Raving on into the New Year! latest letter to Morning Edition

I'm aliiiive!

Oh my god! I just had to slam the radio off when you played that Trout Fishing in America “children’s” song about Martin Luther King and Rosa Parks. Not that I don’t believe we should teach history to children; but this is a sure fire way to kill it. Except for the politically correct lyrics, it did not sound any different than the inane children songs that annoyingly emanate from “children sections” at bookstores. If I were a parent who had to be held hostage to that song, I would ask my captors to simply kill me. This stuff is not educational in any sense of the word: it does not educate about history and certainly has nothing to do with music. It’s just unimaginative, 2-4 twangy, Americo-centric indoctrination. I rather listen to commercial jingles about hemorrhoid medicine. Maybe Kathy O’Connell went on to discuss more creative picks; but like I said, I couldn’t get past her favorite.

Sincerely,
Katya Cohen

Using Baudrillard to explain Devendra Banhart

The advantage of working with younger generations is that they can turn you onto things you would not otherwise seek on your own. Such is the case with the music of Devendra Banhart: one of my students used to play a medley that, to my delight, included “Chinese Children” in class, and another sent me a couple of his CD’s recently (Cripple Crow and Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon). I slipped them (one at a time) into the CD player and took to them immediately. The Ranting Economist, on the other hand, upon hearing Cripple Crow in the car, called it “derivative boring crap” (-;

I know what it is that I like about these records; it’s comfortable music. It shape shifts among a myriad of familiar genres that make up my musical consciousness and that, for the most part, I like: the receptors in my brain are already configured to respond to it. The following is a partial list of ingredients others have invoked to describe Banhart’s music: Funk, Samba, Eisenhower-era doo-wop, Tropicalia, Reggae, Beatles, Tiny Tim, Caetano Veloso, David Crosby, Donovan, Santana, Nick Drake, Skip Spence, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, The Byrds, Conga, Groove, bossa nova, psychedelia, folk, and I definitely hear The Doors... One of the favorable reviews of SRDTC on Amazon does say the CD “has something for everyone” with the assumption that that’s a good thing. It obviously does nothing for The Ranting Economist; and although I love listening to the albums, one of my favorite unfavorable reviews of Cripple Crow is: Este CD e espantosamente horrible... no tiene estilo proprio. I love the word “espantosamente”; but it is the phrase “no tiene estilo proprio” that interests me, and brings me back to Baudrillard and the ‘80’s.[1]

Although I first learned about the word “bricolage” from my French uncle while he tinkered around the construction site that was to be his future house, if I recall correctly, it went from fun to theory with Derrida[2], and was quite in vogue during the 80’s to describe what visual artists and writers were doing with their art and texts---or was everything just “text” then (?)... Baudrillard does not seem to use the word to describe the state of the arts in the 80’s; but what he describes as being postmodern in his interview Game with Vestiges[3] seems to fit under its definition (gestalt being what it is, of course it would). "Art can no longer operate as radical critique or deconstructive metaphor. So art at the moment is adrift in a kind of weightlessness. It has brought about a sphere where all forms can coexist. One can play in all possible ways, but no longer against each other. It amounts to this: art is losing its specificity. ...It is becoming mosaic... it cannot do anything more than operate out of a combinatory mode..... The postmodern is characteristic of a universe where there are no more definitions possible... It has all been done. The extreme limit of these possibilities has been reached. It has deconstructed its entire universe; so all that’s left are pieces. All that remains to be done is to play with the pieces.” Visual Art seems to have gotten past this; but could this be what Banhart is doing consciously or not?

By the 80’s Baudriallard could sound melodramatic and nostalgic, and he seems to imply a sadness to this postmodern form of play: “Postmodernism tries to bring back all past cultures, to bring back everything that one has destroyed in joy and which one is reconstructing in sadness in order to try to live, to survive...” And although I see Banhart’s music as quintessentially postmodern[4] and thus utterly digestible, I don’t see it as a “reconstruction in sadness” but one that is done in “joy”; it remains to be seen where he can take it from here.

[1] Once I finish reading Postmodern Theory, I’ll hopefully get off this “let’s revisit the 80’s" kick... though given our current state of economic affairs, it feels rather natural...
[2] Well it was first used by Claude Levi Strauss (if the memories of Anthro 101 serve me well); but it r-e-a-l-l-y got s-e-r-i-o-u-s after Derrida got adopted by the visual arts critical establishment. ...and then it disappeared...
[3] Interviews have titles?
[4] weightless, combinatory, and “bricolaged”

More Postmodern Thoughts for ’08: This Time Courtesy of Lyotard

...So my mother calls me and asks me if I have been following the latest instance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict... How can one avoid it; although a (pathetic) constant, it seems to invariably show up (again and again) as news. The solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to be exactly what these two (again, pathetic) groups of people have come up with: this killing, rocket launching and rock throwing is obviously a state of equilibrium. Faced with this clear example of unbridgeable differences I feel like quoting from Lyotard (p. xi) : As distinguished from a litigation, a differend (‘scuse the invented word, but anybody who has ever tried to read a postmodern text knows that they are inevitable and that their definition becomes comprehensible in the reading) would be a case of conflict, between (at least) two parties, that cannot be equitably resolved for lack of a rule of judgment applicable to both arguments. One side’s legitimacy does not imply the other’s lack of legitimacy. However, applying a single rule of judgement to both in order to settle their differend as though it were merely a litigation would wrong (at least) one of them (and both of them if neither side admits this rule). Happy New Year...

a voice of reason : they exist, they're just are never heard

Thinking of Baudriallrd for the closing of '08

Oh, I don’t know, I must be into pain or something because I decided, for no reason whatsoever, to read an old book I had once picked up (and not read) on Postmodern Theory as bed-time reading. My conscious life-span coincides with the period of time in which Pomo also became "self-consscious", I’ve studied it and absorbed its lessons, and... it’s over right (?)- hah- so why trudge through it “one more again”. Why spend time with theories that always seem to dead-end in cultural determinism; and which, when I am being ornery, I tell my students that had we “believed” in when we were tree-dwelling hominids, we would still be clinging to tree branches discussing our different interpretations of the “reality” of the ground below and how going down there would affect power relations.

