FYI listserv on SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
I think I figured it out: send to [EMAIL PROTECTED] this message in the text area, (no Subject, and on separate lines): help help pen-l I used it to set the digest option. This is what it sends back: help LISTSERV(R) version 1.8e - most commonly used commands INFO topic|listname Order documentation (plain text files) SUBscribe listname full name Subscribe to a list SIGNOFF listname Sign off from a list SIGNOFF * (NETWIDE - from all lists on all servers Query listname Query your subscription options Searchlistname keyword... Search list archives SET listname options Update your subscription options INDex listname Order a list of LISTSERV files GET filename filetype Order a file from LISTSERV There are more commands; send an INFO REFCARD command for a comprehensive reference card, or just INFO for a list of available documentation files. This server is managed by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] help pen-l LISTSERV(R) version 1.8e - most commonly used commands INFO topic|listname Order documentation (plain text files) SUBscribe listname full name Subscribe to a list SIGNOFF listname Sign off from a list SIGNOFF * (NETWIDE - from all lists on all servers Query listname Query your subscription options Searchlistname keyword... Search list archives SET listname options Update your subscription options INDex listname Order a list of LISTSERV files GET filename filetype Order a file from LISTSERV There are more commands; send an INFO REFCARD command for a comprehensive reference card, or just INFO for a list of available documentation files. This server is managed by: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
homeland security signs
http://titaniumcounter.com/temp/emergency/
Fw: economists and free riding behavior...
- Original Message - From: Jeff Boggs [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 08, 2002 7:28 PM http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/economics_frank/frank.html check out this link on economists and free riding behavior... -- J E F F B O G G S Ph.D. Candidate UCLA Department of Geography Los Angeles, CA 90095 USA
Re: Re: Re: Re: Singapore
No disagreement here on the mercantile nature of the origins, however, the capital like the labor never really stays in Singapore thoughout its history, it goes to Malaya and elsewhere ( I of course recognize the political connection between the two until the mid-20th C), leaving the non-British population there an urban rather than plantation-centered port population constrained by a geography much like the Chinese diaspora in other port cities with Kapitan indenture contract labor brought from southern China handling the movement of commodities, kinda like the brutal efficiency of travelling through their airport now. It was I would suggest the transactional infrastructure and exchange profits from trans-shipment that were more important. Wealth creation there I would assert is constructed differently, so while (still?) mercantile in form, as merchant capital grows on both sides of the ethnic divide there on the path to more complete capitalist organization, it remains mobile albeit uneven, which is why its physical infrastructure never approached the scale or scope of Asian post-colonial cities which are also engines of growth (big buildings and subways are certainly there now). I of course, am now ideologically sobered in even using the term free-trade after looking at D. Irwin's Against the Tide, an intellectual history of free trade. So I would never suggest the origins as purely based on liberal free trade, especially as they developed, like other colonial ventures elsewhere, complex labor relationships with non-British populations. As a locus for British rule, it was imperial for sure, but since the staffing of the Colonial Office in the field was more from the middling classes ( perhaps motivated by the home contry's ideology of free-tradism), I would suggest that Singapore is formed less on the Indian or South African models where the historical opposition of indigenous peoples required more authoritarian measures, particularly since Singapore is a site that has no pre-modern feudal history. In fact it might be more like Australia or New Zealand in that context (no offense to the ANZAC members of the list). Ann - Original Message - From: Charles Jannuzi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 6:51 PM Subject: [PEN-L:30706] Re: Re: Re: Singapore --- Ann Li [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I would argue that due to the 19C. origin as a purely free(sic)-trade port and its entrepot function, that Singapore has always been a city(-state) based on capital rather than on labor (which is expolited elsewhere, but contiguously). The economic geography literature on Asian metropoles would be useful. Certainly it is the case that transportation and communications whether trans-shipped opium in the 19C or 24/7 financial services in the 20-21st C., its success comes from various colonial and post-colonial institutional./ neoinstitutional economic advantages in their most pure urban form as a site for exchange and transaction. I somehow doubt that all the non-British 19th century immigrants that were attracted there brought mostly capital. They brought labor for the sorting and transport of rubber, for one thing. It was also the locus of British imperial rule for the area, so the origins might better be termed mercantile than simply liberal free trade (I know we always use such terms with offsetting quotes on such lists as this). C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Singapore
It certainly was always thought of as part of Malaya, but I would say that depending on the time period, the chain or network of entrepots including Rangoon in Burma and Malaya's ports of Malacca, Penang etc on the west and up through Haiphong, Hong Kong, Shanghai etc on the East is more important than considering Singapore itself as the entrepot although it is situated as a major stop on the trade routes. Singapore's harbor in the earlier period was not exactly a deep water one, but its island status focussed activity. Kuala Lumpur despite its role as a site central to a variety of economic activities was certainly important but it was not a port and did not have the european or urban/cosmopolitan image of Singapore that attracted Conrad, Maugham, etc. Ann - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 11:24 AM Subject: [PEN-L:30714] Re: Re: Re: Re: Singapore Did the British distinguish between Malaysia and Singapore at the time or was Singapore nothing more than the entrepot for the region. Charles Jannuzi wrote: I somehow doubt that all the non-British 19th century immigrants that were attracted there brought mostly capital. They brought labor for the sorting and transport of rubber, for one thing. It was also the locus of British imperial rule for the area, so the origins might better be termed mercantile than simply liberal free trade (I know we always use such terms with offsetting quotes on such lists as this). C Jannuzi __ Do you Yahoo!? New DSL Internet Access from SBC Yahoo! http://sbc.yahoo.com -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Singapore
I would argue that due to the 19C. origin as a purely free(sic)-trade port and its entrepot function, that Singapore has always been a city(-state) based on capital rather than on labor (which is expolited elsewhere, but contiguously). The economic geography literature on Asian metropoles would be useful. Certainly it is the case that transportation and communications whether trans-shipped opium in the 19C or 24/7 financial services in the 20-21st C., its success comes from various colonial and post-colonial institutional./ neoinstitutional economic advantages in their most pure urban form as a site for exchange and transaction. (Unlike of course the infrastructure planning in its sterling defence of 1942) No comment of course on all kinds of centralized public health, education etc. regulatory policies, corporal punishment and the controls on press freedoms in such a democracy. It might even bear more similarities to marketization in the PRC and/or cultural China. Ann - Here's an electronic example of its super/infrastructural advantages. Note that perhaps these will be GSM device networks so that everyone will also be kept track of and their coversations easily decrypted (thanks to our CIA): SingTel To Have 150 Wireless Hotspots By Year End By Seng Li Peng Not to be outdone by its rival, StarHub, which has recently launched a Wireless Broadband Hub covering an area of 180,000 square meters (a size equivalent to 28 international soccer fields) at the Suntec City building (StarHub Launches Singapore's Largest Wireless 'Hotzone'), Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel) has launched its own version of wireless hotspots which have almost the entire Singapore covered. This means that more than 300,000 SingNet users and more than a million SingTel Mobile's postpaid customers are now able to access the Internet wirelessly at speeds of up to 512 kilo bits per second (Kbps) in more than 100 outdoor surf zones in Singapore. Each of these zones will be marked with a SingTel 'Wireless Surf Zone' sign and can be found in the central business district as well as suburd areas, Starbucks cafes, Burger King outlets, Shangri-La Hotel, country clubs and various community clubs among others. If unsure, SingTel Mobile customers can easily locate the nearest wireless surf zone by simply keying in *624 on their phones. There is no monthly subscription fee to the service. SingNet dial-up and broadband customers and SingTel Mobile postpaid customers need only to pay for what they use and are charged US$0.11 per minute. They can access the service by using their existing SingNet user IDs or SingTel Mobile General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) ID (i.e. mobile phone number) and passwords respectively. But they would need a wireless enabled notebook computer, or a handheld device, that complies with Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11b standard. According to the company's vice president (Consumer Products), Hui Weng Cheong, SingTel plans to have at least 150 wireless surf zones by the end of the year. We will also offer wireless local area network (WLAN) infrastructure to other operators and Internet Service Providers on a wholesale basis, Hui added. Getting More Broadband Users Onboard The offerings do not stop with the wireless zones that cost the group more than US$560,000 in investments. SingNet Broadband (which has more than 50 percent of the domestic broadband market share with more than 92,000 broadband ADSL lines) has also launched 'Home Wireless Surf' which enables households a wireless broadband Internet connectivity anywhere within the home. As part of its plan to promote the use of pervasive and broadband services, the service comes with no additional subscription fee and usage charges are based on the customer's existing SingNet Broadband price plan. All they need is an Ethernet modem, an access point and a WLAN card which cost about US$280. In addition, users can opt for the new Multi-Surf - a service that allows up to three users (one main plus two Multi-Surf accounts) in the home for concurrent Internet access using the same ADSL connection without compromising broadband speeds. Each additional account costs about US$20 per month. Wireless Services In The Pipeline SingTel has also lined up a host of new value-added wireless Internet services for its customers in the months ahead in a bid to up its mobile and data services profits (which currently forms 48 percent of the groups revenue). These include: * Prepaid wireless surf service where customers can purchase a selected amount of Internet surf time and are given a temporary Internet account and password for use at any wireless surf zone. * Wireless surf for inbound roamers where roamers can request for a temporary wireless surf account. * Wireless broadband roaming arrangements with GRIC and iPASS for both inbound roamers and SingTel customers traveling overseas. * Park Surf service which
Re: the state and democracy
Title: the state and democracy Well here's one solution: http://www.nandotimes.com/opinions/story/460746p-3687821c.html from United Press International (n.b. owned by the moonies) SAN FRANCISCO (July 9, 2002 2:38 p.m. EDT) - According to a recent newspaper story, a person will soon be able to spend his whole life in the Rev. Jerry Falwell's planned Christian community in Lynchburg, Va. Think of it as eternity right here on earth. "You'll never have to leave this place," Falwell told a reporter whom he gave a tour of the building site. "You can come in at age 2, in our early learning center ... age 5, into our kindergarten, age 6-18 in our elementary and high school. Then on to Liberty University for four years."
From those folks at the SS
I received this from one of my schools' IT departments: The U.S. Department of Education has disseminated information to colleges and universities regarding a computer security alert from the U.S. Secret Service. The alert describes the undetected storage of key logging programs on campus PCs at a several colleges and universities in the United States. These programs record and transmit all keystrokes entered by the computer user. The objective is to capture passwords, credit card numbers and other confidential information. These key logging programs can be distributed by floppy disk, CD or via email attachments. Our email server will block programs sent via email before they reach the user. However, we advise users not to introduce floppy disks, CDs or other media to their PCs unless they are from a trusted source. For additional information, please browse to the web site listed below. Please note: There is no evidence that these programs have been installed on any of our campus computers. However, if you believe there is a need to check your PC and would like assistance, please contact the ITS Help Desk . http://www.ifap.ed.gov/eannouncements/0621SecretService.html
cyber security
From Cyberia The President's Plan for a new Dept. of Homeland Security has a paragraph addressing cyber security. The full plan is available at http://www.whitehouse.gov/deptofhomeland/book.pdf Our nation's information and telecommunications systems are directly connected to many other critical infrastructure sectors, including banking and finance, energy, and transportation. The consequences of an attack on our cyber infrastructure can cascade across many sectors, causing widespread disruption of essential services, damaging our economy, and imperiling public safety. The speed, virulence, and maliciousness of cyber attacks have increased dramatically in recent years. Accordingly, the Department of Homeland Security would place an especially high priority on protecting our cyber infrastructure from terrorist attack by unifying and focusing the key cyber security activities performed by the Critical Infrastructure Assurance Office (currently part of the Department of Commerce) and the National Infrastructure Protection Center (FBI). The Department would augment those capabilities with the response functions of the Federal Computer Incident Response Center (General Services Administration). Because our information and telecommunications sectors are increasingly interconnected, the Department would also assume the functions and assets of the National Communications System (Department of Defense), which coordinates emergency preparedness for the telecommunications sector.
Re: Re: Michael -- odd message from your server
FYI, yes it was something and it damaged my email software - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, June 05, 2002 12:24 AM Subject: [PEN-L:26587] Re: Michael -- odd message from your server I don't think that it is on my computer. I run both Norton and Macafee to be sure. I just sent your message to the tech. On Tue, Jun 04, 2002 at 09:13:51PM +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Michael and others --- To be safe, update your antivirus software and scan your drives! I just got a message titled: Re: ALERT - GroupShield ticket number OA131_1023248015_MEXCMBX01_3 from the pen-l e-mail server. GroupShield is a server antivirus software program. The full text of the message is below. The message indicates that my posting to pen-l had an executable file attached that was _removed_ by the e-mail antivirus software. No one is likely to get this file sent to them, therefore. I didn't attach such a file (knowingly). I was replying to either a message from Doug or Jim D that might, or might not, have had this file attached (although no attachment was indicated on their messages). But why GroupShield would not have caught it I don't know. I already had the most recent virus definitions from Norton--and my scan of my hard drive didn't reveal any virus. And a search of Norton's virus encyclopedia didn't reveal any virus associated with the removed file. A search of the web didn't lead to any file named andrea_sniffs_flowers [1].exe which was the file removed by GroupShield. I am using the web-based e-mail system from my school--perhaps something on their end is infected--I'll warn them. You might want to check into what happened on your end. Eric Text of message : Action Taken: The attachment was quarantined from the message and replaced with a text file informing the recipient of the action taken. To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: -487170048,29494337 Subject: [PEN-L:26583] Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: RE: Estimating Surplus Attachment Details:- Attachment Name: andrea_sniffs_flowers[1].exe File: andrea_sniffs_flowers[1].exe Infected? No Repaired? No Blocked? Yes Deleted? No Virus Name: -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: RE: Hetero Depts
Considering the last moments of Allende's life with his holding ( if not firing ) an AK-47 at the fascists, perhaps the gun ownership position ( and its virtuous math ) of the later writings of U of C's John Lott: where More Guns, Less Crime might also be invoked. Truly a synthesis of U of C's Law and Economics philosophies. - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 14, 2002 11:20 AM Subject: [PEN-L:25988] Re: RE: Hetero Depts Devine, James wrote: The reason for the last qualification is that the University of Chicago school of economics has especially low standards. A lot of their math isn't virtuous at all. I heard this story recently from a Chicago grad student. The day Pinochet was arrested, a U of C economist was discovered busily scribbling in the library. Visibly agitated, he explained that he was devising a model showing that the additional risk of arrest in the future would discourage political figures from taking necessary reform measures. Doug
Re: The uses of game theory
These are of course the same folks who believe that iMacs deliver the word of Satan. - Original Message - From: Gil Skillman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 25, 2002 1:29 PM Subject: [PEN-L:25419] The uses of game theory A while back someone asked about the usefulness of game theory. Below is a site that should, um, restore your faith in the power of this analytical framework. Amazing! Gil http://207.67.219.101/objective/gametheory.html
jobs for oxymorons
History/Programming: The International Spy Museum. Washington, D.C. The International Spy Museum is the first public museum in the United States solely dedicated to the tradecraft, history and contemporary role of espionage. The 60,000 square foot project located in Washington, DC expects to attract 500,000 visitors per year when it opens in June 2002. The museum will celebrate the art of spy craft by establishing itself as a leader in collecting, researching, and exhibiting artifacts as well as creating interactive and evolving displays relating to espionage. This is a for-profit museum. We have an immediate opening for an Historian/Programmer. You will research, develop, organize, and conduct public programs for the general public, scholars and professionals in the intelligence community. You will conduct research in support of museum programs and temporary exhibitions and training for staff and volunteers. Working with Director of Education, you will conceptualize and develop temporary exhibitions and identify and coordinate with experts in the intelligence community to present programs addressing current issues and scholarship. You will create vital interpretive programs and materials for the Museums various audiences. You will build and expand the Museums local, national and international presence, profile and reputation through programs and exhibits. Advanced degree in U.S./Public History: Specialty in Intelligence, Politics, and/or Foreign Policy or related discipline and five years' teaching, internship, and/or research experience is required. Teaching and/or museum experience highly desirable. The International Spy Museum receives funding from the District of Columbias Revenue Bond and TIF Programs. As a consequence, we are required to give preference to qualified candidates who reside in the District of Columbia. Please e-mail a cover letter, resume, a list of three references and your salary requirements to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Squared Circles
Why is it scary? It's a circular argument especially when applied to the concept of evil ( as in axis o'evil umpire) (I too, unfortunately sat in on (or through) a medieval philosophy course as an undergrad) Which raises another question, is an agnostic a Gnostic who graduates from a land-grant college? --Ann - Original Message - From: Charles Brown [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 24, 2002 2:28 PM Subject: [PEN-L:24295] Squared Circles Squared Circles by Justin Schwartz 23 March 2002 23:32 UTC The curriculum goes from the Greeks to Descartes, Hume, and Kant. I had one (elective) class in the scholastics at Tigertown, and sat in on Michael Frede's class on Scotus's ontological argument. That was a scary experience. jks ^ Charles: What was scary about it ?
Re: RE: Squared Circles
Naw, it's the squared circle like the substitutability of one commodity ( Paula Jones ) for Monica Lewinsky by Fox Television to box Tanya Harding. Truly ceteris paribus and maybe even pareto optimal since they showed it twice for those of us without Tivo. - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, March 22, 2002 6:15 PM Subject: [PEN-L:24253] RE: Squared Circles squaring the circle? is that like trying to reduce all macroeconomics to microeconomics (or vice-versa)? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine Justin Schwartz wrote: Ken's joke is that Hobbes didn't believe this, he thought he had squared the circle. In the Court of the Goddess of Dulness: Mad _Mathesis_ alone was unconfin'd, Too mad for mere material chains to bind, Now to pure Space lifts her extatic stare, Now running round the Circle, finds it square. _Dunc._ IV, 31-34 Carrol _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp.
