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Hit & Runners' Delight
In case the boozers at the next Hit & Run gathering start talking rebellion against the evil Reason overlords, reader Grylliade writes in to inform us that he's already formed a breakaway republic:
I've set up some a website with forums for any Hit and Run commenters to use that want to. It's meant to let people have a place where they can talk to other commenters without having to worry about staying on topic.
There have been many times that I've wondered what the Hit and Run's people take on something is, and I've not been able to ask because there's no mechanism for it. Now there is.
I don't want to step on any toes here, but I figured since Reason hasn't done this in the three years or so that Hit and Run's been up, they're not likely to. I considered lobbying for this, but then I thought, "We're all libertarians here. Why ask authority to do something when you can do it yourself?" So I did.
The site is grylliade.org. People can register on the main page, and post in the forums; I might do something with the rest of the stuff on the site, I might not. We'll see where this all goes.
Maybe either the cocktail hour or the new forum will provide answers to the riddle that puzzles me the most: What becomes of those old H&R commenters who have wondered off. Mona, Sir Real, Lefty, DJ of Raleigh, where art thou? Who/where is "Libertarian Larry," the Badnarik hater who always called me CAUVANAUGHA and never tired of telling me what "fucken idiot" I am? (Just kidding, mom! I know it was you!) At the bar or on the web, pour out some Thunderbird for the brothers that ain't here.
Update: Gary informs us that Libertarian Larry shot himself in May. RIP.
|11.10.05 @ 2:32PM|#
Liberarian Larry offed himself earlier this year in a standoff. I kid you not. Stephen VanDyke at Hammer of Truth culd probably dig up the article for you.
|11.10.05 @ 2:33PM|#
Who/where is "Libertarian Larry," the Badnarik hater who
always called me CAUVANAUGHA and never tired of telling me what
"fucken idiot" I am?
And he never got banned for that? Wow, it used to be like the Wild
West here.
|11.10.05 @ 2:33PM|#
And wow, what atrocious spelling on my part.
Anyhow, I found this:
http://www.zetetics.com/mac/blog/00000952.html
|11.10.05 @ 2:35PM|#
If Gary is right then I feel like an ass for making a joke. I still feel bad I never got around to answering the e-mail Pavel sent me a week before he passed.
|11.10.05 @ 2:38PM|#
I was a writer/designer for the Badnarik 2004 campaign, so we
never heard the end of it from him on our forums and (of course)
the blog. When the news came out about LL, Stephen VanDyke (another
designer/IT man for the campaign) sent me the link to the
story.
It's true.
Warren|11.10.05 @ 2:39PM|#
Yeah, those were heady days before Tim set up the H&R Stasi.
I KID! I KID!
I forgot about Lefty.
But what of Jean Bart? Isn't that the question that robs us all of
slumber?
|11.10.05 @ 2:41PM|#
I don't think any of us on the web team were ever really sure what he wanted, to be honest.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 2:43PM|#
i've often wondered about the stability of some posters here.
the whole pathological antiauthoritarian outlook isn't exactly a
model of mental health, after all.
usually, i try to talk myself out of such things. maybe i shouldn't
always.
|11.10.05 @ 2:44PM|#
First, that is very sad about Libertarian Larry. His family has
my condolences.
Second, props to grylliade for setting up another forum for us.
I'll check it out soon.
|11.10.05 @ 2:45PM|#
Pavel died? Holy crap! That'll teach me to take a break from Hit 'n' Run. I'm sorry, I had no idea.
|11.10.05 @ 2:45PM|#
gaius marius,
I'd say creating faux historical epochs (what you do) is the more
problematic.
Rich Ard|11.10.05 @ 2:46PM|#
Jean bart is enigma wrapped inside a riddle.
All stuffed in an asshole.
(I keed, I keed...)
|11.10.05 @ 2:47PM|#
Rich Ard,
Some people like being inside assholes. Especially if you bring
lubricant. :)
|11.10.05 @ 2:48PM|#
Jeff P.,
I anticipate a whole series of "Life Brian" jokes following that
comment. :)
|11.10.05 @ 2:51PM|#
What a tragedy! ...for so many reasons.
Among them, with the cops in your home is a rotten way for a
libertarian to go.
|11.10.05 @ 2:52PM|#
How sad.
Also, I agree with gaius marius....the antiauthoritarian outlook
isn't always the model of mental health.
|11.10.05 @ 2:53PM|#
DJ of Raleigh was pretty creative with his poetic-like posts. I
enjoyed them anyway.
A few months ago I saw Mona posting in the comments over at QandO.
Don't know if she still does though.
|11.10.05 @ 2:55PM|#
OK, now having read that article, another holy crap. (Though I'm not sure I remember a Lib. Larry from here, unfortunately.) Trying to negotiate with a dead man -- how... macabre, I guess.
|11.10.05 @ 2:56PM|#
poco,
In that way Larry showed up the state for its rampant foolishness I
suppose.
|11.10.05 @ 2:58PM|#
Being a minority ideology is never going to be
easy.
Hakluyt,
I know this...I'm one of those people that "people say two words
to" and don't interact much.
On another note, grylliade stole my idea! I was going to do
something like this (a drain for the Hit and Run dregs that just
won't go away), but I didn't get around to it yet. Procrastination
bites me in the ass again. Oh well. Thanks, grylliade, for doing
what I had intended to do at some unspecified time in the
future.
|11.10.05 @ 3:00PM|#
If the whole Jean Bart identity thing is tearing people up, why
not enlist Cavanaugha's help? Surely the records contain enough IP
address info to connect the dots.
But I like the forum idea, I've often wished this were more like a
regular forum.
|11.10.05 @ 3:01PM|#
I dunno, I'm a newcomer on here, but most of you seem at least reasonably sane. Drug addicts and heathens the lot of you, but sane.
|11.10.05 @ 3:01PM|#
Also, I agree with gaius marius....the antiauthoritarian
outlook isn't always the model of mental health.
Pfff. You two aren't the boss of me.
|11.10.05 @ 3:03PM|#
dead_elvis,
Its well know that I am one of the people who is Jean Bart. At
least I figured it was well known.
smacky,
Well, if it makes you feel any better, I like you. (Many wouldn't
this to be a ringing endorsement I realize.)
MP|11.10.05 @ 3:04PM|#
If the whole Jean Bart identity thing is tearing people up,
why not enlist Cavanaugha's help?
You need to read the infamous Cavanaugh vs. Gunnels thread from
March (?). I'm too lazy to provide the link though.
|11.10.05 @ 3:05PM|#
Hak,
Remember the "neolibertarain" business a while back?
I believe that's where it started. Here's their site:
http://www.qando.net/
|11.10.05 @ 3:05PM|#
By the way grylliade, your site's broken. It won't let me log
in.
Wait a second....you didn't smacky-proof it, did you?
Hrmph. [/kicks a pebble]
Thanks, Hak. I'd say I like you, too, but I don't want the Hit and
Run mafia knocking on my door tonight.
|11.10.05 @ 3:07PM|#
Wow. I didn't realize Pavel had passed, either. For the second time today, mortality sucks.
|11.10.05 @ 3:12PM|#
Smacky, we believe in free association. Now say that you like him, or we shall taunt you a second time!
|11.10.05 @ 3:13PM|#
Julian Sanchez posted a thread that said "Good-Bye, Pavel." At least I'm pretty sure it was Julian Sanchez. And literally, I was just thinking about his e-mail and "I really should e-mail him ba--" when I went onto this site and saw the thread. A punch in the stomach would have felt better.
|11.10.05 @ 3:13PM|#
I know this may sound weird, but a standoff? What an awesome way
to go. That's tough. I mean that with the utmost respect to the
deceased. That's like, the romanticized stuff of movies. Not that I
approve of it...it's still very sad, and we need all the
libertarians we can get.
I didn't know him, but he'll be missed.
|11.10.05 @ 3:14PM|#
All this morbid stuff has me thinking. Man, I've been on this site for a loong time now. My first comment was probably not too long after H&R went live. How long ago was that?
|11.10.05 @ 3:16PM|#
Smacky, for Chrissake, do you think we model our behavior on really bad in-school Anti-Peer-Pressure films? "Say it, Smacky. All the cool kids say it. You want to be cool, don't you?"
|11.10.05 @ 3:18PM|#
Smacky, for Chrissake, do you think we model our behavior on really bad in-school Anti-Peer-Pressure films? "Say it, Smacky. All the cool kids say it. You want to be cool, don't you?"
|11.10.05 @ 3:18PM|#
Smacky, for Chrissake, do you think we model our behavior on really bad in-school Anti-Peer-Pressure films? "Say it, Smacky. All the cool kids say it. You want to be cool, don't you?"
|11.10.05 @ 3:20PM|#
Jennifer,
Your interpretation is probably over-literal. You must have
Asperger's Syndrome.
I'm sure you'll retort with "I was just joking. Don't take me
literally."
|11.10.05 @ 3:20PM|#
Ken Schultz,
Damn. I was kidding at first...but maybe he really did smacky-proof
it. I can't get in. :(
[/the outcast of all outcasts]
|11.10.05 @ 3:23PM|#
Maybe Grylliade can start a thread about how "The Fountainhead" sucks. I just finished reading it yesterday, for the first time--yikes. How did that get raised to near-religious levels?
fyodor|11.10.05 @ 3:23PM|#
I think my own mental health is a lot better now than when I was more of a leftist/liberal. I'm less bitter and frustrated and more optimistic. Environmentalism is especially steeped in doom and gloom.
|11.10.05 @ 3:25PM|#
You must have Asperger's Syndrome.
...I mean really...I'd put money on it.
Hakluyt will someday bury all those hatchets! ...I just know it. ;
)
Smacky,
I had a problem at first too, but it was because Firefox was
inserting my first failed username. Try typing your username and
password by hand...
Did you authorize via the e-mail he sent?
dhex|11.10.05 @ 3:28PM|#
i'm glad someone finally set up a phpbb joint.
now...on with the girlbanning! marquee tags get!
|11.10.05 @ 3:29PM|#
Ken Shultz,
I didn't even get an email! :(
Fuck it...I'll defect and make my own site. Yeah, and I'm the only
one allowed on it.
It'll be the most popular site on the web. I swear....
Hak,
Who or what is 'Butters'? Is that some obscure urban reference?
|11.10.05 @ 3:29PM|#
Ken Shultz,
I'd have to have a reason to first.
fyodor,
Well, the sort of anti-capitalist, "the end is nigh"
environmentalism of liberals and leftists is certainly going to
weigh down on your mental health.
|11.10.05 @ 3:29PM|#
Damn. I was kidding at first...but maybe he really did
smacky-proof it. I can't get in. :(
I'm reminded of the "Club of No-Homers."
Well, I'm not going to complete my registration until they let
smacky in. So there.
|11.10.05 @ 3:31PM|#
smacky,
Butters is a kid from South Park who is much maligned by the other
South Park kids (its more complicated than that of course).
|11.10.05 @ 3:31PM|#
"Who or what is 'Butters'? Is that some obscure urban
reference?"
