Jack Saturday

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 97 plus


OLD MISANTHROPE

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Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium.
Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.

Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion - put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

from Wendell Berry's
Manifesto: A Mad Farmer's Liberation Front



Saturday, September 23, 2006

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quote Of The Week 97, plus

More Gatto: Here comes jobs!

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Robots have never really competed with humans for real jobs because computers have never had the vision systems needed to drive cars, work in restaurants or deliver packages. All that will change very quickly by the middle of the 21st century. As CPU chips and memory systems finally reach parity with the human brain, and then surpass it, robots will be able to perform nearly any normal job that a human performs today. The self-service checkout lines that are springing up everywhere are the first sign of the trend. See Robots in 2015 for details.

The problem, of course, is that all of these robots will eliminate a huge portion of the jobs currently held by human beings. For example, there are 3.5 million jobs in the fast food industry alone. Many of those will be lost to kiosks. Many more will be lost to robots that can flip burgers and clean bathrooms. Eventually they will all be lost. The only people who will still have jobs in the fast food industry will be the senior management team at corporate headquarters.
Marshall Brain,
Robotic Nation



Go see Kirktoons

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

NEEDS BEFORE QUALITY



PHILOSOPHICAL COUNSELOR

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Saturday, September 16, 2006

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quotes Of The Week 91-96

Ursula Franklin, Prescription For External Social Control

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You see how the dominator mindset works. What they call the cure, I call a central problem -- I, and every person who truly values freedom and democracy.
Riane Eisler


Here is the crux of the difference between education and schooling— the former turns on independence, knowledge, ability, comprehension, and integrity; the latter upon obedience.
John Taylor Gatto


[T]he condition of freedom in any state is always a widespread and consistent skepticism of the canons on which power insists.
Harold. J. Laski,
The Dangers Of Obedience





Nothing is simpler to demonstrate than the dependency, in every age, of the official codes of morality on the class interests of those who possess the economic power.
Herbert Read


Those who rule the dominant institutions secure their power, in large measure directly and indirectly, by impressing their definitions of the situation upon those they rule, if not usurping the whole of ideological space, still significantly limiting what is thought throughout the society.
Todd Gitlin,
quoted by Ben Carniol,

Case Critical



Or take the large state research university. I am concerned about how the needs of students are systematically ignored and the needs of corporate funders are privileged, how critical thinking is squashed not by accident but by design. I am concerned about the illegitimate structures of authority that I work in and that compel me to act in ways against the interests of students. I am not optimistic that the structure of big research universities is going to change anytime soon. But I will do certain things to work against the structures.
Robert Jensen
School of Journalism
University of Texas



Monday, September 11, 2006

20 seasons

From a dream I had on August 30, 2001:

Then there is a plane-- almost like a fighter jet-- circling clockwise very low, it's going to crash-land. Everyone runs-- it could circle around and hit us. I and others run toward the rear of the plane.




Here's what I wrote to a friend on Sept 14, 2001:

Well, bloody chickens have come home to roost, but who in the west will look in the mirror to see if they cast a shadow? A terrible mistake perhaps easy to make is that victims must be good. The evil is identified, and thank God it's out there, not in here. I'm speaking not of the innocent workers but of that for which those buildings were a symbol.

Remember what Orwell said he learned too late? That he was wrong--- he used to think the oppressed were always right, and the oppressors always wrong.

"We're victims, we are therefore angels, therefore we have carte blanche to be devils in the name of our victimhood." And so the monotonous pendulum of revenge which swings all through history, its masterminds usually safe from the carnage in plush offices. Welcome to the dark ages of the enlightenment. Hitler's gift to the German people of his day, reared by beatings, was to allow them their horrific rage, and give them a target.

But I'm not going to sing the chorus of doom. I'm going to imagine a worldwide effort to fly in compost and all the autumn leaves of ten thousand cities in 2001 to the middle east to reclaim desert for a new paradisaical Palestinian Homeland, supplied with solar-powered infrastructure amid verdant orchards. I'm going to imagine that Pres. Bush is going to call a press conference to say that he has had a vision, and that now he intends to turn America's gigantic wealth and power to feeding, clothing, and sheltering the world.