I had been thinking of Adorno and was interested in what these authors, Steven Best and Douglas Kellner, had to say about him in the context of their book. And instead of just reading the one chapter, I decided, “What the hell, let’s see how the authors fit all of these guys together.” At five pages a night before passing out, it has been slow going and I am one half a Lyotard chapter and one Feminism and Marxism chapter away form what I set out to look for in the first place. But on my way, after revisiting Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari, I got to the chapter on Baudriallard; and I can’t help myself, full of shit or not, and a lot of the time he is, the man is extremely exciting to read! No matter how hyperbolic his pronouncements, they seem to resonate with present experience...information dissolves meaning and the social into a sort of nebulous state leading not at all to a surfeit of innovation but to the very contrary, to total entropy...

I don’t seem to be the only one thinking of Baudriallard at this end of year. In the “On the Ground” section of December’s Art Forum, where authors write concluding thoughts about the year in different cities, both Wahlead Bashty and Emily Pethick invoke his name to help describe the scenes in LA and London respectively... One wonders where else he will crop up.

So today I stopped at the bank to get some Cash. The ATM machine was blocked by an armored car, so I parked and walked into the bank for a face to face with a teller. Surprisingly enough the transaction only took seconds; and in some of those seconds, the teller looked at me and said, "You probably don't want to hear this, but you've been approved for $50,000 dollar credit card..." I raised my hand and she smiled knowing I was not interested. I looked at her and said, "My, you're actually lending to people?!" ...Apparently to me, yes, to car companies, no.

The Public Angry at GM: Wha' the Fu'?!

Truly the dumbest urban vehicle know to woman

You know, I’m not a big fan of how the Big Three have done their business; however, for the public to be angry at them at this point in time is a travesty. The Big Three would not have delivered the pathetic automobiles they have done for the past decade had not the American public gobbled them up! In the end they supplied what was being demanded. It’s not like there were no normal fuel efficient cars out there for people to buy; they chose to buy SUV’s. Hell, they looked nice in the four car garages of the houses they were about to default on.

not the future unless we start getting serious about taxing foreign oil

Ground

The Ranting Economist and I went to New York city last week; the Ranting Economist for a conference and me for the hell of it. It was wonderful to get out of the small southern town we live in and go back to that electrifying city after a five year hiatus. We didn’t do much other than look at art, see friends, pig out and walk around the streets; streets in which the sense of public space is so different than it is here, and thus my cliched but apt adjective of “electrifying”. The air in New York feels alive in a way that the stultifying atmosphere here never does.

While in The Big City, we stopped at the Bruce Silverstein Gallery and saw a show by Zoe Strauss. As we were walking in, one of the beautiful people, or if not one of “them”, certainly a beautiful, tall, perfumed and well dressed woman was walking out after having turned her nose up in the air, perused the work without ever stopping to look at anything, and saying, “Let’s get out of here, these depress me!”  We, mere plebes from the nether world, we were bowled over by the work; so much so, that the Ranting Economist even looked at the price list with thoughts of disposing of income that, after the fall of the stock market, we no longer have.

We walked through the gallery over and over again, just marveling at the pictures. We were so enthusiastic that Bruce Silverstein himself came out to talk to us. He asked us what we thought, and we conveyed our enthusiasm. We all concluded that she was the “real deal”. I told him we were from South Carolina and could understand them in a way New Yorkers couldn’t. He answered by saying that there is poverty in New York too, it’s just that most New Yorkers don’t engage with it. I did not pursue the argument, though I was not talking about the poverty that is depicted in some of the photographs.  I was talking about the sense of space she captures, not without humor, in them; that desolate, empty, lonely space that one lives with everyday out here in "greater America" and that in New York City you have to go out of your way to find.

I wish we had had more disposable income....

A traitor to the cause?

I was never a big fan; and the more I see Louis Bourgois' work, the more I read about it, the more I find out about the cult of her personality, and the more I try, really try, to like it, the less I do. Why is it that I just can't get into messy feminist or proto-feminist work? It's so boring in so many dimensions... I do like her prints though, not all, but some; the ones less bogged down by personal eccentricity and mythology.

Art for Whom?

Used to be that I could stop a conversation cold when people asked me what I did and I told them I was a printmaker. I haven’t made prints in a while. And now, when people ask me what I am up to, and I answer honestly with “I am deconstructing an Art Forum,” communication really takes a nose dive. Institutional critique or not, who are we really talking to...

So, Is It a Class Thing?

I was born and raised in Brazil; and there we talked a lot about class if not at all about race. In America it is the opposite; we bloviate a lot about race and ethnicity but we rarely talk about social class.

