My Pandora stations - updated and improved

PANDORA STATIONS

K-ROCK 2019 RADIO = ROBERT PLANT + U2 + WILCO + SONG SEEDS: "FREE FALLIN' & EVEN THE LOSERS & YOU DON'T KNOW HOW IT FEELS & THE WAITING BY TOM PETTY + I FEEL A CHANGE COMIN' ON BY BOB DYLAN" + ROBERT SCHUMANN

JOSS THE WAY U R RADIO = JOSS STONE + "JUST THE WAY YOU ARE BY DIANA KRALL" + AMY WINEHOUSE + DIANA DAMRAU + FRANZ SCHUBERT

CONCEPTION CREST RADIO = CHARLIE PARKER + DIZZY GILESPIE + JOHN COLTRANE + "CENTRAL PARK WEST BY COLTRANE" + RICHARD STRAUSS

OTHER ONES RADIO = BOB WEIR + MICKEY HART + PHIL LESH + BILL MONROE + GIACOMO PUCCINI

REMEDY RADIO = TOM ZE + CAETANO VELOSO + SILVIO RODRIGUEZ+ "THE REMEDY (I WON'T WORRY) BY JASON MRAZ" + CLAUDE DEBUSSY

CLOSE SHAVE RADIO = CHICAGO + ZZ TOP + RUSH + "BURMA SHAVE BY TOM WAITS" + GAETANO DONIZETTI

TIME OUT RADIO = DAVE BRUBECK + NEIL YOUNG + KENNY G + FRANZ LISZT

NUOVA DECEMBER RADIO = ANDREAS VOLLENWEIDER + VANGELIS + GEORGE WINSTON + KITARO + JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH

GRITTY CAREY RADIO = "CAREY & BOTH SIDES NOW & FOR FREE BY JONI MITCHELL" + BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN + PETE SEEGER + GIOACHINO ROSSINI

LEFT LONELY RADIO = JANIS JOPLIN + BILLIE HOLIDAY + AHMAD JAMAL + "KOZMIC BLUES & GET IT WHILE YOU CAN & A WOMAN LEFT LONELY BY JANIS JOPLIN" + CECILIA BARTOLI

SOMEBODY TOUCHED ME RADIO = IAN HUNTER + WHISKEYTOWN + KENNY CHESNEY + SHELBY LYNNE + "ILLEGAL SMILE BY JOHN PRINE" + FREDRYK CHOPIN

COOLPIX RADIO = NINA SIMONE + ALICE COLTRANE + CAT POWER + "BROKEN-HEARTED MELODY BY SARAH VAUGHN" + RICHARD WAGNER

KISSIMMEE KIDS RADIO = ROD STEWART + DAVID BROMBERG + "HALLOWEEN PARADE BY LOU REED + CAT PEOPLE BY DAVID BOWIE" + ANDRES SEGOVIA + LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN

TEMPORARY RADIO = "TEMPORARY THING BY LOU REED" + AL DIMEOLA + PACO DE LUCIA + WOLFGANG AMADEUS MOZART

CUTTING EDGE RADIO = RADIOHEAD + STARS OF THE LID + TV ON THE RADIO + RIDE

IT'S A LIVING RADIO = BRIAN ENO + KLAUS SCHULZE + MOUSE ON MARS + THE STREETS (UK) + PHILIP GLASS

BIRMINGHAM RADIO = GRAM PARSONS + GRAM PARSONS AND EMMYLOU HARRIS + MARK KNOPFLER AND EMMYLOU HARRIS + "BOULDER TO BIRMINGHAM BY EMMYLOU HARRIS" + ANTONIN DVORAK

FRESH HITS RADIO = DAVID COOK + JAMES BLUNT + NATASHA BEDINGFIELD + THE CRANBERRIES + SONG SEEDS: "TORN BY NATALIE IMBRUGLIA + SUPERMAN (LIVE) BY FIVE FOR FIGHTING + OVER MY HEAD (CABLE CAR) BY THE FRAY + MISSING YOU BY JOHN WAITE + SUDDENLY I SEE BY K.T. TUNSTALL + YELLOW BY COLDPLAY + NICK OF TIME & I CAN'T MAKE YOU LOVE ME BY BONNIE RAITT + SHUT YOUR EYES BY SNOW PATROL + CHANGE THE WORLD BY ERIC CLAPTON + BEFORE HE CHEATS BY CARRIE UNDERWOOD + SHE WILL BE LOVED BY MAROON 5 + THE UNINVITED BY ALANIS MORISSETTE"

SCHECTER RADIO = SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS + O.A.R. + MEL TORME + JOHN PIZZARELLI + BUCKY PIZZARELLI & FRANK VIGNOLA + FELIX MENDELSOHHN

BLIND WILLIE RADIO = "BLIND WILLIE MCTELL BY BOB DYLAN" + JAKOB DYLAN + THE WALLFLOWERS + JOHN DENVER + ELINA GARANCA + GUISEPPE VERDI

BEACHCOMBING RADIO = DIRE STRAITS + MARK KNOPFLER + "BEACHCOMBING BY M.K. AND E.H." + ROBERT PLANT AND ALLISON KRAUSS + ERIK SATIE

THE PALE MOONLIGHT RADIO = JOHNNY CASH + TOWNES VAN ZANDT + "COPPER KETTLE & DAYS OF 49 & LIVING THE BLUES & WOOGIE BOOGIE & BELLE ISLE BY BOB DYLAN" + AARON COPLAND

RED WING RADIO = CANNED HEAT + "LIVINGSTON'S GONE TO TEXAS BY JIMMY BUFFETT + THE WALLS OF RED WING BY RAMBLING JACK ELLIOTT" + JOYCE DIDONATO + ARNOLD BAX

ALICE MAE RADIO = R.L. BURNSIDE + STEVE EARLE + ART PEPPER + MAURICE RAVEL

JESSE JAMES RADIO = JETHRO TULL + THE MOODY BLUES + YES + THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT + KANSAS + KING CRIMSON + GENESIS + EMERSON, LAKE AND PALMER + SONG SEEDS: "JIM JONES BY BOB DYLAN + JESSE JAMES BY BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN" + LEO BROUWER

ICE COOL RADIO = THE BLACK CROWES + WILLIE NELSON + BILLY JOE SHAVER + BELA BARTOK

WHITE DOVE RADIO = OLD AND IN THE WAY + WOODY GUTHRIE + LEO KOTTKE + "YOU'RE A BIG GIRL NOW BY BOB DYLAN" + PETER MAXWELL DAVIES

PRAISE YOU RADIO = "PRAISE YOU BY FATBOY SLIM" + DAFT PUNK + GROOVE ARMADA + VAMPIRE WEEKEND + ALEXANDER SCRIABIN

TRANSPARENT RADIO = PAUL MCCARTNEY AND WINGS + THE CURE + THE SMITHS + SPACEMEN 3

SANBORN AND JAMES RADIO = DAVID SANBORN + BOB JAMES + DAVID SANBORN AND BOB JAMES + SPYRO GYRA + DAVE KOZ + HERB ALBERT + KEIKO MATSUI + GABRIELA ANDERS + SERGEY RACHMANINOFF

BARDIAN RADIO = CITIZEN COPE + YEAH YEAH YEAHS + NICK CAVE + GALAXIE 500 + THE FEELIES + THE MEKONS + MORPHINE + ANI DEFRANCO + BELLE AND SEBASTIAN + AMERICAN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA + JOAN TOWER + LEONARD BERNSTEIN

MEMORY TURN RADIO = MICK JAGGER + MICHAEL BRECKER + CHARLIE HUNTER + DAVE GRUSIN

POSTPUNK RADIO = MUDHONEY + BUTTHOLE SURFERS + SEBADOH + TAD + BONGWATER + KRAMER + ANN MAGNUSON + BAND OF SUSANS + KING MISSILE + SHOCKABILLY + "DEBASER BY THE PIXIES + U.S. TEENS ARE SPOILED BUMS BY JAD FAIR + TAKE THE SKINHEADS BOWLING BY CAMPER VAN BEETHOVEN + CHRISTIANITY IS STUPID BY NEGATIVELAND"

HUGE GROOVE RADIO = EUGE GROOVE + EVERETTE HARP + NEW RADICALS + WORLD PARTY + HARRY CONNICK JR. + CHRIS BOTTI + BONEY JAMES + JOE SAMPLE

LO-FI HAPHAZARD = ELVIS COSTELLO + JOE STRUMMER + SHANE MACGOWAN + GRAHAM PARKER AND THE RUMOUR

DYSON'S RADIO = THE ROOTS + A TRIBE CALLED QUEST + DE LA SOUL + BASEHEAD + BEASTIE BOYS + THE NOTORIOUS B.I.G. + TUPAC

CLASSICIST RADIO = MADONNA + BJORK + MASSIVE ATTACK + RUFUS WAINWRIGHT

DOUBLE WIDE RADIO = DAVE MATTHEWS + BLUES TRAVELER + BEN HARPER + LAMBCHOP

BRONX BLUES RADIO = THE BEACH BOYS + DION + "WATCHING THE RIVER FLOW BY BOB DYLAN + YOU DIDN'T TRY TO CALL ME BY FRANK ZAPPA"

MALIBU SUMMER RADIO = AMERICA + BREAD + CHRISTOPHER CROSS + SEALS AND CROFTS + AL STEWART + JIM CROCE + JOHN PHILLIPS + "TIN CUP CHALICE BY JIMMY BUFFETT" + "IN THE GHETTO BY ELVIS PRESLEY" + "MY LOVE BY PAUL MCCARTNEY"

ROCKSTAR SUBGENRE = PEARL JAM + WHITE STRIPES + MY MORNING JACKET + RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS + GREEN DAY + URGE OVERKILL + "GIMME SHELTER BY THE ROLLING STONES + DESTROYER BY THE KINKS"

PRINCE DYNAMITE = PRINCE + B.A.D. + DAVE HOLLAND + CHARLIE HADEN

GOOD VIBES RADIO = BONNIE RAITT + STEVE WINWOOD + TOM PETTY + EARL KLUGH + ROBERT KLEIN

BLACK LOVE RADIO = MARVIN GAYE + AL GREEN + STEVIE WONDER + LUTHER VANDROSS + "I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE BY MARVIN GAYE"

JAZZ GIANTS = CHARLES MINGUS + THELONIOUS MONK + OSCAR PETERSON + WES MONTGOMERY + SONNY ROLLINS + "BODY AND SOUL BY COLEMAN HAWKINS"

BEATLES POP RADIO = THE BEATLES + ELTON JOHN + SQUEEZE + THE KINKS + ELECTRIC LIGHT ORCHESTRA + FLEETWOOD MAC + THE MONKEES + XTC + "DEAR GOD BY XTC + UP THE JUNCTION & PULLING MUSCLES FROM THE SHELL & LABELLED WITH LOVE BY SQUEEZE"

BLACK POWER RADIO = CURTIS MAYFIELD + PARLIAMENT + FUNKADELIC + GIL-SCOTT HERON + THE LAST POETS + GEORGE CLINTON + "MY GORILLA IS MY BUTLER BY SLY STONE" + RICHARD PRYOR

POLYNOMIAL DANCE-C RADIO = APHEX TWIN + FATBOY SLIM + SONG SEEDS: "HUNG UP & EROTICA (UNDERGROUND TRIBAL BEATS) BY MADONNA" + DEAN WAREHAM + DEAN AND BRITTA