I'm going to imagine a contingent of angels around each victim, especially the kids who have lost parents, around the world, and especially to the young men who have been so defeated that all is left is suicidal hate.

I'm going to imagine the US arranging for a series of great festivals -- in Ireland, in the Middle East, in Africa, in South America-- ten mile-wide festivals full of colorful and joyful celebrations of life, music, love. As Paul Burnside said, have a rave, let the people dance until they are too tired to fight.

I'm going to imagine that the hole in the structure of the thwarted American dream from which leaped the American Nightmare, may yet allow through a wide glimpse of the new world---as Jesus said "The kingdom is spread upon the earth, but men [sic] do not see it." I'm going to imagine that the structure is weakened, even as it furiously postures its "strength," long enough for great mystical vision to come through. I think it was R.D. Laing who said, "who are we to decide that it is hopeless?"



Men [sic], it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.
Charles Mackay

Saturday, September 09, 2006

Anti-Job, Pro-Freedom Quotes Of The Week 89, 90



Surely the time has finally come to seriously consider a
guaranteed income, financed by the money now in innumerable
other programs. It is time to simply recognize that to be a
Canadian should mean to be free of the fear that inadequate
food, shelter, clothing, recreation and basic necessities
of life cannot but impart.

Poverty is rarely, if ever, a choice. Tolerating its worst
consequences in a society awash in surpluses federally,
provincially and in the private sector is an abomination.
from
Welfare study shows need for guaranteed income
Sep. 2, 2006. 01:00 AM
Hugh Segal

SPECIAL TO THE STAR



A system which does not hold basic living necessities hostage pending proof of your usefulness to society, but rather supplies a workstation to all and lets each individual seek excellence (or not), will come out ahead in the innovation and creativity department. There are lots of ways to meter a product's usefulness to others, and even to reward its authors accordingly, but without forcing us into earning a living behaviors.
Kirby Urner,
in the
R. Buckminster Fuller FAQ

Thursday, September 07, 2006

Spider and Jonathan


Robinson and Winters

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Tuesday, September 05, 2006









First day back?

Khidr, the green-clad guide of the Sufis:
Leave your work, and meet me at the riverside.

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thanks to Stan Rogers and Robert Bly.

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Labor Day Weekend Specials

Ask Not For Whom The Bell Tolls

Respectable and Industrious






Animals
by Walt Whitman


I think I could turn and live with animals,

they are so placid and self-contained

I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied,

not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another,

nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

Saturday, September 02, 2006

LABOR DAY WEEKEND SPECIALS

BREASTFEEDING



1.

All around me men [sic]
are working;
but I am stubborn, and take no part.
The difference is this:
I prize the breasts of the Mother.

Lao Tzu,
Tao Te Ching




2.

… a two-class system is emerging for working mothers. For those with autonomy in their jobs — generally, well-paid professionals — breast-feeding, and the pumping it requires, is a matter of choice. It is usually an inconvenience, and it may be an embarrassing comedy of manners, involving leaky bottles tucked into briefcases and brown paper bags in the office refrigerator. But for lower-income mothers — including many who work in restaurants, factories, call centers and the military — pumping at work is close to impossible, causing many women to decline to breast-feed at all, and others to quit after a short time.

“I feel like I had to choose between feeding my baby the best food and earning a living,” said Jennifer Munoz, a former cashier at Resorts Atlantic City Casino who said she faced obstacles that included irregular breaks and a refrigerator behind a locked door. She said she often dumped her milk into the toilet, knowing that if she did not pump every few hours, her milk supply would soon dwindle.


Wealthier women can spend their way out of work-versus-pumping dilemmas, overnighting milk home from business trips and buying $300 pumps that extract milk quickly, along with gizmos that allow them, in what seems like a parody of maternal multitasking, to pump while driving to and from work.
from
On the Job,
Nursing Mothers Find a 2-Class System
By Jodi Kantor
New York Times
Published: September 1, 2006



3.
Bottlefeeding, the grandaddy of all junk food, wasn't then, isn't now, and never will be "as good as" breastfeeding. Human milk is designed for human babies, cow's milk for calves. The structure and composition of each is suited to the particular needs of the intended recipient. Among animals, switching milk sources, say, for example, giving a calf sow's milk, results in sickness and, often, death for the newborn.