As can be gleaned from some of my previous blogs, the little burg I live in is once again faced with “developmental issues”. A land owner wants to sell one of his parcels of land to be developed into a big box store, specifically a Lowe’s. This parcel of land gives onto a very small and winding double yellow lined road called Isaqueena Trail, which up to now has mainly been developed for residential use. How to use said parcel and its neighbors has been an issue of contention in town for a while and details of the current debate can be read at http://www.nobigboxonissaqueena.org/ .

I’d love to call Clemson a college town, but it isn’t, it is merely an intersection of highways and double yellow lined roads at whose center lies a mid-sized, present day, American style university, or what David Hickey has recently described as a “big box of information”. Clemson is a place, like so many others, in the middle of nowhere, where young Americans come to finish growing up for four years; a place where they can do a lot of drinking, follow some mediocre sports teams, have sex, and show up for class every now and then. Like so many towns in this vast oil dependent country, it has sprawled without rhyme, plan or reason other than to accommodate a growing number of transient residents. Other than physical requirements such as housing and an array of familiar franchised restaurants to make the kids feel at home, big boxes of information also require a very specialized kind of labor in order to be able to hold on to the “university” label, the kind of labor that comes equipped with PhDs.

So let’s go back to the question of what kind of development should take place on Isaqueena Trail in Clemson-burg. Obviously, it is only a contentious issue because there are two social groups with very different sets of vested interests when it comes to how development should unfold in town. There is a group of people that does not want your average, natural-seeming [1] American style development to take place here; and then there is another group that does. This second group is comprised of land owners, average Americans who would not mind the convenience of big box store shopping at their doorstep, and, seemingly, the entire city council, since for them this kind of development is a way of getting tax dollars without the always unpopular raising of taxes on existing citizens and businesses.

The issue of development on Isaqueena has come up before when another developer wanted to sell a nearby site to Wal-mart. At that time, I was firmly against it and went to every council and planning board meeting to protest the establishment of a Wal-mart in town. The outcome of the confrontation between pro-Wal-mart and contra-Wal-mart factions resulted in what seemed to be a good and logical comprehensive plan for future development; one in which the town would develop in a sustainable way without giving in to rampant sprawl. Apparently though, Clemson’s comprehensive plan is just a meaningless piece of paper since it will be overthrown in order to allow for Lowe’s to come in.... But I digress. This time around, my instincts still remain firmly against such development; but except for sending letters to a mostly unresponsive council, I have not been as involved in trying to keep “natural-seeming” development at bay. By staying uninvolved, I have watched the events unfold as an informed outsider and have tried to look at the whole thing objectively, only to conclude that that’s not possible, and that this fight is a “class ‘theng’”.

Those of us against “development as usual” in the town of Clemson seem to be comprised of that overly educated labor class of which I spoke earlier; the class of people instrumental to the existence of “the big box of information” in the center of town and raison-d'etre of Clemson. We make up a social group with a certain set of preferences. We prefer to have sustainable, slow development in the hopes that eventually the town will attract small individually owned businesses designed for people with high human capital such as us [2]. Ours is a set of preferences for which we are willing to pay in the form of longer commutes to big box stores (let’s face it, we all use the damn things; it’s America, man), and, given our actions, in the form of higher future property and sales taxes. The motivations of the opposing group are also easy to discern: the developer wants to sell to Lowe’s in order to make quick huge profits, and the council wants easy present versus hard to come by future tax returns. And beyond the thorny issue of the property rights of the land owner, what remains somewhat of a problem for me as a socially conscious human being overly educated in post-structural theory is the question of how to accommodate the preferences of the group of people councilwoman Thompson hails from. The people who see nothing wrong with the way America looks and feels like. The people who prefer to eat at Olive Garden rather than eat at Villa Novella; what of their preferences?

Apart from all the very real urban and sustainability implications of our current modes of production and development, this Lowe’s thing in Clemson is also, most definitely, a very real class “thing”; and as class thing, it comes with all kinds of thorny power implications... [3]

[1] Notice I said “natural-seeming”. I am not saying that America’s developmental patterns are natural in an absolute way, if such an animal even exists; I am saying that sprawl has been, except for very specific instances, the very way this nation has developed physically and economically in the past, so it is only natural that municipalities feel the need to keep using this old model.
[2] Although, truthfully, I don’t see it happening since there isn’t enough of us here; hence the beauty of faith...
[3] Merci M Foucault...

Maybe He Is Different After All

Obama to meet with McCain to discuss how to better run the government.

This I Believe

I believe that in time of great crisis, great politicians arise. One such politician has arisen; now all that remains is to see if he steps up to the plate of being a great President. Godspeed Barack Obama.

little things that signify some unknown

I shop at the Ingles Supermarket, every once in a while, on my way back from the county pool, when I think of something I need that they might have. Despite my abhorrence of them when they first came out and of what they signify in this culture (but that's a whole other rant), I confess that I have become addicted to using their “do it yourself” check-out machines.

Due to some faulty wiring in my brain, lately I have been pressing the “Espanol” button instead of the “English” button when I first say hello to the darn thing, and have found out that once I do that, I am stuck having the machine dish out orders in “Espanol” throughout the rest of my engagement with it. Given that I speak Portuguese, it isn’t the end of the world and I go through the “processo” in “Espaneesh”. I did that yesterday, paid my bill; and as I was walking out, I thought to myself, “Hmmm 'interesante', the voice in the machine that gives out orders in English is a female voice; however the one speaking Spanish is a male voice....”