PUNK NEW YORK RADIO = TALKING HEADS + RAMONES + BLONDIE + TELEVISION + SEX PISTOLS + THE CLASH

WEIRD AMERICA RADIO = YO LA TENGO + GLENN BRANCA + ORNETTE COLEMAN + WILD BILLY CHILDISH + "1,000,000 KISSES BY HALF-JAPANESE" + ROBIN WILLIAMS

BLUES PERFORMERS RADIO = JOHN HAMMOND + ROY BUCHANAN + PAUL BUTTERFIELD + ALBERT LEE + ALBERT COLLINS + "ONCE I HAD A WOMAN BLUES BY JIMI HENDRIX"

WILD CHILDREN RADIO = VAN MORRISON + GRAHAM PARKER + JOHN HIATT + PETER CASE + RYAN ADAMS

BLUES CLUBS RADIO = DUKE ELLINGTON + SARAH VAUGHN + LOU RAWLS + MOSE ALLISON + GEORGIE FAME + ROBERT CRAY

BLUES ROCK RADIO = STEVIE RAY VAUGHN + JOE BONAMASSA + GREGG ALLMAN + THE JEFF HEALEY BAND + KENNY WAYNE SHEPHERD + "MAMA TALK TO YOUR DAUGHTER BY JOHNNY WINTER + DOUBLE TROUBLE BY ERIC CLAPTON + HEAVY FUEL BY DIRE STRAITS"

ROCK FESTIVAL = JIMI HENDRIX + PINK FLOYD + LED ZEPPELIN + THE DOORS + QUEEN

BOBBY BOJANGLES = BOB DYLAN AND THE BAND + "ME AND BOBBY MCGHEE BY JANIS JOPLIN + MR. BOJANGLES BY NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND" + JOAN BAEZ + LEONARD COHEN

SXSW RADIO = THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND + LITTLE FEAT + LYNYRD SKYNYRD + THE MARSHALL TUCKER BAND + DOUG SAHM

GEORGE BERNARD RADIO = ABBA + BEE GEES + CHER + "DANCING QUEEN BY ABBA + HOT STUFF BY DONNA SUMMER + BELIEVE & SONG FOR THE LONELY BY CHER"

HIGH TIME RADIO = CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL + JOHN FOGARTY + BOB SEGER + NEW RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE + "LISTEN TO HER HEART BY TOM PETTY"

JAZZ FUSION RADIO = PAT METHENEY + WEATHER REPORT + CHICK COREA

MILES ETC. RADIO = MILES DAVIS + HERBIE HANCOCK + WAYNE SHORTER + "HALF NELSON & IT'S ABOUT THAT TIME (LIVE) & KIX (LIVE) & MASQUALERO BY MILES DAVIS"

CLASSIC REGGAE RADIO = BOB MARLEY + JIMMY CLIFF + UB40 + GREGORY ISAACS + BLACK UHURU + SONG SEEDS: "TRENCH TOWN ROCK & ONE LOVE/PEOPLE GET READY & THE HEATHEN & GUILTINESS & SO MUCH THINGS TO SAY & NATURAL MYSTIC BY BOB MARLEY"

OLD HIPPIE RADIO = JIMMY BUFFETT + DAVID CROSBY + STEPHEN STILLS + GRAHAM NASH + BLOOMFIELD / KOOPER / STILLS

POP MINIMALIST RADIO = JACK JOHNSON + GILLIAN WELCH + MATTHEW SWEET

WEST COAST BEATS RADIO = TOM WAITS + RICKIE LEE JONES + "HARLEM NOCTURNE BY LES BROWN AND ALSO BY EARL BOSTIC"

DEAD FAN RADIO = GRATEFUL DEAD + SONG SEEDS: "UNBROKEN CHAIN & ATTICS OF MY LIFE & RAMBLE ON ROSE & WHARF RAT & CUMBERLAND BLUES & STELLA BLUE BY THE GRATEFUL DEAD" + JEFFERSON AIRPLANE + PHISH + STEVE MARTIN

WINELIGHT RADIO = GROVER WASHINGTON JR. + MODERN JAZZ QUARTET + LEE MORGAN + KENNY BURRELL + "ROCKIT BY HERBIE HANCOCK" + MICHAEL FRANTI AND SPEARHEAD

PIANO JAZZ RADIO = BILL EVANS + KEITH JARRETT + BRAD MEHLDAU + LIONEL HAMPTON

HARDCORE RAP RADIO = PUBLIC ENEMY + NWA + 50 CENT + DR. DRE + SNOOP DOGG + 2 LIVE CREW + CHRIS ROCK

JAZZ PERFORMANCE RADIO = BLUE MITCHELL + CAL TJADER + ANDREW HILL + JIM HALL + ANTHONY BRAXTON

FORMALIST MASTERPIECE RADIO = STEVE REICH + KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN + STEVE ROACH + CAN + "THURSDAY AFTERNOON BY BRIAN ENO + AMERICA IS WAITING BY BRIAN ENO AND DAVID BYRNE + COMPUTER LOVE BY KRAFTWERK"

DYLAN FAN RADIO = BOB DYLAN + "THUNDER ON MOUNTAIN & ROLLIN' AND TUMBLIN' & AIN'T TALKIN' & NETTIE MOORE & SOMEDAY BABY [ALL FROM MODERN TIMES BY BOB DYLAN]" + LENNY BRUCE

JOHN & YOKO RADIO = JOHN LENNON + YOKO ONO + GEORGE CARLIN

UK CELTIC ROCK RADIO = THE POGUES + THE WATERBOYS + PREFAB SPROUT + MORRISSEY

TEENAGE PUNK RADIO = HUSKER DU + THE REPLACEMENTS + FUGAZI + THE MINUTEMEN + THE STONE ROSES + JANE'S ADDICTION + "KOKA KOLA BY THE CLASH"

SINGER/SONGWRITER RADIO = JIM CROCE + NEIL DIAMOND + GORDON LIGHTFOOT + CAT STEVENS

VAN MORRISON BLUES RADIO = VAN MORRISON + JOHN LEE HOOKER + LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS + SON HOUSE + TAJ MAHAL

BEAN RADIO = WEEN + BECK + TEENAGE FANCLUB

REAL COUNTRY RADIO = VINCE GILL + MARY CHAPIN CARPENTER + LYLE LOVETT + ALISON KRAUSS AND UNION STATION + NANCY GRIFFITH + DWIGHT YOAKUM + RANDY TRAVIS + ALAN JACKSON

GOODBYE JERRY RADIO = JERRY GARCIA + DAVID GRISMAN + VASSAR CLEMENTS + TONY RICE + MARK O'CONNOR + BELA FLECK + HOT TUNA + DOC WATSON + DJANGO REINHART

KING OF HEARTS RADIO = LUCINDA WILLIAMS + NEKO CASE + BETH HART + BETH HART AND JOE BONAMASSA + SUSAN TEDESCHI + "SWEET SIDE & THOSE THREE DAYS & METAL FIRECRACKER BY LUCINDA WILLIAMS"

BLACK DANCE RADIO = JAMES BROWN + MICHAEL JACKSON + SLY AND THE FAMILY STONE + COMMODORES + EARTH WIND AND FIRE + BILL COSBY

WHITE HEAT RADIO = DAVID BOWIE + LOU REED + ROXY MUSIC + BRYAN FERRY + T. REX

TAM LIN ON RADIO = RICHARD THOMSPON + RICHARD AND LINDA THOMPSON + FAIRPORT CONVENTION + SONG SEEDS: "SLOTH & ROLL OVER VAUGHN WILLIAMS & READ ABOUT LOVE & PERSUASION & NOW BE THANKFUL BY RICHARD THOMPSON"

SINGING COWBOYS RADIO = PAUL SIMON + JAMES TAYLOR + JACKSON BROWNE

ANGELS RADIO = JONI MITCHELL + SANDY DENNY + LINDA THOMPSON + EMMYLOU HARRIS + RENEE FLEMING

EX-BEATLES RADIO = GEORGE HARRISON + PAUL MCCARTNEY + RINGO STARR + TRAVELING WILBURYS

PAN-AMERICA RADIO = BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB + ALI FARKA TOURE + RY COODER + LOS LOBOS + COMPAY SEGUNDO + "WINNING BY SANTANA"

MASADA RADIO = BILL FRISELL + JOHN ZORN

HEAVY THINGS RADIO = "YER BLUES BY THE BEATLES + YOUNG MAN BLUES BY THE WHO + THE LAST RIDE BY TODD RUNDGREN + T.V. EYE & GIMMIE DANGER & 1969 BY THE STOOGES + SPOONFUL BY CREAM + MACHINE GUN BY JIMI HENDRIX" + UTOPIA + TODD RUNDGREN + IRON BUTTERFLY + NIRVANA + LAUGHING HYAENAS

DIGITAL GLOBE RADIO = MATERIAL + BILL LASWELL + MATISYAHU + TRICKY + WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS + GOLDIE + MILTON NASCIMIENTO

AIREGIN RADIO = CHET BAKER + STAN GETZ + "AIREGIN BY STAN GETZ + MOODY'S MOOD FOR LOVE BY JAMES MOODY + POINCIANA BY AHMAD JAMAL"

CUBANOS RADIO = RUBEN GONZALEZ + IBRAHIM FERRER + ARTURO SANDOVAL + SEPTETO NACIONAL + GATO BARIBERI

FREAK OUT RADIO = FRANK ZAPPA + EDGARD VARESE + CAPTAIN BEEFHEART AND HIS MAGIC BAND + MEAT PUPPETS + JEFF BECK + "MUFFIN MAN & FIFTY-FIFTY & DINAH MOE HUMM & NANOOK RUBS IT & FATHER O'BLIVION & EXCENTRIFUGAL FORZ & VALLEY GIRL & HE'S SO GAY & JEWISH PRINCESS & DOREEN BY FRANK ZAPPA"

CLAPTON'S BLUES RADIO = ERIC CLAPTON + B.B. KING + J.J. CALE + HOWLIN' WOLF + MUDDY WATERS + BLIND FAITH + DEREK & THE DOMINOES + "TULSA TIME & WALK OUT IN THE RAIN & IF I DON'T BE THERE BY MORNING & SWEET HOME CHICAGO & CHANGE THE WORLD BY ERIC CLAPTON"

NEO-TRADITIONALIST RADIO = DIANA KRALL + DONALD FAGEN + BOZ SCAGGS + TONY BENNETT + BRANFORD MARSALIS + GEORGE LEWIS

MOD & ROCKER RADIO = PETE TOWNSHEND + KEITH RICHARDS + BAD COMPANY

MODERN POP RADIO = GEORGE BENSON + R.E.M. + KENNY VANCE + COWBOY JUNKIES + DAVID BENOIT + SADE + WALTER BECKER + JAMES INGRAM

BILL GRAHAM RADIO = GRATEFUL DEAD + SANTANA + ROLLING STONES


http://www.pandora.com/people/andrew_noselli8#

Dylan Top 20

These are my personal favorite Dylan albums: 1. Solid Rock* ----- 2. The Bootleg Series Volumes 1-3 ----- 3. Desire ----- 4. Bringing it All Back Home ----- 5. Modern Times ----- 6. Oh Mercy ----- 7. As Good as I've Been To You ------ 8. At Budokan ------ 9. Self-Portrait ------ 10. Saved ----- 11. Blonde on Blonde ------ 12. Highway 61 Revisited ------ 13. A Million Faces at My Feet* ------ 14. Infidels ----- 15. Street Legal ------ 16. Slow Train Coming ------ 17. The Basement Tapes ------ 18. The Gaslight Tapes* ------ 19. The Royal Albert Hall Concert ----- 20. Together Through Life ----- (* bootleg)

Thoughts on Vladimir Lenin?