You should watch more South Park before you embarrass yourself
further ...
|11.10.05 @ 3:32PM|#
God, that would be so typical of me. Even on the web I'm a loser who can't get in the cool club. One of the contributers needs to send me to the Home for Wayward Hit and Runners. dead_elvis, you can come with me.
|11.10.05 @ 3:32PM|#
Maybe Grylliade can start a thread about how "The
Fountainhead" sucks. I just finished reading it yesterday, for the
first time--yikes. How did that get raised to near-religious
levels?
Same way the Book of Revelations got popular. Some people will
believe any damn thing that makes them feel special.
|11.10.05 @ 3:33PM|#
How did that get raised to near-religious levels?
The ending bugged me when I first read it back in the '80s. I'm a
developer now, I've worked with a handful of architects over the
last couple of years, and I swear, if any of 'em ever did that to
one of my projects, the law would be the last thing he or she had
to worry about. ...Nothin' worse than an architect that wants to
turn my investment into a fucking monument to himself.
I liked Atlas Shrugged better, especially the chapter with the
train struck in the tunnel. ...but that one bugged me too,
especially the part with the hero swinging in on a rope with a
pistol on his hip like Indiana Jones. ...I know that's the whole
Romantic hero part of her theory, but it didn't work for
me...
I guess this is the kind of thing Grylliade wants us to talk about
over at his place... Huh?
|11.10.05 @ 3:37PM|#
Hak,
Its well know that I am one of the people who is Jean Bart. At
least I figured it was well known.
You are a different person than you were as JB or GG. I like you
more now. But I am sure there are some books that I should read
before I comment further on this. Also, I am probably still a
bigot.
I'd say creating faux historical epochs (what you do) is the
more problematic.
hahahahaha indeed. Although, I'd say Gayuses problems run deeper
than that.
|11.10.05 @ 3:37PM|#
Ahh! My years of college education paid off. I just thought to
check my Spam folder..that's where grylliade's registration email
was.
*breathing a contented sigh of relief*
|11.10.05 @ 3:40PM|#
Ken--
Even the little details are just so contradictory. On the very last
page of the book you've got the super-rational Dominique walking
through a high-rise construction site in her high heels. Yeah,
that's Rationalism for you, huh?
And something I said elsewhere: Ayn Rand once said that Dominique
was herself in a bad mood. Considering what Ms. Rand's marriage was
like (she'd actually make her husband write term papers on his
thought processes or some crap like that), and considering
Dominique's portrayal of the Ideal Female Sex Role, this is how I
imagine Ayn Rand's sex life with Frank O'Connor:
"Listen, you altruistic marry-me-so-I'm-not-deported piece of shit,
I want you to dominate and subdue me, like a real man!
Right now! You've got ten minutes, loser, and if I haven't
been forced to surrender to your superior male will by then I'll
fucking emasculate you. Stop cowering like that, you
pussy!"
Since I understand the late Ms. Rand spoke with a Russian accent, I
always imagine her sounding like Natasha Fatale, too.
Windypundit|11.10.05 @ 3:45PM|#
Aw, geez, it's gettin' all sensitive in here.
I know I'm not an H&R bigshot like all the rest of you, but
I've always felt welcome at H&R...the one place where people
seem to share my values...
Sniff...I love you guys, man...you too smacky...
|11.10.05 @ 3:46PM|#
In the interest of pedantry, and Jay Ward worship, Natasha Fatale was, in fact, Pottsylvanian. (Insert smiley face here.)
|11.10.05 @ 3:46PM|#
kwais,
Well, I am the same person as far as I know. That I wasn't the only
person who was part of Jean Bart is likely why Jean Bart is such an
enigma to so many.
|11.10.05 @ 3:49PM|#
kwais,
But I am sure there are some books that I should read before I
comment further on this.
You want a list or something? :)
|11.10.05 @ 3:51PM|#
Cool site, I just registered, and I saw some of the other
members, including Smacky.
I would like to see something where there can be certain topics,
and you can post your 1 comment on it. Say for examble the
"FairTax", or a book, or a law,or something like that. So these
topics would not be time sensitive. So I would read a book, or
discover an idea, and I could quickly look up other members
opinions of it.
It would not be a debate, just a members review. So there wouldn't
be a million posts about abortion or the death penalty, just one
post per person.
whaddaya think of that idea?
|11.10.05 @ 3:52PM|#
"Listen, you altruistic marry-me-so-I'm-not-deported piece
of shit, I want you to dominate and subdue me, like a real man!
Right now! You've got ten minutes, loser, and if I haven't been
forced to surrender to your superior male will by then I'll fucking
emasculate you. Stop cowering like that, you pussy!"
Ha! That's the picture I have too. ...I know some O People who've
done the research and insist it wasn't like that. How would they
know?
...I've known a lotta guys who've had women treat them that way.
...who've actually had women say things like that. Typically, it
happens when a guy is young and poor and his girl wants to get
married. Whenever I've heard even a little of that, I've always
handled it with my own personal coin-flip rule. ...The coin-flip
rule has never led me astray.
|11.10.05 @ 3:57PM|#
Well, I am the same person as far as I know. That I wasn't
the only person who was part of Jean Bart is likely why Jean Bart
is such an enigma to so many.
So there was more than one of you? Well you seem more personable
than the collective was. More personable now than you were as the
best JB. But I guess the correct way to figure out how much more
personable you are would be to add up all the JB personalities, and
then devide them by the number of personalities. Then you would
have the median with which to compare.
|11.10.05 @ 3:57PM|#
You want a list or something? :)
Come to think of it, Hak, yes. Please, once and for all, list the
books that everyone needs to read before we embarass ourselves
further.
Seriously. I've already read From Dawn To Decadence so
that I may further bask in the light of Gaius' approval. For
fairness sake, I should probably show you the same
consideration.
|11.10.05 @ 3:58PM|#
Jennifer,
I liked "The Fountainhead," but you've got to have an appreciation
for 1)heavy-handed agit-prop and 2) trainwrecks. Also, an English
major background that teaches you how to experience a text as an
artifact is helpful.
It reminded me of so-called "outsider art," in that it juxtaposed
flashes of artistic brilliance with amateurishness, and in how it
drew attention to its author's obvious insanity, while creating an
entire world in which that insanity was the center of the
universe.
|11.10.05 @ 3:59PM|#
Are trolls invited to grylliade's party?
Also... I believe the trainwrecks were in Atlas Shrugged,
joe. Unless you're speaking metaphorically, that is.
|11.10.05 @ 4:00PM|#
Ken--
But for someone like Ayn Rand to insist that
female-dominated-by-strong-male is the only proper, rational
relationship--Ayn Rand, for fuck's sake--Jesus! Was she
aware of the contradiction? Or did she honestly have herself
fooled? Probably the latter, which in turn casts doubt on just how
rational she was.
And she writes this whole big whiny book complaining about
unnecessary, purely decorative architectural flourishes on
buildings, and then has no problem with a heroine wearing high
heels and no hard hat to a construction site. Uh huh. No internal
contradictions there.
I want that missing day of my life back. And I know I can't have
it.
|11.10.05 @ 4:03PM|#
Which reminds me, joe, after you laid into someone not too long
ago about the differences between Yakov Smirnoff's paintings and
Social Realist art*, there's a book out you might enjoy called
American Gothic, about the Grant Wood painting, its
inspiration, creation and history, its appropriation by both the
right- and left-wings over the years for different purposes, and
its replication throughout popular culture. It's a quick read,
really interesting.
*Could this sentence exist anywhere else in the universe?
|11.10.05 @ 4:04PM|#
kwais,
So there was more than one of you?
Yes. Some people suspected that as I recall.
Heh. I've never been very personable. That's just not me.
|11.10.05 @ 4:05PM|#
Fuck it. My boyfriend's a foot taller than I am and outweighs me
by a hundred pounds, so I'm going to go invent this entire damned
philosophy and insist, among other things, that the only proper
romantic relationship is one where the female towers over the male.
And I'll insist with a straight face that I never contradict
myself. And if you say otherwise I'll throw you out of my
Collective. Viva my rationalism.
I actually found this book worse than Atlas Shrugged, in some ways.
At least with Atlas I could understand why Rand was so furious.
|11.10.05 @ 4:05PM|#
It just occured to me: H&R now faces competition.
And there was much rejoicing by the libertarians.
|11.10.05 @ 4:06PM|#
Whenever I've heard even a little of that, I've always
handled it with my own personal coin-flip rule. ...The coin-flip
rule has never led me astray.
Ken,
What's the coin flip rule? I must know!
|11.10.05 @ 4:10PM|#
I only caught the tail-end of Jean Bart. Maybe Gunnels disposed
of him.
And she writes this whole big whiny book complaining about
unnecessary, purely decorative architectural flourishes on
buildings
Thanks for the warning - now I know I won't read it. I have nothing
but contempt for the architectural "avant-garde" who inflicted the
"International Style" on the world, with its arrogant rejection of
the past. They've managed to make us incapable of building anything
very attractive anymore.
|11.10.05 @ 4:10PM|#
I just registered for the site, and there's this bizarre page
about getting "points" and everything. What? I have no idea where
to make a comment.
Smacky--
It took less than a minute for my email to arrive, and my account
is usually insanely slow. Any possibility you made a mistake in
typing in your address or something?
|11.10.05 @ 4:11PM|#
Jennifer, can I be part of this new philosophy of yours? A good portion of girls I've dated have been 6' tall.
|11.10.05 @ 4:14PM|#
I've registered and haven't recieved my email yet...it ahs been about 5 or 6 minutes...maybe I should be a little more patient.
|11.10.05 @ 4:14PM|#
Jennifer,
The line that summed up Rand's vagina problems best in "The
Fountainhead" was her description of the female labor organizer as
having "the sort of hands that would drop things all over the
kitchen."
Uh, yeah, preach to me about liberation and oppression, you
soulless fool. Shouldn't the first duty of an individualist be the
pursuit of self-awareness?
|11.10.05 @ 4:14PM|#
You're welcome to join, Steven, if you're not put off by my plans to have it be a total personality cult centered around me. And remember: no matter how many internal contradictions you think you can spot, the philosophy of Objenniferism is so tightly reasoned that if you accept one small part of it, you must accept it all! Should you think otherwise, you need to check your premises.
|11.10.05 @ 4:16PM|#
Objectivism. . . . objenniferism. . . . okay, in retrospect I rather regret having attempted that pun.
|11.10.05 @ 4:17PM|#
But for someone like Ayn Rand to insist that
female-dominated-by-strong-male is the only proper, rational
relationship--Ayn Rand, for fuck's sake--Jesus! Was she aware of
the contradiction? Or did she honestly have herself fooled?
Probably the latter, which in turn casts doubt on just how rational
she was.
The suggestion that it's the only rational relationship is
problematic. Sexuality itself is so very complicated. ...and it's
complicated by culture, age group, etc.
...but there is something to the idea that the woman in a man's
life is his ultimate social achievement. ...something to be
conquered, like a climber looking at a mountain. Rand, I think, saw
it that way, and it flows from evolutionary biology, doesn't
it?
That doesn't mean she thought that women should be subjugated. I
think she saw it as a subjugation of the willing, but success was
never final. Evolutionary biology assumes that the female of the
species will only mate with the best specimen she can find. ...at
the time, usually.
