“politics”
36 posts under this tag.
People flaunting their sexuality are no different from people who flaunt anything else.
Whether you wear a T-Shirt from your favourite band’s latest tour, a Leatherman™ Supertool on your belt or an Armani suit, whether you pepper your words with TechSpeak references or four syllable words from the world of philosophy, your behaviour is in many ways a reflection of what you would like people to think of you.
For some people the emphasis is on “smart”, for others it’s “rich”, and for many it’s “sexy” or “sexual”.
What’s the big?
Pues si, Cecilia Marquez anda perdida politicamente, y si, es otro caso mas de exhibicionismo perredista gratuito (con el que se las dan de muy “izquierda moderna”1), pero, vamos, como quejarse?
“¿Dónde trabajas, pinche vieja?” le eructo un anciano, intuyendo sanjuanera a la ex responsable de prensa del PRD en Jalisco.
The above is a map of world happiness—the redder, the happier—Adrian White, Analytic Social Psychologist, University of Leicester, made in a meta-study that aggregated the results of over a 100 independent studies and surveys on subjective wellbeing from around the world. The study itself isn’t yet available, but there’s an intereresting (though hideous) press release were you can quote your country’s rank (the US is #23, Denmark #1, Switzerland #2, Austria #3 (cheers to Alexis!), and Mexico #51).
As I said, the source itself isn’t yet available, but Eurekalert—a science news service of sorts—provides some quotes on White’s meta-study.
My favorite one—because it confirms my individualistic prejudices of course:
We were surprised to see countries in Asia scoring so low, with China 82nd, Japan 90th and India 125th. These are countries that are thought as having a strong sense of collective identity which other researchers have associated with well-being.
It was also interesting to find out that health was the most closely correlated variable to happiness (I would have expected wealth to have that place):
Further analysis showed that a nation’s level of happiness was most closely associated with health levels (correlation of .62), followed by wealth (.52), and then provision of education (.51).
But there are several quotes that hint at the study’s agenda—and it sends a chill through my spine:
There is increasing political interest in using measures of happiness as a national indicator in conjunction with measures of wealth. A recent BBC survey found that 81% of the population think the Government should focus on making us happier rather than wealthier.
If government has proved itself so egregiously lousy and so disturbingly meddling when it started working under the banner of improving our welfare through last century, I can only shudder when imagining what a brand new world awaits us when it pursues “our” happiness.
From Ayn Rand to bushy anarchists there is an occasional agreement
on means called libertarianism, which is a faith in laissez-faire politics/economics…
How to hate your government on principle.
—SB, The Last Whole Earth Catalog
Via Adolfo, who seems to be reading good stuff lately.
A saint said “Let the perfect city rise.
Here needs no long debate on subtleties,
Means, end,
Let us intend
That all be clothed and fed; while one remains
Hungry our quarreling but mocks his pains.
So all will labor to the good
In one phalanx of brotherhood.”
A man cried out “I know the truth, I, I,
Perfect and whole. He who denies
My vision is a madman or a fool
Or seeks some base advantage in his lies.
All peoples are a tool that fits my hand
Cutting you each and all
Into my plan.”
They were one man.
Carlos Loret de Mola: Dejeme, para cerrar el tema inicial, condena usted los hechos de esta mañana contra Felipe Calderon?
Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador: No, no, no, no… no lo condeno. Condeno el fraude electoral y ejplico…
Carlos: No condena que haya una agresion fisica, verbal, una increpacion directa a un candidato presidencial?!?
Andres: No, no, no, no… Carlos. A ver, tu condenas el fraude electoral?
Carlos: Otro dia si quiere usted me pide una entrevista…
Es francamente increible el poder de la prensa para moldear una noticia. La portada de La Jornada de hoy, por ejemplo, dedica practicamente toda su primera plana—75% del area de contenido—al “noticion” de que carteles pro-peje fueron rasgados por la noche.
Notese el nada sutil entrejuego de los subtitulares. Despues de una lectura apresurada, en la memoria queda solo el desapruebo de (gulp!) los intelectuales; la frase “actos fascistas y autoritarios”; las palabras “ataque”, “vandalismo”, “navajazos”, “al amparo de la oscuridad”; y el enojo ante el cinismo de Abascal de decir, ahora, justamente ahora (y justamente abajo), que hay “plena libertad de expresion”, y de Fox y su “eleccion de Estado”. Sin decir nada de la validez de sus motivos, concentrandonos solo en la forma y el peso que le decidio dar a la noticia, puede alguien decir que La Jornada no anda de calientahuevos?