I think he would have stayed true to Marxist principles in that he would have seen to it that all distinctions between social classes would disappear after the capitalist society was overthrown -- but he was outnumbered by those who advocated for a socialism that abandoned the notion that socialism could abolish poverty and so decided to make it more general, distributing it "over the whole surface of society". (Marx's words) ---------- Later I discovered --thru Wikipedia -- that "After the revolution Russia dissolved into civil war, and the cities and Red (Bolshevik) army needed feeding. War Communism was a policy of sending Bolsheviks into the countryside to seize grain in order to feed the cities. Also it nationalized all industry and banks. After Lenin was shot and wounded by Fanya Kaplan in August 1918 and to help enforce the War Communism a period known as the Red Terror began where anyone suspected of helping the opposing White armies could face a short trial and execution - some 200,000 may have died - although it must be said that the White forces committed similar number of murders. After the Civil War died down, Lenin realized that War Communism was not working very well and began the New Economic Policy (NEP) . This allowed small businesses and farmers to buy and sell on the open market. Economic growth soon followed." -- so Lenin did not stay true to Marxist revolutionary principles, either! ---------- (Ivar wrote): there was serious debate in the early days about the prerequisites for socialism: orthodoxy held that it could emerge only after the emergence of an industrial/urban proletariat, a condition not met by the feudal society that russia then was (success in russia caught communists by surprise: they expected it in western europe). various initiatives were designed partly to speed up the clock, among them e.g. forced removal from the country to factories and the collectivization/industrialization of russian agriculture. so there was some ideological cover for the introduction of limited free markets after the first round of collectivization failed.

Welcome to the United States of America

Marx understood, we are told, that the peasants had long been the bulk of the population of modern nations. However, it must be seen that he saw the new development of the working class due to the industrial revolution as the distinct ingredient needed to raise "consciousness" (or education) to a point where a significant class conflict could occur. The only class he specifically excluded from the proletariat was the bourgeoisie, the entrepreneurial middle class of the cities, that always tends to follow the government. Most of the new immigrants coming across the U.S. southern border, specifically Texas and Arizona, are children and are potentially new American working class, but they are uneducated. They are presumably illiterate in English and I understand that some may even be illiterate in Spanish, too. I fear they may be ill-equipped to take part in an American society where there are two strata of citizens -- those who work and those who exploit the lab or of workers in order to achieve 'surplus-value'. Who knows how the Financial Crisis of 2008 affected their lives, and the lives of their parents, when the DOW Jones dropped to 7,000 and the American Funds Investment Company of America lost 49%. It will take years for their asylum claims to come to court or for them to be deported. Soon, maybe this coming week, the DOW is about to break through to 17,000 -- all I can say is I wish them the best, and Welcome to the U.S.A. ! ---------- (Marcel wrote): Your original title for this entry was, "Will migrants be Rep or Dems?" Well, an old idea was to make Cuban refugees of the leftist regime instantly US citizens. The older of that generation of Cubans that lost wealth to the people of Cuba have since been reliable pro-capitalist Republicans. Ronald Reagan (actually, following Jack Kemp's formulation) was to turn everyone into a capitalist, for instance by selling off public housing to the poor residents, and generally making house ownership a more accessible part of the American dream to the middle class. Essentially 'if the folk actually own a piece of the pie, they won't rock the (Capitalist) boat' Later, pensions were turned into personal investment plans that depend on the health of the capitalist financial system to work, again with the hope of aligning working/poor folk's own material comfort in old age with the capitalist class's interests. An interesting twist is the idea that "to do well in the investment world, listen to the successful capitalists who will share their investment philosophy." A great example of manipulative ideas trickling down from the capitalist classes through rent-an-opinion leaders to the working class, and in this process galvanizing power by controlling opinions and ideas that affect the wallet. W's efforts to privatize social security had the same intention of aligning the interests of the capitalist classes with the working class (that is, in addition to setting up a bunch of suckers' money to be swiped by a rigged investment racket). Another idea was letting immigrants "buy" US citizenship by importing a pile of capital into the USA... instantly assuring immigration with a Republican bias. The question is whether immigrants can be politically manipulated easier or harder than natives. My guess is easier, if you can write the rules to pick which immigrants get to stay. Capitalists know Marx better than anyone! PS: Actually, I don't think Capitalists object to a growing worker/consumer/small investor population (migrants are younger, and therefore more fertile than the native population.) Immigrants are the most exploitable for their relatively cheap labor, and represent an emerging/expanding consumer class for the kinds of products the USA makes and sells. Capitalists really don't much care which party is in control ("they are all the same"), since there is no chance their personal control over their wealth is ever in question, especially if the population has accepted low taxes as gospel. On the other hand, the long term looks bad for the US working class as the world becomes flatter and domestic wages drop to purchasing power parity with China, Vietnam, Mexico, Malaysia, Colombia, Haiti, South Africa, etc. The political problem on immigration is the working-class Republicans who are fearful of throngs of foreigners. The instinct is counterproductive and misplaced on a practical economic basis, and really just racist. The enemy is not other people who are trying to survive, too. While working class conservatives are encouraged to fight "those" people, whoever they passionately believe are undeservedly beneath themselves, they are distracting and distracted from the bigger process that is burying everyone who isn't rising in the capitalist's brown nose ranks. If immigration reform happens, and the Republican party loses most immigrants, and a liberalizing population, and the younger generation forever, the Capitalists won't care. Democrats will simply help ensure the excesses of Capitalism don't kill the goose that lays the golden egg...

White privilege debate

Why did the Federal Government allow segregation to go on for so long? (Arnold wrote): Because the South was exceptionally powerful in the Senate for much of the 20th century. Their senators tended to serve a long time because most southern states were dominated by the democratic party so there were few contested elections. This gave them seniority, and back then seniority gave you tremendous power in the senate (this was changed during the 50s by Lyndon Johnson, who eventually ended segregation when he was president.) Also, Senate rule 22, used to require a 2/3 majority to override a filibuster (today it only takes 60%, thanks to Walter Mondale), so it was easy for the south to stop any civil rights bill before it was voted on. ///// (MajorA-Man wrote): Unfortunately, most laws prior to the Civil Rights Movement were handled by the states, not by the feds. At the time, you couldn't do anything to break the rights of the states which permitted the segregation laws. They have to be ruled constitutional or unconstitutional and that didn't happen until the 1950s and 1960s came here when the Civil Rights Movement was on the rise. ///// (Andrew wrote): After slavery ended, it took another hundred years for white society to accept blacks as equals. Even among the most learned of white men -- men who have mastered Kant, Shakespeare, the Bible -- it was rare to find someone who recognized that blacks people wanted to be treated as people. ///// (tuffy wrote): The federal government took no action to stop the segregation in the South. In fact the SCOTUS case of Plessy vs. Ferguson(1896) said that segregation was legal as long as the equal facilities for the blacks were provided - the facilities were never equal. ///// (Caspian wrote): Because few with any real power cared enough to fight, and they didn't have the support to accomplish much until the 1940's. ///// (jepchamp wrote): Because these laws were made at the state level, and unless they were unconstitutional, which at the time they weren't, the Federal government could not intervene. A better question is why did the people of these states allow it? (Because most of them wanted it, of course.) ///// (armourer wrote): Every president from WW2 up to 1993 was a racist because this Man had to wait for his Medal of Honor. African American soldiers who received their medals belatedly, after a 1993 study revealed discrimination by every administration since WW2. ///// (Athena wrote): What makes you, today, think that segregation was unjust? Where, in the Constitution, does it say that you can tell me who I can and cannot see? Why is that the business of the Federal Government? Why does my college campus have a Black Student's Union? Started by black students? Isn't that some form of segregation and should it be outlawed? What about the Women's Center? Why is that allowed? ///// --------------- (Michael wrote): This country has great virtues... but nothing erases the reality that is a stolen land built on stolen labor. Acknowledging that blacks are fully human means facing that reality. The US is not so good at facing reality. And certainly not so good at apologizing. ---------- (Marcel wrote): You must have read, http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/ If you haven't, it is a tough read, but worth it. It turned me into a reparations advocate... ---------- (Michael wrote): Great piece. I've been a reparations advocate since I read Exodus 12:35-36: "[On their way out of Egypt, the Israelites] asked Egypt for vessels of silver, vessels of gold, and clothes. God gave the people favor in the eyes of Egypt, and they complied. They took delivery of Egypt!" ---------- (Marcel wrote): Absolutely. I've gone from being someone who thought reparations was right, but politically impossible, to someone who unreservedly advocates for it in "polite company." Unfortunately America's own Canaanites haven't yet formulated their own reparations ask. I hope they don't hope to wait it out to resolution... I can't imagine the same country that codified personal property to the extent the USA has in its constitution will pay out without an intervention by a heavy hand. Regardless, I actually think it will happen, someday. ---------- (Andrew wrote): There is a new book by Thomas Piketty's _Capital in the Twenty-First Century_, which proposes a 10% tax on the world's biggest fortunes every year. In a review of Piketty's work in Vanity Fair, which brought it to my attention, the reviewer attempt to carry out the book's conclusions in the real world and counter-proposes that if we sought to re-distribute wealth from the top 1% to the really poor--the bottom 20% of income distribution--we could give them $75,000 each. But demand for reparations, are you serious? I think you are getting ahead of yourselves. The American power-structure will never accept giving reparations because it equates such a measure with the demand for the right to power over capital, which the powers that be equivocate with the appropriation of the means to production whose ends result is achieving the Marxist goals of the dissolution of wage-labor, the negation of social classes and the abolition of private property. I strongly doubt it will ever happen... ///// Now I read the article and, while I agree with you that it was a good article, in the passage when the writers says: Won’t reparations divide us? Not any more than we are already divided. The wealth gap merely puts a number on something we feel but cannot say—that American prosperity was ill-gotten and selective in its distribution. What is needed is an airing of family secrets, a settling with old ghosts. What is needed is a healing of the American psyche and the banishment of white guilt. I believe he is wrong. Specifically, I believe that the election of Barack Obama has assuaged white guilt to the point that reparations would be seen as being a betrayal of an America already plunged into grief over the responsibilities of its past. Don't believe me ? Look at this article: WASHINGTON (AP) — After the Supreme Court ruled a decade ago that race could be a factor in college admissions in a Michigan case, affirmative action opponents persuaded the state's voters to outlaw any consideration of race. Now, the high court is weighing whether that change to Michigan's constitution is itself discriminatory. It is a proposition that even the lawyer for civil rights groups in favor of affirmative action acknowledges a tough sell, at first glance. "How can a provision that is designed to end discrimination in fact discriminate?" said Mark Rosenbaum of the American Civil Liberties Union. Yet that is the difficult argument Rosenbaum will make on Tuesday to a court that has grown more skeptical about taking race into account in education since its Michigan decision in 2003. A victory for Rosenbaum's side would imperil similar voter-approved initiatives that banned affirmative action in education in California and Washington state. A few other states have adopted laws or issued executive orders to bar race-conscious admissions policies. Black and Latino enrollment at the University of Michigan has dropped since the ban took effect. At California's top public universities, African-Americans are a smaller share of incoming freshmen, while Latino enrollment is up slightly, but far below the state's growth in the percentage of Latino high school graduates. The case is the court's second involving affirmative action in as many years. In June, the justices ordered lower courts to take another look at the University of Texas admissions plan in a ruling that could make it harder for public colleges to justify any use of race in admissions. For Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, whose office is defending the measure known as Proposal 2, the case is simple. "We are saying no preferences. We're not discriminating. We're saying equal treatment," Schuette said. But the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that ruled on the dispute concluded that the matter was not that straightforward. The issue, according to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, was not affirmative action, but the way in which its opponents went about trying to bar it. That is why the ACLU's Rosenbaum said, "This is a case about means, not about ends. It is not about whether a state can choose not to have" affirmative action. In its 8-7 decision, the appeals court said the provision runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment because it presents an extraordinary burden to affirmative action supporters who would have to mount their own long, expensive campaign to repeal the constitutional provision. That burden "undermines the Equal Protection Clause's guarantee that all citizens ought to have equal access to the tools of political change," Judge R. Guy Cole Jr. wrote for the majority on the appeals court. The governing boards at the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and other public colleges set admissions policies at the schools, which included the use of affirmative action before the amendment passed. Other groups seeking changes in admissions still could lobby the policymakers at the schools. Only proponents of affirmative action would have to change the constitution, the appeals court said. The appeals court vote broke along party lines, and there were other oddities. Two Republican-appointed judges sat out the case because of their ties to Michigan schools. One judge in the majority, Martha Craig Daughtrey, is a senior judge and typically would not be allowed to take part in the full appeals court hearing. But she sat on the original three-judge panel that heard the case. Civil rights and education experts who are not involved in the case at the high court said they expect the justices to overturn the 6th Circuit ruling. Harvard University Law School professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin said five of the Supreme Court justices "are skeptical of race-conscious affirmative action" and could be expected to side with Michigan. Those justices are Chief Justice John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas. But Brown-Nagin said impact of such a ruling would be muted because "affirmative action already is on life support." Peter Kirsanow, a Republican member of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and an opponent of racial preferences, was more blunt. "I would eat a copy of the 14th Amendment if in fact the court upholds the 6th Circuit's decision," Kirsanow said. Justice Elena Kagan will not take part in the Michigan case, just as she excused herself from last term's case about the University of Texas admissions program. Kagan worked on the cases while serving in the Justice Department before she joined the court. I THINK THIS CASE IS WILL BE THE BATTLEGROUND FOR "WHITE PRIVILEGE"; I DON'T UNDERSTAND ALL THE LEGAL COMPLEXITIES AS NOTED ABOVE BUT I UNDERSTAND THE FOLLOWING RULINGS BELOW [SNIPPET FROM THE WIKIPEDIA ENTRY ON THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN] In 2003, two lawsuits involving U-M's affirmative action admissions policy reached the U.S. Supreme Court (Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger). President George W. Bush took the unusual[not in citation given] step of publicly opposing the policy before the court issued a ruling.[21] The court found that race may be considered as a factor in university admissions in all public universities and private universities that accept federal funding. But, it ruled that a point system was unconstitutional. In the first case, the court upheld the Law School admissions policy, while in the second it ruled against the university's undergraduate admissions policy. The debate continues because in November 2006, Michigan voters passed Proposal 2, banning most affirmative action in university admissions. Under that law, race, gender, and national origin can no longer be considered in admissions.[22] U-M and other organizations were granted a stay from implementation of the passed proposal soon after that election, and this has allowed time for proponents of affirmative action to decide legal and constitutional options in response to the election results. The university has stated it plans to continue to challenge the ruling; in the meantime, the admissions office states that it will attempt to achieve a diverse student body by looking at other factors, such as whether the student attended a disadvantaged school, and the level of education of the student's parents.[22] WHEN I WAS IN MY SENIOR YEAR OF HIGH SCHOOL, I DECIDED NOT TO GO AWAY TO COLLEGE BECAUSE I ASSUMED IT WAS FULL OF SKUNKS LIKE THE ONE BELOW, IT WAS MY FORM OF PROTEST AGAINST A WORLD OF BOURGEOIS EDUCATION ! Princeton student releases provocative paper on white privilege By Kyle Lubelski, 5/3/2014 A student’s perspective about white privilege caused quite a stir among ideologies this week, following an essay published last month on the subject by Princeton freshman Tal Fortgang. The essay, titled “Checking My Privilege: Character at the Basis of Privilege,” appeared in April’s issue of The Princeton Tory, a conservative news outlet for the university. Fortgang articulated thoughts on the phrase “Check your privilege,” and demanded that he not be judged solely on race, but to the perseverance of his forebearers. Fortgang states, “Those who came before us suffered for the sake of giving us a better life. When we similarly sacrifice for our descendents by caring for the planet, it’s called “environmentalism,” and is applauded. But when we do it by passing along property and a set of values, it’s called ‘privilege.’” According to the New York Times, the largest argument against Fortgang is that he failed to understand the intricacies of the term “privilege,” while others remain more optimistic. Former Tory editor in chief Zach Horton commented, “He will stir the pot and get people thinking and get people talking.” This week, Fortgang appeared on a Fox News