Lions totally subject themselves to a dominant male, right up until
a better one comes along. ...Have you read Henderson the Rain
King?
|11.10.05 @ 4:20PM|#
Jennifer:
http://www.grylliade.org/ looks like it uses the same code as
http://slashdot.org/. If that is true the points allow people who
log in to moderate messages up or down. For our purposes we can
probably just ignore that on his page.
|11.10.05 @ 4:20PM|#
That's cool, joe, and it's not really written with the art expert or aesthetician in mind. It just sparked a connection with me because, in discussing criticism of the painting from the left, it went into how social realism was really the only way to properly depict the poor in the midst of the Depression, and how Wood's painting was suspiciously white and nonsatirical and must therefore be reactionary, etc., etc. Interesting stuff.
|11.10.05 @ 4:20PM|#
If you want to see an example of the former, there are many, many pieces of paintings as agitprop of Stalin, or you can look at artwork in North Korea.
|11.10.05 @ 4:23PM|#
Wow. By a funny coincidence, I just happened to be running
an
electrical current through my testicles when I read Tim's
--
Oh damn. I'm on the wrong thread again. Thank goodness I can
discuss this on grylliade.org!
|11.10.05 @ 4:25PM|#
Jennifer,
On the left side of the page, under the "modules" box, there's a
"Forums" link. It took me a while to find it too.
... so I'm going to go invent this entire damned philosophy and
insist, among other things, that the only proper romantic
relationship is one where the female towers over the
male.
Does this mean that us short guys can finally have half a
chance?
|11.10.05 @ 4:28PM|#
Ken--
I've only read Atlas and Fountainhead, so I'm not familiar with
every sex scene she's done, but where did she ever portray sex as
anything other than either rough, or cold, or some variation
thereof? Even the passionate encounters had a coldness to them. I
mean, hooray for rough sex between consenting individuals and
everything, but when pretty much every "healthy" relationship is
portrayed that way I detect a theme.
It wasn't just Dominique--I stopped counting the number of
potential clients and other (male) characters in The Fountainhead
who kept "wanting to submit" to Roark's amazing whatever.
It's not that I disagree with your interpretation; it's that I
think something that might work fine in regards to one's
sex life shouldn't necessarily cover every single
aspect of that person's life.
Also, though I wasn't bothered by the first time Dominique and
Howard had sex, I was really bugged by the second time--"Hi,
Howard, I'm going to systematically try to ruin your career, and
every time I score a victory I'll come here and we'll have sex."
WTF?
|11.10.05 @ 4:29PM|#
Does this mean that us short guys can finally have half a
chance?
I wouldn't bank on it.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 4:29PM|#
Although, I'd say Gayuses problems run deeper than
that.
not as deep as that homophobia of yours, mr kwais. :)
|11.10.05 @ 4:30PM|#
Jeff Streicher,
Do you make a habit of taking every politician's description of
himself at face value? Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party in Russia
promotes anti-semitism, Russian Nationalism, aggressive militarism,
and extensive police powers. It is known as the "Liberal Democratic
Party."
|11.10.05 @ 4:31PM|#
Does this mean that us short guys can finally have half a
chance?
Assuming my philosophy attracts as many women as Rand's. . . . not
really.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 4:31PM|#
I've already read From Dawn To Decadence so that I may
further bask in the light of Gaius' approval. For fairness sake, I
should probably show you the same consideration.
excellent, mr mk. what's your synopsis?
|11.10.05 @ 4:33PM|#
I wouldn't bank on it.
Assuming my philosophy attracts as many women as Rand's. . . . not
really.
Damn!
|11.10.05 @ 4:38PM|#
So I recognize the name of everyone on Grylliade's site except "Emily Jo." Who is that?
|11.10.05 @ 4:39PM|#
I am sure that M1EK will soon be assuring us that the NAZIs didn't adopt massive welfare programs or enhance those already in place in 1933. :)
|11.10.05 @ 4:40PM|#
Gaius,
I loved it of course. I especially liked his attention to the role
of women through history. Something that is often overlooked, but
that's just one thing. I could go on and on.
It was also a nice change to read a history book that was something
other than a chronological list of horribly bloody episodes. That
was especially nice given the book I had just finished - Josephus
Flavius' Wars of the Jews: The Destruction Of Jerusalem
(book 5, I think), depressing stuff.
Barzun's self-assured writing style did remind me of someone :)
|11.10.05 @ 4:43PM|#
gaius marius,
Its the sort of crap you'd expect out of someone who subscribes to
the "Great Books" mantra.
|11.10.05 @ 4:47PM|#
Hak,
I assume you are working on the list of "Not So Great Books" we
should read.
|11.10.05 @ 4:48PM|#
gaius marius,
Of course, lashing out at the bourgeois is commonplace in this
century and the last.
|11.10.05 @ 4:49PM|#
mk,
I don't presume to make such lists. I can of make lists on certain
subjects which I think are important.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 4:49PM|#
I especially liked his attention to the role of women
through history.
it is amazing to me still that the conceit of the modernist insists
that women have been unjustly oppressed for all of time until just
the last 100 years. (then again, most people here seem to assume
that everyone was oppressed until just recently -- or are still
oppressed. :) )
i'm happy you enjoyed it. it is a brilliant work, imo.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 4:53PM|#
Of course, lashing out at the bourgeois is commonplace in
this century and the last.
they've certainly earned it, at least as much as the nobility they
ostensibly replaced, gg.
|11.10.05 @ 4:53PM|#
What Barzun reminds me of is a latter-day Heidegger or Schmitt. Loathing modernity, viewing it as crass materialism, seeking some former past era that never existed but which he pines for anyway.
Jeff P.|11.10.05 @ 4:59PM|#
It's like all those old Superman comics where Lois is determined
to prove that Clark is Superman, only to see them hanging out
together.
Also, I like that Jean Bart rhymes with Lawn Dart. No insight,
here. I just like it.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 4:59PM|#
Loathing modernity, viewing it as crass materialism, seeking
some former past era that never existed but which he pines for
anyway.
perhaps the first two -- but as to the last, gg, that's the
strawman you consistently want me to be but that i am not. i cite
history because one can learn from it; but i don't think we can or
should try to go back to it.
that being something of a nuanced position, and this being a
chatboard, i realize that few if any will ever make the
distinction. but it is important.
|11.10.05 @ 5:00PM|#
Hak,
Give me just one High Fidelity style top ten list and I'll
be happy. It could be "Top ten books to harass Gaius with" or
something. You could Shermer at the top of the list.
Gaius,
I recently found out that one of the signatories at the Seneca
Falls Convention was a mormon and practicing polygamist.
Apparently, this being the time of The Yellow Wallpaper,
there is some reason to consider the wives within polygamous mormon
marriages to be a fair site more empowered than many of their
eastern non-mormon counterparts. I had to admit that I had never
thought of it that way. Clearly, there is much for me to learn.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 5:01PM|#
i don't think we can or should try to go back to it.
in opposition, for example, to constitutional "originalists", who
would fit a dead law to their dying society.
|11.10.05 @ 5:01PM|#
Vladimir Zhirinovsky's party in Russia promotes
anti-semitism, Russian Nationalism, aggressive militarism, and
extensive police powers.
And in with all that, rather bizarrely, he was advocating that 14
year old girls lose their virginity to older men. Seriously.
|11.10.05 @ 5:06PM|#
gaius marius,
You've been asked repeatedly to periodize this supposed historical
epoch which you constantly pine for (and you do pine for it). Like
the intellectual coward that you are, you refuse to do so. A real
historian would have no problem doing this. They'd periodize,
they'd describe the factors involved, etc. You are bullshit artist
who has confused your own pining for an imagined past with a real
one and that quite frankly is all you will ever be.
As to what Heidegger and Scmitt thought (or Kittel for that
matter), you've never read them so you wouldn't know what the hell
they thought.
mk,
That's a little more manageable. Let me think on it.
|11.10.05 @ 5:07PM|#
gaius marius,
When you conjure up the nuts to periodize, etc. I'll take you
seriously. Until then, you are like any other crank that real
historians have to put up with.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 5:08PM|#
You could Shermer at the top of the list.
lol
Clearly, there is much for me to learn.
for everyone -- even gg, i'll go out on a limb to say. ;)
|11.10.05 @ 5:11PM|#
"excellent, mr mk. what's your synopsis?"
And Jennifer thought it was bad that Ayn Rand handed out
assignments to her husband...
mk,
You should be careful following gaius down that rabbit hole for the
same reason kwais shouldn't worry about his sanity. Ultimately, he
knows he's full of it. (Honestly, I mean that in the nicest
possible way.) Some of the other folks here are much more confused
in that regard.
|11.10.05 @ 5:17PM|#
Gayus,
Homophobe because I misspell your name?
I don't judge your sexuality, I am just confused by more than two
vowels hanging out together. I could have gone Gah eeh us.
Or are you relating from another thread?
|11.10.05 @ 5:18PM|#
Anyway, back to the crap which is Barzun's work. The decadence which Barzun writes of essentially boils down to the fact that people no longer act or wear the things they did in a time period he romanticizes. Folks no longer wear ties to the opera and guys no longer open doors for women (never mind that most folks never engaged in such practices to start with). TV is too ubiqitous (thus parallelling the technological determinism found in such books as "Amusing Ourselves To Death"), there is too much nudity in public life, etc. All the crap you'd expect a social conservative to say.
MP|11.10.05 @ 5:21PM|#
gaius,
Someday you'll learn do distiguish between Bork's originalism that
restricts (without any rational basis) the Constition to the moral
philosophies of the 17th century vs. Barnett's originalism, which
focuses the original meaning of words with a more concrete
definition (such as Commerce and Arms) but still leaves plenty of
elasticity for philosophical concepts such as "cruel and unusual
punishment" and "rights...retained by the people".
|11.10.05 @ 5:21PM|#
Oh, then there is Barzun's critique of contemporary violence, which seems to forget that the 20th century had a higher body count because there were more people to kill (and better ways to kill them) not because it was a more violent period. Barzun's book is supposed to be profound, but instead its a laundry list along the lines of a "Great Books" seminar spiced with the sort of tiresome, non-sensiscal rhetoric you expect out of a social conservative.
|11.10.05 @ 5:22PM|#
You should be careful following gaius down that rabbit
hole
Ah, Lewis Carroll. One of the great things about having a daughter
was getting to read Through The Looking Glass to her about
a dozen times. I think I enjoyed it more than she did.
Anyway, I've checked my schedule. I have plenty of time for the
occasional trip down a rabbit hole.
|11.10.05 @ 5:23PM|#
MP,
I've already had this argument with gaius marius and joe.
Apparently they were flat out stunned that such distinctions
existed. As if they were wholly unread on the subject and garnered
their knowledge from just the memes that were floating around on
the subject.
|11.10.05 @ 5:24PM|#
I think Libertarian Larry was before my time, but I was sorry to hear of his passing in such an awful way.
|11.10.05 @ 5:24PM|#
i've often wondered about the stability of some posters
here. the whole pathological antiauthoritarian outlook isn't
exactly a model of mental health, after all.
Perhaps I'd be more trusting of authority figures if they didn't
regularly misuse their authority.
Regardless, you aren't upset about pathological
antiauthoritarianism. You're just upset that no one here buys into
your supposedly superior authority structure.