Le Culot de Bill Kristol

1 culot Noun, masculine (a) (Infml) nerve, cheek; avoir du ~ to have a nerve, have some cheek, be cheeky(b) body; residue
[edit] Etymology
From cul 'bottom', itself from Latin culus 'arse'

So Bill, quel culot! Who exactly are you calling “the media elite”, Harvard boy? And who do you imagine is this “vulgus” you eulogize so? In your column Here the People Rule, you write with respect to Obama’s favored poll numbers over McCain’s: “You might think this data point poses a challenge to my encomium to the good sense of the American People.” Pardon me Bill, let’s be vulgar; who the fuck uses the word “encomium” while trying to prove his understanding of the common people?

Do you really think you are proving your connection and knowledge of what the “vulgus” wants by writing a column, in the way that you write it, in the NY Times? When you write in praise of the common folk while giving us all a little lesson in word derivations from the Latin, not only are you only speaking to the media elite such as yourself, you are also seriously condescending to The People you claim to celebrate. Bill, you wouldn’t know the “vulgus” if it hit you in the face; but I don’t think you care. The “vulgus”, to you, is just an abstraction in your game of “bait the liberal elite”; and in the end, that’s really what you care about.

You are a member of the conservative elite; please accept it without trying to tell the elite of a different color, and I’m talking red and blue here, that your brand of conservatism is “of the people”. Don’t keep beating that tired old drum, or in your case, timpani about the liberal elite not understanding the “vulgus”. An average of 50% of the American people keeps voting for liberals, so it seems that the liberal elite knows something about at least half of the American “vulgus”. And while you’re at it, do stop talking about “Joe the Plumber” as if he were the epitome of the American entrepreneurial spirit; that too is an insult. But I guess the fact that he is not a licensed plumber, and has no intention of actually starting a business is beside the point, for he too is just an abstraction in the game that conservatives play in trying to make the common people think that a small increase in taxes will stop all investment in this country[1]. Hell, as it is, the Republicans running the government let that happen without raising one single tax! And above all Bill, stop zealously pushing Sarah Palin as an icon of The People who could easily lead us as our president. Here my friend, you are not smitten with the “vulgus”, it’s the “vulva” you've fallen for. Don’t worry Bill, you are not the first Jew to fall for a Shiksa, and you won’t be the last man to go down for a vulva. (Now, how’s that for vulgar?)

[1] Way I see it, “Joe the Plumber” is such a perfect image for you people, I am beginning to think he was planted to ask that question about taxation to Mr. Obama. Of course Obama should have asked him what kind of plumbing business he had that was netting $250,000. I’ve actually met owners of small plumbing businesses, I’ve yet to encounter one that nets that much... but I digress...

Letter to Senator McCain

Dear Senator McCain,

I have always admired you for your independent streak and sense of morality, and have voted for you every time your name came by on a ballot here in South Carolina. I am so sorry to say that I won’t be doing that this time around; and I won’t because of “that woman” and the way you have had to run your campaign to please the people you tried to appeal to with her nomination.

I understand your advisors were telling you that you could not bring in the right of the party if you did not choose somebody like “her”; and maybe you were stuck between a rock and a hard place. But unlike what you did in Vietnam, this time you did compromise your principles. Sorry to say sir, but these days, as you try to hold on to what you believe in, while at the same time trying to appeal to the extremists in your party, you look like something cobbled up by Dr. Frankenstein.

It is quite conceivable that you would have lost the election had you followed your heart and instincts and chosen Senator Joe Lieberman as your running mate instead (and what a truly independent ticket that would have been!). Had you run that race, sir, and lost, that would have been a dignified loss. As it is, may this farce be over soon.

Sincerely,
Katya Cohen

Forgive me Father for I have sinned

Yesterday I wished that the Lowe’s Home improvement center I have been campaigning to keep out of town were in town.

As can be gleaned below, in the letters I sent to Councilwoman Thompson, I am asking the council of the City of Clemson to reconsider fudging the town’s zoning laws just to accommodate a Lowe’s shopping center in an area zoned for residential and small business development. In my letters, one of the arguments I used against the Lowe’s is that it’s existence will jeopardize the small local businesses such as nurseries and hardware stores that make this place human and humane. One such store is the ACE on route 123, two miles from the proposed site. However, after going there yesterday, I did wish for its demise.

I went to Ace to get a three-way light switch in “bone” (color) to complete a complicated wiring scheme a friend and I were trying to fix. After having a hard time finding the three-way switches, I asked an attendant where they were. He had about as much luck finding one as I did, but eventually picked up the last one, whose toggle was in “bisque" and not in "bone", the color I needed to match all the other 23 light switches in the room. As he handed it to me he said, “Some guy came in the other day and wiped me out of three-ways; I guess I should have ordered some more”. Duh. After dismantling a whole series of interconnected switches that turn one light on and off, and finding out that the reason they were not working properly was because of a broken 3-way in the set-up, I needed a new three-way switch to complete the circuit and put my family room back together; and I needed it then. I settled for the bisque colored switch after giving the the Ace man the evil eye and stating that I would return it when I got my bone colored one elsewhere. As I walked out, I wished for the Lowe’s; yes, on Isaqueena, in the center of a circle with a radius of 8 miles, on whose circumference sits 3 other Lowe’s super-stores. Fact is, that when I think of small businesses I miss, I do not think of franchises such as ACE, whose crappy little monopoly over this town is about to be dismantled; but I think of stores like Ole Norms, who certainly eventually closed because of the circle of Lowe’s and Home Depots around it; and whose land became more valuable as a site for a Food Lion.