Re: Re: RE: Re: RE: Squared Circles
Maybe it was about camels dancing on the head of that pin and fitting angels through the eye of the needle. - Original Message - From: Carrol Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, March 23, 2002 11:35 AM Subject: [PEN-L:24265] Re: RE: Re: RE: Squared Circles Devine, James wrote: It's like saying that one argument about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin is better than another. J Devine Every so often I get an urge to defend the scholastics. The angels thing was probably a whimsical classroom example -- the real issue, which had both metaphysical and political reverberations, was whether angels were material or immaterial. If they were material, then some finite number could dance on the needle. If they were immaterial, then the number was infinite. No one cared about the question itself. Carrol
Re: Green Party vs. Natural Law Party
NLP are followers of the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi and as believe as he did that if we all do transcendental meditation, the world will be a better place. BTW, their university, located in scenic Fairfield, Iowa, has the best printed catalogs I have ever seen. for those more rooted in the material(ist) world: SpeechSmuggler. for the fans of the cult game Dopewars: SpeechSmuggler is the exciting game of inter-borough trading. You're an aspiring merchant with a few bucks and an even larger debt. You jet from borough to borough buying and selling dope. Based on the Palm Pilot application DopeWars by Matthew Lee. SpeechSmuggler can be reached toll free from the United States by calling 1.800.555.TELL. You will need to ask for extensions and then give it the extension number 1. - Original Message - From: Joshua Bragg [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, January 31, 2002 2:38 AM Subject: [PEN-L:22113] Green Party vs. Natural Law Party I just recieved my California voter information guide for the primary election. I had never heard about the Natural Law party, which looks like a party of scientists. They seem quite progressive in some respects (export know-how instead of weapons and national health care). Has anyone else come across this party? I also wonder what some of the Californians on this list do when election time comes around. I have not yet found an active social democratic party here and am debating between the Green party and this Natural Law party. www.natural-law.org www.cagreens.org Joshua _ Join the world's largest e-mail service with MSN Hotmail. http://www.hotmail.com
Re: Monbiot on Blackhawk Down
Uh-huh, so what about ... the people who construct the story the nation chooses to believe.? If one reads Mark Bowen's book plus seeing the movie and CNN and the History channel's versions, it would be politically (in)correct to suggest that the Somalis ( like the Afghans and the Palestinians ) were engaged in practices similar to our second amendment right regarding militias and gun ownership, although was it a common practice during our own 18th century armed struggle to drag the dead bodies of British soldiers through the streets? What is the best approach to warlordism in whatever situation? Putting well-dressed puppets in front of cameras, in that context, the head of Enron and Arthur Anderson is one? Frankly, let's just put Aideed's son and GW Bush in a steel cage match, after, it's their fathers who caused the conflict. Think of how famine would be eliminated with the pay-per-view revenues. Our sense of what constitutes heroism is severely tested these days. When Shugart and Gordon went to provide support for the downed helicopter, I'm sure they were not thinking of getting the medal of honor. It's no damn compensation for incompetent professionals and professionalism up and down the chain of command. The USA program Combat Missions only furthers a media agenda of mystification and only convinces one that whatever goes on in military or in the case of SWAT (militaristic) training, it's signals further complication for everyone. For example, I live in a small exurban quiet town of 30,000 that now has its own armored personnel carrier. - Original Message - From: Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2002 11:54 AM Subject: [PEN-L:22054] Monbiot on Blackhawk Down Both saviour and victim Black Hawk Down creates a new and dangerous myth of American nationhood George Monbiot Tuesday January 29, 2002 The Guardian [UK] The more powerful a nation becomes, the more it asserts its victimhood. In contemporary British eyes, the greatest atrocities of the 18th and 19th centuries were those perpetrated on compatriots in the Black Hole of Calcutta or during the Indian mutiny and the siege of Khartoum. The extreme manifestations of the white man's burden, these events came to symbolise the barbarism and ingratitude of the savage races the British had sought to rescue from their darkness. Today the attack on New York is discussed as if it were the worst thing to have happened to any nation in recent times. Few would deny that it was a major atrocity, but we are required to offer the American people a unique and exclusive sympathy. Now that demand is being extended to earlier American losses. Black Hawk Down looks set to become one of the bestselling movies of all time. Like all the films the British-born director Ridley Scott has made, it is gripping, intense and beautifully shot. It is also a stunning misrepresentation of what happened in Somalia. In 1992 the United States walked into Somalia with good intentions. George Bush senior announced that America had come to do God's work in a nation devastated by clan warfare and famine. But, as Scott Peterson's firsthand account Me Against My Brother shows, the mission was doomed by intelligence failures, partisan deployments and, ultimately, the belief that you can bomb a nation into peace and prosperity. Before the US government handed over the administration of Somalia to the United Nations in 1993, it had already made several fundamental mistakes. It had backed the clan chiefs Mohamed Farah Aideed and Ali Mahdi against another warlord, shoring up their power just as it had started to collapse. It had failed to recognise that the competing clan chiefs were ready to accept large-scale disarmament, if it were carried out impartially. Far from resolving the conflict between the clans, the US accidentally enhanced it. After the handover, the UN's Pakistani peacekeepers tried to seize Aideed's radio station, which was broadcasting anti-UN propaganda. The raid was bungled, and 25 of the soldiers were killed by Aideed's supporters. A few days later, Pakistani troops fired on an unarmed crowd, killing women and children. The United Nations force, commanded by a US admiral, was drawn into a blood feud with Aideed's militia. As the feud escalated, US special forces were brought in to deal with the man now described by American intelligence as the Hitler of Somalia. Aideed, who was certainly a ruthless and dangerous man but also just one of several clan leaders competing for power in the country, was blamed for all Somalia's troubles. The UN's peacekeeping mission had been transformed into a partisan war. The special forces, over-confident and hopelessly ill-informed, raided, in quick succession, the headquarters of the UN development programme, the charity World Concern and the offices of Médecins sans Frontieres. They managed to capture, among scores of
Re: hit the economy: bin Laden
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/reuters/asia-80674.html --- http://www.aljazeera.net/programs/no_limits/ text-translator site: http://tarjim.ajeeb.com/ajeeb/default.asp?lang=1 - Original Message - From: Chris Burford [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 28, 2001 2:28 AM Subject: [PEN-L:20996] hit the economy: bin Laden It is important to hit the economy (of the United States), which is the base of its military power... http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1729000/1729882.st m It is not clear from the URL above which the BBC says is a transcript of bin Laden's latest tape why there are dots. Has anyone got a URL for the full transcript? The threat is credible, although bin Laden's idealist ideology may blunt the impact. He shows no signs of realising that the spectacular theatre of Sept 11 sticks in the minds of people in the islamic world too and overwhelms his precise counterpropaganda about the number of milligrams of explosive in the attack on the US embassies in East Africa, and the number of kilograms that the US has used on not so precise guided bombs. The threat of economic warfare is credible because this is how the IRA forced the British government to the negotiating table. The fact has not been publicised for obvious reasons, but my evidence is a) the choice of the obscure Baltic Exchange for a massive bomb attack is only explicable from the fact that the Baltic Exchange featured prominently on an economics module of the Open University courses that Repblican prisoners pursued while in detention in British jails. b) in the months before the British government under John Major took the decisive step to call for direct negotiations, the IRA terrorist activities concentrated on bomb warnings, with only a proportion of bomb placements, at major rail termini and road junctions in London and other big cities, thereby stopping millions of people working for the day. This coupled with the threat to London's position as the international financial centre in the Western European time zone, I think makes it virtually certain that the heads of British Finance Capital told Major to negotiate. Bin Laden wants something more theatrical and apocalyptic, and the thought of negotiating with Bush is probably as repugnant to him as is is to GWB. But the seeds of the threat have been placed in his call. It is like disseminating a virus into the internet. Just as the easiest form of warfare in the rural parts of the former Yugoslavia was against civilian populations, so the easiest form of warfare on urban countries is economic. Bush and Rumsfeld would be wise to start negotiating as quietly and as rapidly as possible with everyone short of bin Laden himself. Otherwise accepting the challenge of being the world's policeman will be a hard role for even the US to carry out. Much as the US wants to have its cake and eat it - to be world policeman but only in its interests, it badly needs a strengthened global governance. Why bin Laden gestures only with his right hand is less important for the analysts of the latest tape, who are studiously not commenting on the economic threat, and are trying to dismiss it all as propaganda. Progressives should try to get the agenda back from excitatory terrorism to issues of practical peace and justice in the world, and for a global governance that serves the working people of the world explicitly and not the objectified interests of abstract global finance capital. Instead of more money on armaments, the Bush adminstration should support a global development fund of trillions a year to develop the economy of the whole world on democratic and ecologically responsible principles. It would be cheap at the price. Ask the financiers of the City of London. Especially as much of it could be in the form of Special Drawing Rights. Build the World Economy! Chris Burford London
Re: RE: Re: Re: Query on Anti-Colonial Revolts
Actually the John (aka 'General') Milius' versions of Teddy Roosevelt's view of colonial conflict in The 'Wind and the Lion' and 'Rough Riders' are amusing as mass mystifications. (and of course the Soviet use of Cuban mercenaries to invade Colorado in 'Red Dawn' helps signal that end of irony stuff, given events at Columbine). Their significance is a bit more about the Republicanism of Hollywood production deals and unfortunately require quite a bit of ideological reframing, but do say something about graduates of the USC film school. Ann - Original Message - From: Max Sawicky [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 23, 2001 10:36 AM Subject: [PEN-L:20886] RE: Re: Re: Query on Anti-Colonial Revolts Crucible of Empire: The Spanish-American War appeared on PBS. I thought it was great, especially for PBS. to purchase, go to www.greatprojects.com\store mbs Do you know of any movies of significance, be they documentaries or fictions, on the following subjects: the Sepoy Rebellion; the Mahdi Revolt; the Spanish-American War/the Philippines-American War; the Boxer Rebellion; and any other non-Marxist but anti-colonial revolts rebellions? -- Yoshie
Re: Fw: terrorist attacks against clinics
Hmmm, them Army O'God folks do sound like the religion of someone else we're trying to git on the other side of the world. a nation under the power of Evil - Satan, who prowls about the world seeking the ruin of the souls of mankind A nation ruled by a godless civil authority that is dominated by humanism, moral nihilism, and new-age perversion of the high standards upon which a Godly society must be founded, if it is to endure. - Original Message - From: Michael Pugliese [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: pen-l [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 7:28 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18919] Fw: terrorist attacks against clinics http://www.armyofgod.com -Original Message- From: CyberBrook [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Saturday, October 20, 2001 11:24 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: terrorist attacks against clinics It disgusts me that the attacks against Planned Parenthood and other clinics are barely getting any attention. I believe that PP thoguht it was the work of the so-called Army of God. I don't know anything about them and don't care for any part of their name except the of. Can someone please give a brief sketch to clue us in? Thanks!---Dan
Re: capturing ObL
I suppose the new anti-terrorist laws will help sweat the numerous non-arabs providing logistical support for Rudolph's continued flight from justice... I'm sure that buddy who provided a truckload of food (under the ever watchful eye of our FBI (aka the Food Beverage Industry (that complex code used by terrorists)) to Rudolph would think twice after being detained for six extra days. Oh, wait, that buddy's a US citizen...do ya think that might apply? Maybe every/anyone suspected should be detained longer? - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 19, 2001 2:47 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18875] capturing ObL I wonder if capturing Eric Rudolph would be good practice when the U.S. in locating ObL? -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
Carrol, with all due respect: I agree with the left's need for whatever those hard facts and rules of evidence are, but note that we still prosecute and (re) frame argument and (dis)information in an interpretive environment(s). Our greatest tools are still analytic and materialist, but it is important to note the need to speculate (ir)rationally, for example, Tim McVeigh could have been operating under orders from our own government and only historians centuries from now might discover his posthumous national service medal. Even with the open secrets of capitalism I still would like to know about the intentionally of our catastrophic intelligence ( knowledge ) failure resulting in 09/11, especially when we know by (dis)information ( the NY Post calls this proof ) that Osama talked to his step-mom on 07/11 about how something big was going to happen in two days and that he'd be going out of town. all we got is gilded lilies, just watch CNN and CSPAN with a dash of the History ( or is it the Historicist ) channel. The open secrets of capitalism are so hair-raising that we need not speculate on what is hidden.
Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
With respect, I don't think this gave them any greater opportunity, since the cloth curtain separating passenger classes, (not unlike Jerry Falwell's divine curtain lifted by feminists, abortionists, pagans et al to allow 09/11) is easily breached on the pretext to use a forward restroom. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2001 11:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18043] Did class distinctions aid the bombing A friend suggested that class differences may have made the hijacking and bombing possible. The culprits supposedly had first-class seats, giving 4 people with box cutters the opportunity to overpower a handful of first-class passengers once the curtains closed. At that point, they could storm the cockpit. I asked my friend why it did not work on the 4th flight. He suggested that it did but that the flight was shot down. In this age of misinformation and disinformation, idle speculation is as valid as any other form of thought. I passed this on because it suggests that, in the absence of class distinctions among passengers, the plan might not have succeeded. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
I agree Rob, there's enough blame to go around, but this article is more proof that the public sphere (in the form of agenda-setting private media monopoly ownership ignored by the liberalism that spawned the concept) simply is useless (or severely constrained) in the face of covert re-election agendas and fiscal re-appropriation strategies for various rogue agencies of the State, which is the legislative subtext for the piece. So much for checks (rubber) and balances (terror). All we have now is wagging the flag and waving the dog. the print and electronic press, which has been legitimately pointing the finger at gaps in the intelligence system, has so far failed to point the finger at itself. That is hardly healthy for a mature democracy. Its oxygen may be a free flow of information and opinion, but a capacity for self-criticism among those entrusted with the duty of providing it would not go amiss, not least in the United States where the press enjoys such constitutional privilege. - GUARDIAN This story was found at: http://www.theage.com.au/news/state/2001/10/03/FFXF2UCLASC.html
Re: Re: Greider and Takings Ideology
I dunno, when I lived in Hyde Park, a drawbridge would have been better to get from this ivory (now endangered) tower, through the free-fire zone to the public transit stop. Besides, I think it's probably still possible to ignore social difference by driving to work there to the well-protected parking lots from the toney suburbs. - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 12:15 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18076] Re: Greider and Takings Ideology Steve Diamond wrote: The Greider piece is excellent. He brings to light one of the hidden mechanisms used in international trade law to carry out the race to the bottom on a global scale. Epstein has always struck me as someone who has some kind of intellectual block on reality. Considering he has spent so much of his career in Hyde Park in the heart of the south side of Chicago it amazes me that he has so little grasp of social reality... Urban renewal destroyed a thriving Black neighborhood around the University of Chicago Hyde Park that produced a _cordon sanitaire_ to protect the whites. This probably reinforced the normal academic propensity to engage in ivory-tower thinking. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
I agree, that class vulnerability certainly is the topic of the now pulled Burger King commercial where the homeboy has received ( we don't know why ) a first class seat ( upgrade? gangsta loot?) and his whopper combo meal is his carry-on luggage. - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 12:23 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18077] Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing You may well be correct, although I rarely see any of my fellow low rate travellers use that sanctified facilities of their betters in the first class. The interesting part of the speculation is that the class distinctions can create a type of vulnerability that seems to be on people's minds. On Thu, Oct 04, 2001 at 12:06:07PM -0400, Ann Li wrote: With respect, I don't think this gave them any greater opportunity, since the cloth curtain separating passenger classes, (not unlike Jerry Falwell's divine curtain lifted by feminists, abortionists, pagans et al to allow 09/11) is easily breached on the pretext to use a forward restroom. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Greider and Takings Ideology
re: endangered I was just thinking about the illegal traffic in ivory from poachers ( a topic covered in a recent NRA article discussing the lack of substitute high-quality pistol grip material ) , not about any Max Bickford inference... - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 12:41 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18081] Re: Re: Re: Greider and Takings Ideology At 12:32 PM 10/4/01 -0400, you wrote: I dunno, when I lived in Hyde Park, a drawbridge would have been better to get from this ivory (now endangered) tower, through the free-fire zone to the public transit stop. Besides, I think it's probably still possible to ignore social difference by driving to work there to the well-protected parking lots from the toney suburbs. right. Profs wouldn't take public transportation and would drive in from the suburbs. Those who live in Hyde Park would drive through the DMZ. why endangered? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
Yah, I can hardly wait for an emenem endorsement of MMs - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 1:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18084] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing At 04:44 PM 10/4/01 +, you wrote: From: Ann Li [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree, that class vulnerability certainly is the topic of the now pulled Burger King commercial where the homeboy has received ( we don't know why ) a first class seat ( upgrade? gangsta loot?) and his whopper combo meal is his carry-on luggage. Has that ad been suspended? I saw it a couple of times and was stunned by its racist tone. As crass as Madison Ave. is, I couldn't fathom how that ad wound up on the air. there's a new one (that I saw last night) in which a homeboy is being driven in his limo reveling in his new wealth. He leans out the window to ask a passing limo passenger if he has some ketchup for his fries (in a clear parody of an old Grey Poupon ad). They didn't get rid of the racist tone. BTW, it may not be a racist tone at all, since for many young white folks, rapper-types are admired. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing
I haven't seen it in a while since I thought that it got displaced by the grey poupon satire that Jim mentioned, but I try not to keep track of these things (although I suspect its class message is also one for the Black Bourgeoisie, since homeboy gets slapped down by an African-American flight attendant (more message framing)), it's hard enough dealing with the complexities of regional media discourse about whether all that prime WTC real estate should be memorialized as opposed to capitalized. I'm sure a transfer of development rights ( virtual capital) solution will be found. - Original Message - From: Carl Remick [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 4:44 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18082] Re: Re: Re: Re: Did class distinctions aid the bombing From: Ann Li [EMAIL PROTECTED] I agree, that class vulnerability certainly is the topic of the now pulled Burger King commercial where the homeboy has received ( we don't know why ) a first class seat ( upgrade? gangsta loot?) and his whopper combo meal is his carry-on luggage. Has that ad been suspended? I saw it a couple of times and was stunned by its racist tone. As crass as Madison Ave. is, I couldn't fathom how that ad wound up on the air. Carl _ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
Re: Re: Re: ...and a bad tipper besides
Sometimes they are themselves erotic objects, e.g. Marianne Willliamson and Dr. Laura. - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, October 04, 2001 3:14 PM Subject: [PEN-L:18096] Re: Re: ...and a bad tipper besides Michael Perelman wrote: Do religious zealots usually frequent lap dancers??? Ask Jimmy Swaggart. Doug
FYI CFP Cities as Strategic Sites: Militarisation, Anti-Globalism, and Warfare
Call for papers Cities as Strategic Sites: Militarisation, Anti-Globalism, and Warfare Organised by Stephen Graham and Simon Marvin Manchester, UK, 7-9th November 2002 (Apologies for cross-posting) (Please note this outline was prepared before the appalling events in New York and Washington on September 11th 2001. We decided to proceed with the event because as we felt that there was an urgent need to critically and reflectively assess the changing role of cities in the context of growing tension and potential military conflict. While we do want to re-orientate the whole seminar around the recent events in the US we would welcome proposals that address the wider urban issues raised by the attacks.) Rationale for the Conference The twenty first century will be an urban century. Increasingly, the great contests of globalisation, cultural diversification, economic re-regulation and liberalisation, militarisation, informatisation and ecological change are boiling down to conflicts in the key strategic sites of our age: contemporary cities. In such a context, this seminar is designed to explore the contested role of contemporary cities as strategic sites of civil, military, economic and political importance. Bringing together up to 25 researchers representing a range of disciplines, including geography, planning, sociology, political economy, politics, geopolitics, surveillance and defence studies, the seminar will examine the tensions between attempts by corporate, governmental and security forces to impose 'order' and control over strategic urban sites and the contesting challenges of a wide range of social movements to subvert such strategies and (re) appropriate their meanings. The seminar will, therefore, be structured around three key themes: Theme 1. The Militarisation of Urban Civil Societies The first theme focuses upon the shift towards the militarisation of urban civil societies. This includes: the application of military-standard surveillance technologies such as CCTV, vehicle recognition systems; biometrics, the technological and physical fortification of public space, buildings, enclaves and networks; and the militarisation of police forces through application of military techniques and technologies. Theme 2. Anti-Globalisation and Urban Conflict The second theme focuses upon the city as the contested terrain of globalisation. Particular emphasis will be placed on understanding recent protests against the G8 World Economic Summits in major cities, and the responses of security forces. This will include the most recent incident in Genoa, but also looking back at the Seattle, Prague, Washington, and London demonstrations. The theme will explore the role of urban protests, its relationships with the parallel world of hacking and network sabotage, and the attempts of the proposed transnational police forces to enforce security at future summits. Theme 3. The Urbanisation of Warfare The final theme focuses upon the intensifying military interest in the role of cities as key sites in which future military and geo-political conflicts are expected to be fought. Cold War military doctrine stressed the imperative of by-passing cities, based on the nightmarish spectre of Stalingrad-like house-to-house struggles. But recent assessments of post-cold war conflicts in Chechnya, the Balkans, and elsewhere highlight the urbanisation of warfare in a context of intensifying global urbanisation, the growth of urban terrorism, the implosion of nation states, and the efforts of US and its Allies to maintain and strengthen global political, economic and military hegemony. US and Nato forces have thus taken renewed interest in Military Operation in Urban Terrain (MOUT) with significant investment in urban warfare technologies, simulations and military exercises in existing cities. Major cross-overs are occurring here with the diffusion of such tactics into civil state and governance efforts at urban social control (Theme 1) and state efforts to protect strategic urban sites during major international economic conferences (Theme 3). Expressions of Interest The organisers are looking for one page expression of interest oriented around one or more of the themes identified above by March 31st 2002. Full papers are due by end October 2002. The conference will take place in November 2002. The conference will take place in Manchester, U.K. Costs of participation are to be decided but will eb kept as low as possible. The papers will be published in the form of a major Edited book. Please e-mail a 150-word abstract and all contact details to both Simon Marvin ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) and Stephen Graham ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) by January 31st 2002. Stephen Grahame-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Professor of Urban Technology Telephone +44(0) 191 222 6808 School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape 3rd Floor, Claremont Tower Fax +44(0) 191 222 8811
Re: Soothing platitudes from Chairman Has-been decoded
For your amusement (sort of), since CNN ran some stupidity about internet messages from evildoers sent in .jpg files ---The flight number of the first flight that crashed into WTC is Q33NY... open up Microsoft Word, type Q33NY in capital letters, and change the font size to 28, and font to wingdings ... Ann - Original Message - From: Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2001 10:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:17456] Soothing platitudes from Chairman Has-been decoded I see things are so bad on the Dow just now that Yahoo is referring to telcos as 'a defensive oriented group' ...
Re: Re: Re: Prince Bush wimps out against Communism
Also on the same site: Join the Free Republic Network Conference Cruise with featured speaker, David Horowitz, for a fun and information filled cruise to the Bahamas! October 15 - 19.
Re: Political Economy of Music
Jacques Attali's book NOISE: The Political Economy of Music - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 8:09 AM Subject: [PEN-L:16183] Political Economy of Music Penners, Does any good work exist on the political economy of music (popular, classical, jazz, etc), the music industry, and/or the noncommercial/private production (or consumption) of music? I'm interested in more than in current trends related to the Internet. Thanks for any leads. Eric Nilsson
Re: Re: Political Economy of Music
Actually Tom Streeter's last book had some nice things on BMI ASCAP and royalties. - Original Message - From: Ann Li [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 1:01 PM Subject: [PEN-L:16260] Re: Political Economy of Music Jacques Attali's book NOISE: The Political Economy of Music - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, August 22, 2001 8:09 AM Subject: [PEN-L:16183] Political Economy of Music Penners, Does any good work exist on the political economy of music (popular, classical, jazz, etc), the music industry, and/or the noncommercial/private production (or consumption) of music? I'm interested in more than in current trends related to the Internet. Thanks for any leads. Eric Nilsson
Bell Curve
Subject: Report: President Bush Has Lowest IQ of all From the Pennsylvania Court Observer 7-10-01 12:32 PM CST University Notes Contributors: Cristina L. Borenstein, Lana Taamar In a report published Monday, the Lovenstein Institute of Scranton, Pennsylvania detailed its findings of a four month study of the intelligence quotient of President George W. Bush. Since 1973, the Lovenstein Institute has published its research to the education community on each new president, which includes the famous IQ report among others. According to statements in the report, there have been twelve presidents over the past 50 years, from F. D. Roosevelt to G. W. Bush who were all rated based on scholarly achievements, writings that they alone produced without aid of staff, their ability to speak with clarity, and several other psychological factors which were then scored in the Swanson/Crain system of intelligence ranking. The study determined the following IQs of each president as accurate to within five percentage points: 147 Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 132 Harry Truman (D) 122 Dwight D. Eisenhower (R) 174 John F. Kennedy (D) 126 Lyndon B. Johnson (D) 155 Richard M. Nixon (R) 121 Gerald Ford (R) 175 James E. Carter (D) 105 Ronald Reagan (R) 098 George HW Bush (R) 182 William J. Clinton (D) 091 George W. Bush (R) The six Republican presidents of the past 50 years had an average IQ of 115.5, with President Nixon having the highest IQ, at 155. President G. W. Bush was rated the lowest of all the Republicans with an IQ of 91. The six Democrat presidents had IQs with an average of 156, with President Clinton having the highest IQ, at 182. President Lyndon B. Johnson was rated the lowest of all the Democrats with an IQ of 126. No president other than Carter (D) has released his actual IQ, 176. Among comments made concerning the specific testing of President GW Bush, his low ratings were due to his apparent difficulty to command the English language in public statements, his limited use of vocabulary (6,500 words for Bush versus an average of 11,000 words for other presidents), his lack of scholarly achievements other than a basic MBA, and an absence of any body of work which could be studied on an intellectual basis. The complete report documents the methods and procedures used to arrive at these ratings, including depth of sentence structure and voice stress confidence analysis. All the Presidents prior to George W. Bush had a least one book under their belt, and most had written several white papers during their education or early careers. Not so with President Bush, Dr. Lovenstein said. He has no published works or writings, so in many ways that made it more difficult to arrive at an assessment. We had to rely more heavily on transcripts of his unscripted public speaking. The Lovenstein Institute of Scranton Pennsylvania think tank includes high caliber historians, psychiatrists, sociologists, scientists in human behavior, and psychologists. Among their ranks are Dr. Werner R. Lovenstein, world-renowned sociologist, and Professor Patricia F. Dilliams, a world-respected psychiatrist. This study was commissioned on February 13, 2001 and released on July 9, 2001 to subscribing member universities and organizations within the education community.
Re: US vs. United Nations
Actually the NRA's info-mercial is quite amusing with its jingoism and xenophobia, what with the Statue of Liberty framed behind Wayne LaPIerre telling the viewer that foreign interests would take away your rights and your long gun. I would wager that the serial numbers are still on the guns our government provides for democratic struggles and foreign police/military agencies. I fail to see how (inter)national record keeping will curb the continuation of a trade which kills 1000 people a day worldwide. It would probably be better to register machine tools. - Original Message - From: Keaney Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: PEN-L (E-mail) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 8:26 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14972] US vs. United Nations Curbs on illegal sales of arms blocked IAN BRUCE The Herald, 11 July 2001 THE United States yesterday thwarted a UN move to curb illegal trafficking in small arms by declaring that it was prepared to defend the rights of weapons manufacturers and gun owners, even if it meant the continuation of a trade which kills 1000 people a day worldwide. John Bolton, the US under-secretary for arms control, told delegates at the opening of a 10-day UN-sponsored conference that Americans do not find all guns problematic and that the responsible use of firearms was a legitimate aspect of national life. The conference, now close to collapse because of the non-co-operation of the world's biggest arms' manufacturers, was told that there were an estimated 500 million small arms in circulation, half of them being used to fight wars from Afghanistan to Africa. A high percentage had been bought on the black market in a £1bn-a-year trade. The weapons had been the main cause of four million deaths in 46 conflicts since 1990. The US has now aligned itself with Russia, India, and China in a power bloc of big business interests. They jointly produce more than 80% of the weapons used in brushfire wars across the globe. The UN's provisional plan for the conference was to call for national laws requiring that arms be marked so they could be traced and for national record-keeping to make tracing easier. One of Washington's fears is that marking and tracing could be translated into domestic arms restrictions, something that could cost a US administration millions of votes in a country where the right to bear arms is enshrined in the constitution. Anti-gun activists, supported by Britain and most of the EU countries, want to crack down on both legal and illegal arms deals. Bolton said the US also opposed a proposal to seriously consider banning the unrestricted sale of weapons specifically designed for military purposes. Sporting versions of the US army's M16 Armalite and the ubiquitous Russian AK47 assault weapons are available in gun stores throughout America advertised as hunting rifles. They can be converted from single-shot civilian use to automatic fire with a file and 10 minutes' work. Tamar Gabelnick, spokeswoman for the Federation of American Scientists, accused her own government of projecting US domestic concerns on to problems affecting other countries. It is precisely those weapons that Bolton would exclude from this conference that are actually killing people and endangering communities around the world. Full article at: http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/archive/11-7-19101-0-17-41.html Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: US vs. United Nations
I don't think tort actions from foreign governments or individuals carries much weight in US courts although it is clear that given our military blunders some would like to see such reparations become more pervasive; the three-hour-tour boat in Honolulu for example aka Gilligangate and the Japanese trawler. Although it certainly would be interesting to see such suits from those citizen non-combatants damaged by our anti-personnel weapons. Nor do I think that other governments are stupid enough to give lawyers that much power (this is of course assuming that their are other means to ensure individual democratic rights). And of course, having been thrown out a jury pool in a civil action because I thought there were excessive damage awards, I think the US is not exactly a poster child for equity. The discourse of victimology in the US is quite amusing. This is where the seller of the hot coffee is responsible for the idiot who places the cup between their legs when obtaining it at the drive-up and sues the company for negligence when they spill it in their lap. The jury then awards millions to the victim for their individual stupidity. The irony of a smart gun is really one of liability protection rather than safety, for example, and was used by Colt as a pretext to streamline its produce line where Smith Wesson attempted to increase its law enforcement sales by compliance. Will we see such guns in military use, I think not. The tobacco settlement I leave to others more informed on the list, but I think it's really another welfare scheme to redistribute money to the states not unlike our use of lottery money, where useless advertising PSAs get created. - Original Message - From: Keaney Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: PEN-L (E-mail) [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2001 10:24 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14978] US vs. United Nations Ann Li writes: I fail to see how (inter)national record keeping will curb the continuation of a trade which kills 1000 people a day worldwide. = I think it has to do with the US legal mentality: Admit not the least potential liability. Aren't there these parent groups and others trying to sue US gun manufacturers in class action suits similar to the ones that have succeeded against tobacco companies? The logic of current developments is that the jurisdiction of these suits expands to envelop greater parts of the globe. On some horrendous technicality the victims or relatives of victims of such weapons could use US courts to seek recompense. Michael K. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: US vs. United Nations
And Li Peng (some distant relation, I suppose) via an arbitrator in an out-of-court settlement will perform voluntary community service (or re-education!) and give up some of his Brooks Brothers suits. Ann Last year, five Chinese natives sued the former Chinese prime minister, Li Peng, in an American court for his role in the Tiananmen Square crackdown that killed hundreds of civilians in Beijing.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hacking actors
Thanks Doyle, for carrying the ball a bit further, that's what I meant. However, I think the commodification of that shared attention (as cooperative or uncooperative (not necessarily the game theory difference between SM and BD in the adult entertainment context)) will be a fruitful area of investigation rather than the somewhat weird metric of counting eyes. The eye(ball)s have it! Ann - Original Message - From: Doyle Saylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 9:28 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14872] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Hacking actors Greetings Economists, Ann Li writes to Ian, and Eric, Ann, So there will be Cyborgs with SAG cards... Not having yet seen A.I., I suspect it's Shindler's PDA spreadsheet. As the econ geography literature makes clear, the problem is not with displacement of celebrity cinematic talent, but with an analysis of the entire analog/digital cinematic apparatus. Anyway, the NYT piece used Tron as an example which is misleading because the issue is less one of saving money on talent ( not in the Tron case where the characters were real ones in digitally enhanced suits), but perhaps in the subsequent Last Starfighter where millions were saved on set/production design using a Cray computer. Tron actually wasted quite a bit of money on its subcontracted digital production for its time, which is now miniscule compared to more recent budgets. Much more interesting will be the rising market in digitally simulated adult entertainment which uses the same infrastructure as mainstream cinema and more corrupt labor practices. Meat Puppets! Doyle Ann's point about using avatars in hardcore movies (I assume your reference to adult entertainment is what you mean) is much more to the point about what is at stake than Tom Hanks career concerns. Adult movies are more downscale than is Hollywood. Sex movies more than anything derive their power from showing how sharing attention works amongst people. Adult movies thrive on the intensely felt emotional focus upon how two people screw each other. Some anime is supposed to have replaced Japanese adolescent males interests in real female pictures. What that suggests is that if an image actually meets shared attention needs better than a human visage we as human beings could use that tool in place of using our own bodies in creating social networks . That 'social' realism is not the major issue in anime (since anime is not conversational). Photo-realism as a style of image is not the main element of why avatars are important it is their potential function in joint or shared attention processes. The crucial issue is shared attention and what is needed for that to work right for human beings. thanks, Doyle Saylor
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Yet another take on Hubbert's peak
post-modernist: it's two glasses, one is the panoptical (phallocratic) glass, the Other is its decentered (womanist) subject. - Original Message - From: Ian Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 2:02 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14847] Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Yet another take on Hubbert's peak At 01:19 PM 7/9/01 -0400, you wrote: But I guess a glass at 50% capacity is always half empty. pessimist: the glass is half empty. optimist: the glass is half full. realist: it's half a glass of water. surrealist: it's a cow. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine = nerd: it's a bunch of 0's and 1's. nonnerdly, Ian
Re: Humid peek
Of course, it's double articulation! ...and on the question of whether either glass contains water, who cares, they're both full of it! - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 3:41 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14853] Humid peek [was: [PEN-L:14852] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: RE: Re: Yet another take on Hubbert's peak] But I guess a glass at 50% capacity is always half empty. pessimist: the glass is half empty. optimist: the glass is half full. realist: it's half a glass of water. surrealist: it's a cow. nerd: it's a bunch of 0's and 1's. post-modernist: it's two glasses, one is the panoptical (phallocratic) glass, the Other is its decentered (womanist) subject. are you saying the pomos are seeing double? Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
Re: Re: Re: Re: Hacking actors
So there will be Cyborgs with SAG cards... Not having yet seen A.I., I suspect it's Shindler's PDA spreadsheet. As the econ geography literature makes clear, the problem is not with displacement of celebrity cinematic talent, but with an analysis of the entire analog/digital cinematic apparatus. Anyway, the NYT piece used Tron as an example which is misleading because the issue is less one of saving money on talent ( not in the Tron case where the characters were real ones in digitally enhanced suits), but perhaps in the subsequent Last Starfighter where millions were saved on set/production design using a Cray computer. Tron actually wasted quite a bit of money on its subcontracted digital production for its time, which is now miniscule compared to more recent budgets. Much more interesting will be the rising market in digitally simulated adult entertainment which uses the same infrastructure as mainstream cinema and more corrupt labor practices. Meat Puppets! - Original Message - From: Ian Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 4:51 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14865] Re: Re: Re: Hacking actors - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, July 09, 2001 2:42 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14844] Re: Re: Hacking actors Doyle wrote What it exploits is an appearance of a fear of job loss by actors to computer images, but is that what is going on? Yes. It is already happening. But stars are not those being affected right now. Rather, those not being hired right now are certain types of extras, in particular those in groups in the deep background of a scene. It is true, however, that some scenes with lots of extras wouldn't be made if not for the ability to replace real extras with computer amimated people because of the high cost of using real people. But, still, come real people have not been hired in some movied because computer-generated people have been used instead. As 3-D modelling of people gets better and better over the years I would bet that more actors will be replaced by computer generated images. Of course, for many decades film-makers have used various methods to use a few real people to appear to be a large crowd. But the new powers of 3-D modelling open up new avenues that have not existed before. ERic == Thus forcing actors/actresses [those master's of the plasticity of self] to deal with self-ownership in a commodity saturated world in a way they never have before...Anybody seen AI yet? There's nothing about artificial persons as slaves. I don't know how Kubrick could've missed that chance to raise tough questions. Ian
Re: Re: culture to the masses
The point relevant to the earlier question of a consumer culture in this case is the broad application of improvements (and scale economies with the 19 C. background often used to explain 20 C. post-fordist flexible production) in printing technology to produce patterns that could be applied in a wide variety of consumer goods areas ranging from the use of decals in ceramic pottery production to mass printing including wallpaper and serialized fiction and of course the production of cheap cloth goods (printed chintz to cover furniture and printed yardage being less costly than woven fabric etc). This predated Morris as Eric points out, and is notable relative to Morris because of his socialistic view not unlike others during the period that improved designs might also have moral implications for all involved in the process, whether producers, distributors or consumers. Forty argues for the class divisions created by differentiated lower-class designs imitating upper-class ones. However, it might be said that Morris and his buddies ( However beautiful the products of the Pre-Raphaelites and Morris' own political writings etc) were what we might now call Bohos, bringing us back to where the thread started with the japanese version of baby boys. Ann - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2001 5:47 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14801] Re: culture to the masses Jim D wrote, I'm told that William Morris . . .invented wallpaper as part of his wider effort to bring art to the proletariat. From Encyl Britannica: Wallpaper developed soon after the introduction of papermaking to Europe during the latter part of the 15th century. . . Machine-printed wallpaper first appeared in 1840 at a firm of printers in Lancashire and, with the work of William Morris and the Arts and Crafts Movement, created a revolution in wallpaper design. Morris' designs for the medium, which first appeared in 1862, were characterized by flat, stylized, naturalistic patterns and rich, subdued colours. His work and the progressive designs of Walter Crane coexisted, however, with the more traditional taste expressed in the work of A.W.N. Pugin, Owen Jones, and James Huntington, who designed wallpaper in the Gothic and Rococo styles as late as the 1860s. Eric
Re: Re: Analytical Marxism
Actually, considering the somewhat diverse literature using the term, analytic Marxism, I think it's unfair to accuse it of trying to be seeking a totalizing logic (this of course suggests that monolithic demonizing seen frequently in this list). It at every moment is always a form of historical analysis, regardless of the brand (channel?)of analytic model chosen. I would hope that any attempt to move beyond strictly determinist and mechanical models of materialist analysisis an analytic one. Ann ( using digmatic calipersin herquest for a digital information commodity theory ) - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 10:59 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14720] Re: Analytical Marxism One way of looking at Analytical Marxism is as an attempt to produce a completely internally consistent [non-contradictory] and entirely coherent [non-ambiguous] school of social analysis. But this might just destroy the power of Marxism as a form of historical analysis and explanation. Certainly Cohen's recapitulation of historical materialism in terms of the primacy of the development of the forces of production meets those criteria, but is it very good as a basis of historical analysis? Perhaps it is the productivity that comes from contradiction and ambiguity which gave Marxism its conceptual power. Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869) Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass --
Re: [PEN-L:14746] Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter?
