Author: shawn

Book read

The Open Conspiracy by H. G. Wells (you can read it online here)

I first read about this book here on incunabula and it sparked my curiosity enough to check the book out at the library. (It’s easier to read entire books on my busride than sitting at a computer either at work or at home.) You could try to buy the book here (powells) or here (amazon). Good luck. You’ll need it. [Insert rant about how nicely the internet fills the void of out-of-print books and how ridiculous current copyright legislation is…]

I don’t know how I felt about this book. The basic premise of the book follows from it’s central tenets: 1) Organized religion doesn’t effectively harness the ‘religious tendency’ (read selfless service to others) in post-religious moderns;
2) There needs to be a new ‘religion’ to fill the void;
3) This new ‘religion’ will be devoted to establishing a post-national world organization devoted to ensuring that the world over has adequate supplies of basic necessities (food, water, medicine, etc.) and working to limit the growth of population generally;
4) And which this, post-national organization, would eventually come to replace the outmoded and destructive nation state, with all of its dated and traditionalistic patriotic and nationalistic excesses.

It’s a grand vision, but the thing seemed a bit… mushy to me. I wish it hadn’t. I sort of wanted it to be more robust and specific, but like most grand visions it suffered under the weight of its own conclusions. Namely, how to get from here to there.

His ideas about the need for changes in the institutions of education, I think, are spot on.

wink those flying esperantos

that’s one fractious and hungry caterwauler… and all this time the heat’s been beating down upon the head. or maybe just attacking all the pores, or just remember that heat shimmer…

but here’s a strangeness: thrice yesters, i’m caterwailing into the phonical, or somesuch, and i’m feeling those sound trendricals sailing away. or maybe i’m hearing that. after an evning of feeling slow death, tiny death and waking in dark. yammering in to the phoncicle, words pulling out of the head, and yelping at some of the weariness axing through the joints and sinews and thinking: work better, you little powerhouses, you mitochondrials!

for some dark shape swings into view (or am i making this up?) and smites me, and clenching seizes up my arm, the muscles tied together in some mad purpose and i’m thinking what strange deviltry is this? even as some short breath escapes. and i’m thanking some deep thoughts that i’m not responsible for anything of any import at all, because how quickly would i fail and all the morps creep to fumbles.

sleep came later. though not much later.

Readings…

The Pursuit of Oblivion: A Global History of Narcotics by Richard Davenport Hines

I just finished reading this book last night. It took me a long time to get through. (I especially got bogged down in the chapter on League of Nations drugs resolutions.) The incredible cornucopia of detailed anecdotes and statistics in this book paints an incredibly complicated picture, which I feel could probably be summarized as follows:

The more illegal and punitive anti-drugs laws become, the riskier it becomes to traffick those drugs. This risk results, due to basic supply-demand market forces, in a huge increase in the profitability of these drugs, which in turn greatly rewards those who would choose to traffick in those drugs in spite of those risks. The US has been following this disastrous drugs policy for nearly a hundred years and, because of this nation’s international clout, has entangled the rest of the world (especially Latin America) in its drugs law enforcement adventures. Though it isn’t nearly as sexy, politically, to support the decriminalization of drugs and the treatment of addicts as patients, the historical record would seem to support that as the far more effective option in dealing with the drug addiction problem.

Information about the author: Richard Davenport-Hines is the recipient of the Wolfson Prize for History and a fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He writes for The New York Times, The Times Literary Supplement, The Sunday Times, and The Independent. He lives in London.

For those of you who prefer it: *

bulwer-lytton’s churning

” They had but one last remaining night together, so they embraced each other as tightly as that two-flavor entwined string cheese that is orange and yellowish-white, the orange probably being a bland Cheddar and the white . . . Mozzarella, although it could possibly be Provolone or just plain American, as it really doesn’t taste distinctly dissimilar from the orange, yet they would have you believe it does by coloring it differently.”