Everything changes.

Understanding Through Disagreement (thank god this ain't about abortion)

Hi Katya,
I hope you are enjoying this rain as much as I am. I would love to put Lowe's on Hwy 93, particularly at the corner of Berkley and 93. But then all the Monaco Estates people would be upset. We are so land locked and land poor, at least from the retail side of things. I would like to see Clemson extend out to Rd 18 and do more retail out that way. Maybe one day.
As our economy goes down the drain and jobs are lost, either to illegal immigrants or corporations taking their companies out of the US, I am personally happy to have good health and wake up everyday and not have to wonder where my next meal may come from or a roof over my head. We all need to be humbled in this world and I was so against the bailout our great government just did.
I will go off of council at the end of the year and plan to run for county council in 2 years. I was a deputy sheriff with Pickens Co for 25 years and have always felt a sense of loyalty to the county. What I suggest you do, is run for office. Always be pastionate in what you believe in and always, always be true to yourself. That is my philosphy in life and I would rather look you straight in the eye and be truthful, than sell my soul to the Devil.
Margaret


Ms. Thompson,
As I've said before, even though you and I don't see eye to eye on some things, I do think you're cool (-;

All the best,
Katya

The Conversation Continues

Ms Cohen,
I wasn't on council when the Wal Mart controversary was going on but I did go to the meetings when both sides gave their opinions. One such meeting was at the First Baptist Church in Clemson and I have never seen people act the way they did particularly in a place of worship. I will always answer your letters, your phone calls or a face to face meeting. For me personally, as far as Lowe's goes, I want convenience and keep my tax dollars here. It takes a lot of money to run this town, especially keeping up 17 parks. I am not a tax and spend council member and have voted against tax increases the last 3 years I have been on council. I do not plan to run again and it is a shame that no one is running. That tells me one or two things. The citizens are either happy with the way things are going and they just don't care. I ran because it ticked my off that Clemson let Wal Mart go. This was the first time I had ever run for office and was very upfront with why I was running for office. The letting go of the Wal Mart was my campaign message and apparently there were more in agreement with me than not. I also want you to know, that there will be more growth even with me going off council. Please keep in touch with me because I do care. There is no one you want more than me on your side fighting for you. I do respect your position greatly on Lowe's and you are welcome to come and voice your opinion tonight at our council meeting.
Margaret



Dear Ms. Thompson,
I always appreciate your candor and you obviously don't mind mine (-; I know growth is inevitable and I do want growth; but there is smart growth and not-so-smart growth, and putting a big box store at that location limits the directions of growth into an antiquated model that has worked for America in the past but that needs to be rethought for the future. Why not put the Lowe's on 93? Now, that would be convenient! Isaqueena Trail should not only be an inviting entrance to Clemson, but it should also be kept as a way of growing the city in an enhanced way; not just cutting it off by and making it disappear into one more strip of undifferentiated ugly shopping malls.
I understand the need for tax dollars, but these tax dollars you speak of might be the equivalent of making a pact with the devil. And when I talked about Lowe's hurting small businesses, I was thinking of all the hardware stores and nurseries that I like to cater to around here- small stores that make the place human and humane. There might be room for both styles of development; we just have to be careful how we allow for both. Not to mention the decrease in home values of the well established neighborhoods around the planned area- do you plan to start a tax redistribution program to pay for the devaluation of those homes? There are consequences to everything, and I think it is time that communities start thinking in a more long term way than just letting the fat cats wheel and deal their way into strangling alternatives.
And there you go, my opinion: different from yours, yet I appreciate that you have one and stand behind it. And again, I do thank you for responding, even when I am at my most irascible.

Katya Cohen

awwwwe She Got Her Feelings Hurt

Nancy (tiger) Bennett's answer to my Lowe's letter in last blog:
-----Original Message-----From: nancybtiger@bellsouth.net [mailto:nancybtiger@bellsouth.net] Sent: Monday, October 06, 2008 4:05 PMTo: Katya Subject: Re: Lowe's on Isaqueena!?
I do not value any correspondence that threatens me at the ballot box. I am disappointed that a highly educated citizen should resort to such a low level threat. Nancy Bennett--Clemson City Council


My answer:
Ok, but you have not told me your opinion about the planned development. That being said, the ballot box is the only recourse I have in telling my representatives whether or not I like the job they are doing for me; I’m just being straight forward, maybe that’s not how politics works. But thanks for your answer.
k

And never the Twain Shall Meet

Dear Ms. Thompson,

How many times does a person with the sense that a community should be more than a series of intersecting commercial strips have to fight to keep such developments as the one proposed in the attachment to this email out of ones community? First it was the Wal-Mart and now the Lowe's Mart.

I understand private property and all, but sometimes the good of the community as a whole should override the interests of a private developer. Look at how downtown Greenville has developed to be a magnet for people from all over the state and beyond precisely because it opted to develop differently than the average American town. It has not gotten to be the attraction that it is by having a bunch of big box stores open up close to downtown. One can hardly get into town on the weekends, so bursting it is with people who come to enjoy a well designed and planned community.

Granted, the intersection of Isaqueena and 123 is not exactly "downtown", but the bulk of the area is residential, and Isaqueena is a main artery that allows people to bypass the congested area of 93; it would be nice if it remained that way or developed into a multi-use community with truly small businesses. Not to mention that if Lowe's comes into town, it will quash all the other small businesses in the area that provide similar services, thus eliminating any semblance this place has to an actual community.