Why does Risperdal help me think more clearly?

Tweetybird said: We do know how Risperdal works. Because it's an antipsychotic and it's mechanism is to block dopamine and serotonin 5-HT2 brain receptors. Most medications used in psychiatry to treat schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders work by inhibiting dopaminergic activity. It's thought that it's hyper-activation of the ventral tegmental area and dorsal striatum regions that cause the positive symptoms of schizophrenia which include altered thinking. Serotonin is one of the neurotransmitters that affects mood. When serotonin 5-HT2 receptors are blocked, this maintains mood stability. Mood can affect thinking. That's why.

James Baldwin as revolutionary?

The book I mentioned today, about the gay actor who has a heart attack, is called "Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone"; it was published in 1968. The writer is James Baldwin, who is both black and gay. There's a nice relationship between the narrator (Leo Proudhammer) and a character nicknamed "Black Christopher" in the third and final chapter, but if you're more interested in gay literature, I would suggest you read a book I haven't read (also by James Baldwin) called "Giovanni's Room." As I say, I haven't read that book but my relationship with James Baldwin's books goes all the way back to high school, to a time when I read two books by him -- both works of genius -- "Go Tell It on the Mountain" and "Another Country." Another Country teaches us that love is another country, and that all acts of love should be seen with equal standing; there's much more to it, but that's all I can remember, which makes me believe that I'd like to read that novel again. By the way, Ivar teaches Baldwin's book (an essay, really) called "The Fire Next Time" at Willamette, a book I read at Rockland Community College, in my free time. I plan to acquire a book of James Baldwin's essays, published by The Library of America, at Christmas-time from Amazon.com. This volume includes the fire next time, as well as some of his other most famous essays, like "No Name in the Street" and "Nobody Knows My Name." ---------- Next time you come east, call me ahead of time and we'll grab a beer (or lunch) at Cabbyshack or the East Bay Grille, two fine places on the waterfront very close to where I live. [August 1st, 2013 - Jerry Garcia's birthday.] --------------- I have read more of James Baldwin's work since I sent the email above, specifically a book of essays published under the handsome, hardbound Library of America series; specifically I want to touch on the essay, "The Black Boy Looks at the White Boy", an essay where Baldwin reflects on his relationship with Norman Mailer. He criticizes Mailer for writing in his book, _Advertisements for Myself_ that James Baldwin did not have the ability to say "Fuck You" to the reader. I think perhaps Mailer criticizes Baldwin for not being a truly revolutionary writer, which to me echoes Baldwin's own critique of Richard Wright's shortcomings as a writer who, Baldwin says, placed too great a faith in achieving the liberation of the black race through the creation of "protest literature." Another criticism of Baldwin is that, while he criticizes American society for making the black male into a 'walking phallic symbol", he has written many books where black men are sexually avaricious, see _Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone_, _Another Country_ and the above-mentioned _Giovanni's Room_. Mailer's critique of Baldwin, vulgar as it is, perhaps points to the fact that Baldwin's preoccupation with sexuality, with his own homosexuality, reflects the disappointing realization such a preoccupation inhibits a truly revolutionary coming to power. That being said, Mailer wasn't truly revolutionary either. He went to Harvard at sixteen years of age, a time when he did not have the intellect to really work. He spent his days at Harvard University counting the number of letters in Thomas Mann's _The Magic Mountain_, rather than looking for philosophical-critical cognates and parallels to be found in the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance. But then again, who is a truly revolutionary writer?

2016

My mother doesn't think Hillary Clinton will run for President in the next election and my father thinks Rand Paul will be our next President. They might be right, but then again, they both voted for Mitt Romney in 2012. ----------- (Marcel wrote): Your father is brave to predict; anything can happen at this point... Hillary is doing everything she needs to do to run, working the whole gamut behind the scenes even now. So she is not going to voluntarily bow out. No chance she voluntarily bows out. Nothing already known is likely to stick against her at this point. Thanks to Republicans' lack of anything else to do, there seems to be nothing left in Hillary's closet to disclose. Further, I'll predict the upcoming house Bengazi hearings will be a disaster for Republicans, because it will definitely be popular with people who would vote Rep anyway, but further alienate folk they need to attract to win elections. Your father probably disagrees particularly on this point. A veneer of unity around 'winning against' I believe can be deconstructed in public debate. That table is set. And Dems can change the subject on a potent array of already proven wedge issues, and new ones. And Dems can go to the archives and preach, "I told you so..." on another array of policy fiascoes. Republicans have decided quite consistently in the primaries to date, to sideline the Tea Party candidates. 20 down out of 20 Tea Party candidates. Reps want to win, and radical candidates won't fly. While I would say Paul is not strictly Tea Party, rather Libertarian, I think Rand Paul is still too radical to win, and Republicans, especially on strategic and foreign policy, along with the bipartisan national security/foreign policy cabal, will sideline him quickly. Paul could sell out his L. principles (backroom-agree to govern else-wise) in order to get the backing he needs to be backed, but that is not his style at all. He would rather go down with the ship now, because he's young enough to wait for the country to come around to a Libertarian consensus (yea, I think that is a possible point of left/right rapprochement) than to pander/sell out to the conservative factions that loath his priorities. He is born and raised an ideologue. Republicans would most profitably field a candidate they can frame as "compassionate conservative" (I'd call this a reprise of the successful "Happy Face conservatism," "wolf in sheep's clothing," "don't worry, be happy," and "telegenic front man" strategy) again, because it works very well. This could happen quickly if the Bengazi hearings fail to goad Obama into Supreme Court crisis' over executive privileges, or the country rejects Isa's circus. Actually, Paul's biggest flaw might be that he is NOT a self-made man. Which probably kills Jeb Bush from real viability, too. The R's most viable candidate is Kashich, but I have no idea what they will ultimately decide given all the balls in the air, divisions and challenges to conservatism., Hilary is polling higher than any mentioned Republican: Kasich here, is doing better than the rest in Ohio, which will likely decide the presidency. Granted he is dong well in his home state, duh. But he is very, very smart and has positioned himself lately as a moderate with a relatively sane recent track record, enough to win broadly with the right framing, which scares me particularly because I think he is an actually rabidly conservative, and sadistic creep, albeit amazingly disciplined for now in order to remain viable on the national stage... You got me going...

