocho week...the increase in hockey-minded people would sell out the building.'
Is it ceremonial? do executives dress up for the occasion? They should. It's important. it definitely affects their incomes. youd think with such close dependence on it they'd do it themselves, and maybe they do.

I smell the bread in the bread aisle, and hear George just at the last minute. 'you done facing?' "uh, just this last aisle.
' 'this is my only aisle left to do'
'k..when youre done that, go on break then help Nick move some stuff out of the basement'
sometimes he sounded american. but he was greek. he had blue and white greece jacket that he wore in november, and his last name was Hrikos or somethiing. He didn't like small talk. We rarely interacted apart from the orders and advice he gave me, which always pertained to the grocery dept. at oxford st. valu mart. I wouldnt have minded receiving a bit of life advice from him. not that i would have taken it seriously. his orders were always given quickly but with the fewest possible syllables, and often misplaced words that nonetheless conveyed his message, or so he thought. One time--and this was the great crescendo of our relationship--I was working dairy, and there was a sale on juice. they were crammed in our end freezer when i came in. george told me to keep an eye on them and refill them when they got empty. so i refilled them, but kept them in the arrangement they were in before. so it was like
Orange Orange Peach Peach Peach Watermelon Watermelon
The skid I took them from was overloaded with peach--a nearly 4--1 ratio probably. So watermelon ran out. I took all the watermelon from the crate and refilled the row, which was now only about 2 deep. 6 in total. theres all kinds of space behind them, enough for maybe 9 cartons. But it looked good. and the rows were preserved in the manner i found them in. all was good, but i would keep an eye out for them. in the meantime, i chose to start my freezer work. i made my list from a piece of cardboard I'd torn off a box and walked quickly down the stairs by the produce dept. the place is ripe for a game of hide and seek. I'd just get the main things off the list. oh shit, fuck, damn, damn. forgot the delhi freezer. I sprinted back up the stairs and right as I burst through the doors wheeled around to check the time--it was only 5 45--then walked very quickly through the store to the delhi. a few whipped creams, 3 bags of raspberries, 2 grapes (frozen grapes?) and a summer blend were needed. i jotted this down and bolted around to see Shan Dhami--whatsup man, you work here? yeah man, its a pretty whack gig too, my manager has me running around. who the fuck buys frozen grapes? I showed him the list. he laughed. he was with josh mcvicker and they both seemed stoned. They may have even offered to burn with me behind the mart. this isnt clear though. anyway, i'd better get back to work. see you boys later. I felt quite happy. those guys were cool. what made it cool was that they could relate to my situation. I think josh had been unemployed throughout that year and sold a lot of dope. we went to his apartment one day before economics. but this for a later time. ... as I kept going I saw George, and he didnt look happy. I was unprepared--confused, really, because I didnt think i'd fucked up anything I'd been in charge of that day. "I told you to fill the juice.' 'i did.' "where? (he raised his voice) show me what you did" he We walked over to the end cap. I looked at roughly what I'd looked at 10 minutes ago, when I filled it. there were a few missing, but my rows were still there. he pulled aside the watermelons, which were down to the last 2, and inserted them into the other rows. this exposed 3 full rows "...fuck" i gulped and felt my face get hot. this always happened when the eyes of authority bore through my skin, when I'd done something wrong and been scolded. 'this is becoming a problem, and i don't know how to deal with it. you always say you get what i tell you, but it's never done right. come here, i'll show you. '

A great man of valu mart was jeff reid. he never complained, was nice to customers, was well-liked by fellow employees, and was easily the best grocery manager to work with. this was

I'd been picking my nose. the lady who's manning the deli counter looks like she's been there all day. and the montreal smoked meat looks sadder than her.

but always of higher importance is the game itself. this is meant in a bare sense. many could say justifiably that the character of the game has been compromised by the saturation of brand-marketing and the shininess of it all, the product of it all. In this case, I mean the integrity of the game. Tainting is an egregious offense in pro sports. A large part of the aesthetic of 'the game', or at least a reason some people assume in their admiration for it, is it's pitting of two parties against each other, raw, pure competition. in someone's If league officials suspect any Any influence on the outcome of a game that is external to the players' competitive spirit is is considered a great breach. e Tim Donahugy is one memorable case

The Douche Bag Phenomenon

Wikipedia says that the fist use of the slang version, the use this post concerns, was in the 60's. douchebag was slang use of the term--the one that applies to people--was firstcame into use in the 1960sA douche bag, prior to South Park's 2002 episode "the biggest douche in the universe" referred to where the term is slapped on pseudo-psychic John Edward. And his incessant "I AM NOT A DOUCHE" only makes his douchebagness (or the recently heard "douchebaggery") hilariously truer. It's funny though, because even the prototypical douchebag, famous ones like "The Situation' from Jersey Shore, uses the term regularly. Obviously nobody thinks of themselves as a douchebag. Even common self degradations like "i'm an idiot" or "i'm such a pussy"

a net
a fish
a captain

soul
mesh
water

Heidegger according to McCormack--The essence of a hammer is in its use--you can't sit back and meditate upon the hammer as hammer without implicating its use. a hammer is nothing to us without its ability to be held in a palm and fingers and struck against the head of a nail or used to dig one out. it is only our metaphysical imagination, our cling to the eternal, that makes us see the hammer outside of time and context.

I believe the point Dan was trying to make was that we have reached the status of a god when we replicate reality for ourselves...in the form of images, motion images, and 3-dimensional motion images. we enable this. we've reached a point, if one is to agree with darwin's discovery that the earth is extremely old, it is extraordinary that we may simulate the things we see as humans. these things ought not be separate from us. indeed they are us, just as birth and death.

A thought came to me yesterday as I listened to poppy talk with Greg about poppy's unsuccessful attempt at coaxing the Wilkinson's onto the anti-windturbine protest wagon. They're for clean energy, he said. And they said they wouldnt mind windmills on the horizon...they're majestic or something. I have trouble with one of these points and it's not the one that says they're aesthetically pleasing. Nearly everybody who is against the turbines still supports clean energy. Anti-coal, I like to call it. NObody wants to keep using coal. So we need to phase it out, right? A viable solution to that are the wind turbines, right? they produce energy, don't they? and they don't emit CO2? (except of course when they're being built). But we need to take a step back. Are the turbines efficient? to the point that they'll reduce our dependence on coal? This can be measured. Keith stated that Denmark, the world leader in turbine usage, has reduced it's coal dependence by 1% or thereabouts since the turbines were implemented. Others have stated repeatedly that the windmills don't pay for themselves, and that even on a windy day they account for only about 10% of what is fed to the grid. So why go ahead with something that's not economical and, as an aside, disruptive to the natural setting? The turbines mesmerize the urban citizen; they are illusions; false answers to our green energy needs...not because they aren't clean, but because they don't reduce what is dirty.