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May 2011

Officials investigating Nevada prison inmate death

Another human being dies in prison, not of old age...One of the latest people to subscribe to the Newsletter. Rest in peace. Our condolences to Eric's loved ones.From: Reno Gazette JournalLAS VEGAS (AP) — Nevada prison and sheriff officials are investigating after a 31-year-old inmate was found dead in his cell at Ely State Prison.The state Corrections Department issued a statement Monday saying

Proudhon’s critics

As I've mentioned, I'm working on assembling—and in some cases, translating—responses to Proudhon's work, with particular emphasis on those responses that really help to contextualize and illuminate that work. In some cases that means tackling head-on some of the thorniest problems posed by Proudhon's method, the sheer bulk of his output, and, of course, his various failures as a consistent libertarian. The trajectories of my various Proudhon-related projects seem fairly obvious—to me at least. The thing I started with "The Gift Economy of Property" isn't finished until the more-or-less phenomenological account of property I've been working on is supplemented by a roughly material account, exploring "communism" and the circulus as a complement to my current explorations of egoism and individuality. And part of doing that next stage right almost certainly involves a more extended encounter with the work of Pierre Leroux and a no-doubt-perilous side-trip into the vagaries of mid-19th-century French anti-semitism. Similarly, "Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule" has yet to pass from the militant to industrial era, and there is no question of stopping there, with "harmony" still gleaming provocatively in the distance. But before our rusty pistols can be transformed into anything more suitable to the work of harmony, there's a lot of very public cleaning and scraping, and exposure of the working (and the obviously defective) parts of the systems we inherited from Proudhon. And there's no doing that without dealing with Proudhon at his least harmonian, in his encounters with the feminists of his time. Doing justice to "The Anarchism of Approximations," at this much more advanced stage of the work, involves some pretty deep philosophical delving, but, honestly, that seems pretty breezy in comparison to these other tasks.

If I'm not exactly rushing into these next couple of writing projects, it's mostly a matter of trying to get it right. They're not the sort of things one would dare to get too far wrong, and certainly not the kind you want to have to do over. (And I keep imagining I see nervous angels—but fewer all the time...)

Take the problem of Proudhon's anti-feminism. It's easy to criticize his high-handed treatment of his female critics, but it's a whole lot harder accurately placing it in the context of the rest of his work, and comparing it, from a contemporary pro-feminist position, to the thought of his critics.

We know that Proudhon took equality, reciprocity and justice as his most important keywords, and that he was developing a theory of "right" which quite explicitly did not privilege the strong over the weak, which should, in fact, have been capable of recognizing any number of mutually incommensurable "strengths," each with its own attendant "right" (with "right" meaning essentially something like "weight and standing in the balances of justice.") We also know that he was working on a descriptive, historical account of the development of justice and right—a work that started in the later chapters of his first memoir on property—which traced the development of those notions from the "age of heroes," where they were manifested precisely in "force and fraud" through progressive evolutions. And, of course, we don't have much doubt that Proudhon had some basic prejudices about the capabilities of women. Putting those pieces together is no easy task. Proudhon's treatment of "droit"—which indicates, at various times, either the line of development implied by any organized collectivity, the dominant means of justifying (that is, balancing) the claims of various collectivities in a given era, or the various forms of legal right (etc.?)—just complicates the problems, but, I think, it complicates it in ways that are ultimately at least potentially useful. It's probably a general rule that the more ambitious the theoretical formulation, the more—and more disastrous—possibilities of it going badly wrong along the way. And the more anarchistic the nature of the project—the more resistant it is to the application of any particular, fixed criterion or criteria—the higher the stakes. Proudhon's theory of rights and forces, individualities and collectivities, had at least its share of logical ways to go wrong—and his own individual prejudices, although they did not prevent him from envisioning a general system in which difference and equality would not be at odds, side-tracked him long before he recognized the implications of that system for "the woman question." And, of course, he was called out for it, and continues to be called out for it.