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 5:24PM|#
(and you do pine for it)
i love how you know what is in my heart, gg. my wonder only
increases as to how you see so deeply into it while looking around
that enormous ego. :)
you want me to periodize (again, as i have in fact answered this
point before) western civility? ok.
7th-9th c origins -- charles martel, gregory the great,
charlemagne, reorganization of society from barbarism and
lawlessness, incorporation of scandinavians and germans into lawful
christian body social
10th-12th health -- the height of respublica christiana and
government of morality (though never perfect, of course)
12th-14th precursors to failure -- rcc becomes obsessed with itself
and the mundane, resorts to wider and wider persecution; rise of
the secular city state and the despot (frederick hohenstaufen) in
response to the excesses of the church
15th-16th breakdown -- wars of religion over material aspirations
of the rcc and the nobility; masses abandoning social compact with
dessicated church and nobility alike
17th-21th decline -- initial rejection of religious passion, which
results in birth of relativism, returns in the yet more unbridled
insidious form of nationalism; increasing sense of loss and ever
greater pining for a return to the old; rise of utopians; rise of
empires designed to bind by force that which cannot be attracted by
merit; ever greater fracturing of society, retreating into the
microcosm of the self.
now, forgive me -- i'm summarizing 20 years of reading and
countless historians in a few paragraphs. attack will be easy. but
you want nothign so much, i know, as something to attack -- so have
at it, gg. :)
|11.10.05 @ 5:25PM|#
Hak:
I open doors for women. However I think double doors may have a
little something to do with the practice more or less ending.
:)
|11.10.05 @ 5:28PM|#
gaius,
So your position is that Western society has been in decline for
almost 800 years?
|11.10.05 @ 5:31PM|#
"So your position is that Western society has been in decline
for almost 800 years?"
Cool, huh? 200 years of people living in filth and misery as dirt
farmers as a peak, followed by 800 years of ever improving quality
of life which constitute a fall...
|11.10.05 @ 5:38PM|#
gaius marius,
i love how you know what is in my heart, gg.
Yes, when you wax romantically for it I should just assume that you
are neutral on the subject. Ha!
you want me to periodize (again, as i have in fact answered
this point before) western civility?
Acttually you have refused repeatedly to do so, not only to me but
to other posters.
...reorganization of society from barbarism and
lawlessness...
Right. This period was no more or less barbaric or lawless than the
period prior to or following it.
...incorporation of scandinavians and germans into lawful
christian body social
Calling bloody massacres and warfare "incorporation" is rather
funny and quite Orwellian too boot.
10th-12th health -- the height of respublica christiana and
government of morality (though never perfect, of course)
Ha ha ha! Yes, massacres of Jews! The period of some of the
greatest pogroms in European history is your Respublica
Christiana! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha!
This is also a period when the break-up of Charlemagne's empire was
complete and his sons rampaged through much of Europe in an effort
to take what they could by force.
12th-14th precursors to failure -- rcc becomes obsessed with
itself and the mundane...
It was always obssessed with itself. Any decent history of its
history on the Italian peninsula demonstrates such as well as its
conflicts with vary secular leaders.
...resorts to wider and wider persecution...
As if the centuries of persecution before this were any better.
|11.10.05 @ 5:47PM|#
JDM,
See, material existance, etc. doesn't mean squat to gaius marius.
Its that we don't live in an organic, paternalistic society full of
strongmen who rule over us benignly that pisses him off.
gaius marius,
BTW, in the 15th century, which "wars of religion" are you talking
about? The minor conflicts with the Hussites and the Lollards? The
"wars of religion" as properly understood occurred in the 16th and
17th centuries. You can't even get the periodization of your claims
right.
BTW, I should note that your periodization doesn't even appear to
deal with most of the West's history, which has nothing to do with
what was going on in Germany, Britain and France - the main object
of your discussion (and Barzun's).
|11.10.05 @ 5:48PM|#
i've often wondered about the stability of some posters
here. the whole pathological antiauthoritarian outlook isn't
exactly a model of mental health, after all.
Any pathological outlook is, by definition, not the model of mental
health. The question is of course, which outlooks are
pathological?
After all, everyone posting and commenting here, (except the
stone-throwing Republicans and Democrats) are self-evidently
political cranks, yourself included. Some of us are crackpots.
(Some of the non-crank minority may have cracked pots, but along
different fault lines.) Sorting out the crackpots is a tougher
problem.
|11.10.05 @ 5:55PM|#
JDM,
When gaius marius calls the barbaric, bloody warfare against the
Germans "incorporation" your bullshit detector should go off
immediately. Charlemagne spent most of his reign at war with people
who forcefully resisted his and the Church's efforts to be included
in their dominion and that is the sort of beautiful social
relationship that gauis marius pines for. The Church and secular
leaders then went on during his supposed high point to massacre
Jews and "Saracens." His "high point" was a Europe of low
prosperity, low population density, low rates of literacy,
primitive transportation routes (far more primitive than at any
time since the time of the late Roman Republic), etc. But oh, it
was indeed a joyous time when their was a great social compact that
allowed people to kill Jews at will. When Europe couldn't defend
itself against the Magyars or the Vikings.
|11.10.05 @ 5:56PM|#
In other words, when gaius marius' model is tested against the actual historical record, it falls apart.
|11.10.05 @ 6:03PM|#
gaius marius,
BTW, I just can't get over you calling Charlemagne's wars
(sometimes genocidal in their overall pattern) against Germans and
other non-Christians "incorporation." Your statement is filled with
so much falsity its difficult to wrap one's mind around.
|11.10.05 @ 6:09PM|#
gaius,
i'm summarizing 20 years of reading and countless historians in
a few paragraphs.
I have to say that as easily as I fisked your statements I
seriously doubt this claim. I'd guess that you've read about a half
a dozen books and most of them were read to reinforce your
worldview.
|11.10.05 @ 6:34PM|#
As if they were wholly unread on the subject and garnered
their knowledge from just the memes that were floating around on
the subject.
What? whats wrong with that as long as you garner the right memes?
I don't have the time or attention span to read all those
books.
|11.10.05 @ 6:35PM|#
17th-21th decline -- initial rejection of religious passion,
which results in birth of relativism, returns in the yet more
unbridled insidious form of nationalism; increasing sense of loss
and ever greater pining for a return to the old; rise of utopians;
rise of empires designed to bind by force that which cannot be
attracted by merit; ever greater fracturing of society, retreating
into the microcosm of the self.
Gaius, perhaps you should lead by example. If you care to escape
from the microcosm of the self, you're more than welcome to come
over and do my dishes.
Cheers~
mg
|11.10.05 @ 6:36PM|#
Well, I'm glad gaius finally nailed down some specifics after
long speaking in the abstract...
Yikes. When the apocalypse comes and it's time for us Hit &
Runners to form society anew, the first person we shoot is gaius.
Agreed?
|11.10.05 @ 6:38PM|#
kwais,
The problem is that many memes are false.
Of course this is gaius marius we're talking about here. Someone
who claims that scientific inquiry is blind when it comes to
complex, non-linear systems, but who can in some fashion come to a
very concrete conclusion (and presumably unassailable in his mind)
about a complex, non-linear system like the human past.
|11.10.05 @ 6:41PM|#
mediageek,
This line was especially funny:
...rise of empires designed to bind by force that which cannot
be attracted by merit...
Sort of how European Christians dealt with non-Christians from the
4th century onward.
|11.10.05 @ 6:58PM|#
God love you Larry, you nut. Rest in peace.
http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2004/11/wake_up_and_go.shtml
|11.10.05 @ 7:12PM|#
I'd say creating faux historical epochs (what you do) is the
more problematic.
Croesus Epoch
Merovingian Epoch
Jean Bart Epoch
1st Gary Gunnels Epoch
Jason Bourne Epoch
2nd Gary Gunnels Epoch
Epoch of the Gunnels Ban
Hakluyt Epoch
Did I leave any out? :)
|11.10.05 @ 7:23PM|#
Ghost of Past,
Wow! That was quite an exchange... I'm scared. ...Please tell me
that isn't going to happen to me when I'm old.
...What do you mean it's already starting to happen?!
I think I'm gonna go down to the DMV and register as a Democrat.
...and pre-pay my registration... Wow.
|11.10.05 @ 7:38PM|#
Those are faux personages, not epochs. :)
Yes, but they appeared serially, so one could use them to mark time
in the history of Hit & Run. :)
|11.10.05 @ 7:46PM|#
too damn...,
You have a point there. Hmm, one is reminded of the various periods
of life on this planet in that case.
|11.10.05 @ 8:08PM|#
"i don't think we can or should try to go back to it.
in opposition, for example, to constitutional "originalists", who
would fit a dead law to their dying society."
Aw, yeeeeeeaaaaahhhh! Jean Gary tries to troll gaius, and gaius
troll slaps him into next week!
Boo yah!
|11.10.05 @ 8:18PM|#
joe,
I didn't troll gaius and gaius didn't slap me. Its nice to see that
you are (despite your protests otherwise) still reading my posts.
Your little clique just can't remain consistent on the whole
"ignore Hakluyt" campaign. Ha ha ha.
|11.10.05 @ 8:20PM|#
joe,
BTW, since you are reading my posts, you are invited to find a
single error in my analysis. Or you can continue your poodle
yapping from the bench.
|11.10.05 @ 8:23PM|#
So anyway, since this thread is all over the place, there's
something I've been wanting to get off my chest.
I just finished by last day at work at may job. I got a new job.
I'm no longer going to be an evil city planner. I'm now going to be
an evil town planner. And there's a very special message I'd like
to send out to someone.
Hey, "Anti-joe," also known as "Anonymous Coward" and about a dozen
other names...
You've been trying to threaten me with telling my boss that I post
during working hours for about three years now, but you are too
fucking stupid to figure out where I work in Massachusetts.
It's Lowell, bitch! Lowell, the home of the industrial revolution
in America! Lowell, American's first planned industrial city. Jesus
Christ, I've written about "Merrimack Street," I've written about
"Kirk Boott," I've written about "America's first planned
industrial city," and you've been guessing and writing things like
"the city of Fitchburg, Massachusetts" for three fucking years, and
you were never able to figure it out!
Ha ha! Were you dropped as an infant, or were you born this
stupid?
Hey, prick, my former boss was George Proakis, Chief Planner of the
City of Lowell. His boss was Matt Coggins, Director of Planning and
Development. His boss was John Cox, City Manager. Go ahead, send
those links you've been wanting to fuck me over with for the past
three fucking years - I don't care, I don't work there any
more.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa!! Fucking
idiot!!!
My new job? I'll give you a hint: I'm working in a town in New
England. Happy hunting, you shiteating piece of dog crap!
|11.10.05 @ 8:25PM|#
See, this is what I love about the hypocrisy of joe, Jennifer and thoreau. They can pretend to ignore me while also shooting across my bow from time to time. It provides them the best of both worlds really - they can ignore my withering critiques while also attacking me at the same time. Its the basest form of intellectual cowardice I can think of.
|11.10.05 @ 8:31PM|#
That was beautiful, joe. The only thing that would have made it
more complete was your two former superiors' email addresses, just
for the pure fun of it.
(Hoists glass of Macallan 18-year-old to joe.)
|11.10.05 @ 8:32PM|#
joe,
...the home of the industrial revolution in America!
