barriomulas.com

Caught up on some old magazines that I had laying around. Here's some interesting finds:

• Economist article on how piracy can help sales.
• Wired article on a new epoch starting during the Industrial Revolution, "Anthropocene", or the epoch affected by people.
• Economist article on the evolution of English spelling. I find it fascinating that French, Italian, and Spanish languages were regulated by central authorities. I wonder how much that has to say about their culture.
• Economist article on Brazilian businessmen and how much they are willing to take risks. The article slightly touches the topic of the bureaucracy that plagues many Latin American countries. I insist that such cultural variations de-authorize capitalism as a potential uniform and global economic system that can operate without distinction between culture.
• Time article on how the U.S. is to blame for its own oil crisis.
• Time article on biology, love, and attraction. "Strippers who are ovulating average $70 in tips per hour; those who are menstruating make $35."
• Time article, "Why We Flirt".
• Economist article on how East German cities are coping with shrinking demographics.
• Time article on how America's original suburb, Levittown, is becoming a model of environmental innovation.
• Time article on Ralph Nader's goal during this election.
• Economist article on man's "inner chimpanzee" and how it applies to everything from economics to law.
• Economist article on posible practical reasons that sexual organ mutilation might have been adopted by some societies.
  

Fascinating article from The Economist. Those of you interested in things like primitivism and hunter-gatherism, enjoy:

ABOUT one in 20 children (those under 18) have a group of symptoms that has come to be known as attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). About 60% of them carry those symptoms into adulthood. For what is, at root, a genetic phenomenon, that is a lot--yet many studies have shown that ADHD is indeed genetic and not, as was once suspected, the result of poor parenting...

One hypothesis is that the behaviour associated with ADHD helps people, such as hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads, who lead a peripatetic life. Since today's sedentary city dwellers are recently descended from such people, natural selection may not have had time to purge the genes that cause it...

As they report in this week's BMC Evolutionary Biology, they found that about a fifth of the population of both groups had the 7R version of DRD4... Among the nomads, who wander around northern Kenya herding cattle, camels, sheep and goats, those with 7R were better nourished than those without. The opposite was true of their settled relations: those with 7R were worse nourished than those without it...

One possibility is that its effects are beneficial only when they are not universal, and some sort of equilibrium between variants emerges.

I love modern anarchist texts. They're crazy and obscure. At first you don't understand what your reading but within a matter of minutes everything seems to fall into place.

One group of writers that I especially enjoy is the Critical Art Ensemble. I first read "Electronic Civil Disobedience" and was so pleased with it that I hunted down an electronic copy of another one their books, "The Electronic Disturbance" and actually printed and binded the whole thing.

Here are a few quotes and notes, divided into sections of interest:

I. Against Power
"The French revolutions from 1789 to 1968 never stemmed the obscene tide of the commodity (they seem to have helped pave the way), while the Russian and Cuban revolutions merely replaced the commodity with the totalizing anachronism of the bureaucracy".

Quite true. Traditional revolutions, as  noted by another anarchist text that I am quite fond of, simply changed power from one set of hands to another. In fact, most political struggles are simply a fight over who wields the power. Business or government? Federal governments or states? But rarely do they question power in general.

II. Against Centralization
"In the Persian Wars, Herodotus describes a feared people known as the Scythians... With no fixed cities or territories, this "wandering horde" could never really be located.. Consequently, they could never be put on the defensive and conquered... they were always present and poised for attach even when absent.... power was not a matter of spatial occupation for the Scythians."

Entirely decentralized and sporadic forces are always necessary, I believe, especially during moments of a revolution. The Spanish resistance during the Iberian War with France, for example, was a random conglomeration of guerrillas, militiamen, and common citizens opposing French occupation. The French army often complained of the impossibility of striking opposition forces for they were nowhere and everywhere at once. There was no flag to lower, no land to conquer, no king to shoot, and no generals to jail. Sporadic rebellion and opposition is much more efficient than the planned revolutions of Blanquism and Lenin. Not only are they more democratic, but they are less subjected to the bureaucratic and hierarchal power structure of traditional organization.

III. Occupation
"In the US itself, the genocide of Native Americans was well underway, justified in part by the belief that since the native tribes did not own the land, all territories were open, and once occupied (invested with sedentary value), they could be "defended". Occupation theory has been more bitter than heroic."

"Typically, the retreat is to the most culturally negating rural areas, or to deterritorialized urban neighborhoods. The basic principal is to achieve autonomy by hiding from social authority. As in band societies whose culture cannot be touched because it cannot be found, freedom is enhanced for those participating in the project."

I would say that that is one of the reasons why shanties and rural areas have always fascinated me so much. They are far from the grasps of the centralized power structure, and thus allow its member a larger degree of freedom and autonomy from the techno-structure. This autonomy in thought and lifestyle is often traded in for the cheap thrills of city lights, sugar coated entertainment, and consumer goods.

