Reading

"The Construction of Reality” Introduction & "The Social Facts Which Rule Us”

https://api.follow.it/track-rss-story-click/v3/niyBMplQItDjfqAW5J3a3oMOI2eu70Rg
Created
Thu, 07/12/2023 - 01:14

As part of the annual fundraiser I promised to share some of the chapters of my book “The Construction of Reality.” At $6,200, we have the first four chapters (originally it was 5, but I’ve done some editing and combined two), “The Introduction”, “The Social Facts Which Rule Us”, “Being Aware”, and “Human Alone.”

If we make $8,350 we’ll have:

5. Identity and Identification (how we expand our bodies beyond our physical selves)

6. The Ritual (how we create identification)

7. Interaction ritual (how daily life creates identification and personality)

Short Conversations with Poets: Anne Carson

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/anne-carson
Created
Thu, 07/12/2023 - 01:00

Anne Carson’s writing does not concern itself with the question of genre, though it’s probably most accurate to think of her as a poet. Frequently she draws her materials from the distant past, often taking classical literature as a starting point. She does not derive from these sources so much as denature them, reimagine something so simultaneously different and indebted, that it can only be called new. Not only in the telling but in the shape, the formal properties. This is how tradition works in literature, by alchemical transmutation. The voice in Carson’s poems is not old or old-fashioned in the least, but neither is it contemporary, exactly; it must speak from behind a mask, must draw its truth from the credit its fiction bestows, must speak in a disembodied-seeming, or detached, voice. Oddly timeless, probably the air of myth never far in her lines. And when I asked Carson why she’s drawn to working from behind a mask, she answered, “Does anyone really like their own face?”

The Trump Apocalypse

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/06/the-trump-apocalypse/
Created
Thu, 07/12/2023 - 01:00
Trump Plus Nothing, The Sequel Donald J. Trump and his MAGA horde attempted the murder of the United States of America on January 6, 2021. Give them a second chance and they may succeed. The media have finally caught on. The claxon sounding over at The Atlantic is itself news. (There are new articles there today.) The Constitution is not a suicide pact, it’s said. Trump has announced his plans to make the 2024 election one for the country. His collaborators are mixing up the Flavor Aid now. Prepare for Trump Plus Nothing, The Sequel. Call it mass insanity or something else, Trump’s followers are indeed ready once again to make their obeisance. During the COVID pandemic, many eschewed masks and vaccines and gave their lives for him. As former Trump fixer Michael Cohen explained, he talks like a mob boss. He doesn’t give explicit orders. The Boss lets underlings know what he wants and they go do it, even to their graves.

A Gift-Wrapping Guide for Recently Divorced Dads

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/a-gift-wrapping-guide-for-recently-divorced…
Created
Thu, 07/12/2023 - 00:00

Author’s Note: This article contains helpful tips for wrapping ONLY. For gift ideas, please see our previous guide for dads titled “WW2 Nonfiction and 12 Other Inappropriate Gifts For Tweens.”

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Are you a middle-aged divorcé who’s spent one too many silent nights stuck inside his condo near the highway? Have days seemed less merry and bright since your spouse left to be with Zeth, the tantric yoga instructor with piercing blue eyes and a collection of beaded anklets? Then this holiday wrapping guide is just for you.

Australian national accounts – growth falls to 0.2 per cent in September – and only because of fiscal support measures

https://billmitchell.org/blog/?p=61419
Created
Wed, 06/12/2023 - 13:10
Today (December 6, 2023), the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the latest – Australian National Accounts: National Income, Expenditure and Product, September 2023 – which shows that the Australian economy grew by just 0.2 per cent in the September-quarter 2023 and by 2.1 per cent over the 12 months. If we extend the September result…

“Immaculate Disinflation”

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/05/immaculate-disinflation/
Created
Wed, 06/12/2023 - 11:00
Krugman is on the case Let’s deal in reality for a moment shall we? Over the past six months, the personal consumption expenditure deflator excluding food and energy — I know that’s a mouthful, but it’s the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of underlying inflation — has risen at an annual rate of only 2.5 percent, down from 5.7 percent in March 2022. The Fed’s inflation target is 2 percent, so we’re not quite there yet. And you shouldn’t expect the Fed to declare victory any time soon. As I can tell you from personal experience, anyone suggesting that inflation is more or less under control can expect an avalanche of hate mail and hostile commentary on social media. In fact, I believe that the vehemence with which some Americans insist that inflation is still running wild distorts coverage in conventional media, too, because journalists are deterred from saying anything positive. And the Fed has to be especially careful, because it would lose credibility if inflation went back up after sounding too optimistic. The truth, however, is that inflation is looking very much like yesterday’s problem.

Capitalism, with friends like these, you don’t need enemies

https://www.profstevekeen.com/2023/12/05/capitalism-with-friends-like-these-you…
Created
Wed, 06/12/2023 - 09:00
Though I have been interested in ecological economics ever since I read The Limits to Growth (Meadows, Randers, and Meadows 1972), E.F. Schumacher (Schumacher 1973, 1979) and Hermann Daly (Daly 1974) in the early 1970s, and I have been a critic of Neoclassical economics for just as long, I didn’t start critiquing the Neoclassical approach … Continue reading "Capitalism, with friends like these, you don’t need enemies"

Worst Case Scenario

https://digbysblog.net/2023/12/05/worst-case-scenario/
Created
Wed, 06/12/2023 - 08:30
It’s way more likely than we think David Frum is one Never Trumper from whom I still recoil even though I’m a big believer in a popular front against Trump. He’s still a wingnut in some very important ways. Nonetheless, this big Atlantic issue about what will happen if Trump wins has a number of good articles and I thought his was was especially thought provoking: A second Trump term would instantly plunge the country into a constitutional crisis more terrible than anything seen since the Civil War. Even in the turmoil of the 1960s, even during the Great Depression, the country had a functional government with the president as its head. But the government cannot function with an indicted or convicted criminal as its head. The president would be an outlaw, or on his way to becoming an outlaw. For his own survival, he would have to destroy the rule of law. From Trump himself and the people around him, we have a fair idea of a second Trump administration’s immediate priorities: (1) Stop all federal and state cases against Trump, criminal and civil. (2) Pardon and protect those who tried to overturn the 2020 election on Trump’s behalf.