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Knife Fighting Advice

Two people find each other in a bar, have words, and are told to take it outside. One has a knife, the other does not.

Political Advice

The need to find a name for everything, especially in the midst of context collapse – government that relies on its own impunity, media beholden to access and corrupted beyond its ability to notice – finds its gloomy audience. The cynicism of artificial everything takes the degradation of beauty as license for further spoils. People who profess faith in a universe governed by a monarchy do not care about the state of democracy. Capitalist buzzards scavenge the carrion so much begins to resemble.

Slow down.

The rush constitutes a critical element in the systemic failures, which while calculated and tangible only accelerate via failures of imagination. The first thing to go, assumed to be light, harmless, perhaps fun but inessential and so left unguarded while the currencies get blast-proof doors and laser alarm matrices. But crushing the capacity for imagination has always been priority. Note the uncomfortable complicity in putting away childish things at our peril.

Consider how little attention has been paid. How much agency remains? Where to start with such a disfigured capacity to imagine? No wonder. Little wonder. Disordered priorities. Go back. Name a recent wonder. A glimpse, a moment handed over to wonder. Everything is there.

The subconscious renders, speaks beyond language, as much older than language, flickers with light, premises lightness, joy, love.

Own the lapses, welcome fears. Correct them. Re-order indicates a new, different hierarchy that understands exact necessity. Smells of earth and wild garden fragrance always near the top.

Oh, and always bring a knife just in case.

Image: Fifth Avenue skyscraper blocking the view of the Empire State Building.

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Canary in a (Saudi) Coal Mine

Not a perfect analogy, I’ll admit. But something huge seems to be brewing in the tiny island nation of Bahrain.

The king of Bahrain declared a three-month state of emergency on Tuesday as more than 10,000 protesters marched on the Saudi Arabian embassy here to denounce a military intervention by Persian Gulf countries the day before.

The entrance of foreign forces, including Saudi troops and those from other Gulf nations, threatened to escalate a local political conflict into a regional showdown;

As vulnerable as any modern dictatorship and perhaps more, Saudi Arabia welcomes no semblance of the regional revolutions that have swept away the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia. The royal family may see the writing on the wall, but sending in 1,200 troops to the tiny country with a Shia’a majority, governed by a Sunni minority and historically a part of Iran… they may need to call in a translator. The thing is, with Bahrain as longtime host to our own Navy’s Fifth Fleet, the U.S. may not have any better advice to offer. Which is awful.

The Saudis may be trying to nip this unrest in the bud, but they are just as likely to escalate it with these actions. It’s a test case/ microcosm of the situation in Saudi Arabia itself. We have armed them to the teeth over the years, sure, but made (nor attempted) few inroads with regard to Locke, Rousseau, Hobbes… much less the case of King Juan Carlos of Spain.

And this is no pass-the-popcorn moment; just go fill your car up and see.

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New Bronze Aging

There was a funny quote by a Saudi prince/oil official in an article I read a few months ago, something along the lines of, “the Stone Age didn’t end because we ran out of stones.” The implication for the fossil fuel age being, of course, that instead of completely running out, we will graduate to an improved energy source. Whatever your feelings on that, it’s a good line.

But before we move along, as we do, such as the case may be, the House of Saud has a master plan to help themselves alongeven as their repositories are abandoned:

Saudi Arabia is trying to enlist other oil-producing countries to support a provocative idea: if wealthy countries reduce their oil consumption to combat global warming, they should pay compensation to oil producers.

The chief Saudi negotiator, Mohammad al-Sabban, described the position as a “make or break” provision for the Saudis, as nations stake out their stance before the global climate summit scheduled for the end of the year.

Can they take a hard line on that? Whatever your feelings, it must noted that the Saudis are working much harder to prepare for an uncertain future than we are, even taking preposterous hard lines in upcoming negotiations that will will wean us off of their product. It’s a question of need, of course, except that we need to get creative like this, as well. But instead, we largely continue to dissemble about what we will, should or might be willing to do, like it’s a waiting game and we only need to last through to the next iteration of… some variant of what we’re already doing. People aren’t even that interested in the upcoming talks in Copenhagen, talks that could create new sets of goals for emissions reductions that could have very significant effects on economies the world over, that could (but not like magic) reset the developed world on a path toward transition and incentivize the developing world to follow along. But most of the moral high ground will likely be compromised away with  easier to reach, lower impact targets that everyone can agree on – more stones to decorate the third place age recital.

Meanwhile, even David Byrne bikes.