I would like to ask the more historically minded on the list if these women are any different than say, the single women displaced in England during the later industrial revolution who may have formed or swelled various urban areas. Obviously the periods are different but their relationship to a consumer culture seems similar. - Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 2:29 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14746] Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter? At 1:27 PM -0400 7/6/01, David Hearne wrote: I hate when people see the world in black-and-white colors. There are a lot of shades of grey in between a suburban mall filled with teenage parasites sponging off parental income and blowing it on overpriced Nike sneakers and Gap t-shirts - and a full-metal-jacket style boot camp staffed by sadistic drill sergeants. Teenage parasites? Now who's seeing the world in black-and-white? According to the New York Times, young Japanese women who work for low wages in the secondary labor market while being supported by parents -- though no teenagers -- are now blamed by journalists, economists, sociologists, politicians for being parasites. * New York Times 1 July 2001 Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter are Threatening Japan's Economy By PEGGY ORENSTEIN ...More than half of Japanese women are still single by 30 -- compared with about 37 percent of American women -- and nearly all of them live at home with Mom and Dad. Labeled Parasite Singles (after Parasite Eve, a Japanese horror flick in which extraterrestrial hatchlings feed off unsuspecting human hosts before bursting, Alien-style, through their bellies), they pay no rent, do no housework and come and go freely. Although they earn, on average, just $27,000 a year, they are Japan's leading consumers, since their entire income is disposable. Despite Japan's continuing recession, they have created a boom in haute couture accessories by Louis Vuitton, Bulgari, Fendi and Prada, as well as in cell phones, minicars and other luxury goods. They travel more widely than their higher-earning male peers, dress more fashionably and are more sophisticated about food and culture. While their spending sprees keep the Japanese economy afloat, their skittishness about traditional roles may soon threaten to capsize it. Japan's population is aging more rapidly than any on the planet -- by 2015 one in four Japanese will be elderly. The birthrate has sunk to 1.34 per woman, well below replacement levels. (The birthrate in the United States, by contrast, is 2.08.) Last year, Japan dropped from the eighth-largest nation in the world to the ninth. The smallest class in recorded history just entered elementary school. Demographers predict that within two decades the shrinking labor force will make pension taxes and health care costs untenable, not to mention that there will not be enough workers to provide basic services for the elderly. There are whispers that to avoid ruin, Japan may have to do the unthinkable: encourage mass immigration, changing the very notion of what it means to be Japanese. Politicians, economists and the media blame parasite women for the predicament. (Unmarried men can also be parasitic, but they have received far less scrutiny.) They are like the ancient aristocrats of feudal times, but their parents play the role of servants, says Masahiro Yamada, a sociologist who coined the derogatory but instantly popular term Parasite Single. (The clock on his 15 minutes of fame has been ticking ever since.) Their lives are spoiled. The only thing that's important to them is seeking pleasure. He may be right: parasite women may indeed be a sign of decadence, a hangover from the intoxicating materialism of the Bubble years of the 80's. But that conclusion, the most common one in the Japanese press, misses something more substantive: an unconscious protest against the rigidity of both traditional family roles and Japan's punishing professional system. Maybe they appear to be spoiled, says Yoko Kunihiro, a sociologist who studies dissatisfaction among women in their 30's, but you could also perceive Parasite Singles as the embodiment of a criticism against society. Seen from the perspective of conventional values, even feminist values, they seem like a very negative force, but I see something positive in them. There was a time when a woman Sumiko Arai's age would have been dismissed as Christmas cake: like a holiday pastry, her shelf life would have expired at 25. But sell-by dates have changed in Japan, along with male predilections: high-profile sports heroes like the Seattle Mariner Ichiro Suzuki and the sumo grand champion Takanohana are married to women several years their senior. Instead of calling her a stale sweet, Arai's parents, with more affection than disapproval, call her para-chan (little parasite: chan is the diminutive in
Re: [PEN-L:14754] Re: Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter?
No, I meant actually in the late 19 C. around the times of the art crafts movement where the preconditions for the consumer culture already are in place (Adrian Forty's work comes to mind here). I guess I don't think of the interwar period as later relative to those machine-age categories used for the industrial revolution. And without getting into yet another wacky thread, one could say, control revolution-wise, that the post-industrial may begin in the interwar period with the rise of regulation, but yes it is before the height of fordist production, or is it? - Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 5:05 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14754] Re: Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter? Ann wrote: I would like to ask the more historically minded on the list if these women are any different than say, the single women displaced in England during the later industrial revolution who may have formed or swelled various urban areas. Obviously the periods are different but their relationship to a consumer culture seems similar. By the later industrial revolution you mean the 1920s, after the first wave of feminism, with the mass production of advertising, consumer credit, culture of dating, etc.? Yoshie
Re: [PEN-L:14756] Re: Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter?
It's older stuff from the 1980s on how consumer culture was in place earlier than thought ( i.e. Wedgewood's 17C. use of marketing techniques and promotion ) and the new markets for finished goods where cheap designs imitating upperclass designs were produced for growing markets of single working class women who migrate to cities. - Original Message - From: Yoshie Furuhashi [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, July 06, 2001 5:59 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14756] Re: Parasites in Prêt-à-Porter? No, I meant actually in the late 19 C. around the times of the art crafts movement where the preconditions for the consumer culture already are in place (Adrian Forty's work comes to mind here). I haven't read anything by Adrian Forty. What does he say about urban working-class women in the late 19th century? Yoshie
Re: Re: re: Marx's method
Digmatic Electronic Caliper: 6,150mm. Made in Japan by Mitutoyo. Stainless steel. Comfortable, smooth and easy to use. The Mitutoyo digmatic is our top quality electronic caliper. Measures inside and outside in inches and millimeters. Goes from inches to millimeters at a touch of a button Large LCD display is easy to read. 0-6 inches with .001' accuracy, .0005' resolution; 0-150mm with .03 accuracy, .01 resolution. Zero set button. Carrying case and battery included. One year warranty. - Original Message - From: Justin Schwartz ..Roemer's and Elster's more digmatic pronouncements on method,
Re: Re: carrying capacity in California
Where are all these people to go? As I did for college, to Iowa and since Californians often mistake Idaho or Ohio for Iowa, then they will join Mark Fuhrman in militia country. Seriously, other than the reasonable left solutions discussed in this list, maybe it's time (again) to try to divide the state into multiple parts. Ann - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 30, 2001 12:38 PM Subject: [PEN-L:14450] Re: carrying capacity in California Mark Jones wrote: This is an MS excel attachment, it seems to work, apologies if attachments are against the rules on this list. If it doesn't come thru I can supply it privately. It details California carrying capacity and population overshoot by county. I don't endorse it since I don't know enough about the underlying methodology to judge. As they say, I'm sceptical, but... Hmm, 27 million excess Californians. LA's population should be below 20,000. Where are all these people to go? Thanks for putting some numbers on the Malthusian sentiments. Doug
Re: Re: Marxism and ecology
He still is? I recall coming across something about that in the 80s. BTW, I just got back from a conference where displaced media workers from silicon gulch and silicon valley refer to themselves as dot-communists. Ann - Original Message - From: Michael Pugliese [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 8:20 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14019] Re: Marxism and ecology Lee Baxandall, who edited a collection on marxism and aesthetics in the 70's, now edits a nudist magazine. Michael Pugliese - Original Message - From: Keaney Michael [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 1:07 AM Subject: [PEN-L:14001] Marxism and ecology Chris Burford wrote: Marxism is neither sentimental humanism nor sentimental naturism. = I had a hunch those Nudists for Nader were suspect. Michael K.