While the Lowell mills were important, they by themselves were not
the home of the industrial revolution in the U.S. Unless of course
you are ignorant enough to assume that textile manufacturing was
all that was part of the industrial revolution (and Lowell by
itself wasn't the length and breadth of even that industry). You
are leaving out paper making in the Berkshires, gun-making in
Springfield and Harper's Ferry, etc.
Lowell, American's first planned industrial city.
If you read the monographs on Lowell you'll find out quickly that
the planning went by the boards soon enough after first the New
England women and then the Irish, etc. started actually working
there.
BTW, I have to admit that was one of the most childish posts you
have ever written here.
MP|11.10.05 @ 8:39PM|#
joe,
Don't think you can hide from us very long. I never bothered to
look until now, but the third link when Googling "joe boyle
planner" was this.
And when we find you, we will fart in your general direction.
Viking Moose|11.10.05 @ 8:40PM|#
Good luck at your new job, joe!
Hak: c'est la vie, tu sais....
Phil: cheers! (will join you with some Noah's Mill Bourbon in about
two hours).
amicalment a tous,
VM
|11.10.05 @ 8:47PM|#
I hope your old bosses already knew you posted here.
City planning is a small field, I'm guessing, and word gets around.
Perhaps an email to TCav to pull that post is in order.
|11.10.05 @ 8:56PM|#
Hak (Since I'm too drunk to follow any particular set of rules,
my own included),
Lowell was not, of course, the first location of a textile mill in
the New World - that would be Pawtucket, Rhode Island.
Howevever, Lowell was the home of the first industrial corporation.
Prior to the "Lowell model," an individual, or a partership, would
use his own money to build a mill, and would then operate it for
profit. The size and capacity of the mill would be limited by the
resources he posessed.
The Lowell system was different - a number of businessmen came
together, and raised capital from outside sources, to build a mill
in Woburn. The profits, and additional capital raised from other
sources, were then used to build not just another mill, but to
found a city, and build multiple mill complexes there. The
operations were directed by employees of the corporation, rather
than the miller himself raising capital to construct a facility to
own and operate by himself.
In fact, the corporation didn't really make its money by churning
out textiles. Like modern mall developers, they built a mill,
operated it for a profit for a couple years, then sold it at a
profit, distributing some of the money among themselves, and using
the rest to repeat the effort again, and again and again.
So, what I'm trying to say, is that I really don't need you to
inform about Lowell, about the role it played in the industrial
development of this country, about how the owners operated their
business, or about anything else remoted related to the
subject.
Mmm-kay? Why don't you go back to getting your ass kicked by the
guy with the Etruscan fetish?
|11.10.05 @ 9:15PM|#
All,
Whereas I have been liberated from the oppression of lowly
Neighborhood Plannerdom, and taken into the bosom of a municipality
that both appreciates, compensates, and calls upon my abilities to
their rightful degree, I expect that I will unable to maintain my,
admittedly, prodigious rate of commentary upon taking up my new
duties this Thanksgiving week.
It has been quite enjoyable to operate within the top tier of
Reason-er-atti for the past few dozen months, but after another
week of time-wasting bliss, I fear that I will be reduced to
posting on evenings and weekends, with only the merest one-offs
during lunchtimes to tide me over. Alas, I join the ranks of the
second tier.
M1EK, it now falls to you to prevent this raucus cacaphony from
degenerating into a soporific mutual admiration society, bloated
with its own unquestioned and self-serving assumptions. I, myself,
began my Hit & Run career as a one-lining, libertoid-mocking
troll, and your output of late has convinced me that I am leaving
the liberal-gadfly duties in capable hands.
|11.10.05 @ 9:20PM|#
MP,
"And when we find you, we will fart in your general
direction."
Is there someone else I can talk to?
|11.10.05 @ 9:20PM|#
Congratulations, Joe. I suppose the anti-Joe will have to find someone else to threaten now.
|11.10.05 @ 9:26PM|#
Congrads joe.
I have to work with planners, and I wish they were all as smart as
you.
|11.10.05 @ 9:38PM|#
M1EK, you realize that if you don't make joe proud and fill his shoes, Jennifer and I will be the most liberal people among the regulars :)
|11.10.05 @ 9:39PM|#
joe,
Hak (Since I'm too drunk to follow any particular set of rules,
my own included)
I'd say you are too dishonest to follow your own rules
actually.
Lowell was not, of course, the first location of a textile mill
in the New World - that would be Pawtucket, Rhode
Island.
Its not an issue of whether it was the first textile mill, or the
first textile town, in the New World. Your claim was very specific.
That the industrial revolution in the U.S. (America!) started in
Lowell. Which if flat out wrong. Historians of technology would
have a field day with your remark. But hey, why defend your
statement when all you need do is shift the locus of debate to
something more convenient, huh?
Howevever, Lowell was the home of the first industrial
corporation.
Which again is hardly the same claim as what you originally stated.
In other words, you have written nothing which backs up your
original statement.
In fact, the corporation didn't really make its money by
churning out textiles. Like modern mall developers, they built a
mill, operated it for a profit for a couple years, then sold it at
a profit, distributing some of the money among themselves, and
using the rest to repeat the effort again, and again and
again.
Which is again inapposite re: your original claim. As inapposite as
if you were to give us a disquisition on basket weaving.
That you wrote nothing which actually undermines or contests my
statements is just par for the course for you. Anyway, good
riddance to you. I'm happy to see you leave.
Why don't you go back to getting your ass kicked by the guy
with the Etruscan fetish?
*yawn* First of all, Gaius Marius wasn't an Etruscan (the Etruscans
were long gone before he entered the scene), and second, our gauis
marius has as yet to kick my ass. You'd like for him too of course.
It would fit your craven emotional needs and what not. But as you
are well aware, and as you have stated yourself, I am brilliant,
and far above his (or your) pedestrian abilities.
BTW, having visited Lowell in the last year I can say if that town
is a exhibit of your talents, then they are good to be rid of you.
What a shitpile.
|11.10.05 @ 9:41PM|#
Hakluyt,
My last post was too harsh as a response to yours. Once again, you
demonstrate a remarkable degree of knowledge about an obscure
subject, but there are two minor factual errors on your part to
clear up.
First of all, saying "papermaking the Berkshires" isn't quite
right. Chicopee and Holyoke were in the Connecticut River valley,
while Fitchburg (the home of the second paper mill in New England),
Miller's Falls, and Turner's Falls were in the Nashua and Miller's
River valleys, well east of the Berkshires.
Second, the New England women were the original labor force in the
mills, and their habitation in the city was an integral part of its
development within the original city plan. They occupied the
original double-chimneyed dormatories called for in the
corporation's original patriarchal vision, not the hellish laissez
faire tenements that sprouted up as the capitalist, mercantile city
was laid over the original plan. Had you said "Irish and then the
French-Canadians," your statement would be correct.
|11.10.05 @ 9:43PM|#
joe,
...taken into the bosom of a municipality that both
appreciates, compensates, and calls upon my abilities to their
rightful degree...,/i>
You mean a town hired you. Wow, joe got hired by a town, that must
mean that the entire town wants him there. Not.
|11.10.05 @ 9:47PM|#
Congrats on the new job, joe.
And shame on anybody who threatened to "tell on you."
Sorry to hear that you don't expect to be able to post so much in
the future. Perhaps a worthy successor will arise in your place.
:)
|11.10.05 @ 9:49PM|#
OK, now I can be harsh.
The Industrial Revolution was not merely the consequence of the
construction of industrial facilities, which dated back to the
1770s, but of the growth of the industrial corporation. Had
operations along the model of the Slater Mill simply become more
and more common, the process wouldn't have been revolutionary, but
merely evolutionary. It was the vast growth of potential brought
about by the corporate model that was the revolutionary
spark.
You would do well to consider, when you encounter a point you don't
immediately concur with, the possibility that it is you who isn't
grasping the extent of the issue.
I suggest you come to Lowell, spend a few hours touring the
National Park and reading up on the subject, and listening to the
Parks Department employees, before you embarrass yourself
further.
"First of all, Gaius Marius wasn't an Etruscan"
No, or course not, but "Etruscan fetish" has a certain phoenetic
lilt that "Latin fetish" or "Roman fetish" lacks. It's the
additional syllable, and the hard T and SC sounds.
"What a shitpile." I prefer "work in progress." You should have
seen it five years ago.
|11.10.05 @ 9:54PM|#
Cower in abject fear, joe, before the might wrath of the
Historians of Technology!!
Which would, in point of fact, be a SUPER COOL name for an indie
rock band . . . like inspired by the techno-geekery of Devo, but
with the ironic slacker ethos of Pavement, and the energy and
weirdness of the Pixies. Also, the drummer is a chick.
|11.10.05 @ 9:57PM|#
joe,
Once again, you demonstrate a remarkable degree of knowledge
about an obscure subject, but there are two minor factual errors on
your part to clear up.
Its not obscure for historians of technology or labor historians
for that matter. Its well trodden over ground for them. Check out
their work sometime.
First of all, saying "papermaking the Berkshires" isn't quite
right.
Actually, it is quite right. See the classic: Most Wonderful
Machine by Judith Mcgaw (it concerns paper-making - first rag
paper - from 1801 to the latter part of the 19th century). I get to
shake my head and laugh now. I'm still waiting for you demonstrate
your original claim - that the industrial revolution in America!
started in Lowell, Ma.
Second, the New England women were the original labor force in
the mills, and their habitation in the city was an integral part of
its development within the original city plan.
No kidding. The "mill girls" had their own newspaper and
everything. See the nice collection of letters in: Thomas Dublin's
Farm To Factory as well as his classic Women at
Work. All of these books sit on my bookshelf and have been
read by me on several occassions.
They occupied the original double-chimneyed dormatories called
for in the corporation's original patriarchal vision...
Which if you had read Dublin's work turned out never to live up to
that vision at all. Planning went by the wayside very quickly once
the women started to run the places as they saw fit.
Had you said "Irish and then the French-Canadians," your
statement would be correct.
That's what the "etc." was for you dope. Here, let me quote myself
for further elucidation: If you read the monographs on Lowell
you'll find out quickly that the planning went by the boards soon
enough after first the New England women and then the Irish,
etc. started actually working there.
Thanks for correcting my non-error.
Jason Sonenshein|11.10.05 @ 9:59PM|#
I just finished by last day at work at may job. I got a new
job. I'm no longer going to be an evil city planner. I'm now going
to be an evil town planner.
Joe, congratulations and happy belated
World Town Planner Day!
|11.10.05 @ 10:04PM|#
Nice dodge, Hak - when it's pointed out that papermaking was
neither unique to the Berkshires, nor did the region have a
particular dominance in the trade, you respond by noting that there
WAS SO papermaking in the Berkshires, and expect your snide tone to
distract people from the factual point.
And no, the development of their own newspapers and other social
institutions did not alter the plan of the city - that was to come
with their replacement by immigrant labor, and the housing of that
labor in private rental housing. Oh, wait, you didn't actually
contradict my point, so much as make a different, unrelated point,
and hope nobody noticed. As usual.