Nietzsche, morality and ethics in violence

Jeremy wrote: ---------- I think it's the glibness that Ivar so admires ("almost telepathic" gushes your childhood friend) but I so dislike...that causes the frustration I allude to in conversations like this..."maybe you just want to purchase that book on 'Mastery'" - probably I will one day but it's not on the top of my list....I'M AMBITIOUS Andrew, AMBITIOUS, when are you going to get that? AMBITIOUS. I want to purchase all the books I read one day...and re-read them all good or bad one day...Robert Greene's books are important because I'm interested in ethics - which I define as a code for conduct regardless of morality. I wonder whether Freud would agree with my ideas about morality, that it's the expression of sexual frustration (or maybe violence - frustration - violence being the destructive side and sexual energy the creative side of the same basic force) - and ethics is the way we codify this... ========== I wanted to show Jeremy that Nietzsche had already considered these topics, so I responded with the quote: I'm re-reading Nietzsche's _Daybreak_, the subtitle of which is "Thoughts on the prejudices of morality", and understanding it a lot better than when I first read it. One of the first passages has the title, "Sense for morality and sense for causality in counteraction" and in it Nietzsche says: "In the same measure as the sense for causality increases, the extent of the domain of morality decreases for each time one has understood the necessary effects and has learned how to segregate them from all the accidental effects and incidental consequences (post hoc), one has destroyed a countless number of imaginary causalities hitherto believed in as the foundation of customs -- the real world is much smaller than the imaginary -- and each time a piece of anxiety and constraint has vanished from the world, each time too a piece of respect for the authority of custom: morality as a whole has suffered a diminution. He who wants, on the contrary, to augment it must know how to prevent the results from being subject to control." ---------- Another quote from Daybreak: And in a section marked with the heading, "Animals and morality", Nietzsche writes: "The animals learn to master themselves and alter their form, so that many, for example, adapt their coloring to the coloring of their surroundings, pretend to be dead or assume the color of sand, leaves, lichen, fungus (what English researchers designate 'mimicry'). Thus the individual hides himself in the general concept 'man', or in society, or adapts himself to princes, classes, parties, opinions of his time and place: and all the subtle ways we have to appearing fortune, grateful, powerful, enamored have their easily discoverable parallels in the animal world. ... The beginnings of justice, as of prudence, moderation, bravery -- in short, of all we designate as the Socratic virtues, are animal: a consequence of that drive which teaches us to seek food and elude enemies. Now if we consider that even the highest human being has only become more elevated and subtle in the nature of his food and his conception of what is inimical to him, it is not improper to describe the entire phenomenon of morality as animal." ========== I also found this quote when doing an internet search using the search terms: "nietzsche" plus "daybreak" plus "violence". ========== The exhibition draws inspiration and its title from Nietzsche’s Daybreak: Reflections on Moral Prejudices. Like Nietzsche, Peterson presents a world in which contrasting schemes of morality result in eruptive hostility between social classes. In Nietzsche’s work, this dichotomy is described as master-slave morality: the tension between an overclass that values pride, wealth and strength and an underclass that values humility, piety and restraint. While Nietzsche claims that the people of the underclass choose this morality to soothe the cognitive dissonance of hegemony, Peterson’s “ DAYBREAK” insinuates that through violence they are breaking free not only from their oppressors but an oppressive morality as well. This role reversal, however, creates an interesting dilemma: when a revolt upends the power structure, which sides do virtue and vice end up on? Can either class be considered virtuous if they literally beat the other to death with morals? ========== I read something about the role of violence as a factor in shaping morality in my reading of Nietzsche's _Daybreak_ today, but I cannot locate the passage. It appears that violence is of most significance to his book _On the Genealogy of Morals_, which was written after _Daybreak_. Perhaps this article, a statement of Nietzsche's view of the role of violence in morality, is more in line with your thoughts? ============================== Quoted from The Guardian newspaper: Thus, a society built on suffering is dangerously unstable, constantly on the look out for others to hold responsible for the creation of its pain. Even when human beings are "enclosed within the walls of society and peace" the power of ressentiment gnaws away, setting people against each other in a toxic brew of accusation and counter-accusation. The revengefulness of the victim has a remarkable staying power over time, stubbornly outlasting the circumstances of its birth. ----- For politicians and the ruling class, such a society is hell to manage. And here the church comes in. For the priest has a remarkable way of protecting society from itself. His answer to the question of responsibility is that we are all responsible for our own suffering. There is no one to blame but ourselves. Thus the anger and bitterness of ressentiment is turned inwards. The priest is "the direction changer of ressentiment", refocusing the destructive hatred that was incubated in slavery back on the self. Here is Nietzsche's account of how sin and guilt enter the world. ---------- Part of the reason that this refocusing of ressentiment works is because it helps the politicians keep society quiet. Instead of blaming each other, the individual blames himself or herself, folding hatred back upon itself and generating self-hatred instead. It is as if Nietzsche has a sense that the suffering and resentment generated by oppression has to be discharged somewhere. The church manages of persuade people to discharge all that poisonous energy back upon itself. In this way the church makes itself indispensable to the powers that be at the same time as poisoning society with wells of self-destructive energy. ---------- Fascinatingly, some have argued that what is being proposed here – albeit in Nietzsche's characteristically hyperbolic style – is nothing less than an account of the origins of the inner working of the self that anticipates the ideas of Freud and his work on the unconscious. Nietzsche scholar Keith Ansell-Pearson claims that Freud's "Civilisation and its Discontents is in many ways a psychological reworking of the Genealogy of Morals." Both thinkers develop a sense of some subterranean self operating out of immediate view, and both believe this hidden self to be the product of an act of repression – though with Nietzsche it is violence and suffering that lies at the heart of the 'unconscious' rather than sexual desire. ---------- The main task of Nietzsche's thought, then, is to rid human beings – and Europeans specifically – from the nihilistic power of self-destructive hatred that is the church's true gift to the world. To this extent he regards his philosophy as an exercise in liberation, an act of salvation even. ---------- Yet his prescription for dealing with ressentiment shows Nietzsche at his least convincing. His answer is effectively: better out than in. Better to express one's anger and bitterness than to keep it bottled up inside. For by expressing it, one discharges all its destructive energy. Thus he prefigures much cod psychobabble about the need we have to express ourselves and express our inner natures. But in contrast to much psychotherapy, there is little safe or suburban about Nietzschean therapy, he is not proposing a gentle "talking cure". Rather the location for his therapeutics is more the battlefield than the couch. In order to discharge one's ressentiment one must become like a marauding Viking or Homeric hero, an artist of expressive violence. This is the notorious übermensch, the atheist holy man, etc. ================================== That's not my idea of great writing but it points to the fact that Nietzsche had violence very much in mind when he constructed his thesis on the evolution of morality and I believe that you can learn a lot from him. _Daybreak_, the book I am busy reading these days, astounds on every page. Walter Kaufmann, the most preeminent Nietzsche scholar, is adamant in saying that it is very wrong to group Nietzsche with the evolutionary biologists and psychologists of the 19th century, like Herbert Spencer.

My life - 2014

I went to see my psychiatric nurse today for refills of my prescriptions, which cost $1.15 each as part of my CVS Caremark Medicare drug plan. I don't drive, so I took the Dial-a-Ride transportation service, which took me to Duxbury, Massachusetts for $1.25 each way. When I lived in New Jersey, I was on Medicaid and my prescription drugs were absolutely free and the town I lived in, New Milford, provided free transportation to Bergen Regional Medical Center, for doctor's appointments. In that sense, NJ was better for me. But in truth, in Massachusetts I have a much better quality of life. In NJ, I was on a waiting list for a Section 8 housing voucher that took from 2006 to 2011 until I was granted an interview. By that time they were willing to set up this interview, I had already moved to Massachusetts; I applied for and was offered housing in a very nice complex. My rent is $302 per month in this subsidized apartment complex, with free gas and electric, free heat and free television. The only downside is that in Massachusetts, because I take psychiatric medication, I have to be in psychotherapy. I used to go twice a month and now I only go once a month. The judge at my Social Security hearing ruled that my schizophrenia is not a disability as long as I am compliant -- meaning as long as I take my medicine. Neither is my head injury a disabling condition because, the judge continued, there is not enough evidence to rate me a zero on a global scale, as one psychiatrist in Palisades Park NJ did. My only true disabling condition, he concluded, is the abduction of right gaze and the resultant change in vision (obliquely displaced double vision). Even if I did not have the double vision, however, I would have eventually won my Social Security case because in 2009 I returned to Bergen Regional Medical Center in Washington Township NJ because I developed a seizure disorder. Within a week I underwent an EEG which found temporal slowing in part of my brain. I spent much of the past few days ruminating over how I could have been a success in the financial world, even though I had all of these obstacles and challenges. I could have had more success, if I had just stuck to insurance, but I made the conscious decision to go after 401(k) plans, with little success. If I did not have double vision, schizophrenia and some form of damage to my brain I feel confident that I would be a millionaire now, or at least on my way to being one. (I even got my Property & Casualty license in 2005, but I just didn't know where to go in order to use it; I attribute this to my general fear and paranoia associated with schizophrenia and my inability to see well.) I don't go to church, but God and Jesus Christ have become very important to be; I pray several times each night as I lay in bed and prepare for sleep, and "Honor Thy Father and Mother" has always been the commandment I have striven to keep uppermost in my actions. In fact, this Sunday, prior to the start of the football game, I will be taking my parents out to an early dinner at the East Bay Grill here at the Plymouth Waterfront, which is almost within walking distance of where my parents and I live. (I live at 26 Castle Court and my parents live at 11 Russell Avenue, if you want to use Google Earth to see where the Lord, in his infinite wisdom, has situated us.) I absolutely love it here, and I wouldn't go back to NY/NJ if you gave me a free house, that's how satisfied I am ! So, Marcel, what do you think of my life ?

Compliments (a dialogue)