Re: Childress Metric
Doyle, Speaking as someone who has only just had her morning soma, I would be interested in understanding a bit more about the KU. In what ways does this thing measurement share its metric with the library science(sic) literature on knowledge production ( and ) management? How do you weigh in on the usefulness of this KU for class structure analysis, given your prior post on theories of Joint Attention and Conversational Agents? Ann - Original Message - From: Doyle Saylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 9:04 AM Subject: [PEN-L:13031] Childress Metric Greetings Economists, In my job we are developing the first stages in this economy of knowledge management (comparable to the early stages of PR or Public Relations advertising after WWI). Including things like data mining, Communities of Practice, Software agents, etc. I am sending out some analysis being passed around within the Enterprise concerning the measurement of Knowledge Assets in a major corporation. Obviously a mathematical formula such as this goes along with the econometric hocus pocus in Neo-liberal culture which use mathematics as a means of eluding the social class questions of capitalist economies. But I view the thinking behind this paper as an attempt to advance and develop knowledge production. In that sense this is not an attempt to justify through pseudo science knowledge management, but to grasp knowledge in the context of very large business and harness it to the business culture. I think if one looks at the drawing board of the current military view of war, that knowledge management is a very important part of the U.S. view of the developing military unit structure properties. So this paper is a step toward the production of knowledge in capitalism that is coming up from IT (Information Technology). thanks, Doyle Saylor A Unique Knowledge Management Methodology to Measure Relative Efficiency and Productivity in Workflow Processes. by Peter Childress Enterprise Strategic Planning Emerging Technologies 2001-05-24 V.1.0 Abstract While many business leaders confirm that Knowledge Management is an important part of their overall business strategy, the nascent field has been hampered by the lack of a practical methodology of measuring the KM components of business processes. Although some large companies claim to have developed practical KM metrics, one internationally recognized expert on Knowledge Management has gone so far to say that KM cannot be measured by anything other than story telling and anecdotal means. This paper will suggest a unique KM metric that will measure the relative efficiency and productivity gains or losses in workflow process changes by means of hard numbers, enabling managers to further optimize their business processes. Basic Methodology Any given task or job can be defined by the number of things a worker needs to know in order to accomplish it. Each of these things can be defined as a Knowledge Unit (KU). Generally speaking, the more complex the job or task, the richer it is in terms of KU's. By defining a task in terms of Knowledge Units, it becomes possible to measure not only the complexity or knowledge value of the task, but the results of increasing the knowledge of the worker or decreasing the complexity of the task, thus giving a useful metric. This also makes it possible to map knowledge to workflow processes if the workflow process can be defined in terms of knowledge units mapped to the steps needed to accomplish it. Efficiency can be increased by either decreasing the number of KU's needed to accomplish the task (through automation or improved business processes) or increasing the number of KU's the worker has at hand (by training the worker). Thus it becomes possible to create a mathematical formula to define efficiency as: EFFICIENCY = nTASK_KU/nWORKER_KU, meaning that the net efficiency of the task or workflow is equal to the number of KU's needed to accomplish it divided by the number of KU's the worker has at his disposal. A business process or workflow may consist of a number of different steps, each requiring several tasks to completion, involving more than one worker and different viewed as a coefficient of efficiency, or co-efficiency, a number describing the relative efficiency of a workflow process. If there is a standard process for achieving consistency in mapping KU's to the workflow process and the worker, an analysis of comparative efficiency of different workflow processes is made possible. For example, a workflow process that requires 4 workers to perform 3 different steps, each of which require 4 tasks to be completed, and each of which has been determined to have a 5 KU value, would give the analyst a figure of TASK=240_KU. Assuming each worker was highly trained in his or her respective task and each were assigned a rating of 5
Re: Re: Re: Childress Metric
Ian, since we've been on this religion ( or for those who are (can be) offended, the totalizing sectarian discourse) thread, I did a brief search and also strangely found the Templeton Foundation ( Among other 'moral philanthropy' they give $ for more religion and science stuff ) when I was looking for Chaitin. And of course I am amused that Albin was (no, he just shares the name with (or perhap he really is?)) the bass player for Big Brother and the Holding Company (a local rock band that incidentally played a benefit for my high school when I was much younger then...). Ann - Original Message - From: Ian Murray [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 2:24 PM Subject: [PEN-L:13045] Re: Re: Childress Metric - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, June 09, 2001 10:08 AM Subject: [PEN-L:13042] Re: Childress Metric Measuring something as tangible as computers has proved impossible so far -- at least very good economists have wildly differing views as to how to quantify the aggregate of such technology. Measuring knowledge units would be far more difficult -- or more acurately, impossible to measure. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] = Economists should take a look at the work of the mathematicians Gregory Chaitin, John Nicholas [also an electrical engineer] and Charles Bennett for some tantalizing and totally mind bending possibilities for dealing with this issue. The project of fusing information theory, computability theory and physics has, in all probability, some valuable lessons waiting for those economists who aren't afraid of some very heavy duty mathPhilip Mirowski's warnings aside. Peter Albin has made some interesting first stabs at the issue. Ian
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the gospel of buddha
Doyle, Having read your prior post on the joint attention issue, I'd like to hear a bit more on how your knowledge production interests include network formation of ideology as well as perhaps Roemerian exploitation. I say this only since you're addressing this set of exchanges on religion, that famous opiate or its vanilla Other, spirituality ( I like the idea of religion as a cognitive defect (it makes St Theresa more interesting, as well as explaining the motives of some prior employers)). Some URLs and bibliographic pointers / cites would also be appreciated. Also, are there echoes of Charles Wolff or Carchetti's earlier work on mental labor in your research? Ann - Original Message - From: Doyle Saylor [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, June 08, 2001 9:27 PM Subject: [PEN-L:13023] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: the gospel of buddha Greetings Economists, Michael Perelman writes, Michael, I agree with Anthony. This thread is not going anywhere. Doyle I differ here with this opinion. There is considerable analysis to be made about what is religion in terms of IT production, human and primate evolution, and especially in regard to disability cognitive aspects of religion (referring to compulsive mental structures dogma, and the feeling of religion - see Ramachandran, Phantoms in the Brain, Quill press, 1998, pages 174 - 198 especially page 175...Rama, you're not going to believe this. there's a man in Canada who stimulated his temporal lobe and experienced God. What do you make of it? Patricia Churchland on epileptic religious experience). While I don't think I am ready to pursue this to any length now. The production of knowledge assets is leading toward understanding what is being done when someone produces religious knowledge. The key issue is joint attention production. What is the relationship in cognitive structure between proprioception (body centered knowledge), emotional connectivity of attitudes (where emotions unify language like neural network states), and words (neural networks of stabilized interconnected sensory produced knowledge). So I won't pursue this for now, but I will say this, shared knowledge that religions generate is about to be overcome with the creation of data assets of networked human knowledge production. This is where a great deal of economic analysis can be focused in terms of class structure. thanks, Doyle Saylor
Re: Barbie -- but not Klaus
and of course the Klaus Barbie - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Fran 'Toots' Goldfarb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 6:18 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10514] Barbie -- but not Klaus Today, I saw a parent buying a Flower Power Barbie at the grocery store, as a gift for a child's birthday party. Seeing the beads, bell-bottom trousers, granny glasses, and peace patches caused a flash-back, plus an inspiration for new toys that Matell can sell: Summer of Love Barbie -- has gonorrhea. People's Park Barbie -- free, but smells of teargas. Woodstock Barbie -- slowly melts, due to the bad acid. Altamont Barbie -- the less said, the better. Patty Hearst Barbie -- put her in a closet for a couple of days and she says Kill the Fascist Insect that Lives on the Life-Blood of the People! Squeaky Fromm Barbie -- shoots, but misses, in a vain attempt to impress Charles Manson. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Barbie -- but not Klaus
sorry, I didn't complete my thought on the Klaus Barbie... aside from the bad taste holocaust jokes, I was thinking more of Klaus(sp) von Bulowbut have thought better of any further jokes, recalling my once coming across the bronze plaque memorializing his contributions to the Newport RI community. - Original Message - From: Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; Fran 'Toots' Goldfarb [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 6:18 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10514] Barbie -- but not Klaus Today, I saw a parent buying a Flower Power Barbie at the grocery store, as a gift for a child's birthday party. Seeing the beads, bell-bottom trousers, granny glasses, and peace patches caused a flash-back, plus an inspiration for new toys that Matell can sell: Summer of Love Barbie -- has gonorrhea. People's Park Barbie -- free, but smells of teargas. Woodstock Barbie -- slowly melts, due to the bad acid. Altamont Barbie -- the less said, the better. Patty Hearst Barbie -- put her in a closet for a couple of days and she says Kill the Fascist Insect that Lives on the Life-Blood of the People! Squeaky Fromm Barbie -- shoots, but misses, in a vain attempt to impress Charles Manson. Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~JDevine
Re: Re: Market Socialism
Oh I dunno, during the more extreme flame wars in here, there are days when I think I should join the (jackie) masonic order (who unlike the Stonecutters on "The Simpsons" may really be making Steve Guttenberg a star) Ann Seriously, I learn a lot in here and am continuously reminded of what I still need to study including what would market socialism do with(out) e-commerce. - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, April 13, 2001 11:54 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10198] Re: Market Socialism I don't think so. I know that my own views have grown from many of the discussions here -- except for Jackie Mason. On Fri, Apr 13, 2001 at 11:45:21PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote: Michael Perelman wrote: For example, you could easily divide up the participants in the earlier debates into a small number of groups and identify which post came from which group. I think you have a hard time finding anybody who demonstrated any change in their thinking as a result of any of the communications. Is that untrue of other things we discuss here? Postmodernism? Catastrophe? Anarchism? Jackie Mason? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Fw: Vedder on Bernstein, _Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal_
FYI, has anyone in pen-l had a chance to look at this book? Ann - Original Message - From: "EH.Net Review" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 11:57 AM Subject: Vedder on Bernstein, _Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal_ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW -- Published by EH.NET (April 2001) David E. Bernstein, _Only One Place of Redress: African Americans, Labor Regulations and the Courts from Reconstruction to the New Deal_. Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press, 2001. xiii + 189 pp. $39.95 (cloth), ISBN 0-8223-2583-7. Reviewed for EH.NET by Richard K. Vedder, Department of Economics, Ohio University. [EMAIL PROTECTED] The conventional view is that American workers were greatly helped by Progressive labor legislation that evolved in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but that conservative courts blocked implementation of those laws designed to protect helpless workers from the greedy acts of insensitive capitalists. Bernstein, a law professor at George Mason University, thinks that this traditional view is backwards, at least with respect to African American workers. Much of the so-called progressive legislation was highly discriminatory and harmful to African Americans, and the "reactionary" court decisions actually helped reduce the damages to their quality of life imposed by these regulations. The book is a series of case studies that amplify this thesis. Bernstein is not the first person to argue that governmental labor laws and regulations can have unintended or adverse consequences. For decades, for example, economists in the law and economics tradition have written about the adverse effects of occupational licensing, and Harold Demsetz, for one, argued as early as 1965 that New Deal labor reforms, far from being black America's salvation, were a setback in its efforts to climb the economic ladder. Yet Bernstein combines in one engaging volume a large amount of evidence supporting the revisionist perspective. To Bernstein, the key Supreme Court decision supporting a "liberty of contract" position was the 1905 case of _Lochner vs. New York_. In _Lochner_, a majority ruled that New York state hours legislation in the bakery industry (limiting work to 60 hours per week) violated the constitutional right of individuals to freely enter into contracts. The _Lochner_ majority was a precarious one, and, while influential, the principles in that case were only inconsistently applied in the next thirty-two years until the Supreme Court in 1937 completely abandoned _Lochner_. Nonetheless, in Bernstein's view, the relief that conservative courts provided African Americans under _Lochner_ mitigated the harsh anti-black dimensions of much 1900-era labor legislation. In the course of this slim (117 pages of text) volume, Bernstein largely convinces this writer. Bernstein uses four types of governmental intervention in labor markets to make the point with respect to the pre-New Deal era: emigrant agent laws, licensing laws, railroad labor regulations, and prevailing-wage laws. He then provides a short but devastatingly critical assessment of the impact of New Deal labor laws on African American labor. A few specifics. After the Civil War, newly freed slaves were often eager to "demonstrate their freedom" by migrating to areas, such as the Mississippi Delta, where job opportunities were more remunerative. Information and transportation costs were high, however, so emigrant labor agents arose to provide services to African Americans: they arranged employment (typically in agriculture) in new areas, lent them transportation money, and so forth. They facilitated economically productive migration. Yet southern states responded to the pleas of politically influential white planters who feared the loss of a low-cost labor force, by passing laws that attempted to tax emigrant agents out of existence. The success of this legislation varied, but these laws were for a time thwarted by courts which followed Lochnerian legal reasoning, in many cases even before _Lochner_. While the emigrant agent laws prevailed in the South, occupational licensing was used to restrict the entry of blacks throughout the country, particularly in the construction industry. By imposing literacy or other relatively irrelevant requirements for licenses to become, say, a plumber, craft unions were able to restrict the entry of competent, low-wage workers into their occupations, a disproportionate number of whom were African Americans. This permitted union members to receive wages above those that would exist in an unhampered labor market. Throughout the book, labor unions are the biggest villains, trying to restrict black entry -- in part to reduce competition, and in part for racist reasons. While the book
Re: Re: FW: Rich Leftists Bankroll John McCain's Assault on Freedom
It's often referred to as the "hypodermic needle" theory of communication and in some ways bears similarity on the left to Chomsky et al's "levers of power" metaphor. Ann - Original Message - From: "Timework Web" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 9:53 AM Subject: [PEN-L:9727] Re: FW: Rich Leftists Bankroll John McCain's Assault on Freedom The ACU wrote: It's fairly simple: When one considers the proposed ban against all political advertising 60 days prior to an election, who, at that critical juncture, will control the hearts and minds of Americans going into Election Day, other than the leftist press? Just for arguments sake, let's pretend the ACU is accurate in its assessment of the political leanings of the U.S. media. Then what the ACU is saying is that Americans are so sponge-like and sheep-like that this "leftist press" controls their hearts and minds. What is interesting about the ACU "analysis", then, is not their bizarre contentions about the left-wing bias of the press but their even more bizarre implicit theory of consciousness and communications. Tom Walker (604) 947-2213
Re: Re: humor
I don't know if there ever will be an answer to Yoshie's question: "Where's an American conservative today who writes like Michael Oakeshott?" because it would actually require such a conservative to have a sense of humor (or irony even), although at the risk of pen-l ad hominem censure, I nominate D'Souza's writings before his relationship with noted pundette, Laura Ingram or are they even funnier afterwards? Since "Celebrity Death Match" has come on the air, a D'Souza vs. Cornel West steel cage match would be nice. And I especially like Jim's: " Q: How many post-modernists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: none -- that would end up replicating the totalizing modernist vision perpetrated by the Enlightenment. Q: How many romantic conservatives does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: none -- that would lead to the Enlightenment-inspired destruction of the traditions that hold society together.
Re: humor
My favorite Laffer story is when I saw him debate JK Galbraith at Harvard and he broke into an accented broken English to disparage the Mexican economy. The right defintely has a supply-side perspective on humor. - Original Message - From: "Charles Brown" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 4:05 PM Subject: [PEN-L:9781] humor Actually a lot of conservative writings/speeches are big jokes. Reagan was a real hoot, so are William F. Buckley ,Jr. Laffer, Milton Friedman. Remember Gerald Ford's Charlie Chaplin routine ? Tragicomedy is a rightwing speciality. CB [EMAIL PROTECTED] 03/29/01 03:45PM I don't know if there ever will be an answer to Yoshie's question: "Where's an American conservative today who writes like Michael Oakeshott?" because it would actually require such a conservative to have a sense of humor (or irony even), although at the risk of pen-l ad hominem censure, I nominate D'Souza's writings before his relationship with noted pundette, Laura Ingram or are they even funnier afterwards? Since "Celebrity Death Match" has come on the air, a D'Souza vs. Cornel West steel cage match would be nice. And I especially like Jim's: " Q: How many post-modernists does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: none -- that would end up replicating the totalizing modernist vision perpetrated by the Enlightenment. Q: How many romantic conservatives does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: none -- that would lead to the Enlightenment-inspired destruction of the traditions that hold society together.
Re: A Fair Deal?
He's a regular visitor to "Imus in the morning" and does screenplays among other things and is as provocative as such commercial cynicism can be allowed in mainstream media. Perhaps anti-Limbaugh Lite? - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2001 4:58 PM Subject: [PEN-L:9705] A Fair Deal? I found this cited elsewhere. I don't know the book. Queenan, Joe. 1992. The Imperial Caddy: The Rise of Dan Quayle and the Decline and Fall of Practically Everything Else (New York: Hyperion). 132-33: "Leftist intellectuals with hare-brained Marxist ideas get to control Stanford, MIT, Yale, and the American Studies department at the University of Vermont. In return, the right gets IBM, Honeywell, Disney World, and the New York Stock Exchange. Leftist academics get to tryout their stupid ideas on impressionable youths between 17 and 21 who don't have any money or power. The right gets to tryout its ideas on North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Australia, and parts of Africa, most of which take Mastercard. The left gets Harvard, Oberlin, Twyla Tharp's dance company, and Madison, Wisconsin. The right gets NASDAQ, Boeing, General Motors, Apple, McDonnell Douglas, Washington D.C., Citicorp, Texas, CocaCola, General Electric, Japan, and outer space." -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Interesting new book?
The missing term from the title you cite is "Neo-Classical" I think... Ann Li - Original Message - From: "Keaney Michael" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: "PEN-L (E-mail)" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 26, 2001 5:53 AM Subject: [PEN-L:9512] Interesting new book? Penners Last week the new Zed Books catalogue dropped through the letter box. Among its delights was a forthcoming volume authored by Steve Keen, University of Western Sydney, entitled "Debunking Economics: The Naked Emperor of the Social Sciences." The blurb explains that the book "explains why economists think the way they do, and points out the flaws in their thinking which they don't realise, don't appreciate, or just plain ignore. Most of these flaws were established by dissident academic economists decades ago, yet modern economics pretends that it can continue with 'business as usual'." Among those praising the book are erstwhile Penner Henry Liu, URPE stalwart Don Goldstein and Hugh Stretton. Anybody know anything about this? Rob? Michael K. Michael Keaney Mercuria Business School Martinlaaksontie 36 01620 Vantaa Finland [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Demicans or Repugnocrats (was: ergonomics, etc.