This city seems to spend an inordinate amount of money bricking up everything in the hopes of making it look like a user friendly town. Well, bricks plus big box stores, even if they are forced to look quaint, do not a town make. To use a much publicized phrase, it's like putting lipstick on a pig. Please try to pass legislation to improve the quality of living in Clemson in a sustainable way and for "the small" guy. You just have to look at the past couple of years to see what unfettered and unregulated free market capitalism has resulted in. Downtown Clemson is barely usable without more sprawling development swallowing what is already an impossibly small center; let's develop the outskirts in a user friendly way.

I apologize for the tone of this letter, but the knowledge that I have to fight such development all over again, and that we don't seem to learn anything from the past does not bring out my "sunny disposition" side. Please let me know how you decide on this issue so I can decide what to do at the ballot box.


Sincerely,

Katya Cohen

Ms Cohen,

I am for Lowe's as I was for Wal Mart. This past year, council spent $80 thousand dollars on economic developement because in my opinion that some on council let the Wal Mart locate in Central. This was all do to political pressure. I beat to a different drum and make no bones about how I feel. When I ran for council 4 years ago, economic development was one of my goals and I, along with the majority of citizens were upset the Wal Mart was lost to Central. That same council who voted to let Wal Mart go are now on board for economic development. We all would love to get a Target, Costco, Home Depot, Lowe's, etc and the list goes on. We as a council, voted on this and we all agreed to this.

As far as hurting small businesses, should I as a business owner not open my business because I might hurt someone. That is not how the free market works. When Chic Fil A comes to Clemson, should they not come because it may hurt McDonald's or Wendy's.

Clemson is no longer a small town and we on council don't use the phrase "Village". As far as your reference to Greenville, I love going to downtown Greenville and so do thousands of other people.

As stated previously, it is now and always my intent to be straightforward. However, I like a citizen who gets involved and speaks their mind. I will always welcome your comments even when we don't agree.


Respectfully yours,

Margaret J Thompson

Clemson City Council

Dear Ms. Thompson,

I appreciate your opinion even though it differs from mine. I also appreciate that you've always answered my letters, unlike the other council members- I really do. If the council has decided that this already shitty little town needs to look like Anderson and have the same traffic problems, so be it.

Let me ask you, does not political pressure mean that you answered to your constituents when the Walmart wanted to locate here?

Again, I do sincerely appreciate your service,

Katya Cohen

The Thing about Elections

Voting is a faith-based activity; and for those atheists among us, not a very satisfying one. Every four years, a couple of people come onto the scene and promise us a bunch of things that any moderately intelligent human being with a basic comprehension of accounting can’t possibly believe in. And yet hundreds of thousands of people, not only believe, but actually follow these would be preachers around as if they were on the way to being delivered to the Promised Land.

When Obama speaks, he sounds like he is speaking Chinese by promising a bunch of very cool stuff I can’t even begin to understand due to the improbability of their accomplishment. He promises Utopia on a balanced budget; and not even Reagan balanced his budget while only promising three simple things: military expenditure, government efficiency, and yes, the elusive balanced budget[1]. Obama is promising to raise capital gains taxes “only” to the level they were during the Reagan administration, plus some other murky tax increases on personal income to pay for his promises. But that won’t even begin to pay for the deficit we have now, much less build Utopia. Hey, I am all for a Marshall Plan for this country, we need to rebuild before adding rooms to the house; but that will take a lot more than mamby pamby unsubstantiated promises about change. And yes, it will take a lot more taxation, and I doubt any American is ever in the mood for that. The trick for Obama will be how to go about taxing people without shutting down the already shut down economy. No way Barrack!

McCain... Hell, I don’t even know what McCain is promising anymore. He so much wants to be president before he dies that he has sold his soul to the devil, I mean, the right wing of the Republican Party. Remember John McCain, that dude the Republicans used to hate because of how often he would vote against their interests? Well, that dude has made such a salad trying to mesh his maverick streak while kowtowing to the base of the Republican Party that when he talks, he too sounds like he is speaking Chinese; and yo no hablo chines. Whatever he and Sarah Palin are selling me (something about what I can do to myself with a hockey stick), I’m not buying either.

So, the thing about elections is that they are very much like a colonoscopy. Two months of prepping for going to the dreaded booth to press a button next to a name or party whose toxic solution is less irritating on our stomachs that day, only to leave relieved that it’s over and we don’t have to do it again for another four years. ...Come to think of it, a colonoscopy has the advantage of having to be done only every ten years...

[1] In my lifetime there is one president that actually accomplished that feat: Bill Clinton. But he decided to squander his achievement by having Little Bill serviced in the White House in this most puritanical of countries...

Letter to Republicans

To the Republican Party:

I am sick and tired of you people. I have held my nose and voted for you in the past for reasons of national security and because you promised fiscal restraint and efficiency; but not this time, you just tipped that precarious balance. First McCain, whom I thought was independent minded and might bring some rational middle-of-the-road thinking to your party, impulsively pulls Sarah Palin out of some hat to rub my nose in all that I abhor about your party’s social agenda, and then you fail miserably in the fiscal responsibility “area” you claim to be experts at. Mind you, it is not just that you probably pushed us into a ten year recession by failing to pass the “bailout”, hell, you ran the executive and legislative branches of the government for four years and made a complete hash of it; Nancy Pelosi is a most unpleasant woman, but she's right.

“It’s ‘ovah’ baby!" You can kiss my vote good-bye. I am pressing that big red “Democratic” button without even looking at who is running for what. I hate your social policies, you are pathetic financial managers; and as far as national security goes, hey if we get hit enough times, even the democrats will grow some balls.

