When Andrea Dworkin died, both the press and her moderate feminist critics responded with a mélange of barely concealed glee and smug relief. Christopher Hitchens was one of the few to speak out in her defense, lamenting that the world had become a lonelier place without an Andrea Dworkin to dispute with. “[S]he could write, and think, and argue,” he wrote, “and it was often a pleasure to disagree violently with her, which is more than I can say for some of her detractors.” I suspect this is how many feel at Hitchens’s own passing. It’s certainly how I feel.

“As unemployment soared, it did not seem plausible to believe (as the British Treasury apparently did) that public works would not increase employment at all, because the money spent on them would merely be diverted from the private sector, which would otherwise have generated just as much employment.  Economists who simply advised leaving the economy alone, governments whose first instincts, apart from protecting the gold standard by deflationary policies, was to stick to financial orthodoxy, balance budgets and cut costs, were visibly not making the situation better.  Indeed, as the depression continued, it was argued with considerable force not least by J.M. Keynes who consequently became the most influential economist of the next forty years—that they were making the depression worse.  Those of us who lived through the years of the Great Slump still find it almost impossible to understand how the orthodoxies of the pure free market, then so obviously discredited, once again came to preside over a global period of depression in the late 1980s and 1990s, which, once again, they were equally unable to understand or to deal with. 
[…]
In any case, what was a “free market economy” when an economy increasingly dominated by huge corporations made nonsense of the term “perfect competition” and economists critical of Karl Marx could observe that he had been proved right, not least in his prediction of the growing concentration of capital (Leontiev, 1977, p.78)?”

–Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes: A History of the World, 1914-1991. (1992)

“…history teaches us that we rarely learn from history…”

–John Quiggin, Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk Among Us. (2010)

He is a self-proclaimed fan of the progressive rock genre and played keyboards during high school in the band Wizard.^[61] On July 30, 2007, he attended a concert by progressive metal band Dream Theater. Later that day, Huntsman signed a proclamation creating “Dream Theater Day” on that date for the state of Utah.

I think my metal brothers and sisters will join me in finding this to be really hilarious.

Not that this guy has a shot in the 2012 primaries, but I think it’s pretty clear the other Republican hopefuls would eventually use his passion for prog against him if he did. All that virtuosic musicianship reeks of cerebral elitism and (probably liberal) snobbery:

And to most Americans, the main reference point for this style is Rush, thus denoting something unpalatably Canadian and, ipso facto, socialist and wimpy.
…Not that Dream Theater lack for wimpiness* in the first place.

“Dream Theater Day” must be one hell of an albatross for a Republican politician to carry. Almost as bad as a record of making reasonable comments on economic policy.

*I actually like this song.

If there isn’t yet a way to do this, I expect a massive check ASAP for my amazing idea.

(skip to 6:19)

…which, in turn, should remind us of David Hills’s unsurpassed definition of philosophy:

“The ungainly attempt to tackle questions that come naturally to children, using methods that come naturally to lawyers.”

That this guy is supposed to be among the great liberals of the DNC establishment speaks volumes about what’s wrong with the political culture in this country.

“There’s no need to look for a Chimera, or a cat with three legs,” Treviranus was saying as he brandished an imperious cigar. “We all know that the Tetrarch of Galilee is the possessor of the finest sapphires in the world. Someone, intending to steal them, came in here by mistake. Yarmolinsky got up; the robber had to kill him. What do you think?”

“It’s possible, but not interesting,” Lönnrot answered. “You will reply that reality hasn’t the slightest need to be of interest. And I’ll answer you that reality may avoid the obligation to be interesting, but that hypotheses may not. In the hypothesis you have postulated, chance intervenes largely. Here lies a dead rabbi; I should prefer a purely rabbinical explanation; not the imaginary mischances of an imaginary robber.”

–Jorge Luis Borges, Death and the Compass (1942)

So far what I’ve heard from Oysterhead has been disappointing, especially given that I’m something of a Phish fan and an admirer of Trey Anastasio’s guitar playing.

The live clips I’ve watched of Colonel Claypool’s Bucket of Bernie Brains, however, are pretty rad:

Also, it has come to my attention that Claypool published a novel a few years back. Cool.

This all brings me to what I had originally intended this post to be about.  Listening to Primus leads me to contemplate Gen X’s particular fixation on the demented, retarded, and socially freakish. I’m thinking of ‘My Name is Mud’, ‘Mourning Glory’ by Ween, ‘Dumb’ by Nirvana (cf. also: “I feel stupid/and contagious”), ‘Loser’ by Beck, ‘Mmm, Mmm, Mmm’ by Crash Test Dummies, ‘Creep’ by Radiohead, Beavis & Butthead, that freak show that toured with Lollapalooza The Jim Rose Circus, Ren & Stimpy, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Sling Blade…I know Tom Green came a little later, but that he was ever popular seems related to the aesthetic I have in mind here. I’m aware that (Anglo-)American pop culture has given us plenty of songs and shows about the mentally handicapped and the socially outcast before and since, but there seems to be something distinctive about the way freakishness, mental abnormality, and loserdom were paradoxically valorized and made chic in the early-mid 90s. I’d be curious to hear comments on this from people who were over the age of 10 at the time.

I for one advocate rigorous fidelity to Gramsci’s maxim: Pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.