-Monteriggioni was the walled city in Tuscany that we had lunch in and where I bought a cool Chianti Classico biking jersey. I had a cheese plate for a starter at lunch, and I think a hearty Tuscan stew for primi piatti. I had leftovers (of the cheese plate) which I gave to the guides, and they were more grateful than I was expecting. So, that was nice.
-The verdict on my last day in Italy is not in. Not a very important point. But I went from Pisa to Milan. Much of the day was spent getting to the Trenitalia station, riding the 4 hour train, and then finding the hotel. However, I did have a sensational dinner at the hotel that night. Milan seemed boring to me; I couldn’t come up with something to do, but lucked out with that. The one, er, surprise: I conveniently forgot on that trip that 1 euro = 1.67 U.S. dollars (at the time). I just went mentally with “a euro is a dollar.” This resulted in me having more fun. But I also spent $100 to feed myself that night.
-I’ll be announcing my next trip in a little bit, but for now, here’s a joke told about the country as a teaser. It’s a place with three major religions: Hinduism, Buddhism and Tourism.
Sung by “Mr. Volare,” in 1958. The album sold 22 million copies and is the most popular Italian album [of all time][I don't really like "of all time"--too dramatic--but it will have to do].
Hahahahahahahaha. Cry me a river! I had my time and money wasted by Cornell, so I’m not the most sympathetic recipient for an appeal of this nature. Also, not practicing, um, ever, no, I can’t help. I am a loser at the career my Dad wanted me to try. Lawyers are, by and large, insane and evil. Potentially useful, though, if you ever need to sue somebody. I learned some of their ways, and it might have made me a more callous person. Though I think any job does that to a person; there is nothing like dealing with people in a work environment to help you shed your illusions that we are part of something good. I give the current dean credit for being more of a human being than past deans, however. Without further ado:
Dear Cornell Alumnus,
As you well know, we continue to face a major economic downturn. This downturn has manifested itself in many ways, and one of them is the current summer job market for law students. While most of our current second-year class has secured summer employment as of this writing, several dozen very fine students are still engaged in their searches.
I am writing with the hope that you will give strong consideration to providing a summer employment opportunity for one of these students. For those of you practicing in the judicial, government, non-profit, or in-house counsel arenas, summer funding and/or externship programs sponsored by the law school can eliminate the need for your organization to compensate a student directly.
If you would like to explore the possibility of employing a Cornell law student this summer, please feel free to contact [blah blah blah].
Many thanks in advance. Your support in these challenging times will be invaluable.
Best regards,
[the dean]
Translation: each year, we turn out several hundred highly educated assholes who like to pour over insignificant details and be rude to each other because they are too boring to lead interesting lives. However, they are drawn to status, money, pretty wives (and now husbands), expensive cars and vacations, and living at the end of their means (and can you blame them). Many of them take on “debt” which they need to repay by working at large law firms. At least, so goes the story. But almost all of them have, if not trust funds, wealthy parents who, in the back of their minds, they know will always help them land on their feet.
They will probably never experience a consequence, except maybe for disease, divorce, alcoholism, plane hijacking, rehab; you know, rich people problems.
However, we invent consequences for them, so that their lives will not suffer the unfortunate happenstance of being drama-free. Such as not succeeding in their chosen profession. We pretend the sky is falling. We like to report “99% employment” to US News and World report to keep our Ivy League sheen. We fear being the least good of the Ivys. Having 24 to 72 big law firm corporate types working at McDonald’s in their second year threatens our business model.
So please, successful graduates making between $125,000 and $500,000 per annum in order to be subhuman leeches in a corrupt corporatocracy (or more? who knows what these slithering iguanas at the top do to leverage and abuse their privileged position). Can’t you look into your self-serving hearts and employ these little suckups for 2.5 months during the summer? They’re a lot like you, only they’ve been born into a generation that now finds too many piggies feeding at the wealth trough. It will be invaluable to us and our reputation. You know the saying concocted in Chevy Chase’s hilarious Funny Farm: “Once a Rebuddian, always a Redbuddian.” May you all be partners or judges one day and give generously to our prestigious institution.