"Wherever an economic frontier is opening, so is McDonalds'. Travel where you might, that same hamburger  and coke are waiting."

IV. Temptations
"In most cases sedentary populations submit to the obscenity of spectacle, and contently pay the tribute demanded, in the form of labor, material, and profit... into the role of its service workers - into caretakers of the cyberelite."

"The promise of safety and familiarity lures hordes of the unsuspecting into privatized public spaces such as malls."

"In line with the feudal tradition of the fortress mentality, the bunker guarantees safety and familiarity in exchange for the relinquishment of individual sovereignty."

"...the economy of desire..."

"...mass consumption necessitates self consumption, just for the fun of it. Just for the fun of it auto-cannibalism is the material signifier of excess consumption, just for the fun of it."

"Consumption is concerned with the internalization of objects, just for the fun of it... We are dos in love with our own vomit."

V. Against Work
"The belief that the key to resistance is to have an organized body of workers stop production... what is called a union is no more than a labor bureaucracy... All should quit work... in the end it did little damage to the global machine..."

True. The "labor struggle" has it wrong. I know I sound too much like Bob Black when I say this, but instead of struggling for the stability and depth of their labor, they should be fighting against the concept of labor in general. Would it not be nice if instead of fighting technology or global economics in the name of saving jobs, they fought the centralized power structures that so jealously hoard the same technology that can liberate man from the shackles of the 40 hour week?

(From a recent school assignment)

YES, as argued in the classroom test by Curtis Crawford. As a minority myself I must say that I believe that affirmative action is counter productive. Not only, in theory, does it perpetuate discrimination (now against non-Blacks), but, as Crawford notes, has "developed into programs conferring special treatment based on race". Racial preference, be it for White or Black employees, is wrong no matter how one looks at it. Knowing that one has that extra "cushion" provided by Affirmative Action could cause one to be lax during their competitive process of employment searching.

Affirmative Action laws are an intrusive mechanism used by the State to obligate private enterprise and public agencies to degrade the employee's overall qualifications as secondary. "It's not fair," my brother-and-law told me after applying for a law enforcement position. "I performed much better than a fellow Black applicant in the qualification runs, but he was picked because the standards for Blacks were lowered in order to fill up a government-imposed quota". I do not feel so comfortable knowing that my police officer, doctor, or trust fund accountant was chosen because of his race and not his credentials. This special treatment "has nothing to do with the applicant's ability or need".

It is true that if one were to scrap Affirmative Action that they would see an under-representation of Black and minorities. Widespread racial preference is a thing of the past and most of this under-representation could be attributed to education. It's a truth that poverty can perpetuate itself by limiting options the higher education of its affected families. One report  shows that two thirds of families earning $25,000 have youth who apply for college, while the rate for high income families is at 91%. But if education is the problem, then should we not be pushing for universal education - where Blacks can attend any university that they please without worrying about financial constraints - instead of overlooking the issue? In fact, the education income gap is large than that between Whites and Blacks. A high school graduate will earn only 57% of the income of a college graduate while a high school drop out earns only 42% of a college graduate's income. A high school drop out earns only 19% of the salary of a person with a graduate's degree.  A Black family, on the other hand, earns 58% of the income of a White family.

Statistics also show that only 34% of management positions are held by women.  Members of other races such as Indians, Arabs, and Native Americans can also make claims to unequal opportunities. The elderly, disabled, and quite possibly even the gay and lesbian community could also make claims for Affirmative Action rights. If all of the above groups were to be given the same Affirmative Action benefits as Blacks, labor regulations would be a quilt of complicated safety nets. The results would be an unfavorable business environment and a continuation of racial divisions.

Many employers or public entities have simplified the process of racial quotas in order to avoid such a scene. Some school districts, for example, simply classify their students as either "Black" or "White" in an effort to simplify their completion of government anti-segregation quotas. I recall during my high school years, teachers on the first day of class going the roll call, with each student responding with their name and race. In one instance, a Latino friend of mine was labeled as "Black" while his sister was labeled as "White", in apparent ignorance towards the diversity in skin shades present in the Latino people. Ironically, Affirmative Action regulations applied to my friend but not his sister.

The Federal Government has enacted the Fair Housing Act with much success. This law prevents housing providers to discriminate against persons for whatever reason. Such actions seem much more efficient, business-friendly, efficient, and fair than Affirmative Action laws. Imagine if landlords were obligated to rent out their apartments to clients according to their race, instead of their ability to pay rent. Beefing up the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's role and facilitating the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) in a similar fashion is a much more viable route current Affirmative Action initiatives.

Class assignment:

Should Mothers Stay Home With Their Children?

No. I think that it can be dangerously sexist and chauvinist to state that specifically mothers should stay home with their children. Mothers should have just as much right as fathers to pursue education, work careers, and economic autonomy. Though it would be ideal for at least one parent to directly bring up their youth, the economic realities of modern America do not permit for this.