Unfortunately, some of the criticisms pose as many problems—even some of the same problems—as Proudhon's most outrageously sexist writings.

Take Joseph Déjacque's "The Human Being—Male and Female." It's pretty satisfying, as well-deserved thrashings go—but it's not itself exactly a feminist critique of Proudhon's obnoxious anti-feminism. Quite the contrary, it's very much a masculinist attack—all phallus, phallus, whose got the phallus? Déjacque stepped in in the first place because he wasn't sure that Jenny d'Héricourt was up to the challenge of her male attacker. And, while he certainly spent some time criticizing Proudhon's ideas, the essay is structured around a series of attacks on his identity. Déjacque's rhetorical strategy is all built around identifying Proudhon with any number of other typical figures—when he doesn't just sink to making cracks about Proudhon's supposed lack of sexual experience. As much fun as Proudhon getting his comeuppance may be, it's not a great practical advance.

Of course, we know that Jenny d'Héricourt didn't need a defender. She went toe to toe with Proudhon quite successfully, thank you very much. Of course, according to Juliette Adam, one of Proudhon's other critics, d'Héricourt's feminism was mixed with some pretty serious ageism. She supposedly belittled the pretensions of the younger woman to be able to understand Proudhon, let alone critique him. Arguably, Adam didn't understand at least some of Proudhon's work very well. Her Anti-Proudhonian Ideas was prefaced by a study of Proudhon's War and Peace which seems to miss the point pretty badly—but perhaps the problem is that she really wanted to show that Proudhon's ideas about women were simply a symptom of a more pervasive problem in all of his work. By trying to demolish all his work, she potentially compromises the more compelling criticisms that she makes. And so on...

There are a lot of understandable indignation in all of this, and some good indications of how not to combine theory and practice in the defense of the rights of all, male or female. But there's not a lot of help in grasping the elements in his work that might have led Proudhon to a different, pro-feminist position (as Jeanne Deroin was so certain that reasoning on the matter would) and moving forward with them ourselves.

Understanding the complexities and challenges is, of course, a necessary first step...

„Erlebe die Zukunft des Krieges“

erschienen am 1. Juni 2011 auf Militainment.info (www.militainment.info) Bei der Darstellung des Militärs arbeiten Videospielbranche und Rüstungsindustrie eng zusammen – wie das bald erscheinenden Spiel „Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier“ zeigt, werden dabei sogar zukünftige Entwicklungen von Militärtechnik vorweg genommen. Bald soll mit „Future Soldier“ der fünfte Teil der von US-Bestsellerautor Tom Clancy erdachten Taktik-Shooter-Saga „Ghost [...]

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asi es como se salva el dia keepondrifter: diz is gr8



asi es como se salva el dia

keepondrifter:

diz is gr8

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Picnic in Baker Park, May 29, 2011

Food Not Bombs Las Vegas held our weekly Free Picnic in the Park at Baker Park on May 29 from 10:00am to 12:00pm. Gail brought beans, ravioli, soup and rice, Herb watermelon and cherries, Daniel juice and Sarita water.

About 20 people joined in the meal this week. Food Not Bombs organizers Gail, Herb, Thomas, Sarita, Enrique and Sean were there. It was a bit cold and it threatened to rain, but it held off until we left. We talked about community organizing, cranked the tunes and just generally enjoyed the weather.

See you at the park next week!

The Picket Line — 1 June 2011

1 June 2011

In April I kept track of every time I spent money and then used the numbers to come up with an estimate of my current yearly spending. I was a little alarmed at how the numbers came out, but attributed this largely to some exceptional expenses partially due to my recent move to a new home.