The bottlefed human baby is substantially more likely to suffer a whole nightmare of illnesses: diarrhea, colic, gastrointestinal and respiratory infections, meningitis, asthma, hives, other allergies, pneumonia, eczema, obesity, hypertension, atherosclerosis, dermatitis, growth retardation, hypocalcemic tetany, neonatal hypothyroidism, necrotizing enterocolitis, and sudden infant death syndrome. From a scientific, biological standpoint, formula feeding cannot be considered an acceptable alternative to breastfeeding, especially since more than ninety-nine percent of new mothers are perfectly capable of doing it.
Dr Robert Mendelsohn, M.D.

Read his book



4.
On American psychologist Harry Harlow:

To test his theory, he created two fake mothers for his baby monkeys - one made of wire and one made of cloth and warmed from within by a light bulb. Both "mothers" were given a face, and a "breast" in the form of a bottle from which the babies could feed. Both fulfilled all the biological needs of their "children", feeding them and so forth, but only the cloth mother was made with comfort in mind. The monkeys showed very little interest in the wire mothers, but developed strong attachments to the cloth mothers - clinging to them tightly and becoming distressed when they were removed.

Even if two mothers were provided - a wire one with milk and a cloth one without - the monkeys would prefer the latter. The conclusion was that comfort was much more important to the babies than other variables such as feeding.

If Harlow separated baby monkeys from their new cloth mothers, even for long periods, the importance of the relationship was never forgotten. As soon as their surrogate mother was returned, the monkeys would immediately rush to cling desperately to her.
Paul’s Tips
[emphasis JS]


5.

Very young infants have several behaviors through which they seek or maintain contact with their caregiver. These include grasping, rooting, sucking, and shifting position. Bowlby (1982) noted that sucking serves two purposes for infants: nutrition and attachment. He recognized both purposes as important, stating "to suppose that nutrition is in some way of primary significance and that attachment is only secondary would be a mistake. In fact, far more time is spent in non-nutritional sucking than in nutritional" (Bowlby, 1982, p. 249). According to Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978), rooting and sucking, which are food-seeking behaviors as well as attachment behaviors, tend to break from the attachment system in bottle-fed babies.

Touch is crucial to survival and bonding. As numerous animal and human experiments have shown, infants, both animal and human, fail to thrive or die without touch (Blackwell, 2000). Breastfeeding is an obvious way to promote touch between mother and infant. The skin to skin contact intrinsic to breastfeeding is believed to promote secure attachment (Pearce, 1994). Touch helps to equalize infant body temperature and breathing and establishes a caregiving relationship between mother and child within which the two learn from each other. Furthermore, Joseph Chilton Pearce asserts, when a mother is bonded to her child and is engaged in actively mothering that child according to the child's needs, the mother will breastfeed the child on demand for two to three years. Extended breastfeeding of children until between two and six years of age is found in countless other cultures (Blackwell, 2000; Lozoff & Brittenham, 1979; Thevenin, 1987) and is increasingly common among families who practice natural or attachment parenting in this country.
Tami E. Breazeale
[emphasis JS]
[excellent article--J]

The breastfeeding mother and child must physically connect in order to nurse.
Ibid.

Breast milk is free. Although some mothers may need to increase their own nutritional intake, the cost of food for the mom is negligible compared to the cost of baby milk substitutes. In 1997, formula-feeding would have added approximately $30 per week or $1500 per year to the family grocery bills (LLLI, 1997).
Ibid.



comment from Jack:
Right: If babies are given what they need early, they won’t spend a lifetime seeking counterfeits. Mothers and babies should be physically together; babies need the mother’s body, not just milk mailed to them or bottle-fed them. The comfort and safety of the mother’s body is as important as the milk. Breastfeeding is an essential service to humanity and the planet. Emotional well-being is important both for the pregnant and nursing mother. It is the community’s job to provide the means for that well-being. Let’s stop institutionalized abandonment trauma and chronic diseases.
--Jack