In some cultures, such as the Aka of Africa, it is the male who stays home and rears children as the women out and search for food. The fathers of this tribe even let babies suck on their nipples. In the Handa Clan of New Guinea's Highlands, uncles and aunts play a major role in the raising of children. Fred Beauvais wrote about how many Native American tribes allowed for all members of the extended family to participate in the upbringing of children.3 The concept of exactly who gets to raise children is obviously a cultural one, but one can say that it has traditionally been a universal quality for at least some family member to bring up the children of a society.

One convenient concept is one that I lived through personally. Shortly after the birth of my daughter, her maternal grandmother would take care of her during the day while her mother and I worked. Unable to to have the luxury of placing the child in daycare, she was kept with her grandmother during much of the workday. This concept of a two-income household (though we were separated at the time) while the retired, elder members of the family take care of the children is quite popular in my native Puerto Rico. It would be difficult to suggest this arrangement for U.S. living, for it would require a drastic change in the way people live. Most American families, one could suppose, do not live so close to their parents and grandparents as do Latin American. Concepts of privacy and independence are much more jealously guarded in American society.

By suggesting that at least some family not bring up children, one indirectly suggests that they be raised by a third party institution. This approach was first explored by Plato, who proposed that children from a young age be removed from their families and be raised by the state as model citizens. The most literal implementation of this concept was implemented by Nazi Germany and Fidel Castro's Cuba, where children are brought up by the state in order to assure a population of followers and the transmission of a preferred ideology.

Nor am I fond of the concept of "nannies" as mentioned by Claudia Wallis' essay. Not only do I see it as a very elitist thing to do ("even tough one of us earns enough to allow the other to stay home, earning even more money is more important than personally raising our own kids"), but in a sense it is forcing many nannies to to find alternate care for their own children. One could perceive the contracting of a nanny as the outsourcing of parenthood. This accompanies the practice of relieving ourselves of the responsibility of our children's morals, religious upbringing, nutrition, and physical health by pushing issues such as ethics courses, school prayer, school breakfasts, and school sports.

By suggesting that family members refrain from "staying home" with their children, one is entrusting the state with the culturalization and upbringing of their offspring. Secularism, civics, and politics can all disrupt the morals, religion, and cultural continuity that characterizes the traditional exchange of culture between generations. Though I believe that this is enough reason for at least some family to "stay home" with children, I see no other reason to insist that it be specifically mothers aside from romanticist nostalgia of the traditional family.

Possible ways to promote such practices could come in the form of a "GI Bill for Mothers", as joked by Susan J. Douglas and Meredith W. Michaels. Other possible methods include a government income for stay-home mothers and smaller family sizes (allowing for parents to take up their professional lives later). Finally, another option to promote such would be a tax deductions for non-working parents equal to the amount that they would have paid if they were to earn the same income as their partner.

Like many youth, I spent many hours a day of my Childhood glued to a television set. At first it was Nickelodeon and Fox that provided my daily entertainment, and then MTV and prime-time television. For a child living in suburban America, the boob tube is often one's only window into foreign cultures, social issues, and current events. It wasn't until later years that I began to grow disgruntled and distasteful with today's television programming. I began to resent televisions "accessibility over the entire cultural spectrum", as economist John Kenneth Galbraith calls it.

Television channels are almost entirely owned by private companies. Such businesses are for-profit ventures, and thus are dependent on advertisement and third party sponsors. This is an attack against freedom of speech on the airwaves, as programmers are careful not to air anything that would repel potential advertisers. The result is a bland, generic programming meant to not offend any demographic group.

Television programing is not meant to educate you any level more than that which is beneficial to the economic needs of the channel and their sponsors. One event that opened my eyes was that of the denial by major television networks of Adbuster.org ads opposing unchecked consumerism, waste, and materialism. This demonstrated to me that television programing was not willing to air anything that would make me anything other than a turbo consumer with rampant wants that are easy to manipulate. If they were not willing to air paid advertisement that promoted critical thinking, consumer independence, and responsible citizenship than why would they air any programing that promoted the same?

I turn on the boob tube and see metrosexual men singing bland, generic songs; contestants eating bugs; and loud, obnoxious young adults living together in extravagant houses. Simple lights and sound to grab out attention and keep us dumbed up long enough for the sponsors to do their job. Television's programming is nothing but a continuous advertisement for a way of life that best suites its market interest. Such programing in turn molds a consumer ideal enough to pitch advertisements to.

(From another class assignment)

My position on the above question would probably be received by my classmates with much criticism and confusion if it were to be a discussion board topic. Being the descendent of immigrants who arrived from a poverty striken country many years ago, one would suppose that I would back up the "No" argument on the above question. Despite my ethnic make up, my family history's upward mobility, and my solidarity with the improvised of the third world, I must side with Patrick Buchanan's "Yes" defense.

