Heartlessness II
Dear Liz,
Sometimes I encounter poor people in my daily life. Generally speaking, I don’t care for them. What should I do?
Maybe I’ll invest in copper futures. It would be nice to have a lot of copper.
-Clay Washington, DC
Dear Clay,
I’m sort of busy working on stuff. I saw Steven Wright do stand up last night, but I couldn’t enjoy it. I have out-of-body deja vu and a narcoleptic projecting complex. When I think someone’s bored telling his own formulaic jokes, I fall asleep.
I’m sort of busy working on stuff. So I made an outline for this entry, can you flush out the rest and hand it in to the Philosophy Department office?
1. When I encounter any people, I don’t care for them and wish them to get out of my life and onto my TV. Why do TV execs not yet outnumber us?
2. With poor people there is an added guilt, or a call to action, but follow it to its logical conclusion. How much should we give of ourselves? Will money really help the problem? Should I sleep with poor people?
3. Does class guilt have an evolutionary advantage, or serve a purpose? Reductionists like the "existent" Third Culture probably think so. Do we have any data to this end?
4. If all the people I don’t care for were gone, it would just be nature and me. Is that cool? What about if it were just me in a deprivation chamber and a video camera so I can retain my memories?
5. Why I hate flowers. They smell of plant sex. They are a tease. They are showy. Orchids are pretentious. I like leaves, because they are what they are. What flowers can I eat for antioxidants? Chamomile?
6. Our philosophy professor is kind of hot. Haha, you think so. Needs to be flushed out more (phrased as a question). Clay?
Try to love your fellow man.
Half-hearted,
-Me
May 7th, 2006 at 8:33 am
From Clay:
NEW YORK, April 25 (Reuters) - U.S. copper futures
surged more than 6 percent at the open on Tuesday
and prices spiked to their 20-cent limit as
broad-based buying boosted the market to all-time
record levels, sources said.
“We’re seeing a little of everything this morning.
Short-covering, funds and specs are all pushing
this market higher, with absolutely no sellers
coming in,” one floor dealer said. “That’s the
thing. You have to see guys come in and say, ‘This
is a great sell price,’ and we’re not seeing that
right now. So the trend still is higher.”
By 9:55 a.m. (1355 GMT), benchmark copper for May
delivery had spiked to its initial limit of
20 cents, or 6.43 percent, to a new
life-of-contract peak at $3.3110 a lb. on the New
York Mercantile Exchange’s COMEX division.
Trading in all months of futures and options
ceased for a 15-minute period after the limit was
hit. When trading resumed, the limit was reset at
40 cents.
Spot April soared 19.65 cents, or 6.11
percent, to $3.41 a lb., a new all-time COMEX record.
Trading volume at 10 a.m. was estimated at 12,000
lots, with 1,956 lots in switches ahead of first
notice day for May copper on Friday.
Strong global demand for the red metal from
growing economies such as China and India were
seen as a partial reason for copper’s near 67
percent gains on the year.
China’s first-quarter metals trade figures showed
signs of firming copper demand, driven by power
sector demand for copper cable, despite sharply
lower imports compared with 2005.
Net imports of copper by China, which consumes a
fifth of the world’s production, increased to
39,760 tonnes in March from a net 32,825 tonnes in
February, despite increased exports attributed to
the State Reserve Bureau.
Also benefiting copper, which is used in
construction and electronic wiring, was an 0.3
percent pick-up in existing U.S. home sales in March.
Sales of existing homes rose to a
6.92-million-unit rate in March from February’s
downwardly revised 6.90-million-unit pace.
Possible labor problems at the Lomas Bayas copper
mine in northern Chile should continue to support
the market ahead of a Wednesday vote on whether
some 300 workers will strike or accept a contract
offer from Canada’s Falconbridge Ltd. (FALlvu.TO:
Quote, Profile, Research).
London Metal Exchange three-months copper
hit a new record of $6,230, up 6.5 percent from
Monday’s kerb close.
LME copper warehouse stocks were unchanged at
117,450 tonnes on Tuesday, equivalent to about
2-1/2 days of global consumption. Inventories have
fallen from almost 1 million tonnes in April 2002.
May 7th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Liz,
I wish all the people in my television would get out of there and into my u-tubes. That way I could write comments on your blog in the right side of our monitor while Emily watched the people on the left side.
But seriously, I’m not talking misanthropy, I’m talking healthy disdain for poor people. You touched a nerve, however, I have to admit, I don’t like rich people either, or middle class people. Fortunately I do like “some of the people some of the time”, and the interesting question to me is why? Perhaps they are the ones who are fooling me, however, as an optimist, I like to believe it is I who am fooling them. However, as they say, to make an ass out of oneself is to be foolish.
We are going to watch “The Golem” now, a german expressionist movie about what happens when those crazy “third culture” jews let their nether regions bloom in public. I like flowers, and I more or less like “the Jews”, although sometimes an individual jew gets on my nerves and I have to consider to what extent he is “the Jews”. Do any flowers bloom in the desert?
through the glass, what a glorious view, Clay
May 8th, 2006 at 4:41 am
Yes, my dead grandfathers used to say: To make an ass out of you and me is to be foolish, the very definition no less. Defining a human being is tricky. That was me talking, I’ve gone post-quotation-mark.
Who’s dead now, braniacs?
May 8th, 2006 at 4:55 am
The third culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are.
-John Brockman
May 8th, 2006 at 9:32 am
“Ruth Hill Useem (1999) first coined the term, Third Culture Kids, over 40 years ago. TCKs are children who are members of expatriate families who reside outside of their passport country for varied periods of time. They move from one country to another before coming back to their passport country for a rotation (2-4 years), to resettle, or to attend university. Other terms that have been used for these children are Global Nomads, hidden immigrants, transnationals, transculturals, internationally mobile children, and missionary kids (Bell, 1997; Downie, 1976; Gerner et al., 1992; Useem, Jordan, & Coffrell, 1998). In the past, most of these children were from missionary, diplomatic, or military families. These families usually entered into the Foreign Service with the expectation that they would spend the majority of their time overseas with only a few years between postings back in the passport country. However, with globalization taking place as the world economy has grown and mass transportation has taken hold, more and more businesses are no longer limited by national boundaries. Personnel in private business are now taking up positions for varied time periods in different countries. Thus, more students are entering into this mobile lifestyle.”
- U.S. State Department
May 8th, 2006 at 9:45 am
#3 makes a lot more sense in light of that brockman quote.
May 8th, 2006 at 9:48 am
a lot more sense to me, I mean
May 8th, 2006 at 7:31 pm
http://glue.umd.edu/~clayt/LIZ/stereototal.mp3
I put a new song on my LIZ drive. One week only.
May 10th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
do you think, eventually, it will be a full-length?
May 11th, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Jeez Liz, don’t be so nostalgic. This is the internet, not some goddamned record store.
Today I heard a song that was like my question: It went “love myself/better than you/I know it’s wrong/what should I do?” Not exactly the same, but sort of.
Really, the new song is intended seperately from the others. They were, and always will have been, to my mind, an EP. Although a comp/reissue is a possibility, and these days there’s only so much you can do about remixes.