FYI, because it's clearly not your native tongue, I'll point out
that appending "etc." to the end of a list does not, in English,
mean "remove the first item from this list."
|11.10.05 @ 10:08PM|#
Jason,
Screw that. There's no way I'm reviewing the entire world's
subdivision submittals.
M1EK, "urban planners who want to force people to live in mile-high
warrens and recycle their own waste and probably forcibly infect
everyone with teh gay" Shhhhhhh! The ormal-nay eople-pay are going
to find out!
"I'm afraid I can't fill most of your planning shoes, though, since
I think most of our problems would be solved by eliminating zoning
and letting the market sort stuff out." Actually, I do, too, and so
do most of the planners I've worked with. It's a tough sell to the
politicians, though, but great journeys beging with a single
step.
|11.10.05 @ 10:10PM|#
OK, Phil, but if they're the Historians of Technology, they've got to have a mono-phonic synth. Deal?
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 10:11PM|#
See, material existance, etc. doesn't mean squat to gaius
marius. Its that we don't live in an organic, paternalistic society
full of strongmen who rule over us benignly that pisses him
off.
actually, it's rather that none of us are happy. anyone here claim
to be happy with their life? their society? their leadership?
themselves? very few, i suspect (excepting of course gg, who will
claim to be as happy as anyone ever has been because he has to in
order to win an argument -- although the spirit of his posts here
and indeed that very need to win betray a spirit that is decidedly
something other than happy....)
looked at in this way, i think it becomes more apparent that,
whatever technique has accomplished in the western world, it has
done as compensation to -- in alleviation of -- problems that have
mounted against it. each of these corresponds to a loss of
happiness, and each technique in response offers less a moral
solution to the problem than a massaging of its symptoms -- and, in
so doing, creating other problems in mitigating the original. this
is apparent in any meaningful survey of the history of western art
and literature over the period in question (and there are many to
choose from -- i prefer northrop frye), as it traces an arc from
religious/mythological to heroic to mimetic to ironic, as the
position of man in art evolved from superhuman to human to a rat in
a cage.
So your position is that Western society has been in decline for
almost 800 years?
it's quite difficult to people acclimated to a technological
society of scientism and its outlook to understand this change,
taught to believe that improved technique -- longer lives, more
machinery, faster change, economic advantage -- are the object of
life and the supposed pursuit of happiness. but once the idea that
these pursuits are merely a surrogate for a pursuit of actual human
happiness that has been long abandoned is grasped, it explains much
about the western world and the layers of anxiety, depression,
escapism, detachment and profound irony that permeate postmodern
existence.
|11.10.05 @ 10:17PM|#
joe,
The Industrial Revolution was not merely the consequence of the
construction of industrial facilities, which dated back to the
1770s, but of the growth of the industrial corporation.
The Second Industrial Revolution started in the 1770s and stretched
into the 1830s. That's not a particularly astounding claim to make
as it is the standard demarcation point for most historians of
technology. Steam power and machinery powered by it (be they
involved in mines, tectiles or what not) are at the heart of the
event not the micro-economics or organizational structure of the
particular firms associated with it (especially since such changes
in organization structure would only come about on any large scale
until the Third Industrial Revolution of the mid-19th century). Of
course factories (as early as the 1720s if I recall from lectures),
machine tools, etc. all preceded the 1770s.
You would do well to consider, when you encounter a point you
don't immediately concur with, the possibility that it is you who
isn't grasping the extent of the issue.
You would do well to consider that other people might know far more
about a subject than you do.
I suggest you come to Lowell, spend a few hours touring the
National Park and reading up on the subject...
Been there and done that. Last time I was there the Parks
Department employees ended up listening to me and telling me that I
knew more than they did. Of course I know more than they do. I've
read far more about it than they have. But hey, I only took a
course in graduate school on the Second Industrial revolution, what
the hell do I know?
Here are the classic questions on the Second Industrial
Revolution:
Why the 18th century?
Why Britain and not France?
Why steam power?
Why the particular industries involved (namely and primarily
mining, metallurgy and textiles)?
No, or course not...
Right. :)
|11.10.05 @ 10:18PM|#
OK, Phil, but if they're the Historians of Technology,
they've got to have a mono-phonic synth. Deal?
Oui, absolutement!
I am a big, big fan of the mono synth. A band I used to be in in
Cleveland, the guitar player had an old ARP mono synth that we used
on a couple of songs. Great stuff. It was like being in The Cars.
Only our singer . . . was a chick!!!
|11.10.05 @ 10:20PM|#
She was also, in her day job, a high-school German teacher with a Masters in German Lit from American University. That led us to be able to cover "99 Luftballons" in German, plus we got to use the synth for it.
|11.10.05 @ 10:23PM|#
Nice dodge, Hak - when it's pointed out that papermaking was
neither unique to the Berkshires, nor did the region have a
particular dominance in the trade...
I never claimed that it was dominant or unique, so I don't see why
you are harping on that issue. Nice dodge by you though. Indeed,
the reason I brought up the Berkshires was not claim they were
unique but to show that Lowell wasn't the starting ground by itself
of the industrial revolution in America. My lord.
And no, the development of their own newspapers and other
social institutions did not alter the plan of the
city...
Their very behavior did. But hey, I'll take the foremost historian
of the Lowell mill girls over you any day.
...that was to come with their replacement by immigrant labor,
and the housing of that labor in private rental housing.
The Lowell mill girls had long changed the pattern of living before
the immigrants came. They continually challenged the rules under
which they were supposed to live. This is why labor historians
study them so much - because they are one of the first examples of
organized labor in American history. This is common knowledge.
|11.10.05 @ 10:27PM|#
Phil,
Wee-ooo-wee-ooo-wee-ooo-weeeeeeeeeeeee...
I played around with an old Yamaha in electronic music synthesis as
an undergrad. It was a pretty cool lab - a monophonic Abbey Road
era synth below a Moog next to a tricked out Mac - it was like an
electro-pop museum.
Of course, you're far too dishonest to impersonate a monophonic
synthesizer yourself.
*chuckle*
|11.10.05 @ 10:28PM|#
joe,
Grow a backbone.
gaius marius,
actually, it's rather that none of us are happy.
If you are claiming that happiness was abounding in the time of the
"Venerable Bede" then you are off your rocker. Read his laundry
list of woe and sorrow some time.
|11.10.05 @ 10:28PM|#
joe, the very last one will be well worth reading. Maybe the the
Parisian rioters will do us a favor and destroy a fiber optic
line.
Yeah, I broke the taboo and I don't care.
Remember, joe, join us at grylliade's site!
|11.10.05 @ 10:31PM|#
"Their very behavior did."
"The Lowell mill girls had long changed the pattern of living
before the immigrants came."
None of which has to do with the issue of the city's plan. The
"mill girls" were required to live within the housing provided for
them by the manufacturing companies - housing constructed in
conformity with the original city plan.
Do you even know what city planning is?
gaius marius|11.10.05 @ 10:32PM|#
So your position is that Western society has been in decline
for almost 800 years?
to address the question using a different example, mr david -- is
it not fairly clear that the hellenic world which emerged from
aegean post-minoan barbarism in the 9th c bc broke down in the
peloponnesian war in the 5th c bc, with athens abdicating her moral
leadership in the face of advancing spartanism? and that rome,
while it won vast territory and made great technical and economic
leaps as a spartan state, was dessicating from the inside out from
the 3rd c bc onward?
i think we're too quick -- due to our parallel condition -- to
accord greatness to technical societies without questioning the
nature of greatness.
|11.10.05 @ 10:33PM|#
"actually, it's rather that none of us are happy."
Why is it that you think that everyone is unhappy? Or that everyone
*was* happy?
Maybe if you weren't so negative all the time.
|11.10.05 @ 10:33PM|#
Since we're going for 500 posts, I'll post this map in an effort
to draw out Lonewolf, er, Lonewacko:
http://www.migrationinformation.org/FB_maps/Mexico.pdf
|11.10.05 @ 10:33PM|#
Ooh, grylliade's site! I didn't bother joining from work, in
case it was IP-address based.
Here's hoping I don't get "smacky'ed!"
|11.10.05 @ 10:34PM|#
thoreau,
As you make thinly veiled allusions to my statements all the time I
realize that you continue to read them. I know you want me. :)
|11.10.05 @ 10:39PM|#
joe,
None of which has to do with the issue of the city's
plan.
Sure it does. Take a gander sometime at the rules the Lowell girls
were supposed to live by. Then compare it to the demands made by
the Lowell girls. You'll find that they were constantly bitching
about nature of the regime that they were under and were able in
many instances to change some of the more egregious rules. Also,
read Dublin's collection of Lowell girl letters. Their complaints
about the regime and how it stifled their freedom, abused them,
etc. were legion. Kind of funny how its me defending organized
labor. Then again, in this instance these women were actually
self-organizing. I mean my goodness, they held strikes, organized
marches, etc. against the Lowell program, and they were able to see
some reform of it.
Rich Ard|11.10.05 @ 10:40PM|#
I'm generally happy, gaius - I have a smiley
little family, I love my job, I have a house full of books. As John
Prine said,
"Blow up your TV
Throw away your paper
Move to the country
Live on the farm
Plant a little garden
Eat a lot of peaches
You can find Jesus
On your own"
Now, I haven't found Christ behind my Couch, but I sure do grin a
lot.
Do I expect to be happy with my society and leaders? Not
particularly, but those groups are only masses of individuals, and
I don't expect to be able to alter their minds to suit my desire.
Maybe you're right, and our civilization is falling in upon itself
- but who gives a shit, gaius? Maybe in another
hundred thousand years some people will get it right. :)
|11.10.05 @ 10:42PM|#
Rich Ard,
In the end the Earth will be consumed by the Sun. Hopefully we've
gotten off this rock by that time.
|11.10.05 @ 10:43PM|#
LOL!
All the bitching about city planning Hak engages in, he doesn't
even know what the term refers to!
They were all, like, doing stuff that the city founders didn't PLAN
on, so they were, like, messing up the CITY PLAN!
Nighty night, son. Tomorrow, I'll be too sober to care, but
tonight, your ignorance is a real treat.
|11.10.05 @ 10:45PM|#
joe,
If you are going to engage me in conversation, then do so. If not,
don't do so. But pick one or the other and quite pussyfooting
around about it. Shit, if I told someone I wasn't going to to talk
to them, about them, etc., again, I'd at least have the nuts to
follow through on such a promise.
Rich Ard|11.10.05 @ 10:47PM|#
And if we haven't, Hakluyt, maybe
somewhere else somebody (or whatever they'll call themselves) will
figure it out. Either way, I'll be long dead and decomposed, and
won't be worrying too much about it.
Also, I think that's the first solid burn I've seen
joe get on you. Way to go out with a bang, Mr.
Small Municipality Planner.
|11.10.05 @ 10:51PM|#
joe,
The plan in the case of Lowell was more than just the lay out of
the city, its physical structures, etc. and you should be well
aware of that. Then again, the Lowell women also had a problem even
with these things, as they housing itself was neither well heated
nor was it designed to properly feed such large groups of women. I
suppose my problem is that I know far more about the issue and have
to keep on bringing you up to speed.