The "American Way of Life" has traditionally been that of an Anglo American culture with past immigrants assimilating into such a culture in order to incorporate themselves into the "American Way of Life". Latinos, Native Americans, and African Americans though culturally autonomous, took a backseat in the majority's mainstream culture. Such groups assimilated into Anglo American culture as much as their skin tones and poverty would allow them to.

Yes, immigration from the Third World is changing the "American Way of Life". I myself returned to my family's native country only to myself grow preoccupied with seeing my island's way of life converting into that of a foreign power. While some conservative Americans may feel uncomfortable with their new neighbors whenever they speak Spanish and open food markets, I have grown uneasy with the sight of a McDonalds on every corner and traditional coffee shops closing due to Starbucks. It took me moving to my home country to understand the preoccupations with American nationalists. Joel kotkin and Yoriko Kishimoto refer to the U.S. as a "world nation". Lawrence Auster, an American nationalist complains that "America has no essential character." The U.S. has become a miniature United Nations.

Despite my position on the subject, I would have answered differently if the question were "Should Third World immigration be regulated or stopped?" Though my heart goes out to American nationalists who fear the separation of an American nation into many American nations, I am sorry to say that today's wave of immigration is in a sense "pay back" for the colonialism of previous generations.

The histories of the Third World are littered with intervention, invasions, and exploitation on behalf of the Western powers. While the U.S. might have sucked Latin America of its precious metals and crops during the 20th century, Latin America's poor are sucking the U.S. of its jobs, wealth, and culture. Third World immigration, in turn, is a form of counter-colonialism. Immigration from Latin Americans and other Third World poor might cause some economic and social damage to U.S. groups that once represented "The American Way", but such damage is nowhere close to the blunt and careless intervention on behalf of the U.S. and its allies in these immigrant's home countries.

I am taking an online course during the summer at Alabama's Troy University and am pleased to see that many of the assignments are based around forming an opinion and defending it on a number of weekly subjects. Today's question is: "Is the decline of the traditional family a national crises?"

And my answer:

The traditional model of a nuclear family - that of a single breadwinner and a housewife - has in recent decades declining in face of high divorce rates, re-marriage, double income households, and the integration of women into the workforce. Though this phenomena - like any other social change - has a number of effects that I could be consider negative (a higher dependence on the state for education and the replacement of direct parenthood with "outsourced" daycare, for example) I would not consider this to be a national crisis.

This is not considered a national crisis because these newer models represent changes sought by the populace. If society wishes to maintain its current way of living then such a model is quite appropriate. The previous model was just as applicable to the economic model of that era as much as the current model is for today's economy.

The rise of the "breadwinner marriage" model, according to Stephanie Coontz occurred during the early years of the new cash economy. Most families still needed someone to specialize in household production, responsibilities often carried out by the wife. "A full-time housewife's work at home," states Coontz, "could usually save a family more than she could earn in wages." But as household production lost ground to the wage economy, the traditional housewife's activities were no longer viewed as economic activities. At the time, four out of five women wished to be married by the age of 22 and to give birth to four children.

The passing of the traditional family simply represents changes in our standard of living and our economic model. In a world where production and consumption are the primary measuring units of economic development, wage labor is much more required of our current economy. One can now earn a wage and still assure that all "household responsibilities" are tended to. Washing machines, dish washers, dryers, affordable daycare, and a full school day can now be readily obtained without the need to grow dependent or marry a partner.

Shifts in our economy have made it so that the traditional family model is no longer necessary to assure social security. Thus, I would not consider the current model as a national crisis, but as an evolution of our the family from a crucial economic institution to a form of recreation. And though many may argue whether or not such a change is for the better or the worst, the majority can acknowledge that it is voluntary and well-accepted by the masses.

Marriage is a universal social institution that has existed for as long as human culture itself. Though love-based marriage and the male breadwinner model is a more recent invention, marriage is practiced by every culture, both primitive and civilized. Evidence of biological impulses towards long-term relationships are present within humans as in many other animal species. Women's lack of the estrus cycle of other mammals, for example, has allowed human females to become sexually available year-round and thus allow "draw men into long-term relationships," as noted by Stephanie Coontz.

Despite this, the definition of marriage is quite different from tribe to tribe, as a central quality of marriage in one society is absent in another. In many Native American groups, for example, a man doing "woman's work" could marry a man doing "man's work". "Such a contradictory hodgepodge of social rules," states Coontz "could not have sprung from some universal biological imperative." Marriage is thus a cultural institution created in response to biological tendencies. It therefore predates state and law.

State and law have rendered useless the few shared core spheres of life that are regulated by almost all of the world's marriage norms. They are as follow:

Property. Edmund Leache suggests that marriage is "the set of legal rules that govern how goods, titles, and social status are handed down from generation to generation." Property and class thus play a central role in Leache's definition. Despite this, we currently live in an age where classes are increasingly mobile and property is defined and transferred through a complex legal system. Inheritance, the exchange of property, and nuptial agreements can now be defined by contracts and be upheld in a court of law. In modern society, property can be divided among separating parties and estates can be passed down from generation to generation in an orderly manner independently of marriage.