Thanks for the compliments, Jeremy. I think very highly of you and I feel you would be even better if you took Xanax or something else like that. In my opinion, great men need significant therapies, or else they have shortcomings. I want to help you succeed in all your ambitions. Yours, ABN ---------- I see this as part of an old and tiresome dialectic. It almost makes me more reluctant to confide in you aspects of my life knowing that you will turn moralist and weigh in with the entire pharmaceutical lobby on your side. But here I go, falling for your bait: Consider the possibility that the drive towards medication is itself a SYMPTOM of mental illness. Perhaps the entire field of psychiatry is quackery - after all, Freud was a quack; he made many absurd assertions completely un-backed by anything remotely resembling scientific evidence. It's maybe based on a false premise - the idea that men can specialize in other men's minds and cure their minds; minds are too complicated for people to understand, no matter how bright sounding and erudite (Freud). Yes, medication may help some people, but what about normal people? That has been the crux of the SSRI debate. A literary person would not dismiss a whole panoply of emotions derived from legitimate feeling as sickness and so I can't believe you hold your views with any weight of conviction. Sex is currency. It doesn't just sell; it moves. You think I would be healthier and more accomplished if I were to repress my primary motivating power completely with the help of drugs? Surely not. When I was working I was not ejaculating so much but I was masturbating because I felt that was an important thing to keep up - it was important for me not to allow myself to become de-sexed and thus a drone. ----------That was a great response with lots of food for thought and many things to respond to. Part of what I was responding to was your statement that you wish to experience failure, the bigger the better, for failure is where learning takes place, as you say. Well, Jeremy, you can change the subject as much as you want, but I don't think you need to set your expectations that way. I believe that one achieves greatness if one expects greatness from oneself. Perhaps you may write me off as an old-fashioned positivist, but I tell you that was not always my outlook. At an earlier stage of my life I was content with living a life of missed opportunities to the point where I made a sacrament of being the last of the true (romantic) believers, to turn a phrase. Are you the last of the Noirists ? By the way, I am happy to hear of your experience with the de-sexualization and the accompanying alienation that is derived from the workaday world. I, for one, am very thankful I don't have to deal with that anymore. -----------Ironic you would say that. I was merely talking about not being so risk-averse that I'm afraid to aspire to success in the marketplace - in response to you suggesting I should sedate myself and opt out of any attempt to establish myself there, essentially. ----------Are you willfully being dishonest ? I merely suggested that a mood-stabilizer would lead you to greater successes in life, rather than the failures you have preordained. You know, if you took a pill like Xanax it would have a tranquilizing effect on you and mellow you out so that you wouldn't get over-excited in the morning and masturbate. I'm not saying that is bad to do but, in my opinion, too much self-involvement makes it difficult for life to happen as you would like it to. I take Risperdal, a medication which as Carol Librett, my therapist in Duxbury MA says, is an antipsychotic which has the effect of both a mood-stabilizer and a tranquilizer. I am proud to say that beginning at age 40, when I began taking 4 mg of Risperdal twice daily, my life has become wonderful. My 41st year was even better than the previous year, perhaps 42 will bring me even greater joy? One can only hope. (Please note that I don't think you need an antipsychotic, as you obviously do not have schizophrenia. I can only avow that taking a mild tranquilizer has allowed me to be the man I wanted to be. As Maxim Gorky says in his Diary, "Now I can begin to live quietly, to study, to write!" I don't have the ambition to write more than emails but now I have such great interest in writing and, more importantly, my mind is settled. I am able to apply myself to the task at hand, rather than being controlled by a powerful fantasy of who I might be. That's what I wish for you, too.) ----------There was a young African American named Shekirah who started working at Wendy's. She was only 16 or 17 and apparently, despite the differing spelling, she was named after Shakira. I was very attracted to her and thought she was very classy but I was amused/bemused to find that her reading level hadn't gotten past Goosebumps and Junie B. Jones. That's what she brought up when I asked what she likes to read. Despite that, I thought she was extremely classy and pleasant to be around and sensible somehow. I always wanted to bring her a real novel to read like Jane Eyre or Watership Down or The Shining. Maybe all three. If James is still working at Wendy's I should send all three with him to give her... // She seemed like she wanted to use me as a gateway to the real world. But I can't take that personally: I think 17 year olds are really open to the world in a way that no other people are. After 17, most get closed back off to it... // When I was around Shekirah, I always thought about how physically compatible I thought she and I would be. // She wasn't really the female co-worker I was most attracted to at Wendy's though. That honor would fall to Carmen (one of the three Carmens who worked there): She really liked me a lot and that's probably why I began to like her. She wasn't really my type, I didn't think, reminded me of a cousin I wasn't attracted to, but the more I looked at her, the more attracted I became with her - she just had an intelligence and sense of humor and I couldn't find any fault in her looks. I think Carmen was married and that was my stumbling block. I know she had a couple kids. // There was also a blonde customer with two girls who came in every now and then. // The hardest part about quitting Wendy's was leaving behind these sorts of females but finally I had to tell myself - that's not a good enough reason to keep working at Wendy's - so you can explore possible relationships with women who happen to work there or patronize the store. If that's my only reason for staying there, I'm falling into a pattern of convenience which is emphatically *not* my model for romance. ----------Do you think your sexual emotions and feelings are/were getting in the way of your working ? Back when schizophrenia was called praecox dementia they thought it was caused by an excess of sexual chemicals in the body. ----------The biggest physiological sign of schizophrenia that I've uncovered seems to be enlarged ventricles. http://www.schizophrenia.com/disease.htm#enlargedventricles ----------"War neuroses may never well be traumatic neuroses which have been facilitated by a conflict in the ego. The fact that a gross physical injury caused simultaneously by the trauma diminishes the chances that a neurosis will develop becomes intelligible if...firstly, that mechanical agitation must be recognized as one of the sources of sexual excitation, and secondly, that painful illnesses exercise a powerful effect on the distribution of the libido." --Sigmund Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle In my opinion, Freud is saying here in this passage (I couldn't quote the entire passage) that a traumatic brain injury like I had caused my libido to go out of control and ultimately ends in the condition known then as praecox dementia (i.e. schizophrenia). I find his words very enlightening. ----------Oy. I find them very opaque and ridiculous. You remind me of a believer in astrology seeing himself/herself so very well-defined by random sets of traits everyone has. ----------You are ignorant ! ---------- There is also a major drive for people to rationalize their actions and that's how you are probably using Freud - because it's easier than looking at ways you were interacting with your environment growing up - how did you think a Henry Miller/Howard Stern fan was going to turn out as an adult? As a chaste monk? ----------I think you are much more obsessed with sex than I am. Your desire creeps into almost every message you write, and when you're not writing to me, you're reading Nicholson Baker. ----------Haha. Of course I'm much more obsessed with sex than you are. Because you've given up on having any sex life and I have not. ---------I am disabled, you are not. ---------I think I heard once that the observation of hysteria in veterans returning from WWI helped people to take Freud's theories seriously. // Because formerly Freud observed this phenomenon - hysteria - in women and people questioned the reality of it, but they didn't question the reality of hysteria in PTSD suffering veterans returning from WWI.

Amazon: malignant monopoly or just plain evil ?

I acquired about five or six Chet Baker discs that are crucial to my collection thru a retailer called Jazzloft, they were a jazz music e-tailer based out of Seattle. They had a good selection of discs that Amazon.com did not have. They went out of business because Amazon put their distributors out of business. (Amazon.com now has the discs that the Jazzloft had for sale, but at very high prices!) ---------- I have noticed that while my purchases from Amazon.com previously took five business days to be shipped out, and consequently to bill me, now they get shipped to my door in four business days (with standard shipping). Also, take note of this: Amazon's stock was priced at just over $200 per share in the summer of 2012 but the price per share doubled by January of this year, a significant increase; but when the stock pulled back to $300 per share last month, that did not prevent the market analysts on CNBC from saying that Amazon was a stock that was "down in the dumps", despite having produced a significant gain for its investors. This reveals the cultural logic of capitalism and the irrepressible drive for speed of economic gain to stand as the ultimate signifier. Those unhappy workers that Michael's article referred to will be replaced by nameless others who will willingly assign their labor from morn till night in their attempt to satiate Amazon's ownership who simultaneously become richer and greedier. Now Amazon is looking to replace the Walgreen's chain (and other drugstores) by adopting a new sales strategy where consumers can have up to 50 pounds of items shipped to them for $5.95 cost of shipping (household items like razors, soap, toilet paper, etc.). Amazon has started a pilot program, too, where they make deliveries of supermarket consumables to major cities like San Francisco. Personally, I plan to use Amazon as soon as I get my SSDI money, as there are two Cowboy Junkies CDs I want available in the Amazon seller's marketplace for 1 cent each -- one penny plus $3.99 to Amazon.com ! ---------- It's not surprising that Amazon is exploiting their temporary workers, Rabbi, because of the law of capital which says that a company must capture the market share of its competitors by selling more cheaply, and must raise the productive power of labor as much as possible. As Marx says, "there is immanent in capital an inclination and constant tendency to heighten the productiveness of labor, in order to cheapen commodities, and by such cheapening to cheapen the laborer himself." Marx goes on to say that the capitalist corporation has the over-riding aim to "press a given quantity of labor out of a smaller, rather than a greater number of workers." In opposition to Amazon's ambition to create its own monopoly of buying and selling, from its mania for financial gain, we can only reflect on the words of Mahatma Gandhi, who said, "There is more to life than making it go faster." ---------- I just purchased 3 KISS CDs, 2 Butthole Surfers CDs and a copy of Maya Angelou's book "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" from Amazon.com for $53. Top that !

Enduring poverty

"The great advantage of having noble origins is that it enables one more easily to endure poverty." --F. Nietzsche ---------- I thought you could take that quote to heart. I think the proper interpretation is a literal one; does it not suit your case as well? ---------- You have the habit of always bringing in the political to undercut the intellectual; it spoils and revenges itself on your drive for higher studies. Similarly, in the books you choose to read, you exhibit a desire to immerse yourself in trivial biographical details, garnered from secondary sources, which limits your understanding of the work and also fails to illuminate the genius-character of the writer himself. Personally, I have chosen to work on myself out of a desire to increase my understanding of world-intellectual history not because I desire the feelings of power, which I think can be said of those who seek to 'get ahead in the world': in contrast, I have chosen to be poor, happy and independent rather than be one who is seeking to be financially secure, miserable and a slave, which I think is the lot of most if not all Americans. I strive every day of my life to be one of Nietzsche's noble, higher spirits, a person who is a man of culture and who keeps the problems of philosophy foremost in my thoughts. In my opinion, from Nietzsche's very words, the aristocratic-minded Superman arrives on the scene when the truly noble man comes into being, a person who stands for power and not merely as its representation: "...the impression this game produces on the non-aristocratic, and the spectacle of this impression, nonetheless constantly enhances the feeling of superiority. -- The incontestable advantage possessed by the culture of the nobility on the basis of this feeling of superiority is now beginning to reveal itself on an even higher level: thanks to the work of our free-spirits, it is now no longer reprehensible for those born and raised in the aristocracy to enter into the orders of knowledge and there to obtain more intellectual ordinations, learn higher knightly duties, than any heretofore, and to raise their eyes to the ideals of a victorious wisdom which no previous age has been free to erect for itself with so good a conscience as the age which is now about to arrive. And finally: with what is the aristocracy henceforth to occupy itself, now it is becoming daily more apparent that it will be indecent to engage in politics?"