Here, here. Some of us are old enough to remember the actions of variously named demican-repugnicrat national administrations operating in the name of "peace" which in fact continued an economy of war that is still with us. This does not prevent us from lobbying for campaign finance reform, social justice etc... - Original Message - From: "Louis Proyect" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2001 12:16 PM Subject: [PEN-L:9443] Re: Demicans or Repugnocrats (was: ergonomics, etc. Why do we have to rehash the question of the two-party system? PEN-L'ers have made up their minds on this question long ago. It seems to me that a mailing list can best be used to provide new information that will people to form their own opinions. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: structuralism
"but the main left scholars retreated into either atheoretical social history during the 1980s or policy-wonking consultancies during the 1990s. Most dropped their faddish radical proclivities in due course. 'From the grassroots to the classroots' is how we mock our older ex-neomarxist brothers. " Sounds all too familiar. Although I found that while as some socialists would say: "The film exudes much of the commercial opportunism which currently dominates the European and American film industry" ( http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/feb2001/ber1-f22.shtml), I thought that "Enemy at the Gates" had some formal elements when viewed from a film structuralism perspective that are useful in a Benjaminian(sic) context, if only they could be presented in a wider forum particularly on the role of propaganda, base-superstructure social relations, historicism etc. From classroots back to grassroots, perhaps? Ann (of the 1000 fatal chronological flaws or methodological muddles )
Re: Re: Rosenfield on Joskow
"Here is a professor in a college, who gets $2,500 a year and has to spend $3,000 to keep from starving to death, who walks up to his classroom in an old pair of shoes and some idiot of a boy drives up and parks a $5,000 automobile outside and comes in and gets plucked. Then because that professor teaches that boy that there is something wrong with the social system, we call him a Bolshevik and throw him out." Some things never change. Speaking of which, I am presently reading a 1971 Institute for the Future report titled "The future of the telephone industry 1970-1985" written by Paul Baran and Andrew Lipinski and wonder if anyone here has some insight on Baran's work in this area at that time. Ann
Re: Re: Re: Re: structuralism
With all due respect to the dispute over structuralism, are we still in agreement about "uneven development" in this context? It seems that post-war French structuralism (with its hegelian roots) is not in disagreement. Ann - Original Message - From: "ALI KADRI" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2001 5:47 AM Subject: [PEN-L:9325] Re: Re: Re: structuralism A structural question: what role in history does a citizen of the developed formations who is supposedly progressive but pays taxes to the defence department and other government agencies to clobber the poor at home and abroad plays? Furthermore where to draw the line between reformist and revolutionary politics if the country to which the citizen belongs (the structure) fully determines the indidual's role? The gravest theoretical tenet to come out of structuralism is the determinacy of structure. This puts an end to the role of individual in history (an Altrhusserian idea) or as others (modern and postmodern sociologist) like to call it "the death of agency." The immutability of capitalist relations and their extension to all parts of the globe further strengthens the premises supporting structuralism; i.e. emphasis is laid on meaning in structure and on social relations and not things per se. It is worthwhile to note that Marx critique of Feurbach's notion of man in the abstract independent of social relations and to which he rebutted by defining man as the reflection of concrete social relations tends to meet fully the structuralist emphasis on the priority of social relations. For that matter Marx system of thought stresses the determinacy of social relations, as does structuralism. Furthermore, I recall vaguely Engels describing the path of history as a resultant vector from a multitude of vectors of power in which the political approaches the economic by the extent of the crisis. So here is a system or structure that is determinant. Thus structuralism is a very helpful system of thought. Compared to the eclecticism of today, one can say well at least it is a theory well woven together. And like all theories it is conditioned by the development of thought and the prevalent social conditions. Its rise corresponds historically to the rise of logical positivism, hence the emphasis on the theoretical superiority and the need to win the war of ideas in Althusser for instance. Of course, the shortcomings of structuralism is in its rigidity and in many cases its ahistorical approach to social science. But that does not undermine the fact that there is a determinacy in the global structure of capitalism: a centre and a periphery. This has tremendous bearing on praxis and the implementation of social change. It matters because it guides the relationship between reform and revolution. Thus in addressing the structuralism question, one asks is the reform policy of social democracy capable of bridging the interests of the national and international working classes by emphasising the interest of the national working classes. --- Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I don't see why we have to pay attention to _either_ the Incan conquest of other tribes _or_ the Spanish conquest of the Incas. Why not both? both are examples of class society. -- Jim Devine Because Incan class society was relatively benign, while Spanish colonial class society was genocidal. Louis Proyect Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/ __ Do You Yahoo!? Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail. http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
Re: structuralism
I wouldn't say it's over, since it appears still within the canon of (structuralist and/or functionalist) debates in a variety of disciplines and has certainly been part of the methodological experience of so many academics who are still alive that it remains vestigially in most curricula. Besides, wouldn't we still need it as long as post-structuralists need something to co-dependently critique? - Original Message - From: "Andrew Hagen" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 20, 2001 5:37 PM Subject: [PEN-L:9228] structuralism Is the debate on structuralism over? Derrida bitterly opposed it, even though he was sometimes called a post-structuralist. A philosophy professor at Georgetown, Peter Caws wrote a book in 1988 called "Structuralism: the Art of the Intelligible." Therein he defends structuralism as a philosophy and a mode of inquiry appropriate to fields such as economics (which BTW is not his primary area of interest). From my initial look, it appeared to be actually readable. In 1999 he released a second edition, re-titled "Structuralism : A Philosophy for the Human Sciences." I haven't seen a copy of this book. Does anyone have any opinions on the merit of structuralism in social science? Andrew Hagen [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: Re: PeopleSoft
Sounds really familiar. I heard of some quite interesting dynamics when a otherwise liberal white middle management supervisor was scapegoated as being "racially insensitive" for trying to train staff with inadequate resources ( training staff at one moment, then being confronted with a six month delay in implementation without refresher training) when perhaps the real reason was that the mostly black clerical staff wouldn't learn the new software because they weren't being compensated for training time appropriate to their union contract and the black manager of the administrative support division was trying to "control costs" bringing new meaning to the word, "black budgets". Even more amusing was what seemed to be the deliberate circulation of word processing computer viruses by clerical staff via email to sabotage automation efforts due to an inefficient and/or understaffed IT support staff's ability to install antivirus measures on the network. Hard to figure out individual motivations here, but Luddism dies hard! - Original Message - From: "Tim Bousquet" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 13, 2001 4:33 AM Subject: [PEN-L:8961] Re: Re: PeopleSoft The way it's explained to me is that the employees' existing job chores are not considered when administrators dump the learning of new software systems on them. They're already working 40 hours plus, then are told to absorb new skills, and usually a lot of inputting, etc. needed in order to run the new system. Administrators understand the resistance to the heavier work load as stupidity or "Luddite-ism" on the employees' part. --- Timework Web [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I just got finished tangling with a telephone messaging system that undoubtedly was sold to the provincial government as a "labour saving / cost saving device." In the short term, it probably saves a few dollars on paper by concentrating workload on fewer employees. In the longer run, those employees get stressed out and go on sick leave, disability etc. and cost more than it would cost to fully staff the govt. service. Meanwhile, a heap of unpaid "self-serve" work is dumped on the hapless clients, who, if they're less educated or already overloaded with work have to simply abandon any hope of receiving the elusive govt. service at the end of the endless phone tree. Tom Walker (604) 947-2213 = Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six months. Mail cash or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA 95927 __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Auctions - Buy the things you want at great prices. http://auctions.yahoo.com/
Re: PeopleSoft
There are others with this problem, so perhaps you might want to contact
someone in IT at West Chester University in PA where I understand they have
a similar problem with PeopleSoft. I apologize in advance, but I don't have
a contact there to help point the way, yet it seems like they have similar
issues. Equally fascinating is SAP/R3 whose role in trying to enter the
education IT market seemed when I last heard a demo by them is to peddle
vaporware ("sign the contract with us and we'll develop that (e.g.
institutional advancement) software module on the fly").
- Original Message -
From: "Tim Bousquet" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: "PEN-L" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, March 12, 2001 12:26 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8939] PeopleSoft
At the repeated prodding of Michael P. I've begun
research for an article on PeopleSoft, the
administrative software firm. Seems the company's
software system might be solely responsible for the
bankruptch of Cleveland State University. I think this
group may be interested in a few of the quotes below,
especially how the role of the people who are supposed
to run the systems was apparently entirely
ignored--not unlike most every other assumption of our
policy makers. Just gotta love that "those people are
retiring" comment...
**
Auditors have warned Cleveland State University
trustees that they are threatening the solvency of the
school by continuing to spend down the institution's
reserve fund. John J. Boyle III, CSU's interim vice
president of finance, told trustees yesterday they
must hold the line on spending and find ways to
replenish the reserves. Boyle suggested a hiring
freeze . To brace trustees for the news, he sent a
memo earlier in the week in which he said auditors
warned that "the university is depleting its reserves
at a rate that threatens solvency." The school had $18
million in reserves only two years ago, but by summer,
the number is expected to dwindle to $5 million. The
admonition is the latest throb from the school's
PeopleSoft hangover. Most of the money pulled from the
reserve fund has gone to correct the disastrous
problems caused by that computer software. CSU's
financial woes have escalated as the computer mess
with PeopleSoft Inc. has played out. What was
estimated to be a $4.2 million project to update the
computer system will shoot past $15 million.
The Plain Dealer is suing Cleveland State University
to obtain a plan from a company on how to fix problems
in the computer-software programs that the company
sold to the university. Cleveland State refused to
release the plan to the newspaper at the request of
the company, PeopleSoft Inc. of Pleasanton, Calif.
PeopleSoft does not want the information released
because it contains trade secrets, Steve Swasey, the
company's director of public relations, said
yesterday. "What we bring to the customer is between
us and the customer,'' he said. The Cleveland State
plan, including staffing and training, would help that
university manage its software. The university's Board
of Trustees rejected the plan a week ago as
inadequate. The company has said that the software
works and that it has fulfilled its obligation to the
university.
**
"Denver has spent $23.4 million on the city's new
financial services computer system - 67 percent over
budget. Most of that -- more than $18 million -- went
to consultants who trained city employees how to work
the system. Just $2 million was spent on software and
$1.3 million on computers."
***
In Boston-"Chief Accountant Paul J. Roman . said
employee complaints are "a matter of not picking up
all the little nuances that they have to pick up."
"There are some people who can't accept change,"
Lasher said. "We have people out there in the
departments who are still keeping written sets of
books in addition to the computer. . . . Slowly, those
people are retiring."
**
. San Francisco's school district has spent more than
$ 5 million on a system that initially cost less than
$ 300,000. Five years later, it still isn't working
right.
**
Consultants hired by W.L. Gore Associates, the
closely held maker of Gore-Tex fabric, entered Mickey
Mouse and Donald Duck into the company's PeopleSoft
payroll system as a demonstration and couldn't get
them out again before the paychecks started rolling.
=
Subscribe to the Chico Examiner for only $30 annually or $20 for six
months. Mail cash or check payabe to "Tim Bousquet" to POBox 4627, Chico CA
95927
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Re: Re: A request for your critique
So this means that whoever teaches radical economics near Lakehurst NJ ( Ocean County College, perhaps?) should be called the Zeppo (lin) Marx? And explosively speaking, in prior flame wars on this list, many candidates for Grouch-o Marx come to mind. Apologies in advance, Ann - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2001 11:44 AM Subject: [PEN-L:8848] Re: A request for your critique Martin Bronfenbrenner used to do it at public meetings. Afterwards, I used it occassionally. Doug Henwood wrote: Timework Web wrote: Whatever else, I got a kick out of Greg Clark dubbing Michael "the Chico Marx". It is kind of irresistible. Has anyone done it before, Michael? Doug -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chico, CA 95929 530-898-5321 fax 530-898-5901
Re: Re: Re: Re: A request for your critique
you shouldn't forget Gummo Marx, who works for Wrigley. So in the 19 C. and the Progressive(sic) Era, Gummo, like many Marxists or classical political economists, should have not bit off more than they could chew, bringing us back to the historical origin of this thread, "Getting a foothold in the chewing gum business was not easy. Existing companies offered products that were then better known than Wrigley brands. In 1899, the six largest companies merged to form what was known as "the chewing gum trust," and this combination meant very serious competition for the developing Wrigley business. (Mr. Wrigley was offered a chance to join the trust, but he chose to go his own way.) Several times the young company was on the verge of going under, but hard work overcame the difficulties, and the business forged ahead." ...Wrigley PR
Re: Re: Tim Bousquet on Michael Yates
Sounds familiar. In yet another prior job, the (Garry Trudeau's Enormous State) University Foundation played the float with gift money, so when my research group received funds, it was "held" for 6 months by the Foundation so we couldn't use it during that period. I guess it got "cleaned" pretty well. I love the story about trying to get rid of the physics department. I wonder what pedagogical or curricular claim was used in that instance! I recall mentioning in Pen-L sometime back, the story of who had the best claim to teaching pre-calculus math at one of my prior universities: engineers, physicists or mathematicians. - Original Message - From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2001 1:46 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8732] Re: Tim Bousquet on Michael Yates With regard to university foundations, here at James Madison University (JMU) we had a president for several decades who used the foundation as his own slush fund, millions not accounted for, cash purchase of a major mansion near a ski resort, etc. The way things were is given by the fact that the Chairman of the foundation, who was also the Chairman of the Oversight Committee, had his office in a building named for him. When the faculty complained to the Board of Visitors, they declared that they had no authority over the foundation. Shortly thereafter the president tried to eliminate the department (physics) in which the faculty member was housed who raised these issues with the board. He was president of the Faculty Senate and had tenure, hah! The effort to fire the physics dept. was eventually blocked in a court case brought by the faculty against the president. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, March 05, 2001 10:48 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8710] Tim Bousquet on Michael Yates This is a very moving piece, and with Michael Yates' permission I'd like to reprint it as a Letter to the Editor in the Chico Examiner, the weekly newspaper I publish here in Chico, California. I concur with Yates' general assessment. I have met many faculty who feel the same, but by far the vast majority don't even see a problem. Still, I would place more blame directly on administration, which at Chico State at least is concerned with nothing other than bringing cash into University coffers. (Michael Perelman's experience with worthwhile department heads is the minority one, to be sure.) I'm particularly interested in University auxillary organizations, and the role they play in corrupting the institution. In Chico we have two "University Foundation"s, whose apparent role is to act as slush funds and money laundering services for the University administration proper. Also, the Foundations protect certain information from regular public records requirements, which leads to further corruption. Any insight would be much appreciated. Tim Bousquet -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Re: farewell to academe
I, too have mixed emotions about our status as "cultural workers" in academe, since I was a dean last year and now am teaching part-time, partially in the reserve army of distance learning educators, waiting for yet another opportunity in administration, hoping to make a difference, still thinking about going back to school in yet another field than my initial doctoral degree studies, because simply the times require that of me. And as many others in here might have considered: "why bother?". I also know that very real forces are at work and that we should never lose sight of that struggle. While I am disappointed at the "brownfields" of radical academe, I know that there are still things to be done and if I get the opportunity again I will try to support change in whatever capacity I find myself. But I truly understand the cynicism that on the one hand is "enlightened false consciousness" but on the other compels us to be better post-enlightment intellectuals. ( and if someone would like to interpret that as "Gramscian" or "organic", OK then ). As a pretty famous "post-marxian" economic geographer once told me when I told him I was going to leave his graduate program to pursue studies elsewhere, "you have to follow your heart". Ann Li
Re: Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe
I really agree with you Carrol, having met a few of the people you cite who actually became college administrators after their service to the State (my favorite quotes for not returning to academe after government service come from George Schultz and Henry Kissinger). Better me than them, I say (since I don't have a lot of confidence in the governance abilities of tenured professors but I still believe in collective organization), and I do find ( with all due respect to those on the list who are members of faculty unions ( I am also at this moment a member of such a union)) and without scapegoating them, that the coziness of senior professors and administrators really is the problem and that there's not a lot of administrative corruption that hasn't been agreed to by the "permanent faculty" ( they both can still afford the daschas and the international conference junkets etc ) since they share their spoils of capital accumulation (a la David Noble), but then again I've read too much David Lodge perhaps over my 24 years of higher ed academic employment. Lumpen is as lumpen does, and yes (although I have funny stories from my last job that show quite the contrary especially in the area of false consciousness, but that's best left off this list) they all are anti-working class, so we don't disagree, but like Jim implies, we have to pay our bills so whether administration is more corrupting than money is like comparing the ethics of lawyers, journalists and used car salespersons. Ann - Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 1:48 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8663] Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe ann li wrote: I, too have mixed emotions about our status as "cultural workers" in academe, since I was a dean last year and now am teaching part-time, partially in the reserve army of distance learning educators, waiting for yet another opportunity in administration, hoping to make a difference, I don't know -- university administration (regardless of intentions) is close if not over the borderline of that lumpen-bourgeosie consisting of cops, prison guards, CIA, career military officers, upper corporate management in which the position, not how it is carried out, is anti-working class. I've been connected with universities for 54 years now and have never met an administrator who I would care to take my coffee breaks with. There may be exceptions, but adminstration is more corrupting than money. Carrol
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe
I completely agree with that. At my last job, the new "performance outcomes"
plans that mimic business examples and were handed down by state system-wide
administration were driven by a move to a (more) Republican appointed Board
of Regents and made a shambles of an already incompetent strategic planning
process.
Ann
- Original Message -
From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:32 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8700] Re: Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe
Doug,
A curious aspect of this is that the drive to
"assessment," a recent and truly appalling fad
among academic administrators, is much worse
in public universities than among private. It is
ironic that the private ones may actually be at
least slightly more immune to some of the worst
of these pressures than the public ones, where
every right wing jackass thinks he has the right
to tell us what we should be doing.
Thus, our asshole of a governor pays off the
Christian Right by appointing people to the Board
of Visitors who think they can fool with the curriculum.
No courses on gay and lesbian literature, naughty children.
BTW, along with pay, hiring, and travel, another thing
frozen here by our ambitious governor ("Look at me, Dubya!"),
is construction. On top of that he has cut contributions to
our retirement funds. We are looking at outright nominal
pay decreases, and there is not even a recession going on,
unless you listen too hard to Dubya.
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED]
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date: Monday, March 05, 2001 7:14 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:8686] Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe
Christian Gregory wrote:
What is different about the most recent phase of university
corporatization
is its willingness to reduce everything to the market's stupidest forms
of
calculation
Seems to me that the American university, as it evolved from the late
19th century until about 20 years ago, was characterized by a partial
autonomy from what Keynes called the Benthamite contraption; sure
professors were ultimately in the pay of the bourgeoisie and operated
within the strictures of bourgeois discourse, but there were several
layers between the prof and the boss's accountants. Now you've got
people trying to measure teacher productivity.