Family. Marriage has long been a tool used by societies to join families, pool resources and labor, and reach peace among waring peoples. But in an age where individuals are much more financially independent than in previous generations, marriage is no longer needed to secure one's social success. Not only have extended families lost their political and social importance in a post-Catholic society but modern accommodations such as daycares, schools, hospitals, and ready-made meals have downplayed responsibilities once held by persons outside of the nuclear family.

Economics. In a similar manner, it is no longer necessary to marry in order to obtain financial success. Couples can become wage earners in the modern economy and each own their own residence long before deciding to tie the knot. While developments in recent centuries have led nuclear families to declare independence from the extended family, individuals - including children - have been able to obtain their independence from each other.

There exists little practical purpose for modern day marriage. Property inheritance, custody over children, and economic security are no longer limited to legitimately married couples. Very few relics of such an age still linger and can be seen in taxes, adoption regulations, and a few details of property and custody laws. One could say that there still exists a small scale of discrimination against couples who choose not to marry. But if the few legal benefits of marriage were to be extended to non-married couples then what would be the reason for people to get married?

Advocates of same-sex marriage demand that marriage be applied to them in an nondiscriminatory fashion. But what if tax, property, and custody laws were to be applied in a nondiscriminatory fashion to non-married couples. Than what would be the appeal of marriage? The only thing that comes to my mind is religion. But if that is the case, then would legal marriage be a violation of the separation of church and state? If two people choose to bind themselves spiritually and religiously for the rest of eternity, should this really be a field in which the state should enter?

If it is a pastor that marries two people and if it is a certain denomination or church that these persons choose to marry under, should they not be abridged by the norms and regulations of the organization and not that of the state? Marriage is in fact a private contract between two people. "After the late eighteenth century," states legal historian Michael Grossberg, "marriage was increasingly defined as a private agreement with public consequences."

It is not that I oppose same-sex marriage. It's just that I oppose the state's mingling in such a cultural and religious institution. The moment judges instead of priests began marrying us was the moment the state began invading our households and regulating our private relationships.

(In response to a question on one of my online courses, "Is there a liberal bias in the media?"

I don't think one could necessarily say that there is a "liberal" bias - there can be a conservative bias just as much as a liberal one. But yes; I feel it impossible to receive, register, process, interpret, and disseminate any knowledge without bias or preference. What is deeper than any political bias is obviously the cultural bias. Any American watching Al-Jazeera or any Arab watching Fox News can quickly pick up on this.

Despite an obvious bias, this does not necessarily mean that the media source is *lying*. Very few news sources lie, I would say, for it is well known that if media players were to permit lying journalists that the credibility of their stories would fall drastically. Instead, the omission - or down playing - of details is often the most effective way of implementing a bias in the way one reports a news story.

Sometimes the mere way one words a true statement can cause the reader to inject their own biases. For example: recently Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was said to be "try to change the law to allow him to remain in power indefinitely." A reader who glances through such statements would be lead to believe that Chavez wishes to abolish elections and remain in power forever. Few people I ran into during this time actually knew what was going on. Chavez's proposition was not to eliminate elections or to implement a permanent Chavez government, but to eliminate term limits (a reality in many developed and Western nations).

I think that bias news sources are inevitable. Private media sources are aimed towards securing maximum profit for their owners, public media sources wish to praise the state, and non-profit media sources do what they do for a reason be it for a certain cause or for the sake of journalism (which in turn hinders their ability to cover journalism in general from a non-biased standpoint).

Liberal coverage might omit details in a conservative coverage, which in turn omits data from theirs as well. I don't sweat it though. I think the key to being a "balanced" recipient of information in an age of "biased" information requires the intake of various sources of news and the ability to extract the data one needs from them.

Yesterday evening at the Economic Assistance Office at my University:

Me: "Hello. I'm curious to know if you guys have any economic assistance available for the June courses."
Woman: "No. We just ran out. But I recommend that you come tomorrow since we always have students who cancel courses last minute. Come early."

This morning via telephone (since I was working "early"):

<<After hearing the phone ring for about 5 minutes (I put it on speaker and do my thing)>>
Man: "Hello?"
Me: "Is this the Economic Assistance Office?"
Man: "No. This is the Admissions Office?"
Me: "Oh. Well I dialed the Economic Assistance extension. Is there any way you can transfer me to them?"
Man: <<click>>
<<After about 5 more minutes I had to hang up to attend an issue>>

Ten minutes later:

<<After 5 minutes of ringing>>
Slurry man: "Gkhello?"
Me: "Yes. Is this the Economic Assistance Office?"
Man: "No. Thish ish the Managhement and Regisghtration Office"
Me: "Well I keep dialing the Economic Assistance Office and it rings and rings until someone from aonther office picks up."
Man: "Well, gkhow can I help you?"
Me: "Well, yesterday I went to the Economic Assistance Office in search of economic assistance my June courses but was told that all the assistance had already been given out. I was told to check back today just in case some students canceled their courses last minute."
Man: "Shhure. Just let me jot down your social security, name, and pghone number and I'll call you back."