Top artists debate

(Andrew wrote): This is a slightly longer list of my favorite musical artists: 1. Bob Dylan 2. Chet Baker 3. The Beatles [Paul/John/George/Ringo solo careers] 4. The Grateful Dead 5. The Rolling Stones 6. Van Morrison 7. Miles Davis 8. Jethro Tull 9. Eric Clapton 10. Santana 11. Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground 12. Richard Thompson 13. Dave Brubeck 14. David Bowie 15. Elvis Costello 16. Frank Zappa 17. John Zorn 18. Led Zeppelin [+Robert Plant solo career] 19. John Coltrane 20. Pat Metheny 21. Tom Waits 22. The Who 23. Jimi Hendrix 24. Bob Marley 25. Joni Mitchell Are you happy now ? Rather than paying lip service to artists I don't actually listen to, my favorite artists are those who are well-represented on my iPod (which I listen to all night every night) and whose albums I have collected by purchasing them on Amazon.com. While they might be very important artists in their own right, I don't consider Ella Fitzgerald, Nina Simone and Aretha Franklin to be "album artists" in the same way that my original, masculine-dominated list was. I am familiar with Ella Fitzgerald's "Jazz at Lincoln Center", produced by Norman Granz, which I like a lot; I used to own "After Hours" a great compilation of Nina Simone; and a girlfriend of mine once made me several Aretha Franklin recordings on cassette tape, which I liked. But at the same time, none of these female performers have developed careers which exhibit the artistic growth and development -- and most of all, experimentation -- that their male counterparts have shown, the exception being Joni Mitchell. I also have collected most of the CDs by Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Lucinda Williams and Mary Chapin-Carpenter but I don't think there achievements put them in the top 25 either. Finally, I would venture to say that if you were to put together such a list it would in fact be tailored more in keeping with the qualms and niceties of political correctness that true artistic merit; as such, you cannot do this because 1) you do not have the music resources and 2) you do not have the time to listen to it. I have both, but not much more. ----------- (Ivar wrote): ok i can't resist -- here are the 20th/21st C popular musical artists who come to mind if i'm asked for my top 30. are these my favorites, the nearest my heart, the ones i listen to most, most admire, etc. etc.? there's some of that, but mostly these are people whose music i'd load up today if i were driving across the country and back. you'll see there are only 29 names -- i'm not sure who's missing. Thelonious Monk Beatles Andrew Hill Duke Ellington Steve Reich Brian Eno Caetano Veloso Aphex Twin Ali Farka Toure Miles Davis The Smiths James Brown Bjork Silvio Rodriguez Bruce Springsteen Bob Marley Tom Ze Tin Hat Minutemen Toots & the Maytals Wire Prince Underground Resistance (Drexciya etc.) Television Public Enemy Sam Cooke Mudhoney OutKast Led Zeppelin btw they're ordered according to the following formula (100 max points each dimension): (how excited i am to hear them) x (how great i think they are) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (how quickly i'll lose interest, with quicker being higher) so, for example, here are some calculations: Monk = 89x100/23 = 386.9 (wow!) Beatles = 86x100/26 = 330.8 Hill = 91x79/22 = 326.8 clearly i've put some thought into this! (now back to grading....) ----------- (Jacob wrote): Ivar, you left out Bob Dylan. What the hell? Don't make me come up there. Twenty Beatles + solo Bob Dylan Stevie Wonder Joni Mitchell Bruce Springsteen Stephen Sondheim Sly & the Family Stone Steely Dan The Band Outkast Paul Simon Chaka Khan Jackson Browne Ultramagnetic MCs/Kool Keith Donny Hathaway D'Angelo The Who/Pete Townshend Robert Johnson Led Zeppelin Earth Wind & Fire Baskin-Robbins List (goes to thirty-one) Charley Patton Bob Seger Marvin Gaye Barbra Streisand Patti LaBelle Gil Scott-Heron Neil Young Public Enemy Curtis Mayfield Digable Planets Fleetwood Mac ----------- (Tony wrote): Ok, I tremulously weigh in... There is barely a name to add here, except that repeat listenability is an important twist. Since I don't have the courage to build my own 20-30 artist list, especially in order!, I'll merely add some names I think for me are missing. The Clash Nirvana Pink Floyd Radiohead These others may not make a universal artist list, but they might make mine: Eccentric/obscure (come back to again) favorite artists Buena Vista Social Club Cubanismo! Devo Esquivel Future Sound of London, especially if we are talking whole albums Mercedes Sosa Red Snapper Sixto Rodriquez Since we're talking "artists" (thank you Andrew), and music we actually come back to (thank you Andrew, great criterion), I'll rush to note a lament for all those great one hit wonders that make up an embarrassingly big hunk of my near-to-my-heart, most-listened, come back to again-and-again list, though not necessarily of great, lifetime-achievement-type artists... These are especially listenable when I want a momentary boost of enthusiasm on the long road... the Sopranos opening song (Woke up This Morning), Gary Wright's, Dream Weaver, Simon and Garfunkel's, America; also some personal need for some Amy Whitehouse, Carole King, Eagles, Elton John (though he might make my top twenty artists, due to raw numbers), Eminem, Danger Mouse, Johnny Cash, Little Eva, Pink, Aerosmith... Thank you'all for the new recommends, names I'm not familiar with! Peace ======================================= JETHRO TULL TOP 20 ALBUMS 1. LIVING IN THE PAST 2. STAND UP 3. BENEFIT 4. AQUALUNG 5. ROOTS TO BRANCHES 6. CATFISH RISING 7. THE BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST 8. CREST OF A KNAVE 9. HEAVY HORSES 10. TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL, TOO YOUNG TO DIE 11. SONGS FROM THE WOOD 12. BURSTING OUT 13. MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY 14. WARCHILD 15. HOMO ERRATICUS 16. THICK AS A BRICK 2 17. ROCK ISLAND 18. THIS WAS 19. NOTHING IS EASY: LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 20. DIVINITIES Ivar's the Smart one, Jake's the Cute one, Tony is the Funny one and I am the Quiet one. ----------------------- Ivar's a dim one, Jake's a shy one, Tony is a dullard and I am the annoying one ! ----------------------- I have re-arranged the list of my favorite artists for your consideration: 1. Bob Dylan 2. Chet Baker 3. The Grateful Dead 4. The Rolling Stones 5. Van Morrison 6. Miles Davis 7. Jethro Tull 8. Eric Clapton 9. The Beatles [Paul/John/George/Ringo solo careers] 10. Santana 11. Lou Reed/The Velvet Underground 12. Richard Thompson 13. Dave Brubeck 14. David Bowie 15. Elvis Costello 16. Frank Zappa 17. John Zorn 18. Led Zeppelin [+Robert Plant solo career] 19. John Coltrane 20. Pat Metheny 21. Tom Waits 22. The Who 23. Jimi Hendrix 24. Bob Marley 25. Joni Mitchell ----------------------- No reaction, my half-educated friends ? Perhaps the following words by C.G. Jung will give you a clue as to the form of response my email from yesterday calls for: A SENSITIVE AND SOMEWHAT UNBALANCED PERSON, AS A NEUROTIC ALWAYS IS, WILL MEET WITH SPECIAL DIFFICULTIES AND PERHAPS WITH MORE UNUSUAL TASKS IN LIFE THAN A NORMAL INDIVIDUAL, WHO AS A RULE HAS ONLY TO FOLLOW THE WELL-WORN PATH OF AN ORDINARY EXISTENCE. FOR THE NEUROTIC THERE IS NO ESTABLISHED WAY OF LIFE, BECAUSE HIS AIMS AND TASKS ARE APT TO BE OF A HIGHLY INDIVIDUAL CHARACTER. HE TRIES TO GO THE MORE OR LESS UNCONTROLLED AND HALF-CONSCIOUS WAY OF NORMAL PEOPLE, NOT REALIZING THAT HIS OWN CRITICAL AND VERY DIFFERENT NATURE DEMANDS OF HIM MORE EFFORT THAN A NORMAL PERSON IS REQUIRED TO EXERT. THERE ARE NEUROTICS WHO HAVE SHOWN THEIR HEIGHTENED SENSITIVENESS AND THEIR RESISTANCE TO ADAPTATION IN THE VERY FIRST WEEKS OF LIFE, IN THE DIFFICULTY THEY HAVE IN TAKING THE MOTHER'S BREAST AND IN THEIR EXAGGERATED NERVOUS REACTIONS, ETC. FOR THIS PECULIARITY IN THE NEUROTIC PREDISPOSITION IT WILL ALWAYS BE IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND A PSYCHOLOGICAL AETIOLOGY, BECAUSE IT IS ANTERIOR TO ALL PSYCHOLOGY. THIS PREDISPOSITION--YOU CAN CALL IT "CONGENITAL SENSITIVENESS" OR WHAT YOU LIKE--IS THE CAUSE OF THE FIRST RESISTANCES TO ADAPTATION. AS THE WAY TO ADAPTION IS BLOCKED, THE BIOLOGICAL ENERGY WE CALL LIBIDO DOES NOT FIND ITS APPROPRIATE OUTLET OR ACTIVITY, WITH THE RESULT THAT A SUITABLE FORM OF ADAPTATION IS REPLACED BY ABNORMAL OR PRIMITIVE ONE. ----------------------- IVAR wrote: i'm no match for Jung but i can explain my question. i thought that by including Beatle solo works you were considerably weakening the Stones's advantage where it comes to longevity. finding them still five places ahead surprised me. for the same reason i'm struck by last four artists on your list: Who, Hendrix, Marley, Mitchell. if longevity is a major consideration, this suggests that the relatively few albums produced by Marley and, especially, Hendrix have an unusually high greatness "density". you won't get any disagreement from me on that score! in fact, i have a particular affinity for that measure -- not to the exclusion of longevity, but alongside it. i wonder, how would you rank artists by density of greatness? short career, bands count (no one has to die), relatively small number of albums, bad albums allowed if compensated by otherwise extreme density. ---------------------- I am satisfied by your response. It reveals an exposure to a specific brand of philosophical and logical thinking which I find appropriate and gratifying.--------------------To me, longevity is the ultimate proof of artistic vision. In my opinion, the passionate qualities of some short-lived artists of "high artistic density" -- artists who have built up an entertainment cult without having a voluminous body of recordings but, nevertheless, are artist who are able to invoke an immediately cognizable textual signature -- are of lesser historical importance than those artists whose work is great in proportion to the time-period of their productions. Historical and psycho-biographical evidence indicated that Hendrix was going to create quasi-orchestral recordings with Gil Evans that would be comparable with similar recordings by Miles Davis in terms of their influence and artistic breadth of vision. As it is, Hendrix recorded ouevre extends to 10 or more albums and he should be considered as an artist with a substantial body of work. The same goes for Kurt Cobain of Nirvana who is at some point below Joni Mitchell in terms of artistic importance. Perhaps he is on the level of a Neil Young, whose song "Hey Hey My My" he quotes in his suicide note, stating, "It's better to burn out than to fade away...." Neil Young has retired that song from his performing repertoire. ----------------------- question: is Vermeer a lesser artist than Rembrandt? Modigliani than Matisse? Flaubert than Zola? i mean, because of their more limited productions. maybe you'll say that music is different -- but then how about Chopin and Liszt? history sometimes is ambivalent between the smaller and larger bodies of work, or even favors the smaller. of course i'm not presuming to speak for history -- just thought it worth mentioning.------------speaking for myself, in the here-and-now, i acknowledge that an artistic vision developed over a long lifetime is impressive and satisfying in ways that a smaller production isn't. i only want to add that a smaller production has its own virtue: the chance for concentrated attention that both exhausts its subject (because small) and is endlessly renewed (because great). ----------------------- You are attributing to public opinion an artistically discerning consciousness, which I do believe it has. I do not believe that critics, those men and women whose privilege it supposedly is to bestow and arbitrate and estimate value, will do anything but make a creed out of the dominant value-systems already present in contemporary American culture. If this sounds a little vague, I do not intend it to be. I am just saying that in both the public mind and in the critical mind certain average conceptions have crystallized as to the great productions in the history of popular music and I believe these will stand for all time, or at least not differ radically from their present form. My list is a hierarchy of my favorite artists, not a list of the greatest artists of all time because I feel that, in creating such a list, I would unavoidable fall prey to some incorrect axioms and opinions. I have the privilege of being able to listen to the music of these artists ever night each and every night and as a result their music has a much more fluid and flexible vitality in my mind than they do in the minds of others. I fully expect those who cannot afford to a thorough exposure to these artists are on some level wanting of a measure of vital creativity and I would fully expect the general public to disagree with my judgments due to the fact that, as Jung says, "they cling to the dead letter because they cannot grasp its living contents."-----------------------Rabbi, as your libido is invested in masturbatory habits which should have been discarded long ago, I feel your judgment is unreliable and untrustworthy.--------------I see your gay lifestyle as a way of practicing a more social form of autoeroticism.----------- Here is another quote for you, this time more appropriate: Why the Rabbi is gay only the Genesis knows, // that companion who rules the star of our birth, // the god of human nature, mortal though he be in each single life -- // and changeful of countenance, black and white."