—–
Most of the people who might receive this email probably won’t even read it. I, unlike them, appreciate why this is a real problem. I probably would help, if I were in a position to. I would think, in a normal world, people would find gainful employment in the field they trained for, and if they didn’t, it should be immediately redressed. That would seem to make sense. But it doesn’t work that way. We want to create winners and losers. We outsourced work and insourced consumption. We chose disruptiveness and rootlessness over stability and continuity. But viewed another way, we chose adventurousness over lethargy. Stability and continuity tend to produce caste systems and intolerable relationships.
The compensation for losing may be a better life, ironically. Despite my loneliness, trouble finding a mate, and fear of developing other rich people problems, I have seen and done more than I thought possible in the past 10 years (since the life-sucking force of school ended), and I’m just getting started.
“I am Jaguar Paw. This is my forest. And I am not afraid.”
The story in this movie draws from the story of Siddhartha Gautama, the Supreme Buddha (enlightened one). The Buddha was a prince until age 29. At that age, tired of the decadence of his kingdom (located 300 kilometers west of Kathmandu), Gautama tours Nepal to meet the people. Bruce Wayne, like Buddha, grows up in a life of privilege. Likewise he comes to despise his inherited wealth, telling Alfred he would like to tear down his father’s estate.
Wayne travels to Nepal (I think - somewhere in the Himalayas) where he seeks to understand poverty and the criminal mind. He comes to see that the wealthy man’s world of rules makes less sense to people who do not have enough to eat. Wayne, unlike the Buddha, but in a fashion necessary to the story of Batman, begins to train with a group of ninjas in a monastery; their mission is to fight back against crime (I am not sure how this fits with Bruce’s rejection of the wealthy world he escaped). An interesting and slightly unsettling discussion between Christian Bale and Liam Neeson takes place. On the one side is the sympathetic view toward the plight of most criminals, who are motivated by desperation. On the other, is “the criminals who thrive on the indulgence of society.”
The indulgence of society is symbolized by Gotham, a wealthy, economically supreme city rotting from the inside out with corruption and decadence, like Constantinople and Rome before it (as Neeson later explains).
Perhaps Bruce’s change of heart parallels the Buddha, and explains his determination to fight crime and therefore see the innocence in, and benefits of, civilization. At age 35, Gautama abandons his six years of ascetism after nearly starving to death. He meditates for 49 days, adopting his Middle Way of moderation. Most of us, when looking around for rules to live by, tend to settle on moderation as well, especially after bouts of extremism.
So too does Wayne come to accept his father’s legacy and see the goodness in it; his father chose to become a wealthy benefactor of the city that made him rich. At his expense, he constructed a monorail through the city to provide cheap transportation for all. Wayne decides that Gotham is, as Hemingway said, “worth the fighting for.” This might be a Middle Way; cities are giant wealth creation engines that also generate a lot of pollution, real* and spiritual. But they are inevitable, and arguably better than the alternatives.
I have tried in vain to identify the politics in Nolan’s Batman films; conservatives have tried to claim that the Dark Knight is a conservative movie, because it shows torture of the Joker and the fighting back against terrorists. However, the films seem more inclined to present the whole, complicated picture (and why there are both liberals and conservatives). The final conflict in the first film might be viewed as one between a moderate liberal and an extreme liberal (an anarchist, say).
Neeson reveals that he and his band of ninja thugs (the League of something) have been ransacking cities for generations; they burned London, sacked Constantinople and Rome, and so forth, and now are here for Gotham (New York, presumably). They are a check on society’s decadence and corruption. They use different methods, including “economics” in Gotham’s case (I’m not sure what role the ninjas play in fostering a market based economy, ha ha), which will inevitably lead to the rotting cities in his view. He implies a role in Bruce’s father’s death at the hands of a criminal who gunned him down in an alley. Bruce’s father, a giant of capitalism, was nonetheless a good advertisement for capitalism; he took his riches and tried to make the plight of the common person more bearable. Neeson, as a result, perceived him as a threat to his agenda. So he decided to prove a point; one of the “losers” that Wayne championed would bring about the icon’s demise.
However, the murder of Wayne’s parents had the reverse effect; upon seeing its progenitor gunned down, Gotham rallied and clamped down on crime and decadence. For a while. But by the time Bruce was an adult, the old ways had begun to set in again. This time, the League was not taking any chances; they planned to poison the city with a hallucinogen that preys upon the (unnatural) interconnectedness of a large city, via the water mains.