Jennifer,
Ha ha ha. :)
|11.10.05 @ 10:53PM|#
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
You been out ridin' fences for so long now
Oh, you're a hard one
But I know that you got your reasons
These things that are pleasin' you
Can hurt you somehow
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you
(let sombody love you)
You better let somebody love you
before it's too late
|11.10.05 @ 10:55PM|#
Rich Ard,
That joe thinks that how Lowell was planned included simply its
physical layout is more a testament to his own ignorance than
anything. A lot more went into it than that, indeed, it had to,
because it was the planning of their social lives which was a means
to get families to commit their female children in the first
place.
|11.10.05 @ 10:55PM|#
Hast du etwas Zeit f�r mich
Dann singe ich ein Lied f�r dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Denkst du vielleicht g'rad an mich
Singe ich ein Lied f�r dich
Von 99 Luftballons
Und das sowas von sowas kommt
99 Luftballons
Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont
Hielt man f�r Ufos aus dem All
Darum schickte ein General
'Ne Fliegerstaffel hinterher
Alarm zu geben wenn's so w�r
Dabei war'n dort am Horizont
Nur 99 Luftballons
99 D�senflieger
Jeder war ein grosser Krieger
Hielten sich f�r Captain Kirk
Das gab ein grosses Feuerwerk
Die Nachbarn haben nichts gerafft
Und f�hlten sich gleich angemacht
Dabei schoss man am Horizont
Auf 99 Luftballons
99 Kriegsminister
Streichholz und Benzinkanister
Hielten sich f�r schlaue Leute
Witterten schon fette Beute
Riefen: Krieg und wollten Macht
Man wer h�tte das gedacht
Das es einmal so weit kommt
Wegen 99 Luftballons
Wegen 99 Luftballons
99 Luftballons
99 Jahre Krieg
Liessen keinen Platz f�r Sieger
Kriegsminister gibt's nicht mehr
Und auch keine D�senflieger
Heute zieh ich meine Runden
Seh' die Welt in Tr�mmern liegen
Hab' 'nen Luftballon gefunden
Denk' an dich und lass' ihn fliegen
|11.10.05 @ 11:01PM|#
joe,
BTW, when you use words like "patriarchal vision" its a pretty dead
giveaway that you are discussing more than just the physical plan
of Lowell.
|11.10.05 @ 11:02PM|#
Anyway, I'm sure joe is fairly glad to get away with half of his skin in place. He was more than a tasty morsel on this occassion.
|11.10.05 @ 11:06PM|#
So anyway, that new site of Grylliade's--very nice, it is. Nice nice nice. Well worth a thread dedicated to the discussion of it. Mmm-hmm.
|11.10.05 @ 11:14PM|#
Ken Shultz,
Here's a song just for you. :^)
Sometimes it�s hard to be a woman
Giving all your love to just one man
And if you love him
O be proud of him
�cause after all he�s just a man
Stand by your man
Give him two arms to cling to
And something warm to come to
When nights are cold and lonely
Stand by your man
And tell the world you love him
Keep givin� all the love you can
Baby, stand by your man
|11.10.05 @ 11:23PM|#
*sign*
I may end up using "Semiapies", if I can't get "Eric the .5b". No
doubt there will be endless confusion, but hey.
|11.10.05 @ 11:44PM|#
For what it's worth, joe, the only post I can find on a Google search on Hit and Run mentioning "the city of Fitchburg, Mass" was me trying to be a smartass. I had no idea you had some stalker threatening your job (either I missed it or it was before my time), but I apologize if it added to any anxiety you may have had regarding that wacko.
jadagul|11.10.05 @ 11:58PM|#
Gaius Marius: You asked how many of us can really say that we're
happy. You asked this before, but I didn't find the thred until it
was dead already, so I'll answer here: I am.
Of course things could be better-and of course the government could
be set up better. But I'm alive, and that's enough for me. I'll
only be around for a brief while; so I'll lean back and enjoy the
ride.
There's a bright golden haze on the meadow,
There's a bright golden haze on the meadow.
The corn is as high as an elephant's eye,
An' it looks like it's climbin' clear up to the sky...
Sandy|11.11.05 @ 12:06AM|#
joe:
That was a thoroughly immature post in reply to the Anti-Joe.
I loved it.
grylliade|11.11.05 @ 12:36AM|#
I may end up using "Semiapies", if I can't get "Eric the
.5b". No doubt there will be endless confusion, but hey.
I'm trying to figure that out, since I've registered at other phpBB
boards with spaces in my name. I can't for the life of me find a
place in the options that either allows or disallows spaces. Same
with the period. No idea what's going on here. *sighs* Looks like
I'll be teaching myself SQL and PHP as I go. Not a bad way to
learn.
|11.11.05 @ 12:42AM|#
Everytime I read a post by Gaius I can't help but think of "Debbie Downer" on SNL. Everyone gets depressed now and then, but geez Gaius, how do you drag yourself out of bed in the morning?
|11.11.05 @ 12:48AM|#
As for Gaus's question.
I like my car, I like my house, I like the city I live in. I like
my looks, I feel I serve an important purpose in life, and that I
have a positive effect on most those around me.
I have travelled the world far and wide, and I understand that I
really won the lottery as far as which country to be from and
of.
I am not happy all the time, only idiots are. I enjoy the sadness,
the anger and rage, the heartbreaks, and feelings of longing. I
enjoy the full range of emotions.
I guess I have been down and hungry before, and I recognize even
when I am sad I know that it could be much worse and is worse for
99.9% of the population, and has been worse at all times in history
previos to this.
Not that we are as great as we could be, nor that we are advancing
as fast as we should be.
And regard to Gayuses criticisms of our culture, it is because of
everything he argues against that we are headed the right direction
at all. God bless self determination.
|11.11.05 @ 1:15AM|#
Stevo, you going to join us on grylliade's site?
It's a fine site, Stevo, and would be made finer by your
presence.
Thanks -- I'm trying!
I registered, but haven't received the e-mail you're supposed to
get yet.
I suspect it's because the only e-mail address I currently have
access to is through work.... and the corporate firewall is
probably blocking the essential e-mail.
So I'll have to set up my new computer at home ... after I get my
home office set up ... and then get my home Internet connection set
up ... which I can start on this weekend if I don't have to work
this weekend ... might take a while. :(
|11.11.05 @ 1:21AM|#
kwais,
Well, you people are always arguing that I know many "obscure"
historical and philosophical subjects...
|11.11.05 @ 1:34AM|#
anyone here claim to be happy with their life? their
society? their leadership? themselves?
Good God, yes!
Certainly, there are plenty of things that could be improved with
my life and my self. But that's reason for hope, not despair. If I
didn't have anywhere to grow I'd go nuts.
I'm a little less happy with my society and a lot less happy with
many of those who claim to be my leaders, but I also have a lot of
room here to ignore and withdraw from what I don't like. There is
also some opportunity here to try to make improvements if I choose
to expend my energy and thoughts doing so -- if only by blathering
away in a small portion of the blogosphere.
And let's not undervalue mere material progress. I problem have a
lot more time to think about philosophy, culture and politics -- if
I choose -- than my ancestors did, because I'm not distracted by
worms or an abcessed tooth or the pox.
|11.11.05 @ 1:36AM|#
I PROBABLY have a lot more time ...
(And speaking of material progress, I think the squirrel in the
Reason server closet is faltering again...)
|11.11.05 @ 7:33AM|#
Well, um, well, um, well, um...
Plan can mean more than one thing.
Ha ha ha! pwned!
Hey, Ken, when you deal with city planners, you talk about the
rules for the living arrangements of workers in housing owned by
industrial corporations, right?
*snicker*
|11.11.05 @ 7:58AM|#
joe, I must confess that I am confused by what you call city
planning. Town planning in Massachusetts goes back to the 1630's,
does it not? And if you want to discuss the role of a industrial
corporation in the planning and development of a town wouldn't you
have to start with Lynn?
GinSlinger
|11.11.05 @ 8:06AM|#
I'd love to stay and chat some more, but I've got to go to my
temporary consulting gig.
I'm working with a regional planning commission. We're drawing up
regulations about which church services will be required for the
area's residents, what the process will be for expelling those who
engage in gossip, and what time everyone will be required to be in
their sleeping quarters.
Because that's totally what city planners do. It's right here in my
APA guidebook...somewhere...hmm...
|11.11.05 @ 10:44AM|#
joe,
I loved your 8:23 post from yesterday. It came from the heart. It
was passionate and real - much better than the intellectual
snobbery displayed by many of the posters on H&R. I wish you
great success on your new job. And shame on anyone who would
threaten to rat you out. That is the most disgusting thing I have
heard on this site.
gaius,
Yes, I am am usually happy. I believe in Aristotle's philosophy
that "happiness depends upon ourselves". I am not completely
satisfied, and I am quite apprehensive about the world that my kids
will inherit. But fuck it! Every day above ground is a good one. We
all need to stop taking ourselves so damn seriously and realize we
are just specs of dust in a vast universe. Your personal degree of
happiness will increase as your newborn grows up. Kids don't know
how fucked up the world is. This allows them to derive pleasure
from the simplest activities. This cocoon of innocence is not
available to us adults, but that doesn't force us to wallow in the
mire and to be miserable the remainder of our existence. Gaius
Minimus will show you the way!
|11.11.05 @ 10:47AM|#
As a semi-regular poster I feel I should say something just
because I feel forgotten. Nobody here loves me. Or maybe my posts
just plain suck.
Do I lose any libertarian points because I've never read any Rand
outside of a few random paragraphs here and there?
OK, I'll just needle joe a bit. (I think Lefty = joe, but it's
rather unimportant anyway.)
joe, I'm glad you'll be posting less frequently, not because I
disagree with you often, in fact I think you add a lot to the
conversations here but you tend to let your emotions get in the way
of your points as your posts on a thread grow. Anyway, good luck in
your new job and remember to err on the side of freedom.
Dave W.|11.11.05 @ 11:04AM|#
Joe,
Thanks for having the courage to post here despite the cowardly
threats. You have really good insights and deserve to be moving up
in the world from what I can see here.
|11.11.05 @ 11:48AM|#
A band I used to be in in Cleveland
Phil,
What was the name of the band?
I know you want me. :)
Hak and thoreau are so gay for each other. And there's nothing
wrong with that. Just admit it! :)
I probably have a lot more time to think about philosophy,
culture and politics -- if I choose -- than my ancestors did,
because I'm not distracted by worms or an abcessed tooth or the
pox.
You're not? That's not what you told us at the Chicago Reasonoid
gathering. :)
Now that I've gotten my stupid jokes out of the way, I'll say this:
I can't keep up with you people. This thread could take hours for
me to read. Sadly, I'm actually resorting to stashing threads in my
"Favorites" folder so that I can read them later. I may at some
point soon revert to "lurker wisecracker" status. Not that anyone
gives a shit, just thought I'd mention it. I just don't have enough
time in the workday to get through threads like this. And if I
actually bothered to get internet access at home, I'd probably
forfeit my whole social life (as small as it is) just to get
through monster posts like this. I don't have a point really, I'm
just griping...
|11.11.05 @ 12:45PM|#
"probably have a lot more time to think about philosophy,
culture and politics -- if I choose -- than my ancestors did,
because I'm not distracted by worms or an abcessed tooth or the
pox."
"You're not? That's not what you told us at the Chicago Reasonoid
gathering. :)"
The worms, et al. are relatively under control. I just have a bit
of scurvy and consumption to deal with now.