<<After never receiving a call and numerous unsuccessful attempts at getting thourh on the phone I decide to visit the Economic Assistance Office in person after work>>

Me: <explains story to a fat gay black man behind the counter>
Fat gay black man: "Sorry buddy. There is no assistance left."
Me: "Is there any chance that some might arrise during the day?"
Fatty: "No"

<<I decide to step outside the office and call the Slurry man to see why he never called me back. After having to ask a secretary in another office for Slurry man's extension I finally got through>>

Me: <explains story to slurry man, in hopes that he will remember me> "I never received a call back>
Man: "Oh yea. I remember. We called your house and left a message about how much you owe."
Me: "But that's not what I wanted to know. I wanted to know if there was any assistance left."
Man: "Oh yea, that's right. Um. No. There's no assistance left. It's all used up."
Me: "Did any students cancel last minute?"
Man: "Oh yea. They did."
Me: "So there *was* assistance, but it was gobbled up quickly, right?"
Man: "Yes."
Me: "Well. When I called in the morning... was there assistance available?"
Man: "Umm" (obviously knowing where I'm going, as I insinuate that due to his slack I missed my chances for economic assistance.) "Umm.. hold on". <<2 minutes later>> "Ok. Yea. There's only $45 left for economic assistance."
Me: "Well. Where do I get it?"
Man: "At the Economic Assistance Office."
Me: <<click>>

I step back into the office and this time avoid fatty gay guy and instead opt to wait for the same woman who tended to me yesterday.

Me: <explains all of the above> "I'm pretty much confused because you told me that there was going to be assistance, that fat gay guy over there told me that there was no funds left, and that guy in the Management Office told me there were $45.
Woman: <<steps into an office and talks with who appears to be a superior, returns to her computer, and types in a few numbers.>> "Ok. Your all set. I just credited $365 to your account."

Fucking amazing. I'm still trying to break all of this down and process it. It's as if our bureaucracies are stuffed with money but the tree must be shaken in order for fruit to fall. After evaluating the situation I've established the following inter-personal hurdles that are set up in Puerto Rican - and Latin American - bureaucratic organizations. As Director of a government agency I have seen these practices first hand:

1) Upon your first request for information you are simply told to come back later or talk to somebody else. This is an attempt to "shake you off" in hopes that you will never come back. Interestingly enough, most Puerto Ricans don't return. "Forget that!" they think to themselves as they continue along their way.

2) If you return, they will simply deny you the information. Funds are gone, the information does not exist, or there is no way your going to get it. This is another attempt to shake you off. No in-debt effort is invested to tend to your need and a superficial assessment of needs will come up negative in order to get rid of you. By coming back you are "annoying" and should be denied the request.

3) By coming back a third time, you have finally established that you will continue to pester them until they serve your need. By doing so they finally come to the conclusion that helping you will get rid of you. They give you what you need and hope to never see you again.

I am reading "Das Energi". The following few lines caught my attention:

Efficiency the destroyer, millions upon millions of
living dead, done in by the electric can-opener
and the automobile.
Progress is our most important product,
babies are our business,
time is money,
life is cheap.

Modern technology, modern business, the modern state
give us everything we need

except breathable air, drinkable water, edible food,
meaningful work, freedom from fear, freedom to love,
freedom to be ourselves, courage, pride, friendship,
hope.
The moral of the story is: don't be in such a hurry.
Beware creeping efficiency.
Slow down and live.

Thanks Sarai

Despite my pride of my Latino ethnicity, there are a number of North American traits that I have retained. One such trait is my concept of location, space, and distance. Growing up in a household with framed maps on walls, I have always had an interest in cartography. Not only can I spend hours looking at historical maps but I have a skill for map reading, interpretation, and navigation. During weekend trips to distant cities, I often arrive with a notepad full of subway routes, road names, and fool-proof directions to points of interest.

One of the most frustrating things about my experiences in Puerto Rico has been the cultural clash in concepts of U.S. and Latino forms of navigation. Roads often have a variety of names and numbers are are most often referred to by nearby points of interest. Reference to exit and road numbers often draw blaunk faces. Time's Tim Rogers in reference to his experiences in Nicaragua states that interpreting such directions "means developing an intimate understanding of the spatial relationships between current and past landmarks, some of which were destroyed more than 30 years ago". New York Time's Stephen Kinzer described it as a "'Socratic' technique, based on first determining what the direction asker knows, then working backwards from there." One such instance occurred this morning when I got lost. (I found the address with ease but was unaware that Ponce de Leon had two 1375's; each on opposite sides of the Metropolitan Area.)