So, the stage is set for Batman kicking ass, and Wayne’s transformation is complete. After Neeson burns down his house, Bruce tells Alfred “I’m going to rebuild it, brick for brick.”
*Lest the film fool one into believing that places like New York are responsible for the earth’s pollution problems, consider that New York has been ranked as one of the greenest places in the world (I can only cite my memory on this one). I believe this is based upon per capita consumption of resources. The fossil fuel used to transport food there gets a large bang for the buck. Compare this with the suburban sprawl that takes tremendous amounts of energy because of the distances involved.
This article discusses the demise of Air America Radio, saying it did not have to be this way: conservatives fund money-losers in order to keep their movement alive; we don’t.
I admit I don’t understand how to just lose money, but ideologues seem to pull it off. I guess it’s because they keep re-raising funds from followers who enjoy the appeal to their imaginations.
As our side is want to blame Obama for not walking on water and parting the Red Sea in his first year in office, we would be wiser to remember the words of Lao Tzu: “To lead people walk behind them.” Which means, we still have to walk toward the goal!
This article mentions the point of how our side does too much “talking to ourselves” but doesn’t develop it too much; I presume the point is not that we should talk more to our ideologue asshole relatives who spew their James Dobson/Rush Limbaugh hate speech, but rather to people who do not know much of politics and could be swayed to join us if only we would take the time to talk to them.
-I finally changed out the keyboard in my office. The control key lost some functionality when I cleaned it last time. It had the following consequence: I would select a bunch of text and do “Ctrl-X” but I wouldn’t hold down control long enough; consequently, the text I was trying to preserve was replaced by “x,” which is the coolest letter in the alphabet, but not cooler than the text I needed. I made do for a long while for reasons unknown. Lethargy, probably.
x
-Pop music is much better than it has been in like, twenty years. I think it’s somewhat more 80s like, with more edge and hip-hop to it. The 80s were great. The 90s were depression music, and the 2000s were Ludacris and 50 Half-Pennies. Now there’s Lady Gaga, Black Eyed Peas and Kesha. Even the black asshole rap guys are trying to make melodies instead of total crap (I’m not talking about Dre and Dogg and Ice Cube though. They’re the best ever).
-I identified the mystery Yucatan animal (I think). It’s a white-nosed coati, a kind of raccoon. Mexicans call it Tejon, or badger. Or you could just read my tweet on the right-hand side.
-Is it better to be in the shell, or out mixing it up with the English/Franco/Nordic/Germanic/Italian/Slavic white people and 10% or less of the others? Probably both, and neither.
-I came across an asshole troll in the Civ IV forums who is funny because he’s an asshole - TroytheF_ace. He is anti-intellectual, anti-the-logical-dictators in the forums who lay down the strategies for beating the computer. His alter ego is “Attacko.” He is insufferably arrogant, telling Deity level players things like “your tactical errors are too numerous to recount.” One of his “strategies” is to locate himself in the tundra, or desert, which are the worst building spots. But no one suspects it. Like Al Pacino’s devil, no one sees him coming. He posts pictures of his start locations, accompanying them with incomprehensible ramblings and the wisdom of the Chinese ancients like Sun Tzu. He builds a barracks, then military units. Almost no one starts with a barracks, too unproductive. He only plays multi-player. He writes in confusing prose, mixed with direct interjections that are hilarious, like “so-and-so told me my build order was incorrect. Three turns later, I razed his capital city.”
-I like the song “Sie ist beg” which is available on youtube. It’s kick-ass German rapping. I think Germans are awesome, except I can’t say that because of the genocide they committed because they thought they were awesome. There’s awesome, and there’s kill-everyone-who-frustrates-you-because-you-think-you’re-awesome. The latter is superLame. I like Jews too, they’re funny and tend to be very smart. David Brooks explains it’s because Europe prohibited them from the lucrative and easy profession of farming in the medieval times, and their only hope was to ” survive on their wits,” which is as good an explanation as I’ve heard for their intellectual proclivities.