Doug
Re: Re: farewell to academe
Barkley, I agree with you, but also would ask what the functional/dysfunctional limits of collegiality are in that case where the chair truly serves the electors. It's rare but certainly happens as Michael suggests. As a former department chair, I tried to do that, but it really gets dicey what with all the personalities. I don't really think the _Yeshiva_ decision changed matters for whether one is management or labor given the lumpen issue. In my experience at one institution, a personal dispute between spouses created a multi-decade feud and limited the effectiveness of a rotating chair process and ultimately marginalized the department within the institution. I was fortunately only an observer as a one year leave replacement faculty member and in fact think that I beat out the competitors for the position because my national conference interview took place when two sets of faculty search teams changed shifts in the hotel suite and were thus all able to meet me at once, and therefore come to an easier consensus on my candidacy when it got down to the final three candidates. At another job, the only tenure appointment in a decade was given to someone who had been the former graduate student of a senior faculty member primarily on the condition that this person serve as department chair. Without even the usual gossip rags of academe (the comical of higher ed, et al), there are plenty of stories in the naked discipline (probably not 8 million, though). Ann - Original Message - From: "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 8:22 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8695] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe michael, The position of Department Chairs/Heads/Directors is really equivocal and difficult. Also, it varies greatly from place to place. In many Chairs are elected from the faculty and do serve them, as you say, are their leaders/ protectors with respect to the higher administration. In others they are selected by the higherups and are their handmaidens/flunkies against the faculty. Ones labeled as "Heads" are more likely to be of this mold. There is even a variation as to whether or not they are labor or management. I also agree that there are many who fit that former mold, servants of their colleagues rather than their hired bosses. Barkley Rosser -Original Message- From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Monday, March 05, 2001 6:50 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8682] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe Is a department chair an administrator? If so, I have known some excellent ones. Our own chair goes out of his way to make life better for staff, faculty and students. The key is that he sees his job as a service for others rather than as a "leader." ann li wrote: I really agree with you Carrol, having met a few of the people you cite who actually became college administrators after their service to the State (my favorite quotes for not returning to academe after government service come from George Schultz and Henry Kissinger). Better me than them, I say (since I don't have a lot of confidence in the governance abilities of tenured professors but I still believe in collective organization), and I do find ( with all due respect to those on the list who are members of faculty unions ( I am also at this moment a member of such a union)) and without scapegoating them, that the coziness of senior professors and administrators really is the problem and that there's not a lot of administrative corruption that hasn't been agreed to by the "permanent faculty" ( they both can still afford the daschas and the international conference junkets etc ) since they share their spoils of capital accumulation (a la David Noble), but then again I've read too much David Lodge perhaps over my 24 years of higher ed academic employment. Lumpen is as lumpen does, and yes (although I have funny stories from my last job that show quite the contrary especially in the area of false consciousness, but that's best left off this list) they all are anti-working class, so we don't disagree, but like Jim implies, we have to pay our bills so whether administration is more corrupting than money is like comparing the ethics of lawyers, journalists and used car salespersons. Ann - Original Message - From: "Carrol Cox" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 1:48 PM Subject: [PEN-L:8663] Re: Re: Re: farewell to academe ann li wrote: I, too have mixed emotions about our status as "cultural workers" in academe, since I was a dean last year and now am teaching part-time, partially in the reserve army of distance learning educators, waiting for yet another opportunity in administra
Re: Bush
GWBush the pro-lifer his "arranged" abortion? http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=foldertitle=Desperate+Measures%3A+George+W %2E+Bush+%26+Abortion
Re: Re: Bush
sorry: complete link: http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=foldertitle=Desperate+Measures%3A+George+W %2E+Bush+%26+Abortion - Original Message - From: "ann li" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, November 04, 2000 12:00 PM Subject: [PEN-L:3950] Re: Bush GWBush the pro-lifer his "arranged" abortion? http://www.disinfo.com/disinfo?p=foldertitle=Desperate+Measures%3A+George+W %2E+Bush+%26+Abortion
Re: Re: Calvin Hobbes
actually, since Watterson was a poli-sci major as an undergrad at Kenyon, the choice of Calvin Hobbs seems pretty self-evident. As for the decals, it's too many chocolate frosted sugar bombs eaten by intellectual property pirates. Ann Li - Original Message - From: "martin schiller" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, October 28, 2000 6:55 PM Subject: [PEN-L:3695] Re: Calvin Hobbes Jim Devine said on 10/28/00 1:18 PM more importantly, why do large numbers of vehicles in Southern California (and perhaps in the civilized world) have window-stickers showing Calvin pissing on various targets like Ford Motor Co or Al Gore? (There's one where Calvin has a halo and is pissing on the word "devil.") inquiring minds want to know... Hey! This inquiring mind wants to know why _thats_ more important. It's not more important to me? Is pissing on the word "devil" the same as pissing on the devil? Bellarminds want a Devine opinion.
Re: heterodox economics meetings
Did you forget to add the attachment? Thanks, Ann Li - Original Message - From: "Michael Perelman" [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, October 13, 2000 11:47 AM Subject: [PEN-L:3098] heterodox economics meetings Dear all, Please find attached a call for papers for the third annual Heterodox Economists Conference. Beginning two years ago as a one-day fringe event at the Royal Economic Society Conference with 40 participants, the conference grew last year to a two-day event and over 80 participants. Lively multidisciplinary debate took place and a good time was had by all. THE AIM OF THE CONFERENCE IS TO CELEBRATE DIVERSITY IN ECONOMIC DISCUSSION AND TO ENCOURAGE CONSTRUCTIVE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIALOGUE. Papers from Post Keynesians, Institutionalists, Marxists, Historians of thought theory and method, Educationalists and even.wait for itneoclassical economists are welcome. Philosphers, social theorists are also welcome. The event will take place in London in July 2001. Please circulate the call to all who may be interested. Many thanks, Paul. Dr Paul Downward Reader in Economics Staffordshire University Leek Road Stoke on Trent ST4 2DF Telephone 01782 294101 (direct line) -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[PEN-L:12626] Re: Chumps at Oxford
With all due respect, I did spend a brief time at the college in Oxford supported by the TUC, and while I agree about the scholarly version of "labor aristocracy" that Louis mentions, most US students' anglophillic sense of the place does resemble either comedy like Laurel Hardy or tragedy like Bill Clinton with his fellow travelling to Moscow. It would be nice to think that Bill Bradley's sense of social justice was helped by such a place, but he did vote for some pretty reactionary legislation in the Senate and when he claims to be a union guy because he was the player rep for the Knicks, that does stretch trade unionism much like "new" Labour, doesn't it? Ann
[PEN-L:12490] the left of the state
I came across this rhetorical example of perhaps how political power comes out of the barrel of a gun ( and good advice for those who shoot their mouths off ): "PROLIX® is a penetrating solvent for firearm usage, effective but non-abrasive and non-acidic. In short, it won't remove or harm your metal or wood finishes. PROLIX® seeks out dirt, oils, grime, etc. - even in small and hard to reach areas - and flows it away. During the cleaning process, a dry lubricant is developed and is drawn into the pores of the material, creating a skin of protection."
[PEN-L:12227] Re: Merchant's Capital
Without getting too deep in this thread I would like to suggest that however one wants to characterize merchant's capital, particularly in a a mixed mode of pre-capitalist to capitalist transition, that whatever measures or indices one uses for uneven development be used to establish the contingent relations of class, institutions etc. underlying the invocation of such a term. I ask those in the list whether it is the same as describing early capital formation under mercentilism. and how about all of those totalizing arguments used without geographic ( idiographic ) specificity? The recent threads here on China's counterfactual capitalism (are the post-war PLA regional commanders the economic equivalent of pre-war KMT warlords?) it seems to me have lacked that and have tended to appear a-historical, especially when invoking comment about the turbulent interwar period and class divisions prior to the Japanese invasion, which are not the same as the current tiger-ridden climate at present. Ann Li - Original Message - From: Louis Proyect [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, October 03, 1999 9:36 AM Subject: [PEN-L:12215] "Merchant's Capital" Last night I looked through the indexes of V1-3 of Capital for references to merchant capital. In general, Marx treats this at a high level of abstraction rather than the historical treatment afforded the rise of industrial capital. The general sense you get is that merchant capital takes advantage of geographical differences in commodity production, so as to sell dear in one region what is produced cheaply elsewhere. It also appears to be typical of the late middle ages. However, does this term adequately describe the mode of production centered around mining in Potosi, Bolivia which had a population of 160,000 in the early 1600s, making it roughly equivalent in size to some of Europe's larger cities? The miners recruited from the local indigenous population received wages, while a substantial minority were victims of forced labor based on semifeudal codes. According to Brenner's schema, Potosi was a precapitalist center, I suppose like Kalikut or Baghdad around the same period. Or perhaps it demonstrated merchant's capital in some fashion. Part of the problem, of course, is that he doesn't analyze Latin America, the site of much of Andre G. Frank's empirical research. But I question the appropriateness of such categories as "precapitalist" or "merchant's capital" to cities like Potosi. In point of fact, the same basic class relations persisted through the 19th century. Would anybody argue that Peru, Bolivia et al were precapitalist societies in the first half of the 19th century. Louis Proyect (http://www.panix.com/~lnp3/marxism.html)
[PEN-L:11208] Re: Re: Re: finanz kapital
A general question for pen-l'ers: For those who are much better at the marxological stuff than I, could someone who perhaps has read the original tell me if Hilferding in the Bottomore version of Finance Capital when he speaks of fictitious capital is saying the same kind of thing in German and that this is the same meaning as Marx himself intended it? Ann - Original Message - From: Doug Henwood [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 17, 1999 1:20 PM Subject: [PEN-L:11198] Re: Re: finanz kapital Charles Brown wrote: Charles: I suggest Chapter 9, "Financial Rulers of America" in _Superprofits and Crises_ by Victor Perlo, to dispel this notion that Lenin thought banks and not stock markets were the financial capitalist institutions. Perlo says "Ownership and control of stocks is part of the investment and trust functions of the banks. I suggest a book called Wall Street for finding out what's happening in the world today. It is completely inaccurate to say that the Leninist concept of finance capital does not include Wallstreet stock and bond market activities and functions. Charles, maybe we have different editions of Lenin's Imperialism. But I went back to check mine, just to make sure that my memory wasn't playing tricks on me. But Lenin, like Hilferding, was writing about monopolies, protective tariffs, and cartels. This is not the world of 1999. "Cartels," writes Lenin, "come to an agreement on the terms of sale, dates of payment, etc. They divide the markets among themselves. They fix the quantity of goods to be produced. They fix prices. They divide the profits among the various enterprises, etc." Does that resemble anything you see in the world today? Later: "Competition becomes transformed into monpoly." Still later: "The change from the old type of capitalism, in which free competition predominated, to the new capitalism, in which monopoly reigns, is expressed, among other things, by a decline in the importance of the Stock Exchange." That is as wrong as anything can be. Forget Perlo and Lenin and read the Wall Street Journal instead. Doug
[PEN-L:11121] Re: Re: Re: Role of the Colonial Trade
Without getting too deeply into this wouldn't the transaction surpluses accumulated during colonial entrepots' trans-shipment and exchange and the media of those exchanges ( I think of the use of opium as an asian medium of exchange rather than consumption in the 17th -19th C.) tend to support those ideas if nothing else a structural, (new or old) institutional or even structuration argument could be supported on those grounds? Remember the members of the middle classes who leave the home country and get their administrative training in the colonies only to use them eventually ( as industrial capitalists) upon return to the mother country. And finally, isn't this also a kind of capital involved in what is currently called micro-finance that was not the kind or scale of data examined during all those studies of capital export done when Deane was doing his research? Ann - Original Message - From: Ajit Sinha [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 16, 1999 7:12 AM Subject: [PEN-L:8] Re: Re: Role of the Colonial Trade Ricardo Duchesne wrote: Come on, progressive economists, Fostater pleads, how can you say that the colonial trade was not responsible for the industrialization of Europe? I would suggest, rather, that the political effect of dependency theory on the left has been divisive, setting up countries and ethnic groups against each other, foregoing universalist aspirations, which the right quite effectively took on as its own in the late 70s. But I really dont want to get into this. Here's more on O'Brien and some of his other, subsidiary, arguments, which I think might very well be enough to settle this issue here in pen-l: 1) It has not yet been shown that the rates of profits which European colonialists enjoyed in the periphery were "persistently" above the the rates "which they could have earned on feasible investments" in their home countries, or in other economies of the world. Citing studies on profits from the sugar plantations, he says that, over the long run, such earnings were *average*, fluctuating around or below 10%. Or, if I may add another figure, the percentage of slve profits in the formation of British capital was a tiny 0.11% (Anstey). Engerman, for his part, has calculated "the gross value of slve trade output" to England's national income to be 1%, to rise to 1.7% in 1770. (Of couse, if we take the triangular trade as a whole we are dealing with something more substantial, but I would agree with Rod that forward and backward linkages hold for any industry.) O'Brien also cites other studies which question the profitability of the Navigation Acts. If I may cite one source discussing a particular aspect of these Acts "...The benefit to the home country corresponding to the burden on the North American colonies was still smaller. In fact, it was itself probably a burden, not a benefit. Requiring certain colonial exports and imports to pass through Britain had the beneficial effects of reducing the prices of such goods to British consumers...The cost to British taxpayers of defending and administering the North American colonies was, by contrast, five times the maximun benefit" (Thomas and McCloskey, 1981). Likewise, even if Europeans had been forced to pay 'free market prices' for their colonial products, that would have simply worsened the terms of trade *within* this sector, which constituted a small share of total trade and an even smaller, "tiny" share of gross product. 2) What about Deane's claim that the colonial re-exports allowed Europe to acquire essential raw materials - never mind profit margins? First, O'Brien says that colonial foodstuffs contributed marginally to the supplies of calories available to Europeans. Second, that without the imported colonial produtcs, Europe would merely have experienced, *in the short run*, before substitutions were found, "a decline of not more than 3% or 4% in industrial output. __ I think the method of counterfactual is simply a poor way of doing economic history. The colonial empires were part of the rising capitalist and industrializing cores. A historian should be interested in seeing how they fitted in in the scheme of things. Colonialism was led by the mercantilist capital, and it established one form of relationship with the colonies. As the industrial capital came into ascendancy the relationship went through a change. A study of this changing relationship should through much light on the question of what that relationship meant to the rising industrial capital. When it comes to historical data, I think they are usually of rough nature and should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. And then who is to decide whether 3 to 4 percent fall in industrial output is big or small? There is no scientific way of establishing what is big or small in connection
[PEN-L:11046] Re: Re: Re: Close to Friedman with a brain
LOL, kinda like GW Bush aka the Shrub's "all hat, no cattle" or is that all CEA, no Fed? Ann - Original Message - From: Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 2:20 PM Subject: [PEN-L:11038] Re: Re: Close to Friedman with a brain Yes, at least that's how I interpreted it. I gave him the usual readings in this area. But finding someone close to Friedman with a brain was difficult. Rod Original Message Follows---- From: "ann li" [EMAIL PROTECTED] Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [PEN-L:11001] Re: Close to Friedman with a brain Date: Wed, 15 Sep 1999 10:11:37 -0400 Hi Rod, Pardon my usual ignorance, but is this a kind of transactions costs question ( new institutionalism) like Williamson's? Ann - Original Message - From: Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 4:04 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10969] Close to Friedman with a brain Because of my web site, I often get questions from students. I answer them if I can, but this one has me stumped. ;-) "I've got an essay on "what agency costs are you prepared to bear in your business ?" I'm not sure I'm entirely aligned with Friedman and am interested in something a bit close to Friedman with a brain. Any sites you could recommend ?? regards," Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:11033] Re: RE: Bill Gates' space grenades
Thanks Nathan, for such a succinct description of the Teledesic system, which of course has other wireline bandwidth bypass implications beyond MS's plan for spectrum domination ( Incidentally the spectrum auctions being a hit on NC econ's (and certain versions of game theory) implementation credibility in an actual "free"- market). What is perhaps more interesting is Channel 4's "Chicken Little" approach to getting the story out? Ann - Original Message - From: Nathan Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 1999 12:45 AM Subject: [PEN-L:11019] RE: Bill Gates' space grenades -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Chris Burford A couple of days ago one of the better UK channels, Channel 4, had an astonishing programme about the build up of satellites orbiting the earth. Bill Gates is now planning a very large number of satellites each fixed in a low orbit to cover the globe so that the internet can be accessed from any point directly. Without going into the "debris" scenario, it is worth noting that the US government - currently suing Microsoft of course - was instrumental in subsidizing and lobbying globally for Gate's plan. Here's a little excerpt (a bit old I admit) from an old Microsoft report of mine touching on the issue: == Teledesic: Domination from the Skies But Microsoft's control of the standards for Internet access over cable is apparently not enough; Bill Gates has personal plans to own a worldwide system of satellites beaming Internet access to homes anywhere in the world. Rather than Microsoft encircling the world, Bill Gates is investing out of his own pocket in a project called Teledesic, a plan to launch 288 low-orbit satellites that will relay Internet traffic to any point on the earth. Gates and fellow billionaire Bill McCaw (who made his fortune early in the cellular phone industry) are the primary partners in this $9 billion venture, with ATT and Boeing each receiving a smaller stake for their contracting role in the operation.[90] The revolutionary part of Teledesic's approach is that traditional stationary satellites are so high up that delays in transmission make them less useful for high-bandwidth transmission like the Internet, so Teledesic will have to coordinate low-orbit satellites careening 435 miles above the earth at 16,740 miles per hour. Using government-financed technology left over from Star Wars experiments, Boeing is helping them solve the problem and get their satellites launched by 2002. That is when the partners want to start service to anyone with a satellite dish (that need be no larger than a dessert plate).[91] The irony is that this plan to create a massive worldwide Internet access service controlled by two of the richest men in the world has been assisted by the U.S. government with a complex give-away of radio spectrum that amounts to twice the total spectrum controlled by all of the country's radio and television stations put together--without the government being paid a cent for this favor.[92] In fact, the government lobbied hard at the World Radio Conference, the world governing board for operating such a satellite system, to help Gates and McCaw get approval for their venture. So with government-financed research and free radio spectrum courtesy of U.S. taxpayers, Bill Gates will be adding the final touch to his computer network domination with the most comprehensive broadband Internet access system in the world--an access system that will no doubt enhance Microsoft's monopoly in the computing world. --Nathan Newman
[PEN-L:11001] Re: Close to Friedman with a brain