"The Environmental Quality Board, how may I help you?"
"Yes. I'm calling because I have a meeting with you guys at 9:00am. I am here on Ponce de Leon, facing Condado, and can't seem to find your building."
"Um. Where are you?"
"On Ponce de Leon. I'm standing right in front of where your building is supposed to be. I'm staring at a Domino's Pizza" (trying to speak to her under her terms.)
"Well. Your supposed to go as if your going to Caguas. Right next to the Masso and the Botanical Garden."
"Um... is that the Ponce de Leon?"
"I think that's still the Ponce de Leon" (it's funny, cause she works there and doesn't know)
"Well I'm sorry, but I'm not sure I understand where that is. Can you give me the name of the road that intersects with your building?"
"I don't know the name of the road, honey. It's the road where the Masso hardware store is."
"Is it the Masso that you see when you get off the #18 to get onto the #1?"
"Ummm. I don't know how else to explain it."
"Can you at least confirm your street address for me? What's the number of your building?"
"Um. I don't know. Umm. Let me check." (she fiddles) "1375."
"Okay. Thanks for your help." (frustrated)

Following directions from passer byers and pedestrians is often more complicated than even the most detailed map. Persons will often be more than willing to assist you, but will often give you directions that will totally throw you off course. Someone might tell you "Just take a left, a right, and than another right and your there!" without saying how many intersections or stop lights you must pass. Even when people are more detailed they will revert to the points of interest method of directions giving. "When you see the yellow house to your left, take a right, and then once you read Jimmy's Barbecue pull to the right." These sites are often badly labeled or with official names much more different than the ones neighbors refer them to." Also, even when people don't know how to get to a certain place, they will often give you improvised directions simply to get rid of you.

"To further confuse things," states Rogers, "directions are given in a unit of measurement known as a vara, which is apparently based on the arm length of a former nobleman from some time and some place in the distant past." While Puerto Ricans don't use "varas", it is quite culturally appropriate. Instead of giving my physical address to UPS delivery trucks, for example, I must tell them "Turn into the Mulas Bar, take the private entrance to the left after Tu Amigo Gas and take a left when you pass the McDonald's painted house. My house is at the end." Ironically, many of these streets don't have names due to lack of effort and interest in given them one. Many "legal" physical addresses are riddled with references to a barrio, neighborhood name, closest road number, and the exact kilometer point from that road.

I'm quoting the whole thing since I hope to use it soon for another writing of mine:

Pulling up to an intersection where the traffic lights aren't working is confusing. Whose turn is it to go? Who has the right-of-way? Inevitably, you have to negotiate the intersection by interacting--you look around for pedestrians, then, making eye contact with other drivers, slowly pull across the intersection.

This phenomenon--heightened driver attention and slower traffic in the absence of directions--is the core of a new philosophy of transportation planning: "naked streets." The naked-streets movement, also known as "shared space," "mental speed bumps," or "psychological traffic calming," advocates the elimination of traffic lights and signs, lines on the street, and curbs separating pedestrian space from vehicle space.

Hans Monderman, the pragmatic Dutch planner who was one of the first to introduce the naked streets concept in Holland, reorganized streets so that cars had to proceed as cautiously as pedestrians. Drachten, a city of 45,000 people, has removed more than 80 percent of its traffic lights and more than half its road signs under Monderman's guidance: the number of accidents has dropped dramatically. "I am used to it now," Drachten resident Helena Spaanstra told one newspaper. "You drive more slowly and carefully, but somehow you seem to get around town quicker."

Early in his career, Monderman pursued traditional traffic-calming mechanisms like landscaping and speed bumps. All that changed when Monderman observed traffic patterns in a woonerf, a plaza without curbs or painted lane markers. Speed bumps usually result in a 10-percent average drop in the speed of cars, but in the woonerf cars drove nearly 50 percent more slowly, as they carefully made sure to avoid other cars and pedestrians.

Throughout Europe, cities are exploring the potential of naked streets, some with financial support from the E.U. For the most part, it is smaller cities and towns that are experimenting with the model, but even in London, pilot projects are under way to test their applicability. Early results suggest similar effects as to what was found in Holland. Good Magazine

Thanks Meilin.

I recently stated "Schooling is aimed towards discipline, following orders, getting a job and keeping it instead of creating jobs of your own."

John B. Egger in "The Free Market" notes along similar lines:

The whole educational process... seems designed to keep young people from ever learning what freedom is. The student forgets his force-fed semester of Civics but is unceasingly drilled with the benefits of conforming in dress and thought, keeping quiet, standing ins straight lines, submitting wholly to the authority of the faculty and administration... [they] will be trained to tolerate an incredibly stultifying assembly-line or even white-collar job... Professor Kistol points out that education is supposed to make men dissatisfied with menial jobs; he doesn't mention that as practiced in America, it also trains them to accept frustration and repression of self as a way of life.

John B. Egger in "The Free Market" stated the following in a critique of trade unions: "It is tautology that when the worker punches in he proves that he considers work his best alternative; it doesn't follow that he likes it... Why does he do what he doesn't like? He is free to go elsewhere; the market allows him to seek other work or to snooze in a hammock if he wishes."