En la misma portada, en la esquina superior derecha, hay otra noticia con un titular interesante, especialmente cuando se contrasta con el titular que tuvo la misma noticia en la portada del Publico de ayer.
El titular de La Jornada pareceria a primera vista imparcial, mostrando prominentemente numeros, citas, y nombres de instituciones, pero es interesante como escoge no decir que las casillas en cuestion fueron casillas impugnadas, un detalle sutil pero absolutamente crucial. Sin el, uno puede asumir, uno es invitado a asumir, que si hubo “votos de mas” en 2 mil 873 casillas cualquiera, que marranadas no habra habido en las 127, 604 restantes? El resultado del conteo “reajusta porcentajes en la eleccion presidencial”, segun La Jornada, mientras que en el subtitulo de Publico (del articulo en si, ya no de su titular en primera plana), se afirma que “los resultados no cambiaron de forma significativa, dice Rodrigo Morales [consejero electoral].”
Lo primero que salta a la vista en la portada de Publico, en cambio, es el gran peso que le otorgo este a la noticia y como se esfuerza en asegurarse de que recordemos quien “gano” el rencuentro. Aqui si se menciona prominentemente que se trataba de casillas impugnadas, quejosas, pues la insinuacion es clara: ahi’sta pejistas, si ese fue el resultado de examinar las casillas problematicas, cual es el punto de examinarlas todas? Lopez Obrador se antoja pequeño como su subtitulo; canson, terco, y autoritario, “exigiendo” renuncias una vez que las impugnaciones no le favorecieron (por cuanto? por que no se aclara en portada lo minima que fue la diferencia con Calderon? por que no se aclara que mas que ganar, Calderon fue el que perdio menos votos?).
Y ya paranoiqueando, no es curioso que en el articulo de La Jornada sobre el reconteo de votos, al dar los cambios porcentuales de los candidatos solo se usa la palabra “subio” para Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, siendo que fueron tres los candidatos que subieron (bueno, al parecer ellos “pasaron” de un porcentaje a otro)?
En términos porcentuales, Calderón pasó de 35.868 a 35.893 por ciento; Madrazo de 22.261 a 22.257; López Obrador subió de 35.290
a 35.310; Campa de 0.968 a 0.961, y Mercado de 2.699 a 2.701.
I went to Mikhail Bakunin’s God and the State to read his famous boot-master quote straight from the source. As it often happens, the quote makes no justice to its context, which now follows. This is lucidness embodied—”simplicity that is clarity, the light of intelligence.”
Does it follow that I reject all authority? Far from me such a thought. In the matter of boots, I refer to the authority of the bootmaker; concerning houses, canals, or railroads, I consult that of the architect or the engineer. For such or such special knowledge I apply to such or such a savant. But I allow neither the bootmaker nor the architect nor the savant to impose his authority upon me. I listen to them freely and with all the respect merited by their intelligence, their character, their knowledge, reserving always my incontestable right of criticism and censure. I do not content myself with consulting a single authority in any special branch; I consult several; I compare their opinions, and choose that which seems to me the soundest. But I recognise no infallible authority, even in special questions; consequently, whatever respect I may have for the honesty and the sincerity of such or such an individual, I have no absolute faith in any person. Such a faith would be fatal to my reason, to my liberty, and even to the success of my undertakings; it would immediately transform me into a stupid slave, an instrument of the will and interests of others.
If I bow before the authority of the specialists and avow my readiness to follow, to a certain extent and as long as may seem to me necessary, their indications and even their directions, it is because their authority is imposed on me by no one, neither by men nor by God. Otherwise I would repel them with horror, and bid the devil take their counsels, their directions, and their services, certain that they would make me pay, by the loss of my liberty and self-respect, for such scraps of truth, wrapped in a multitude of lies, as they might give me.
I bow before the authority of special men because it is imposed on me by my own reason. I am conscious of my own inability to grasp, in all its detail, and positive development, any very large portion of human knowledge. The greatest intelligence would not be equal to a comprehension of the whole. Thence results, for science as well as for industry, the necessity of the division and association of labour. I receive and I give—such is human life. Each directs and is directed in his turn. Therefore there is no fixed and constant authority, but a continual exchange of mutual, temporary, and, above all, voluntary authority and subordination.