Letter to The People

The County Election by George Caleb Bingham

People, do not be swayed by the politicians who are currently claiming to be on your side by bloviating about not passing the Paulson plan; they are not on your side, they are just running for re-election. These same politicians, now spouting the wonders of the free market[1] and how we should let it take care of our[2] financial crisis, were not only asleep at the wheel when it all started unraveling, but were instrumental in loosening the oversight conditions that might have helped us avoid this situation in the first place. And they did so by advocating for the same free market conditions they are pushing for now. Educate yourselves and throw the bums out.

[1] which does indeed have wonders; this not being one of those times in which one can marvel at them.
[2] and don’t be fooled into thinking this is not “our” financial crisis- read my “letter to the Congress”.

Letter to Congress

Look, there is no such thing as Wall Street separate from Main Street, they are just two sides of the same coin. If one side falls through the gutter grate, the other one does too, and you are left with no coin. We set up, with your help, an economy based on credit; and if the credit institutions we now depend on go under, it’s not as if we can just sit on terra firme and rejoice that “those crooks” are getting what they deserve; the floor will disappear from under us as well. If Wall Street goes, Mr. Main Street will no longer be able to borrow to buy a house, or buy a car, or start a landscaping business, or keep his plumbing business afloat, have a chicken farm, or start Microsoft. So Congresspeople, it’s time to help Mr. Main Street by helping Wall Street; the earthquake that will wipe out Wall Street is not about to spare Main Street; remember it’s all one town.

“Hegel remarks somewhere that all historical facts appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.” - Karl Marx

...and you Mr. Main Street, who did not have enough money to buy that house and still went ahead and did it anyway, this is your fault too, you were just as greedy as those so-called predators you seem to think preyed on you. Thanks for putting my retirement a little bit farther into the future than I had foreseen...

Palin People Allow Only Cameras

I am not sure what Palin’s people are doing, but I think that keeping the press from reporting on her while she is meeting with foreign leaders would seriously backfire as a plan. Maybe I am just weird, but this kind of action only goes to strengthen the conviction us skeptics out here have that she is not fit to govern at the high level she is slated to do if the Republican Party wins this November. After all, if she had something insightful to say, I would think her people would actually want to disseminate it, not keep it under wraps...

If It Smells Like It and Looks Like It

No, I am not referring to our current electoral season but to Andres Serrano’s latest work. Seeing an ad for his current show in the latest issue of Art Forum brought to mind a conversation I had with an acquaintance a while back. Said acquaintance was an art lover in the way that the average person who likes art likes it; not in the way that people who are familiar with the art world have had to understand it. Your average person would not ever have come in contact with Serrano’s work had the evangelicals who occasionally run the congress not seen to it that he become national news, thereby launching him into stardom, sending the price of his photographs sky high, and forever insuring his place in the anus, I mean, annals of art history.

My acquaintance broached the subject of Piss Christ and told me how he hated it and how offensive it was to him. In vain I tried to explain what a lovely photograph it was. But to see it as lovely one of course has to forget that it is the picture of a crucifix floating in piss, and my friend could not see past subject to form. I then tried to embody the voice of Eleanor Heartney and launched into a lame explanation of its content (as opposed to contents) by evoking the significance of body fluids in the Catholic religion. Even I couldn’t get past the nonsense I was spouting.

This season Mr. Serrano asks us to contemplate big beautiful pictures of piles of shit; this time with no little crucifix atop a mound[1] like a mini Corcovado. The medium is the message best describes Serrano’s work. His photographs are big, glossy, well printed, and chromatically pleasing; in essence, they are nice big pictures whose prettiness overshadows any content, if content there really is. In the end, after you pay your ten thou and take one of these home, “whatchu got” is just one more pile o’ shit.

[1] though at least that might actually bring Jesse Helms back from the grave so that we could again have a rollicking good time of “us” versus “them”.

How Different is Alaska Really

Ted Stevens, having been in the senate for 40 years, is running for office again while on trial for fraud and corruption, and probably will be re-elected.... Hmmmm I guess it's not all that different up there...

one more monday and another phone pic

It ain't the only thing's broke...

Inference: Faulty Reasoning at the Best of Times

Having received the following forwarded message with no explanation to its contents, I had to ask myself what exactly was its significance...

I am 42 years old,
I love the outdoors,
I hunt,
I am a Republican reformer,
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment,
I have five children,
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor's office.
Did you guess?

space space space ...Tah dah!

I am Teddy Roosevelt in 1900

... Knowing that the sender always sends me fun things and puzzles, my inquiry dealt with trying to surmise the intent of the author of this missive in releasing such a string of meaningless words to the world at large, at this time, and in this place. Although the above facts could refer to Teddy Roosevelt, it is not a very complete list about him or of his accomplishments. In fact it is designed to mislead and to coral one into thinking of someone else whose life would sound exactly the same were we to de-contextualize it in this same fashion. So what is one to think...

I am 42 years old.
I love the outdoors; so much so, that I set aside huge swatches of it as national parks where nobody can drill for oil EVER.
I hunt.
I am a Republican reformer from the time before Reagan made a pact with the devil to include religious ideologues into the party.
I have taken on the Republican Party establishment.
I have five children, none of them pregnant out of wedlock.
I attended Harvard and graduated Magna cum Laude.
I wrote several books (one about an artist).
I have a spot on the national ticket as vice president with less than two years in the governor's office;
But before that I had several jobs, including being President of the Board of Police Commissioners in the biggest city in the nation, where I instituted meaningful reforms.
Oh, and I also was secretary of the navy; but whose counting.
Did you guess?

space space space Tah-dah:

I am not Sarah Palin in 2008!

phone pic of the week

Reading material at doctor's office
--- hmmmm, what to read...

