(no subject)

so my fulbright interview is today. for some reason i find the fact that i don't know the exact number of people on the panel (between 6 and 10 i am told) somewhat anxiety-provoking. so i was also told i have to dress "professionally"--like for a job interview. since i don't make a practice out of dressing like that, i may have gone over the top (or maybe not, i am not equipped to judge this). but basically i am wearing an ann taylor fitted shirt (beige with white and red vertical stripes), a black italian suit (courtesy of nuncstans), my wonderful roommate jen blew out my hair, so it's, like, super-straight, like i have not seen it in years and years, i am wearing a leather headband and having decided that my usual eclectic assortment of huge rings that could be considered sharp, and not blunt objects in the game of clue (incidentally, once upon a time an old boyfriend used that very turn of phrase in a letter do describe his feelings for me, because he was a pretentious wanker), and donned my one piece of normative jewelry, that is a platinum/diamond ring. and i am wearing glasses. i look like fucking charlotte from "sex and the city." perhaps afterwards i can go to a midtown bar and talk about my investment portfolio. and then some investment banker will, like, ask me out and i will be like "sure, come over to my east williamsburg apartment and meet the life-size cutout of Spike." oy vey.

(no subject)

Fulbright and Fulbright-Hays are done.
3 more to go: SSRC, Wenner-Gren and NSF

in the same way that bad porn can make sex unsexy, grant writing can drain jouissance out of intellectual pursuits.

put the pieces together

So the fucking  gubernator is the new governor of California.

i just turned on CNN for a moment and caught some vapid blonde hoe saying something like "he is a charismatic speaker and people like it when he is talking even if they are not agreeing with what he is saying."

indirect bias transmission, rechristened by nuncstans as "lead dog mimesis" is setting in already; now people are saying about ah-nold what ah-nold said about hitler

poor california, with its misguided, vaguely Ayn-Rand-ish Proposition 13 and its ensuing legacy of dilapidated infrastructures. poor gray davis, who, for all of his lack of charisma, is not at fault for largely Republican-enabled corruption and mismanagement of money that befell his state. and poor fucking morons that just elected the Terminator, in bed with Ken Lay governor.

all right, pity party over.

Because it's not all some Greek Drama with Stupidity as the lead Fate. It's far more insidious than that. Of course, much like with PNAC world-domination plan in plain sight, the explicitness of what would previously have been a "conspiracy theory" discourse achieves a positively Pinter-esque effect, where the subtext is imported into text, and no one knows what to do. Because the task of text analysis is to illuminate the subtext, the task of a critical thinker is to read between the lines. But now "between the lines" is spelled out, hooked-on-phonics style. The center is preemptively eliminating the niche of the fringes, post-Foucault style. what's left to uncover, when it's all presented as open text? We have private companies financing an illegal recall that becomes "legal" only because it is upheld by Republican courts. We have a state with the history of Democratic control of the legislature and little precedent of sustainable bipartisan cooperation, not to mention all those provisions for initiatives (like Howard Jarvis' Proposition 13, which fixed low property taxes thus creating a solid base for the economic mess that the California school system and highway system exemplifies today) and referendums, which are democratic in theory but counterproductive in practice. I hate to go and be all Leviathan-sounding, but obviously, the people stupid enough to elect Arnold Schwarzenegger as their governor are not capable of long-term vision and do not have a grasp on the larger picture. And Arnold pimps that short-sightedness right back at the idiots that elected him. Warren Buffett suggested that low property taxes were a cause of California's economic problems;
More talk about Prop 13 by Buffett, said the bodybuilder, and he would make the 72-year-old investor do 500 push-ups. What other the other components in this constellation, no, pardon me, metastasys? Republican governors are useful because they can curb/veto state possible legislature initiatives refusal to extend the August deadlines for Presidential candidates (since the GOP is being typically Cartman about the whole thing and holding the RNC after like a third of all states' deadline for candidates to be announced if they want to be on the ballot and not have to run as a write-in). They can aid with the kind of redistricting/gerrymandering that was happenning in Texas with the Texas 11 until one folded, and then there were 10, Agatha-Christie style, and by the way, isn't it interesting that if we look at the time periods 1981-1990 and 1991-2000, we find that New York has lost 3 electoral votes, Illinois has lost 2, but Texas gained 3, and Jeb's Florida gained 4?

Score one for The Cabal. California for Bush in 2004. With Diebold as a new bed partner for Arnold, to replace Ken Lay.