signalnoise

Response:

Actually, I meant ego in both senses: An overweening sense of self, a belief in one's own power, the awareness that one is a force for change. Call it arrogance, call it hubris, but I like to think a healthy sense of pride is a good thing, as long as it is well-founded. All those people burning in literary hells because they preferred to rule instead of serve -- I admire that. Whether you're a Napolean busy conquering the world, or a Kierkegaard toiling away in the gloom of your solitude, in either case you're a person who changes the world because in your heart you serve no master other than yourself. Even if that means one must suffer (a point you brought up the other day!). I could go on at length, but you probably get the point. I am a fond believer in extremes.

Sounds like you had a great Tuesday night. What I wouldn't give to have done the same thing! (Only with Guinness rather than Bass.)

I like the idea of someone being driven to orgasm by a really rad school schedule. My schedule this semester isn't bad in itself, but I've been pretty disappointed in my classes so far.

Go Mars Go!

Sounds good. As to your American Politics class, if it's the first day of class you shouldn't be expected to have any readings prepared. How odd.

No comments for the Linear Models course -- that's way out of my league.

bookstores rock....

thanks....

I added some pics....

hi, sweetie* um...nothing too exciting... and y do u refer to me as n. side when we r both in chi-town...?

What kind of cookies?

Yes, "The League . . . " was a crapfest. Your ability to maintain silence around your friend was commendable! To be honest, I've never really liked comic books, even when I was a kid. But I do think that the graphic novel has done a lot to validate the genre, and that is one reason why that movie looked so good. Graphic novels are a visual art form and they usually translate beautifully into film. Problem is, the dialogue doesn't always translate well, or the writers of the film may take "liberties" to try and bring the film to a larger audience, one that the graphic novel may never have been intended to interest.

Hey, did you ever read my journal posting on the theory of the earth actually being sausage-shaped?

> i feel very updated on nordic poetry now. so thanks for that.

Always happy to talk about one of my favourite subjects... *g*

> sorry that things for a still a bit of a mess in your neck of the woods. i hope they get better soon!!!

Thanks! Well... seems like they're *changing* anyway. Which, all in all, can only be a good thing. But it's too early to say, really. Keep watching my journal...

Oh, and thanks for being friends with me!

Holy shit! Where do I start?

First, in response to your comment, I think Marx's beard is hiding a glass jaw (ha, ha!) -- we both know the only reason Nietzsche would lose is because the syphillis thing busted him up pretty good.

As to your interpretation of modernism, I think that for the most part you are correct. But I would argue with the notion that it is a suffocating awareness. Barthes would seem to suggest that one must accept the knowledge that one cannot return to an originary point. We are continually trapped in the notion that we can trace the foundations of things, we can reach starting points, and from there we can establish origins. To be modern, for Barthes, is to recognize that we are always in a middle, that there is no beginning or end -- there is only process. As Hamlet would say, "the readiness is all." Barthes indicates that this is not oppressive but rather emancipatory by freeing us from the delimitations of the past and the future. One does not begin -- one simply is.

As to the culture war . . . I believe you've hit that one on the head. But hasn't the culture war always existed? It simply takes one form or another as one group vies for power. In 17th century England the war consisted for the most part of Protestantism versus Catholicism; in our day it is primarily secularism versus ecclesiastism. While these are not diametrically opposed (either movement can easily incorporate organizational forms appropriated from the other), secularism's promotion of the material opens the possibility of rapid change because of its rejection of metaphysical evaluations. Said valuations are commonly believed to be outside the provenance of "the world" (hence metaphysical) and are thus conflated with the eternal. Ecclesiastic reliance on "eternal" forms, hallowed and maintained in religious observances, must be opposed to any emphasis on change, because that which evolves must not be eternal. And therein lies the terror. Instinctively, these people know that in order to save their precious "sanctity" from the ravages of a secular world, they must crush change, they must throw up barriers to prevent movement. The ulitimate goal of course is to reach equilibrium or stasis, as that would be the plane of perfection.

To think is to deal with problems. Problems arise whenever we are faced with something new, some issue that results from an incomplete process. So, in their terror at actually having to think, these philistines and zealots turn to "tradition," to "standards," to "morality," as though these things are incapable of change and therefore do not have to be reasoned through. Thus armed with their "answers" they wage war on secularism with the hope of preventing the world from moving forward. They are pathetic and they are dangerous, but they will never succeed completely unless they can utterly control language. Remember Newspeak from 1984?

Oh well, I think if I keep up in this vein I will rant your ear off. I could go on forever. Are we pretty much on the same page? Glad to see your wife is feeling better.

Response:

My, my, so testy! Do you think we've run this whole zombie thing into the ground? We could always start a war between Nietzsche and Marx?

the warriors, white oleander, and fried green tomatoes

I would probably want a super-model for a partner during the zombie attack. Let's face it, you're probably going to die anyway, and since it's the end of the world (for all practical purposes) maybe she'll want to get it on like rabbits.

Sounds like you had a good weekend. Mmmm . . . Indian food . . . could eat that every day.

I was totally gonna say the hot chick too.....
Well, maybe a really drunk guy, like Sterno-drunk. Maybe the zombies would be repelled somehow, like the virus in the Andromeda Strain from the town drunk, yeah.
Either the drunk guy or Bruce Campell.

I'd kill for a Mango Lassi right about now.

For quality of show I'd agree with the Addams family. But I got to go with the Munsters as having the better theme song.

But would Morticia have dined on Tandoori chicken?

Obesity and dieting. Must be the latest Republican Fromm-esque conspiracy. I'll be outdoors again this weekend, escaping in my own way.

Sounds like an interesting paper. I've never associated it with politics, but I can understand the correlation you're trying to make. One thing I've noticed the last 5 or 10 years is that there seems to be a polarization of body types. Finding a happy medium is getting harder and harder and now it seems as though the culture is separating into the overweight and the paper thin.

My dreams are always lucid. I often wake up tired, stressed, confused, anxious, happy, etc because of them. They're so realistic that the emotion carries into the morning.

"Ace of base"? Good god! [shudders for all around.]