Cereus Slide Show

Summer's End

go to:
http://picasaweb.google.com/ktmrchn/Cereus02#
and press slideshow to view

Black Monday

Given an hour, this http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/?ProgramID=1197 is worth watching. It gives one a good insight in the Freddie and Fannie debacle. Also gives a clear picture of the shenanigans engaged in by our illustrious congress. Washington is a culture I don’t think anybody can change; it’s a black hole of a sewer whose gravitational pull ensnares anyone near it. McCain says he is going to change it; but he’s been in there for about 3 decades, and despite making some noise, he hasn’t done it. Obama speaks like he has been drinking from that tit for 30 years himself. ... May there just be light after black Monday...

DFW Hangs Himself Leaving One More Lacuna

Woke up too early this morning, turned on the radio and was shocked by the news that David Foster Wallace had hung himself. I only knew and, yes, loved David Foster Wallace through his writing, so my pain from this loss is at best very abstract. However it comes on the heels of another loss by hanging which was a lot less abstract and much more personal; and around which I’m still trying to wrap my head. Wallaces death ain’t helpin’ any.

I understand wanting to be no more, but the step between here and there is something most of us can’t begin to comprehend[1]. And ever since I heard that Jerzy Kozinski killed himself by placing a plastic bag over his head and taping it shut at the neck I’ve wondered at the strength of will necessary to in fact take that step. I understand pain and I’ve seen desperation, and yet that explains nothing, for it is hard to understand how a person can feel so much pain without understanding the pain that taking one’s life might cause in others[2]. Obviously at that moment, nothing else exists but the self and the act.

Ah well, people I admire are gone, and I remain, left to wonder if Wallace left a note, and if he did, did it contain one of his wondrous footnotes.

[1] Even though suicide seems to be the leading cause of death in the world: one million deaths by suicide per year. That being said, in an often crappy world such as this, that still means most of us trudge on, don’t commit it, and still can’t comprehend it.

[2] for “soul pain", the kind that must lead one to commit suicide, implies empathy.

In France Pope Decries Secular Power-hungry Materialist Culture

...This from the man that wears Prada shoes and lives in the Vatican (the seat of the all-powerful Holy Roman Empire, remember, the one that amasses vast amounts of wealth)...

Bikinis: not just for looks

A few weeks ago, during the Olympics, I just couldn’t believe the amount of infantile media coverage (no pun intended) about the women's beach volleyball team’s choice of attire. I finally had enough after one more story about it on NPR and wrote them the letter that follows. They actually read an edited version of it in their “letters” segment!

Dear ATC,

Why Is America all hung up about the use of bikinis in the women’s beach volleyball competition? I grew up in Brazil, where the bikini is a national uniform and going to the beach the national pastime; bikinis are truly the most comfortable attire for sandy beaches. Why does this country have to be so sophomoric about their, in this case, practical use. Seriously, this country does nothing but sell sex and sexual innuendo in all shapes and forms through all types of media all the time; and now the public is getting giggly and hung up about athletes wearing bikinis for practical reasons!? There is not one night that I can’t find a lap dancer in some show or another on prime-time television; why is nobody giggling about that... Gimme a break, grow up America!

Sarah Palin is no feminist

Why have people had such a hard time articulating what is wrong with Sarah Palin from a feminist context? Maybe it’s because the feminism card is even more guilt inducing and harder to play than the race card. That can only be a good thing because it means that the rights fought for by true feminists, which Sarah Palin is most definitely not, are finally ingrained in our social consciousness.

The definition of feminism can sometimes be hard to pin down due to its long history and the mutations it undergoes as it radiates around the world to serve women of different ethnic backgrounds. I do not want to denigrate its function as a tool of emancipation for women all over the world; but when some of us say that Sarah Palin is not a feminist, it has nothing to do with how feminism can function to help women in, let’s say, Chad. When we put the words “Sarah Palin” and “Feminism” together, we are referring to the garden variety type of western feminism developed in America and Europe. The kind of feminism that calls for voting rights, the rights to contract, property rights, and the right to wade in the sewer of party politics, as well as, a woman’s right to bodily integrity and autonomy. That is, feminism does not only call for women to have the same rights men have in the market place and at home; but due to our different physiology, it also calls for the right to safe and legal abortions and the right to contraception, which can only come about with comprehensive education in what that means.

Sarah Palin has indeed functioned within the system that feminists have helped to create, after all she has used it to float up to the top of the big digestive system that is our current political scene; but she has eschewed the part of feminism that calls for bodily integrity and autonomy for all. Her views on that come from a paradigm that is anathema to feminist ideals. Dick Morris, advisor to Bill Clinton and now conservative political commentator (I suppose working for the Clintons might turn anyone into a conservative), lauds Palin’s personal reproductive choices, and so do I, in as much as they are her choices, a word that comes into play only when there is more than one option.

Palin has not been in office long enough to legislate in the matter of reproductive choice; but her views on the subject make it clear which way she will go given the time; she will curtail women’s choices, just as she curtailed those of her 17 year old child. She is no feminist, and nobody should have a hard time saying that, regardless of her strengths as a woman.