Plastic’s Blog Space (1970+)

  This is an exercise I wrote for an Urban Problems class in school: Subcity and To Have and To Have Not are both bitter songs about life and alienation from the larger society in central cities.  Billy Bragg probably is writing about a young man in a city in his native England, but his troubled working class character could as easily be in a de-industrialized city in the northeast or north central United States.  Tracy Chapman places her character, whose age (probably adult) and gender are not stated and not primary to the situation in which "she"-for purposes of this note-finds herself: in a generic urban poverty-stricken area. It could be a Los Angeles ghetto, or it could be in East Cleveland, Ohio. The title of the song and the words "a city underground" tell us Subcity is an urban place and not rural. It is a place where life is unpleasant and difficult. The residents make use of the refuse of society. These might include the castoff clothing, homes, automobi...

Are mental illnesses real? There are indeed personality disorders and criminality, but schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, and OCD are not real. Social anxiety disorders are not real diseases.    “Stupidity” called academic or mental retardation is not what it may seem—or be claimed to be—either. Most people categorized as mentally ill are social deviants (“freaks, geeks, weirdos, or 'fags' ”), political dissidents, criminals, drug abusers, or thought control subjects. Many are malingers, even ones attempting to get welfare or being blackmailed into malingering and seeking welfare. Some people who are mentally ill think that they are not mentally ill. Some who are not mentally ill think that they are mentally ill. Some people simply are not sure whether or not they are mentally ill. Important to understanding mental illness as a partial myth is recognizing technologies like pharmaceuticals and the Yoke being used to create what can be perceived as symptoms of bi...

Dear Mom:  As you know, I am interested in issues as discussed in public affairs media. One issue that is discussed perennially is Social Security, as well as its desirability and survivability. Related to Social Security are cash welfare, and disability cash payments. Also, there are the mysterious (?) food stamps, public housing, public healthcare programs. Now, I watch and listen to Social Security being discussed in the media, and I find that they (politicians, politicos, and journalists) dumb things down and obfuscate thing, sometimes subtly. I have been trying to get beyond the Big Lie to the bigger picture, and maybe I am succeeding sometimes. How about yourself? Plus, you are reading a lot, too. The secret to Social Security, as you probably know, is that it is not the Real Issue and been superseded in most all ways in the context of the general welfare state of the Great Society. There is another Nixon era cash program: Supplimental Security Income (or SSI).  Also, t...

 I found this interesting and illuminating article, that I present here.  "Ever since Thucydides dismissed Herodotus, historians have differed about the past."  And this goes for histories in all media forms from MiniTrue--even News backgrounder accounts. Read the article here... https://www.neh.gov/article/all-history-revisionist-history An introduction to bias in historical accounts and theoretical interpretations: A short documentary on George Orwell, that sheds light on bias in histories and related topics: A crash course on the conflict perspective on history, which does not actually deny conservative views: Two programs (part 1 and part 2) on the controversial, conservative, and elitist theory of Social Darwinism: |END|

 In George Orwell's famous novel '1984,' the country Oceania had a powerful, centralized, state-run media service called the Ministry of Truth. This government agency--sometimes called just 'MiniTrue' for short--produced the TV, movies, radio broadcasts, books, magazines, newspapers, textbooks, and News of all kinds. It had a monopoly over media. The function of all that media--100% propaganda--was barely to inform or entertain, and almost totally to establish firm thought control over what the country's people thought, felt and did, at nearly all times--even renegade criminals and sociopaths. Are we not 'lucky' to be Free of this kind of thing in America today? No, we are not, I tell you.  Since sometime in the past--perhaps when the Federal government, under Abraham Lincoln, seized control of Press--we have centralized, state-run media, too. This is not a bad thing. It promotes politically correct--but dialectical--discourse, thinking, and behavior. Ex...

 AGE AND WISDOM? 2019-01-09 ------ Dear Mom: I am getting old, up in my mind, but it is not a big problem at all. Maybe Tani is there, too. I feel OK with things and mature. I feel calm and fairly peaceful. I have passed through it and come out the other side, like a plop of melange on Arrakis. The only rub is the media. Everything in the media is old to me now: news, music, TV, and movies. Is it like that to you, too? Nearly everything is redux, including politics. I live in a noisy media world that sounds quieter to me now. The welfare state and technology (prison world) work for me and don’t scare me much. A slow boat that doesn’t require a lot of contemplation either...is what it feels like. The war machine goes on and on, as usual, but doesn’t ask a lot of me. I just need my meds tuned down a bit, and then I’ll be doing fine. Now, I get to watch the children grow up and listen to the flowers and corn plants grow, till fruition, in good time. I think of Gibran’s “The Prophet,” ...

EXISTENTIAL MEDITATION ON SCIENCE, RELIGION, AND SCIENTISM 2019-01-19 + The science within faith: science and skepticism’s place within religious subcultures, which some (especially fundamentalists) see as corruption. ÷ The faith within science: the faith in retrospective science (especially if time flows both ways), uniformity, the law of averages, and reduction. × The place for scientists of faith (including fundamentalists and atheists). = The cases for and against stealing, lying, cheating, killing, torture, rape, terrorism, and warfare (especially as expedients). > The problems with sampling, rounding, uncertainty, ridiculous inference, cultural biases (like racism), and no randomizing being available. # Dreading nihilism and absurdity: Looking for a cozy hole in the Void left when God died (see: behaviorism, Holocaust). $ You are “here" and then “after” that where? % The perils of omnipotence, omniscience, and one-stop shopping: considering the source of evil and sufferi...