As a way of testing this, I decided to keep my obsessive record-keeping going for another month to see how the numbers turned out this time. Here is my comparison:

CategoryApril daily expenseMay daily expense
Total$56.49$40.67
Rent$21.67$21.67
Food (groceries)$11.69$8.66
Miscellany$5.55$1.73
Cat stuff$5.01$0.29
Homebrewing$4.34$1.72
Transportation$2.96$1.26
Food (eating out)$1.44$2.13
Commercial beer/wine$1.18$2.13
Utilities & internet$1.02$.87
Coffee$0.88$0.67
California sales tax$0.75$0.17

So, yeah. That’s a big difference. (As before, these expenses do not include things I can deduct from my taxable income, like business expenses, retirement savings, or my health insurance premium.)

monthly totals
Category2003–2010
average
April 2011May 2011
Monthly total$1,055.79$1,719.56$1,238.00
Yearly total$12,670$20,635$14,856
Rent$470.06$650.00$650.00
Food (groceries)$159.60$355.84$263.61
Food (eating out)$33.73$43.83$64.84
Coffee/tea/beer/wine$88.25$194.82$137.59
Utilities$52.43$10.00$1.09
Transportation$63.20$90.10$38.35
Internet fees$15.47$20.98$26.00
Miscellany$173.05$344.27$69.18

Here’s how I think I’m going to deal with this. In each category, if the larger amount is less than twice the smaller amount, I’ll average the two amounts to find my estimated burn rate. If the larger amount is more than twice the smaller amount, I’ll take the smaller amount and amortize the difference between the two over the year to get my estimated burn rate, chalking up the larger amount to large one-time expenses:

CategoryEstimated 2011 daily expense
Total$43.32
Rent$21.67
Food (groceries)$10.18
Miscellany$2.05
Cat stuff$0.68
Homebrewing$1.94
Transportation$1.40
Food (eating out)$1.79
Commercial beer/wine$1.66
Utilities & internet$0.95
Coffee$0.78
California sales tax$0.22
monthly totals
Category2003–2010
average
2011
estimate
Monthly total$1,055.79$1,318.66
Yearly total$12,670$15,824
Rent$470.06$650.00
Food (groceries)$159.60$309.88
Food (eating out)$33.73$54.48
Coffee/tea/beer/wine$88.25$133.32
Transportation$63.20$42.62
Utilities & internet$67.90$28.92
Miscellany$173.05$89.80

A lot of rounding errors crept in over the course of all of that averaging and summing, but I think these are good ballpark figures. My janky estimation method is more of a dart-throw than a science, but ought at least to get me in the neighborhood of a good estimate.

If accurate, this leaves me a little less than $1,000 in wiggle room below my $16,750 adjusted gross income cut-off. Not too bad.

Corvus Editions/research polls

If you look at the side-bar of the blog, you'll find a poll, asking for input on what sorts of materials I should be giving priority in the Corvus Editions project. I've been running a similar poll on Facebook, but would like input from a broader audience. So far, translations seem to be the priority for my FB readers, and my own sense is that translations will continue to be a central focus of the project, so I've added another poll, directly below the first, about translation priorities.

Property ladders, rent-seeking and God-given rights

A new survey has shown that two thirds of people who don't yet own their own home fear that they will never get on the property ladder. They argue that banks will "find excuses" to turn them down. As a result, we are now looking at the emergence of "generation rent." Not to mention entirely the wrong debate being had on the question of property ownership.

At the liberal end of the spectrum, Sean O'Grady writes for the Independent that "this generation will just have to get used to the idea that there is no God-given right to home ownership or, more pertinently, the large capital gains that accrued from it in the past." He offers a number of sensible reasons - from the fact that houses are still historically expensive to the fact that income is not keeping up with inflation - as to why houses are no longer affordable. However, this is not offered as a fault with the present system. Rather, for O'Grady, it begs the question: "why this sense of entitlement anyway?"

Apparently, because "nobody claims they have to own a Porsche the moment they leave college, or pester the bank of mum and dad for designer furniture," a home too is a frivolous luxury. It is "just another form of consumption." Which must mean that vagrants are just those who reject materialism.