Hi Rod, Pardon my usual ignorance, but is this a kind of transactions costs question ( new institutionalism) like Williamson's? Ann - Original Message - From: Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 1999 4:04 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10969] Close to Friedman with a brain Because of my web site, I often get questions from students. I answer them if I can, but this one has me stumped. ;-) "I've got an essay on "what agency costs are you prepared to bear in your business ?" I'm not sure I'm entirely aligned with Friedman and am interested in something a bit close to Friedman with a brain. Any sites you could recommend ?? regards," Rod Hay [EMAIL PROTECTED] The History of Economic Thought Archives http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/index.html Batoche Books http://members.tripod.com/rodhay/batochebooks.html http://www.abebooks.com/home/BATOCHEBOOKS/ __ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com
[PEN-L:10904] RE: Re: pen-l text book
Shall we begin with an archive of contributions of lecture notes on the earlier URPE model of collecting syllabi and outlines as well as a background bibliography and then we could organize them in their various areas. Others can offer textbook outlines and we can even critique the existing ones since we can get on-line TOCs. Can that be done within the PEN-L domain, Michael? We could then function as a curriculum committee of the whole with some joint drafting and editing of the basic "unemployment" chapter until we get much fancier ( authorware and hypertext linking and composition with simulation etc!). Hopefully we won't get bogged down in the usual anti-collective/ anti-collaborative bureaucratic practices with which we are all too familiar in academe. I would add that since I as well as others here have access to a variety of delivery methods and billing systems, the project can be self-sustaining and even have some form of steady-state 'growth'. And perhaps one of the smaller left presses (ooh... or even one of those bigger ones!) would like to pitch in on this kind of electronic textbook project pro bono at first, but with the usual flaming carrot at the end of the tunnel? I am sure others have other methods they'd like to use to approach the problem from their own publishing experiences. Ann -Original Message- From: Charles Brown [SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Monday, September 13, 1999 11:43 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject:[PEN-L:10903] Re: pen-l text book Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/10/99 12:22PM Why couldn't we follow Ann Li's suggestion and try to put a text together. We could start small, say with a discussion of unemployment. Let someone edit what comes out of our discussion, then move on to another subject. Writing a text should not be hard. All of them are basically the same. All we have to do is to cut out the crap and then add some context. ((( Charles: Go for it ! Charles Brown
[PEN-L:10886] Re: RE: Re: Re: Graying Professoriate (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed)
I think that is why some have tried to become executive-level administrators ( ie oh gosh vanguards seizing power) with the expected even higher barriers of identity politics ( there are days when I think some of our glass ceilings are made of some form of chicken-wire safety glass (and spectrally tinted yellow and purple )). I seem to recall some other central administration hidden agenda stuff (and lawsuits) in the UCB Ethnic Studies Dept. (re-) structuring. And at that time, I seem to recall Ron Takaki embarassing the UC President Gardner on some national morning television program during a live remote from San Diego during the Republican convention as I recall. On the other hand nothing beats Nam Jun Paik dropping his pants in front of the US President for true conceptual art. Ann - Original Message - From: Nathan Newman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 12, 1999 5:47 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10881] RE: Re: Re: Graying Professoriate (from the Chronicle of Higher Ed) -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] New faculty sometimes say that the older, tenured professors deny tenure or make unreasonable tenure demands so as to enhance their own prestige and the reputation of their departments. But I think much of the publishing pressure comes from the administration. Whatever the reason, I think its the faculty's pressure, even among lefty professors. My distaste for the culture of research in academia comes from many sources, but most directly from a hiring fight at UC-Berkeley's quite progressive Sociology Department (by most conventional criterion). The decision was as clear as possible on the teaching versus research axis. The position was an ethnic studies position (originally Chicano studies, but mushed down) and the choice was a white guy from France who had a long publishing resume versus aa Asian professor teaching already at UCB (in Ethnic Studies) who had already won the Distinguished Teachers Award as one of the best teachers on campus. The French guy met privately with about forty grad students who, to put it politely, hated him. Not only did he know nothing about Chicano or Asian ethnic groups - of key importance for teaching ethnic studies to California undergrads, he ignored peoples questions, interrupted them, and made clear that he would be a nightmare of a teacher. [That he was a white guy, after the department had hired five white guys in its last seven hires, did not go over well, either, or that he had been allowed to apply after the hiring deadline, a big affirmative action no-no.] So what did the UCB faculty do with grad students overwhelmingly stating their conviction that the Asian professor would be a far better choice, because of his teaching skill, his ability to be a mentor to undergrads, and his understanding of the issues critical to those students? They unanimously endorsed the French guy (with three abstentions). Well, the grad students were so incensed that they went on strike-- boycotted their own classes and their TA jobs. And guess what, it was the administration that killed the hiring (on the "technical" grounds that he had applied after the hiring date, but they made it clear to us that they would never have invoked that rule without our protest.) It is worth noting that the original position had only been established because of mass protests a decade or so earlier by undergrads demanding a Chicano Studies teacher. All the meritocratic crap around affirmative action would be meaningless if teaching was a priority, since the basic need to mentor and advise students would demand diversity in academia on "merit" grounds if teaching mattered. --Nathan Newman
[PEN-L:10862] Base vs. Superstructure
Disinformation or Dat-information? Is there another Base vs. Superstructure argument used to construct the militias' media event or virtual memorial to Wac(k)o? - The Oklahoma City Bombing The Eglin Blast Effects Study. The government, in trying to prove that a single Ryder truck filled with explosives could have caused the damage seen in the Murrah building commissioned an experimental study by the Armament Directorate, Wright Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Intended to be used to bolster the "lone bomber" case against Timothy McVeigh, the results of the study proved to be an embarrassment to the government. OKC Bombing: Forensic Evidence _ Multiple Blasts: More Evidence by William F. Jasper A new study analyzing explosive tests conducted by the U.S. Air Force against a reinforced concrete structure may provide an important key to understanding the April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, which took 168 lives. The report, based on testing data and photographs supplied by the Armament Directorate, Wright Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, lends powerful support to the arguments of those experts who have challenged the official government position that a single, large ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO) truck bomb parked outside the Murrah Building was solely responsible for the massive death and destruction. Led by Brigadier General Benton K. Partin (USAF, ret.), former director of the Air Force Armament Technology Laboratory and one of the world's premier explosives and ordnance authorities, critics have argued compellingly that the blast wave from the ANFO truck bomb was totally inadequate to cause the collapse of the massive, steel-reinforced concrete columns of the federal building in Oklahoma City. This fact, together with much other forensic evidence from the crime scene, they contend, points inescapably to the conclusion that additional demolition charges had to have been placed on columns inside the building. Which means that this terror bombing was a much more sophisticated operation than the federal authorities admit, requiring more hands, brains, and brawn than any lone bomber could supply. If that is true, the other bombers are being let off the hook by the government's insistence that Timothy McVeigh was the sole efficient cause and the truck bomb was the instrumental cause of "the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil." The new Eglin blast study convincingly proves the fundamental points set forth by General Partin: That air blast is an inefficient mechanism against hardened, reinforced concrete structures, and that "the pattern of damage [to the Murrah Building] would have been technically impossible without supplementing demolition charges." Entitled Case Study Relating Blast Effects to the Events of April 19, 1995 Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, (hereafter referred to as the Eglin Blast Effects Study, or EBES), the 56-page report includes photographs and data from the Eglin blast tests, as well as extensive technical analysis of those tests, conducted by construction and demolition expert John Culbertson. The study relates the Eglin parametric data to the Murrah Building and presents a serious challenge to the federal prosecutors' official bombing scenario. The report also contains letters from engineers and technical experts who have reviewed the study for The New American. The blast effects tests conducted by the Wright Laboratory at Eglin Air Force Base involved a three-story reinforced concrete structure 80 feet in length, 40 feet in width, and a total height of 30 feet. The Eglin Test Structure (ETS), according to the EBES, "while not as large as the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, has many similarities and therefore provides an excellent source for data." The study continues: The ETS is similar to Murrah in its basic layout with three rows of columns in the long axis and a series of narrow bays in the short axis. The ETS was constructed of six-inch-thick concrete panels similar to the six-inch-thick floor panels of Murrah. In addition, a series of 14-inch square columns supported the panels in the corners of each room and at the edge of the floor panels. This configuration bears a similarity to the Murrah building's system of columns, T-beams and floor panels. While noting the similarities in structural layout of the ETS and Murrah, the EBES also makes note of the major differences in construction methods and overall structural integrity between the two buildings, stating that the ETS "must be considered an inferior
[PEN-L:10741] Congress: the character issue
Based on records prior to the summer break, 29 members of Congress have been accused of spousal abuse, 7 have been arrested for fraud, 19 have been accused of writing bad checks, 117 have bankrupted at least two businesses, 3 have been arrested for assault, 71 have credit reports so bad they can't qualify for a credit card, 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges, 8 have been arrested for shoplifting, 21 are current defendants in lawsuits, and in 1998 alone, 84 were stopped for drunk driving, but released after they claimed Congressional immunity. (from Capitol Hill Blue)
[PEN-L:10650] Re: money and politics
Well it does seem that Gray Davis ( since he was Gov. Moonbeam's Chief of Staff ) would have been Jerry Brown 2.0 regardless, but then again I only vote in California out of a sense of someday returning ( probably after the Big quake). Having now seen _Bulworth_ twice, perhaps Beatty really should be the candidate, with campaign cinematography framed like the RFK death scene, and protected by the militias and the gangstas. Seriously, Bradley came up closer to Gore in recent polling, but it may be the usual bizarre distortion of American memory with the image of John McCain hung by his broken arms in a North Vietnamese prison that will win the day and the actual voting electorate not unlike the mainstream media's post-Hinkley treatment of the Great Communicator (and his now post-modern memory). Ann - Original Message - From: Michael Perelman [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, September 05, 1999 11:30 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10649] money and politics You may have heard "shocked" reports at the Shrub raising $50 mill. for his election campaign. Our "beloved" governor has raised $8 million for his future reelection campaign 3 years from now. He was only sworn in a few months ago. He was the most "liberal" of the 3 democratic candidates, and governs as a neo-conservative without even Clinton's pretense of liberalism. He is refusing to sign any bills to reform health care, refuses to support a survey to see how many contracts go to women and minorities
[PEN-L:10633] Re: Re: Re: Question on graven images
Speaking of graven images.. -- Tony Perkins here with a special invitation. As most Red Herring readers know, I've stuck my neck out early in the next presidential campaign by personally backing my friend Governor George W. Bush. If you want to get in on the ground floor, too, here is your chance. I cordially invite you to join "Technology and Entertainment Entrepreneurs for George Bush," a national grass-roots effort. Over 300 entrepreneurs and venture capitalists have already signed on, including Floyd Kvamme, John Chambers, Jim Barksdale, Gregory Slayton, Michael Dell and Tim Draper. To kick off this new organization, Governor Bush is coming to Silicon Valley for lunch on September 30th, and we would like to see you there. If you would like to attend, please visit the following URL where you can print out a response form: http://www.siliconvalleybush2000.com Or, you can indicate your interest by sending an e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or by calling (415) 398-6606 and we'll be happy to sign you up. (Please do not auto-reply to this e-mail.) Now, I know California doesn't have the lock on entrepreneurship, so for all of you that can't make it out for this event, that's okay. We'll be holding special events around the country in the months ahead. Your participation now will ensure your inclusion when we're in a city near you. Look forward to seeing you, Tony P.S. If you want to be a really big Fish, you can become a co-host of this event by committing to raise $5,000, which will get you into a special VIP reception with the Governor. In addition to hanging out with the other big Fish, you can also get your picture taken with the next President of the United States. Please make checks payable to "Bush for President, Inc." Please also review, print out and complete the contributor reply form you will find at this site and send it along with your contribution. --- | | Yes I/we would like to be a Co-Host for Governor Bush's September 30th --- luncheon and be responsible for raising $5,000 in ticket sales. (VIP reception and photo op for those who fulfill their commitment.) --- | | Yes I/we would like to attend Governor Bush's September 30th luncheon --- and would like ( ) tickets at $1,000 per person. --- | | Yes I/we would like to attend Governor Bush's September 30th luncheon --- and would like ( ) tickets at $ 500 per person.* (*Guests under 35 years old only) Paid for by Anthony Perkins. Authorized by Bush for President, Inc.
[PEN-L:10636] Re: Re: Re: Re: Question on graven images
Chicken Little withering awaygraven images part II: Ravi Batra on crony capitalism and gold: http://www.gold-eagle.com/editorials_99/taylor090399.html
[PEN-L:10608] Re: Re: City on Fire
In one early Woo film, the primitive accumulation of multiple gunshot wounds was magnificent with the destruction of a hospital concealing an arsenal rivaling ( as fiction ) the recent NATO activity in Serbia, saving babies while concentrating weapons fire. Ann - Original Message - From: Michael Hoover [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thursday, September 02, 1999 9:24 PM Subject: [PEN-L:10605] Re: City on Fire For a fascinating exegesis of the allegories of primitive accumulation, cutthroat gangsterism, etc. in the Hong Kong cinema, read _City on Fire_ (NY: Verso, 1999) by Lisa Odham Stokes and (our very own) Michael Hoover! Yoshie A big shoutout to Yoshie for the plug! Book is now available via both actual and virtual bookstores although official release date isn't until Sept. 16. Folks can check out description and read comments at Verso website - www.versobooks.com - or at several on-line sellers (I posted a couple of announcements a few months ago so they're probably in the pen-l archive as well). For NYC area listers, Verso is having a book release party at Anthology Film Archives on Saturday afternoon Sept. 18. AFA will screen Woo's *Bullet in the Head* and Donnie Yen's *Ballistic Kiss*. A chance to meet in person, Michael Hoover Current issue of *Library Journal* recommends _City on Fire_ for libraries and here's what *Publisher's Weekly* said in its 8/9/99 issue (I've editorialized a little): The Hong Kong film industry of the '80s and early '90s produced a treasure trove of films. It made matinee idols of (among others) Chow Yun-fat, Jackie Chan, and Maggie Cheung, reinventing genres style and generally beat the Hollywood dream factory at its own game with an 'anything goes' attitude - despite tiny budgets and brief production schedules. Hoover and Stokes rightly consider the anxiety produced by the ticking clock to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong to China as the key to this period of frenetic creativity. In the most serious study to date of Hong Kong cinema, the authors dutifully ground their account with social, political, economic, and historical analysis. Sometimes they get a bit carried away [[oh really]], however: comparing a Harold Lloyd stunt to a Jackie Chan variant, the Lloyd version becomes emblematic of the ideal of upward mobility in the American 1920s, and Chan's tumble reflects how 'Hong Kong's dollar fell during a run on the colony's currency in 1983.' The abundance of quotes from Marx and Engels [[for what's it worth, there aren't that many, but then, this *is* *Publisher's Weekly*]] at times makes a cinema noted for its pure entertainment value sound dull and allegorical [[re. allegories, see Yoshie's more astute comments!]]. Still the book's extensive interviews with major HK players - and detailed coverage of the comedies and romances that have enjoyed less international exposure than the now famous action films of Chan and John Woo - are of outstanding interest. So tantalizing is the treatment of many of these obscure films that readers will scurry to the neighborhood video store in search of such charmingly translated titles as *Tom, Dick, and Hairy* and *Shogun and Little Kitchen*.
[PEN-L:10464] Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: competition vs monopoly
Ah yes, engineers versus marketing departments, our Dilbert cartoon and comic strip here does a good job with that (with all due respect to Norman Solomon's critique of it as more PMC soma) Low earth orbit satellites are yet to be tested in the world of low cost fast high capacity - it all seems a little behind schedule already - and certainly they're not attracting the press they were two years ago. I agree, but once they do get implemented, the skys will be alive with the sound of Gates ( Julie Andrews et al ) and other corporations ( this may be especially since LEO, because of height and cost may be a more 'natural' radiospectrum monopoly). Bypass may be a more compelling issue for haves and have-nots. I'm not sure whether the flag of the win95 key will become the (trans)national symbol yet. Well, it's my vote for that role - and bigger than the twin arches, too. I'm betting on the red (van(Value-Added Network?))guard of PRC intellectual property pirates undermining that and filling all of those panes red, and do we trust the id # on our current chips, pentiumIII notwithstanding? Y2K may be a much better test, I haven't met a single person who reckons they have a clue how that one is gonna wash out - and then there's the real possibility it becomes a technical non-event and a whopping great sociological phenomenon (panic buying and panic selling etc). well, we know about those types of 'black' day capital crises, and I am amused by my less political acquintances beginning to hoard gold ( and food and water and... ), Oh gosh, that sounds like Waco! Still not sure it bites any more deeply into MS's flesh than anybody else's, though ... You're right, it may be so diversified that there is a kind of 'sustainability' and of course there are things to step in eg MCI-Worldcom (or is it Welt-Kom?) Ann
[PEN-L:10445] Re: Re: Waco and the Lesser of Two Evils
Hi Rob, The ATF concerns about illegal munitions (where I live, if two of your neighbors think you're a nutter, they can have the government seize your guns) were a federal pretext fronting for regional allegations of child abuse. Texas seems to have (not unlike some other states) interesting uses of (local) state power to protect children from their parents. Not unlike the Mormons, Koresh may have been a little too inerrent in his biblical interpretations such as the ones on polygamy (I never can find the one on heavy metal rock music). Will our various anti-government militias erect a cenotaph in Waco like the one near the Alamo where the Mexicans burned the piled-up bodies of the defenders? Or was that the reason for Oklahoma City? Ann - Original Message - From: Rob Schaap [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, August 29, 1999 3:36 AM Subject: [PEN-L:10443] Re: Waco and the Lesser of Two Evils The Waco thing was aired on Oz TV a few months ago (non-commercial telly here is terrific between about 11.00 and 2.00am - which suits non-sleepers like me - and our least-funded station (SBS - multilingual, soccer, world movies, more soccer, and often surprisingly radical stuff) goes in for lots of those relatively cheap US video-docos (there was a beauty on the Panama slaughter, too) that don't make the technical grade for US networks (or are just not gonna get on - as per those filters Chomsky and Herman outline in chapter one of their terrific *Manufacturing Consent*). Anyway, a wholly convincing show on yet another of those episodes that gives meaning to that 'only in America' slogan. That big-time murder went on (those twisted little charred corpses of kiddies killed by cyanide fumes shall stay with me forever) seems beyond doubt to me, but the thing we never got to hear was what *really* caused the trouble in the first place. In a landscape dotted by charismatic would-be christ-figures and armed-to-the-teeth 'citizens' militias', what was it about Koresh's mob that stood out to the authorities? I never really understood that. Cheers, Rob.