Daniel Quinn in "Beyond Civilization" in reference to civilization states that "when it comes to the most fundamental thing of all [cultures], getting the food they need to stay alive, they're all alive." Hunter-gatherism, on the other hand, was a system where food was public and free for the taking. "No other culture in history has ever put food under lock and key - and putting it there is the corner stone of our economy, for if the food wasn't under lock and key, who would work?"

Quinn in "Beyond Civilization" notes that "It took Khufu twenty-three years to build his Great Pyramid at Giza, where some eleven hundred stone blocks, each weighing about two and a half tons, had to be quarried, moved, and set in place every day during the annual building season, roughly four months long." These workers did so not because they wanted to, but because they had no other choice.

The worker works because he has no other choice to. It's either that or starvation. "Every morning," notes Quinn, "we must shake off the hangover and forget about fun for eight or ten hours while we drag our quota of stones up the side of the pyramid."

"Pharoah Khufu needed to exercise no more control over his workers at Giza than pharaoh Bill Gates exercises over his workers at Microsoft. I submit that Egyptian workers, relatively speaking, got as much out of building Khufu's pyramid as Microsoft workers will get out of building Bill Gates's pyramid... If they see themselves as having no choice but to build pyramids. They'll build whatever they're told to build, whether it's pyramids, parking garages, or computer programs."

John H. Beck states in "The Free Market" that "Even a socialist state desiring to allow the publication of all views must impose censorship in the sense of not publishing everything that somebody might wish published. Scarcity imposes the same restraint on publication in a market economy, but, while in the centrally directed socialist state the one state authority will decide who is to publish, in the market economy there are a multitude of owners of the scarce resources, any one of whom may decide to use them for the publication of some particular writer's work. In either society a writer may fail to get his work published, but in the market economy the dispersion of control over resources gives the writer many more chances of persuading someone who has the power to publish his work."

This reminds me of a story mentioned in Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture": "In 1969, Normal Lear created a pilot for All in the Family. He took the pilot to ABC. The network didn't like it. It was too edgy, they told Lear... Rather than comply, Lear simply too the shower elsewhere. CBS was happy to have the series." But after the merging and consolidation of many of the production houses, Lessig writes "This narrowing has an effect on what is produced. The product of such large and concentrated networks is increasingly homogeneous. Increasingly safe. Increasingly sterile." Today the vast majority of television shows are produced by a tiny number of production houses and the vast majority of media outlets aggregate from few news sources.

Interestingly enough, Beck criticizes the limited numbers of socialist creative outlets. Lessig criticizes the limited number of outlets in an increasingly monopolized capitalist system. One must ask if there is much difference between a liberal, open-minded socialist publishing house and a publishing cartel of two or three quasi-monopolistic companies that share the same standards. The first is subject to censorship of the state. The second by censorship of the private market; fear that crossing the line on some subject might scare away advertisers. 

"Freedom of press" becomes a hollow concept in both cases. That's where I think community radio, publishing, and reporting is crucial. I am a faithful believer in the drastic liberalization of radio and television frequencies, web development courses for the youth, and the equipping of community centers with recording and transmission capabilities.

    A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
    Her face and arms began to swell and Whitey's on the moon.
    I can't pay no doctor bills but Whitey's on the moon.
    Ten years from now I'll be payin' still while Whitey's on the moon.

    The man just upped my rent last night cuz Whitey's on the moon.
    No hot water, no toilets, no lights but Whitey's on the moon.
    I wonder why he's uppin me. Cuz Whitey's on the moon?
    I was already givin' him fifty a week but now Whitey's on the moon.
  
    Taxes takin' my whole damn check,
    The junkies makin' me a nervous wreck,
    The price of food is goin' up,
    And as if all that shit wasn't enough:
 
    A rat done bit my sister Nell with Whitey on the moon.
    Her face and arms began to swell but Whitey's on the moon.
    Was all that money I made last year for Whitey on the moon?
    How come there ain't no money here? Hmm! Whitey's on the moon.

    Ya know, I just about had my fill of Whitey on the moon.
    I think I'll send these doctor bills
    airmail special....
    to Whitey on the moon.

"The revolution enlightens, we repeat, with fabulous rapidity."

-Lenin, "Revoliutsionaia demokraticheskaia diktatura proletariata i krest'ianstva, in Sochineniia, VIII, Moscow, 1923, pp. 262-263

If there's one thing that I've learned from the school of economic libertarians, it's that competition is good. That cannot be refuted. But to me, the public and private sector themselves are both necessary in order to assure competition. Both compete against each other and both can do just as much good as the other. A corrupt politician can be just as dangerous as a corrupt businessman. Big government can be just as destructive as big business.

It's not about voters and tax payers... nor is it about consumers and producers... it's about citizens. That's pretty much the only thing we all have in common.