Conversely, the Telegraph worries that we are losing our status as a "nation of home owners." This perspective looks back to Margaret Thatcher's "right to buy" initiative, seeing this right not as a privilege equivalent to owning a Porsche but an integral facet of the free market system. It is the "aspiration" that O'Grady decries, where a house is not a domicile but an investment and a potential pension fund. Thus, for "generation rent," there is a "risk [of] insufficient finances at retirement."

Neither of these perspectives are in tune with the reality and the main concerns of most of the populace. Instead, they sum up an economic debate ongoing within the elite sectors of the current capitalist system. As summed up by the Financial Times, we are looking at two rival policy positions.

One the one hand, there is the argument that "home ownership rates will fall sharply unless terms are made easier for first-time buyers." On the other, is the concern "that failure to set loan limits has contributed to the boom and bust in housing." At the heart of the debate is whether or not the Financial Services Authority's proposals to set limits on mortgage products is a good idea. The key concern, of course, is the markets and the "stability" of the capitalist economy.

On the ground there is an altogether different concern - that of human beings having shelter and a place to live and thrive. For most of us, the current economic system is simply the only means for us to secure such dwellings - whether by rent or mortgage. Meanwhile, as Daniel Knowles neatly puts it in his Telegraph blog, "each month, an anonymous company gets to collect more of my income than I pay in taxes. No one getting a share of that money had anything to do with building the house. They are simply profiting from the fact that it’s still useful." Which is exactly what the government does with tax, though so many crusaders against rent-seeking fall silent when the usury is private.

A house is not a luxury akin to a Porsche or "another form of consumption." But, by the same token, it is not simply a capital asset to be used in securing yourself a decent pension pot. It is a domestic dwelling. Or, as the comedian Alun Cochrane put it, we should "bloody live in it."

The "right" to private property not only leaves so many people renting or living with their parents for far longer, unable to take their first step onto the "ladder." It also leaves around 61,000 households homeless whilst there are around 651,000 empty homes in England alone. All for the "freedom" of a minority to seek rent and gamble on capital accumulation. Which is the more important debate we are not having.
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L E N T O Cathedral – Phantasmagoria



L E N T O

Cathedral - Phantasmagoria

This just in – something was on TV a month ago…

Today, the Daily Mail reports with outrage that "a young mother has dismissed concerns that the 3,500 cigarettes she smoked while pregnant affected her daughter and bizarrely insists it actually made the baby stronger." This apparently "has caused outrage among health professionals." But it also raises several questions.

Firstly, although this is of course an absurd and utterly wrong point of view, why has it caused "outrage"? After all, the woman in question - 20-year-old Charlie Wilcox - made the comments whilst appearing on the BBC 3 show Mums Behaving Badly. The whole point of the show was to highlight the harmful behaviour exhibited by some mums to be and offer remedies. In fact, I remember watching the show and seeing the midwife demonstrate not only why her view was wrong but also how much smoking actually harms babies.

If the aim is to raise awareness, then surely the programme did that. In fact, Wilcox being something of a wilful idiot will only have helped the case. Claiming that smoking is "making the baby use its heart on its own in the first place, so that when it comes out, it's going to be able to do them (sic) things by itself" after being told that you're choking your unborn child pretty much marks you out as wrong.

If this had been a celebrity uttering such views, without context, then sure. I could understand the outrage. But Charlie Wilcox was expressly put on television as a demonstration of what not to do, rather than as a role model for the kids. As such the outrage is very much misplaced.

Not that its outrage at all, if we're honest. The Mail have quoted the midwife's words from the television show, plus a spokesman for the charity No Smoking Day. Hardly a cavalcade of moral outrage, especially since the latter is quite literally only quoted on the risks of smoking whilst pregnant. No comment whatsoever is offered upon the views of one rather dim 20-year-old. But then, this fits perfectly with the newspaper's long history of claiming a single quote - often out of context - as a storm of righteous indignation.

More importantly, though, is the question of why this is news. Is the Mail really so desperate in filling its pages that it will quite literally churn a basic outline of a TV show - last aired almost a month ago - into a "story"? The answer, it seems, is yes.
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