This same reason forbids me, then, to recognise a fixed, constant and universal authority, because there is no universal man, no man capable of grasping in all that wealth of detail, without which the application of science to life is impossible, all the sciences, all the branches of social life. And if such universality could ever be realised in a single man, and if he wished to take advantage thereof to impose his authority upon us, it would be necessary to drive this man out of society, because his authority would inevitably reduce all the others to slavery and imbecility. I do not think that society ought to maltreat men of genius as it has done hitherto: but neither do I think it should indulge them too far, still less accord them any privileges or exclusive rights whatsoever; and that for three reasons: first, because it would often mistake a charlatan for a man of genius; second, because, through such a system of privileges, it might transform into a charlatan even a real man of genius, demoralise him, and degrade him; and, finally, because it would establish a master over itself.
Lalo—who taught me, with passion, Mexican history and economical development in high school—used to talk somewhat mockingly of some of his scientist friends who lived isolated from the world and, particularly, from politics; they thought themselves beyond it and preferred to live their lifes pondering deep thoughts back in their ebony towers; “they wouldn’t realize a political revolution had arrived until they were shot,” or something along those lines.
I agreed with it then and promptly forgot it with gusto when it was my turn to think deep thoughts in the ebony towers of CIMAT, where I studied Mathematics for some years. These days of alleged post-electoral unrest in Mexico, when most anyone in the country is fed up with politics, and politicians are having a hard time leaving their six-yearly limelight, I remember those words.
A few months ago, coming back to my old high-school and chancing on Lalo, it was interesting to discover his complete isolation from technology, and, particularly, from the web. He used his computer exclusively for email, never searched, had no idea what a blog was, didn’t know about Wikipedia, and in general didn’t think much of digital contraptions of any sort (!).
That may have had a lot to do with age but my point is that he was missing on one most important sphere (my preferred one, of course). “He wouldn’t know the singularity had arrived until he were absorbed into computronium”—or something alone those lines.
Of course I’m exaggerating, but I neither want to mock Lalo nor defend single-minded obsesiveness. It’s just that the preponderance argument could be made on many, many other spheres of life—economy, finance, culture, ecology, art, design, animal trainers… The world is far vaster and far more complex than we like to acknowledge, and we all suffer from interest myopia (the farther from our interests something is, the fainter and blurrier it is in our picture). Arguing for the preponderance of one sphere is usually self-interest lobbying.
The recent and thankfully past presidential campaign in Mexico was a bizarre spectacle of major rifts in each of the 4 major parties. So important they were, it is not far-fetched to imagine that had a party managed to avoid them it would have been an easy victor. The ruling party, the PAN, was torn at the beginning between the incumbent’s pre-candidate, Santiago Creel, and the party’s one, Felipe Calderon; the PRD between the Cardenas family and Lopez Obrador; the PRI between Madrazo and Elba Esther Gordillo.
And that was all childish bickering compared to the hard, unprecedentedly dirty fights between parties. The race had simply never been this close.
It all made for grisly headlines, nauseating TV spots, debilitating internecine wars, and tiring discussion in every reunion you care to name. But now that’s past I can’t help but think of it as progress. You may call me naive or unsophisticated but I’ve oft thought, in what I do not believe to be my least lucid times1, that if there is such a thing as progress in politics it is nothing but the fragmentation of power2.
Yes, fragmentation can be ugly, and noisy, and wasteful, (particularly at its early stages) but we only know one answer to the ancient Latin question of “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” (Who shall guard the guards themselves?”) and it is ”each to one another” (Can someone please translate this to Latin?). No matter what convoluted system, ideology, rules, mechanisms, or technologies of any sort we throw into the mix, it always comes down to the people that implement them, “it’s always a people problem.” In fact, the most that can be said in defense of a system is that it fragments the power to do wrong between many people.
Take the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE) If it deserves any credibility (and I think it does) it is not because our voting technology ranks among the most sophisticated and expensive in the world (it does) but because there are deputies of every party3 physically overseeing every step of the electoral process.
Cielo azul, totalmente despejado.
(heh, not that I’m gloating or anything (as if there was something to gloat about) but it’s the best post-electoral pun I’ve heard yet and I’m sure it’ll cheer Adolfo up ;)
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