-I watched The Hangover with Mom on the wall theater. Yes, correct. And she brought over the beers, including Fat Tire for me and Corona for her. THAT WAS COOL. She laughed a lot. I liked it a lot better the second time, not sure why, but possibly because my personality partly changed since I went to Italy, or just from the ravages of age, and contrary to my expectations, it has partly stuck. “Why so serious?” — The Joker
-I saw Denzel’s flick “Book of Eli” which was kick-ass. Post apocalyptic and thought-provoking. It was religious, yet designed to appeal to fidels and infidels alike. The bad guy asserts that if you write a book of truths and half-truths about human nature that imparts the sound-and-fury with a greater purpose, you can control the masses, especially during the rudimentary stages of civilization formation. Yet it showed how religious conviction could positively motivate a person to achieve something interesting. Plus there were cannibals in it.
-the British word for “cinema” is “kinema,” pronounced like a hard C. Those Brits–they have a word for everything!
-p90x note for my fellow p90x doers (I know there’s at least one of them; I like doers) - I’ve been reducing the weight load by 25% to 50% past couple of weeks. This is partly a motivational thing - trying to get through the workouts with less mental trauma. And lets face it, even a workout as varied as X gets boring after a year. So I look for ways to alter it. It makes everything easier; I can get through the workout on less energy, etc. But paradoxically, it’s working better even? I’m concentrating on form more, which at less weight is easier to do, don’t have to fudge the reps. But then, I’m uber sore the next day, even when doing knee (girl) pushups.
Around here we call David Brooks a loose cannon. My Dad enjoys him and frequently gives me his stuff. The loose cannon angle is that he picks different targets, seemingly at random, saying interesting or provocative things about them. Sometimes he picks good topics; but sometimes the targets are wildly inappropriate. You just never know.
The other note is that he is sloppy. He makes generalizations and blatant omissions in a way that few NY Times op-ed writers seem to (Thomas Friedman sort of does too, but Friedman is a bit more optimistic). I’ve come to think he does it on purpose in order to create more buzz. I occasionally see others who do this, and admit to it. “I just like to set off sparks.”
He recently dismissed populists as not contributing to the forward progress of the country. I tend to agree that the “us against them” approach is fairly superficial. But then he says no populist has ever advanced our country. Even without knowing the veracity of it, I’m sure you can find examples of populists who accomplished useful reforms (Andrew Jackson comes to mind).
When I saw that headline, I said, that’s got to be a right winger. Sure enough! It’s the ACORN nut. Democrats don’t have the same proclivities for doing illegal things in order to gain political dirt. Nixon, Linda Tripp, etc.
I’m not much of a klutz. I find it annoying, not funny, and therefore I avoid it. Though I use the klutziness of others as a chance to practice patience. After all, I’m just lucky I’m not the klutz. No need to get pissy about it.
Klutziness reminds me of the ways life has been robbed from me: I should be on a warm savannah, respected for my first-rate physicality, instead of reduced to this slouching, sore-back sitting ember of a man who exercises a lot by himself. Though exercising by myself is a lot better than with morons in a gym.
I’ve been thinking about fragile male ego (my own), sensitivity or insensitivity to the feelings of others, enjoying life vs. thinking it’s serious. About how I don’t like getting my feelings hurt, but wonder if sometimes in saying what’s on my mind, I hurt the feelings of others. Though I know that usually I don’t; I’m often quiet around others precisely because I don’t want to offend. But…that’s not just altruism–I don’t want to inadvertently say something to them that hurts them or otherwise invites them to reveal their insensitivity, so that they then feel permission to hurt me.
The other problem is, I can’t believe people (including myself) sometimes. Life should basically be a party of good feelings. We’re only here for a little while. What’s with the negativity? What’s with “getting upset”? I don’t know if I’m thinking of anything specific or not. Oh, I know, you might say that college and law school and certain job experiences hurt my feelings in a way that I have never, and don’t think will ever, recover from. I suppose that’s a form of upset. And I don’t even recall why, so don’t ask. I just have a sense that participating in the world leads to utter shit. But…so what? I’m enjoying life anyway. On my own. If you want to help me, bring over a beer and let’s watch something like The Hangover. Let’s go to Vegas or Kathmandu.
