i only feel this appalling sadness

bukowski on censorship.

tails should not wag dogs & books should not read humans

i quit facebook. it was surprisingly easy.

(so far… there’ll be withdrawal symptoms,
you bet. but, e.g., quitting AOL reduced me
to a complete loss of cool [screaming at
innocent telephone boiler-room wageslaves
and whatnot; by contrast, there was very
little of the “tell me everything about
yourself that might help somebody sell
you something, or no dice” obstacle-course
stuff one has learned to take for granted].
make no mistake, for me it *is* an addiction
… or something so close that mere simile
[“it’s *like* an addiction”] feels like a lie.
for example, just as pounding down beer
and whiskey typically has a short-term effect
of gladness-to-be-alive and confidence-in-my-
-own-interestingness for a few hours,
followed by considerable wishing-*not*-
-to-alive and embarrassment-at-existing-
-at-all, so too does facebook participation
tend to instill in me a certain short-term
feeling of being connected to loved ones
and other interesting people… at the cost
of feeling *even more* lonely and *dis*connected
when the effect [soon] wears off. anyhow, fuck it.)

learned folly

shalizi on the elsevier boycott.

and the last fight let us face

hyperreality at “recall kasich” rally.

no good deed unpunished

outside the box (jay parkinson MD).

see why, eh?

bill cronon, scholar and citizen.

spotted at sue v’s

doug borderland noon on the story of bottled water (annie leonard).

please don’t mention april first

you know my methods watson:
british court rules for science.

ooey-pooey org’ers virtual ink link.

reflective educator on newsweek propaganda piece.

never get outta the boat

Liberalism since the 1950s has been defined in considerable part by a commitment to technocratic administration and the vigorous rejection of populist appeals and of progressivism (the progressivism of 1920-1940). It’s very anti-popular, and I didn’t know that until a few years ago, when I was astonished by the things I was hearing people saying. I blame Hofstadter, Schlesinger Jr., Daniel Bell, and the early Galbraith. Since 1968 this has crippled the Democrats; they refuse to make a populist appeal, in part because they’re too corrupt to do so plausibly, but beyond that too.

John Emerson in a comment on his own post (“charlie brown is charlie brown”).

what am *i* gonna do with it?

the zero rupee note.