Homo Erratic

IAN ANDERSON'S NEW 2014 ALBUM/CD IS CALLED "HOMO ERRATIC" AND IT IS AVAILABLE THRU AMAZON EXCLUSIVELY AS A FOUR-CD SET !! In 2012 Ian Anderson released Thick As A Brick 2, the follow-up to Jethro Tull's legendary concept album. The album was a critical and commercial success, charting around the world. In April he returns with Homo Erraticus, his new studio album. The original Thick As A Brick album, released in 1972, was based around the poem of disgraced child prodigy Gerald Bostock. For Homo Erraticus Anderson is reunited with Bostock, using lyrics written by Gerald based on an old historical manuscript. The manuscript examines key events from throughout British history before going on to offer a number of prophecies for the future. Suitably dramatised and exaggerated by Bostock as metaphors for modern life, he presented Anderson with ideas for 14 songs, which have now been set to music. The result is Homo Erraticus. The album will be released on Anderson's own Calliandra Records label in conjunction with Kscope on April 14th. Following the release of this Jethro Tull album in all but name, Ian and his band will be embarking on an extensive UK tour, where they will play the album in its entirety followed by a selection of Tull classics. These shows will be followed by further tours in Europe, America and more later in the year. Limited edition deluxe 4 disc set presented in a 60 page hardback book. Includes bonus DVD with interviews & making of documentary, a bonus CD with audio commentary & demos, plus DTS 5.1 surround and hi-resolution stereo (24/48 LPCM) mixes of the album on DVD-V. ----- I got my first stereo with s turntable in the summer of 1984, when I was 12. Some of the first LPs my mother bought me were from department stores like Bradlee's and music stores like Crazy Eddie. It was at Bradlee's where I bought the Jethro Tull album, "Thick as a Brick" -- Crazy Eddie's was where I got other progressive rock offerings, like "Leftoverture" by Kansas and "90125" by Yes. I was really into Jethro Tull but, as you had most of their 1970s albums (from your older brother's collections) and I didn't want to purchase them because I sort of considered them 'out of my league', I decided to get into their newer albums, which you didn't have. So I bought and played and listened to "Stormwatch", "A" and "The Broadsword and the Beast" but, the truth be told, I like "Thick as a Brick" the most. Many time I played it before after I got home from James A. Farley Middle School, before my mother got home from working at Nyack Hospital to cook dinner. So "Thick as a Brick" has always retained a special place in my heart, as I associated it with my one of the "first steps" in my musical education and, simultaneously, I regarded to prospect of listening to it again with distaste. But as I mentioned to you on the phone, I recently discovered that Ian Anderson released "Thick as a Brick 2" in 2012 and I decided to purchase it because I love Ian Anderson's solo work and this appears to be an album of original material. I had shunned this CD when I saw it in Newbury Comics, a CD retailer at the Independence Mall in Kingston, Massachusetts. I can only explain my reasoning for shunning it so completely by way of saying that it doesn't look like an album of new material. The cover is a replication of the newspaper-facsimile of the original "Thick as a Brick" album cover, with a tiny picture of Gerald Bostock, who was supposed to have written the poem that Jethro Tull set to music for the album-length song. When regarded further, I have to admit that the album looks quite shoddy. At the top of the jewel case is written "www.StCleve.com" and the only indication of an album title is an orange box wherein it is written, "Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson/TAAB2." All very confusing to me; I assume it was a compilation or a live recording of the original album, which I didn't need, as I was very satisfied with the live rendition of "Brick" on the Jethro Tull album "Bursting Out", which I purchased when I was living in New Jersey, waiting for my Social Security hearing to take place. And now Ian Anderson has released the brand-new album "Homo Erratic" -- I am simply stunned to have two albums of new material to listen to. If I can, I am going to purchase "Homo Erratic" in May, although I may not listen to it until 2015. I listen to five new CDs per week, and I have enough new ones to take me to November of this year, at which time I will begin listening to old CDs. Specifically, in November and December I listen to Chet Baker and in January I listen to compact discs that are either in cases under my bed or in racks behind my bureau's sliding door. I love Jethro Tull's music so much that I have even made up special prayers to God that I recite whenever Jethro Tull's or Ian ANderson's music comes up on my iPod. I believe God communicated to me thru Tull's music. I will stop writing now, and send off this email. ----- I got my first stereo with s turntable in the summer of 1984, when I was 12. Some of the first LPs my mother bought me were from department stores like Bradlee's and music stores like Crazy Eddie. It was at Bradlee's where I bought the Jethro Tull album, "Thick as a Brick" -- Crazy Eddie's was where I got other progressive rock offerings, like "Leftoverture" by Kansas and "90125" by Yes. I was really into Jethro Tull but, as you had most of their 1970s albums (from your older brother's collections) and I didn't want to purchase them because I sort of considered them 'out of my league', I decided to get into their newer albums, which you didn't have. So I bought and played and listened to "Stormwatch", "A" and "The Broadsword those and the Beast" but, the truth be told, I like "Thick as a Brick" the most. Many time I played it before after I got home from James A. Farley Middle School, before my mother got home from working at Nyack Hospital to cook dinner. So "Thick as a Brick" has always retained a special place in my heart, as I associated it with my one of the "first steps" in my musical education and, simultaneously, I regarded to prospect of listening to it again with distaste. ----- Jethro Tull is a personal favorite and they should have appeared on the list as an honorable mention. (The Beatles and their various solo careers will probably get up to notch #3 after they re-release more of Paul McCartney's solo efforts, which I have only a few of.) Although I have such a deep fondness for the discography of Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson somehow I don't feel that they are 'artists' on the level of a Miles Davis or Van Morrison, or even on the level of The Grateful Dead or The Rolling Stones. Maybe this will change after I listen carefully to "Thick as a Brick 2" and "Homo Erratic" for, as you know, I reserve my most deepest respects for performers that have longevity of artistic production. I love Jethro Tull's music like I love Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin's music but, then again, I don't deify the music of the latter bands as I do Tull's, which I find to be of a solidly and morally virtuous nature. Perhaps it's all a question of titles, for I first became deeply convinced of the religious nature of Tull's music when I ordered the Ian Anderson solo album titled "Divinities." As I stated in an email two days previously, I had owned several Jethro Tull albums during my middle-school and high-school years, but I sort of gave up listening to them when I began listening to CDs. I did not listen to Tull at all either at Bard College, where I preferred the music of Bob Dylan and contemporary artists, or at Wake Forest University, where I was pre-occupied with the music of Miles Davis. I only started collecting Tull's music and re-discovering how great it was when my mental illness became acute and I was moved from Rutherford NJ -- where I listened to Van Morrison and Chet Baker exclusively -- to New Milford NJ, where I now had nearly one hundred dollars a month to spend on luxury items. I can't retrace all the steps A thru Z as you might wish me to do, but I can only say there was a series of steps along the way which led me to the gradual belief that God was speaking to me through Jethro Tull's music. One unusual phenomenon which occurred with great regularity during the time when I lived in New Milford NJ: I would listen to music played at random either on my computer (I had a desktop model in 2006-2010) or with my iPod (I had an iPod mini speaker-system), and I would pre-appoint an hour at which I would retire. I noticed immediately that Jethro Tull's music would come on at that prescribed moment with astonishingly regularity, and Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson's music only accounted for about 600 out of the over 10,000 tracks on my computer. This phenomenon continues up until today. I believe that God speaks to us through music; perhaps it is his angels who seek to give us a signal as to their being present. I will quote you an incident that happened to me. As you know, my 160 GB iPod holds almost 14,000 songs and when I first got it, I could not figure out how to implement it so that it played through my new stereo, which has an iPod dock. I decided with great reluctance that it must have been designed for another iPod model, and I continued to listen to it with the ear-buds in my ears and the television sound off. (I was very afraid of making noise where I am now, at the Castle Hill apartments, as they are Senior residences.) Suddenly one day I Had a flash of inspiration, a eureka moment!, and I knew I could situate the new iPod into the groove of the iPod dock so that it would play. I wasn't having the greatest time living here at the time. I had my old Technics stereo which I would only allow myself to listen to from 2 PM to 4 PM because it was old and would get hot, at which time I would turn on the television and watch Fox News until a sporting event would come on at 7 PM, and then I would continue to watch television until 2 AM or later. I would even stay up later than that and listen to WATD (stands for "We're at the dump", a colloquial reference) and they would play 1970s and 1980s music at late hours then and, while I found that somewhat entertaining, it was a depressing routine. (Now I have two new stereos, including the new iPod I mentioned above, and I only watch TV from 7 PM to 11:30 PM.) Getting back to the point I was making: I started playing my iPod/stereo in August 2012 and I continued to listen to it until it finished it cycle, playing every song available. And do you know when it stopped ? On May 1st at 2 AM, which my mother has told me is the moment of my birth. And do you know what song played ? A song from the new World Party collection called "Arkology", a song Karl Wallinger introduces by announcing to someone or other, chatter from a live performance, "It's his birthday today, let's wish him a happy birthday!" and then the song "Call on Me" began and the iPod ended its cycle. This had such a profound effect on me that I mentioned it to my mother and after a moment's reflection, she said that it was Chucky, my brother who died in infancy, speaking to me and wishing me a happy birthday. JETHRO TULL TOP 20 ALBUMS 1. LIVING IN THE PAST 2. STAND UP 3. BENEFIT 4. AQUALUNG 5. ROOTS TO BRANCHES 6. CATFISH RISING 7. THE BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST 8. CREST OF A KNAVE 9. HEAVY HORSES 10. TOO OLD TO ROCK AND ROLL, TOO YOUNG TO DIE 11. SONGS FROM THE WOOD 12. BURSTING OUT 13. MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY 14. WARCHILD 15. HOMO ERRATICUS 16. THICK AS A BRICK 2 17. ROCK ISLAND 18. THIS WAS 19. NOTHING IS EASY: LIVE AT THE ISLE OF WIGHT 20. DIVINITIES ----- David Bowie was my first musical interest. My sister Christine owned "Changesonebowie", a greatest hits collection that was available in the late 1970s/earlly 80s; she had it on an eight-track tape cartridge. In 1982 the album "Let's Dance" came out and suddenly David Bowie was everywhere, including this new channel I had called MTV. (Cable television was a new development in 1982.) About that same time I got my first cassette player and my mother bought me some Bowie tapes: ones I had included "Pin-Ups," "Golden Years," "Rare Bowie," "Young Americans" and "Ziggy Stardust: The Motion Picture" -- that last one was my favorite. I didn't want to buy, and have still yet to purchase, Bowie's most famous album, "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars," because I reckoned I had the live version and I thought the studio versions could not be better. I plan to purchase this album in time, but probably not this year or even the next year after that. Another album I was very hesitant to purchase was his 1973 album, "Aladdin Sane," as I did not think it wise to associate myself with something like that. 'An insane lad' was not something I wanted to be. I find it ironic that I should grow up to develop schizophrenia, including a psychotic disorder and a cognitive disorder. I guess I am "Aladdin Sane." ----- I got Ian Anderson's _Homo Erraticus_ today ! My mother wanted to go to the Independence Mall today in Kingston, Massachusetts and found the new disc at Newbury Comics on sale for $14 ! Now that I've told you all about my special connection with Ian Anderson's music, can you understand how wonderful it is for me to have these new albums ? Also, I wrote to Jacob Goldfarb the following email snippet from Jan 17, 2014. Thanks for the link. Like the writer of the article, I used to like ELP, but for me it was the discovery of the Clash's first album, rather than the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, that prompted me to gradually move away from progressive rock, which was my first interest. I remember way back, I had Asia's first album on cassette in 1982, and then I got Yes' 90125 on tape in 1983, on Easter Sunday I think. When I got a turntable in 1986, when I was fourteen years old, the first album I ever purchased was Leftoverture by Kansas, and soon after that (my mother bought me) Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick. I used to listen to Brain Salad Surgery with Ivar Neset -- he had it on 8-track -- and I really thought it was great. When Michael McGovern and I used to used to draw and play records together we used to listen to ELP's Greatest Hits album. He and I were into them, we even went to see them when they came to Brendan Byrne arena in East Rutherford NJ in 1987 (my sister took us). Keith Emerson set his piano on fire during the show, as I recall. Michael had their LP called Tarkus, which he never played for me, probably because it was terrible. One great ELP song the writer fails to note is the holiday song, "(I Believe in) Father Christmas".