Or maybe you're referring to my back being sore because of "the
trampoline incident" of this past May? Maybe I mentioned that in
Chicago. That seems to have finally gone away, BTW.
" I may at some point soon revert to "lurker wisecracker"
status."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! You can't abandon H&R to near silence! What of
your public?
You know, I've thought about posting less and going home earlier in
the evening. But honestly, how important is a social life anyway?
Whoever gained fame and fortune because of their social life,
anyway? Besides Paris Hilton, I mean.
Surely some reasonable compromise can be worked out. Work and
social life, Week 1. Hit and Run, Week 2. Repeat.
|11.11.05 @ 1:01PM|#
Hey, Ken, when you deal with city planners, you talk about
the rules for the living arrangements of workers in housing owned
by industrial corporations, right?
Industrial is my bread and butter, and I can't say that's ever come
up.
I don't think most people understand what planners do for a
living--it's more than just sitting around and talkin' about zoning
all day. ...That's typical of most professions I think--people
think the only thing you do is whatever you do for them.
Most developers don't see planners as the problem although they may
have problems with planning. City planners, rather, can be a
developers best friend. Planners are the only thing between a
developer and the masses. ...and you don't want your project
approved or rejected by the masses. If the economy is showing any
sign of health, the masses don't want you building anything,
ever.
When you have a project with a zone change, for instance, and it't
adjacent to a residential development, a city planner takes your
case almost like a public defender. ...The planner isn't part of
your team--their first, last and only loyalty is to the city--but
they will guide you where you need to go. They will show you the
best way to get your project approved by the Planning Commission.
...and, once that hurdle is crossed, how to get your project
approved by the City Council.
Planning can involve every aspect of a project. From getting the
landscaping approved to taking architectural details into
consideration to considering biological impacts, addressing
engineering concerns, traffic impacts, the effects of your project
on local schools, and so much, much more.
As a developer, you would be foolish to attempt those waters
without a good pilot. Good planners are hard to keep on city
payrolls, and I suspect joe may someday come to the dark side.
Developers will pay a premium for good former planners--as hired
guns to get their projects through the process.
Really, there's no substitute for a good planner. After an
investor--intuitional money or otherwise--checks off on your
numbers, one of the first things they want to know is something
about the city's planning department. It's a big deal.
Sometimes I hear people talk about joe's work as if what he did was
something like what people do at the DMV. It isn't.
Rich Ard|11.11.05 @ 1:31PM|#
Hear hear, Ken - although I must add that the planners I've dealt with seem to pass on the shittiest property descriptions. I mean, can we get at least one paragraph break here and there?
|11.11.05 @ 2:23PM|#
jf, that's a load off my mind, actually. That one was actually
pretty close - I used to work in Fitchburg. Talk about a - er -
work in progress! But it's coming along.
Thanks, Ken. When I first volunteered in a planning office, I saw
myself as on a noble crusade to protect the public from the evil
developers.
Screw that. Capital invested in construction is the lifeblood of a
city. If you don't have enough, you die. And there is simply no
getting around the fact that the vast majority of that capital is
going to come from profit seeking developers. I've spent much more
time standing up to neighbors and promoting development over the
course of my career than the opposite. It's amazing how ideologues,
determined to cast themselves as the heros standing up to the man,
can be so willfully ignorant, just to maintain their preferred
narratives.
Russ D, Thanks. "Err on the side of freedom" is a good rule of
thumb. I like to cast it as "tread lightly" or "do the least
possible." My profession's had a history of overreaching, but we're
learning. The profession is one for gardeners, not builders -
meaning that ultimately, it isn't us who cause the blooms to open.
We can just tend the beds, and as any gardener knows, that's best
done with a light touch in all but the most remarkable
situations.
|11.11.05 @ 2:27PM|#
Also, Ken, as I'm sure you can attest, profit seeking is not the
only, or even the primary, motive of most developers.
Rather than the greedy automatons their enemies (and their
self-proclaimed cheerleaders) describe them as, I've found most of
them to be the same type of legacy-minded community builders as
planners. They don't always know the best way to go about that,
though.
Hakluyt|11.11.05 @ 4:17PM|#
joe,
Well, um, well, um, well, um...
Plan can mean more than one thing.
First of all, I never made any claims as to what planners do or do
not do in this discussion. Then again, you're very apt to claim all
sorts of things of posters that they never wrote. Maybe if you took
the time to sit down and think about what others are writing you
wouldn't get yourself involved in such erroneous claims.
Second, only someone as intellectually dishonest as you are would
state that is the meaning of my statement. Any historian worth his
or her salt in this particular area knows exactly what I am talking
about. Your problem is that your profession is so limited in
intellectual outlook and design. When a historian hears about
Lowell and an industrial plan is discussed what comes to mind is a
holistic approach.
Anyway, the fact remains that the industrial revolution in America
did not start by itself in Lowell, which was your original claim.
It is also true that the plan of the founders of Lowell never
worked out as it was expected to, be it the physical structures
present (e.g., the kitchen facilities were never adequate enough)
or from the aspect of social control.
Ken Shultz,
Industrial is my bread and butter, and I can't say that's ever
come up.
When you discuss Lowell, and you talk about their industrial plan,
guess what, its the whole deal. When you discuss other planned
cities of the 19th or 20th centuries (see Ford's towns for example)
you don't stop at how the roads were laid out or what the towns
were meant to create for Ford's plants. When I was doing my M.A.
work on a planned city in Jamaica I wasn't merely looking at how
the planner (Sligo) was laying out the various buildings, I
concerned myself with his entire plan and how people were expected
to live under it.
Whatever you your or joe does at the current time has very little
to do with the study of Lowell girls.
Hakluyt|11.11.05 @ 4:28PM|#
Ken Shultz,
BTW, when you either read Dublin's book or you visit the Lowell
NPS, they discuss all these matters together and do not create such
an artificial distinction as you and joe are trying to throw up
here. Planned towns and cities in the 19th century were especially
notorious for their paternalistic rules and those rules were part
and parcel of the planning process because it was argued that they
wouldn't succeed without them (there was also a utopian flavor to
such ramblings as well - a notion that they were bringing light to
the downtrodden masses). That seems to still be the case today with
planned towns, where part of the planning involves the behaviors of
the individuals who move there.
Hakluyt|11.11.05 @ 4:30PM|#
BTW, I find the fact that joe tried to navigate this discussion into what planners do and do not do to be rather hilarious. Don't know much about a subject? Start talking about how your profession imagines itself instead!
|11.11.05 @ 5:14PM|#
I just got caught up on the thread, and I miss all of
this?
Say it ain't so, joe! You're my favorite pinko. You have become, no
lie, the model of the 'reasonable lefty' as I talk issues out with
friends. I appreciate that you brought me such a position to
consider.
Hakluyt|11.11.05 @ 5:17PM|#
Jason Ligon,
Yes, a "reasonable lefty" who self-describes himself as a troll?
Heh. How precious.
Hakluyt|11.11.05 @ 5:52PM|#
Phil,
I did notice you rifling the historians of technology. I just chose
to ignore it for the inane trolling that it was. Sometimes I am
merciful. :)
|11.11.05 @ 7:13PM|#
I wasn't making any distinctions regarding your debate with joe.
...I was just responding to the suggestion that not everybody
understands what a planner does--and to the realization that he's
not going to be around so often anymore. ...That sucks.
...I know next to nothing of Lowell.
Jason Sonenshein|11.11.05 @ 7:18PM|#
Jason,
Screw that. There's no way I'm reviewing the entire world's
subdivision submittals.
No, joe, World Town Planner Day is a world holiday to celebrate
town planners, not a day to celebrate the world town planner. As
the site I linked to states:
Founded in 1949 by the late Professor Carlos Maria della Paolera of
the University of Buenos Aires, WTPD is currently celebrated in
about 30 countries on four continents as a way to promote awareness
and support for community planning.
|11.11.05 @ 7:18PM|#
Ken Shultz,
...I know next to nothing of Lowell.
Well, at least you are honest. :)
Did you get my e-mails, BTW?
Jason Sonenshein|11.11.05 @ 7:19PM|#
There joe goes again, arguing against the World Town Planner Day in his head.
Jason Sonenshein|11.11.05 @ 7:21PM|#
Joe,
I suggest you read the complete works of Carlos Maria della Paolera
before embarrassing yourself further. (:
Seriously, though, congratulations and good luck
|11.11.05 @ 8:32PM|#
Yadda yadda yadda from Count Hakula. Sorry, twerp, I'm back on
the wagon. In my inebriated state, my judgement was actually
clouded enough to think it worthwhile to give you another chance at
having an open and civil discussion. And, as always, you proved
yourself unfit.
Jason Ligon,
Back atcha - you are the most honest, thoughtful, and reasonable
righty I have had the opportunity to dispute with, and I am the
better for it.
Jason S, I know, I read the link. I was making a little joke.
Nearly microscopic, I guess.
|11.11.05 @ 8:37PM|#
"Did you get my e-mails, BTW?"
*beep*
Uh, hi. It's me again. Hakluyt, remember? I, uh, I've left a couple
of messages, but I'm sure your machine was working. Anyway, it's
too bad I didn't get ahold of you before the White Stripes concert,
but guess what? A guy at work gave me two tickets to "Rent!"
They're for next Thursday, so give me a call before then. Or an
email - I gave you my address at the bar, I hope you still have it.
Anyway, if I don't hear from you by Tuesday, I'll figure you didn't
get this. And I'll...uh...give you another call. Or maybe just stop
by. Anyway, my number is 6 -" *beep*
|11.11.05 @ 8:40PM|#
*beep*
Uh, hi, it's me again. Got cut off there. Anyway, I was saying, in
case you lost it, my number is 693-3937. So, give me a call. Or
something.
Oh, those "Rent" tickets are for the fourth row. I really got a
good deal on them! From my friend at work. So. Anyway. Hope to hear
from you soon. *dammit!* Um...yeah. Bye.
Jason Sonenshein|11.11.05 @ 8:51PM|#
I was making a little joke.
Yeah, I figured I'd use it as an opportunity to make fun of Him of
Many Names. I hope you don't mind.
|11.11.05 @ 8:52PM|#
joe,
Sorry, twerp, I'm back on the wagon.
Oh, I see, so you gained a little courage from being on the sauce.
Sound about right.
Like I wrote above, do what you say you are going to do and quit
making excuses about not living up to that.
...to think it worthwhile to give you another chance at having
an open and civil discussion.
Dude, you self-describe yourself as a troll. I mean really, the
idea that you consistently engage in civil discourse (with me or
anyone) or that we should expect such from you is laughable and
should have knocked your irony meter off the charts.
As to your other comments, you should stop drinking from that
bottle of bitterness. It will eat you alive.
|11.11.05 @ 9:01PM|#
joe,
BTW, about the only person who could even remotely make a claim
(based on their actions as a regular poster) as you have is
thoreau. Which is why you and Jennifer's actions re: this silly
clique of yours are so hypocritical. I'd suggest that you police
your own statements before you ever start worrying about mine or
anyone else's.
|11.13.05 @ 4:40PM|#
Dude, you self-describe yourself as a troll.
Allow myself to introduce...myself.
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