Waste

I just discussed Bataille's The Accursed Share a couple of days ago with one of my doctoral students and the metaphor of expendable waste of which the powers that be are almost ashamed – so little does the mass in question contribute to lavishing material profit on the altar of Capital – now comes to mind when thinking of the way language and literature programs at SUNY Albany are being treated. But my colleagues might take heed.

New Orleans

I'll entitle it this way, instead of "Katrina," though it's the hurricane, the slow response, the racism, etc. that are on my mind. I haven't yet heard Obama's speech on this, the 5th anniversary of landfall in southern Louisiana, but although a good bit of rebuilding has indeed taken place there, there's hardly enough been done for the poor. And we all know or should know why that is: racism and neglect for the working poor of all races is still pretty much the order of the day. We still could have an event occur in the wake of which people would say "I don't recognize my country! Is this really the U.S.? Why are people being forsaken?" Instead, we hear "tea baggers" who want their country back, by which they of course mean that they do not and will not accept a mixed race president.

chill, baby chill

That's what Bob Herbert suggests to Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, and the rest of the bigoted demagogues who stir the desperate uneducated masses in the last line of his editorial today, the 47th anniversary of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Right next to it is a wonderfully concise statement by Charles M. Blow whose best passage, in my view, is the parenthesis about the irony:

"ground zero" … Lincoln Memorial = sacred grounds

"ground zero" "mosque" = desecration, strident outcry

Beck's "Restoring Honor" speech = perfectly acceptable

tit for tat

If Muslims can't build a community center near "ground zero" (a designation that begs analysis if there ever was one), then Christians have no right to build a church or pray or congregate or ... within 50 feet of any United-Statesians with African slave ancestry. Why? Because if non-Muslims are associating all Muslims with the fanatic group from al-Qaeda that committed the crime of 9/11 then, logically, the sensitivities of Blacks and all who stand in solidarity with them should associate all of Christianity with the Ku Klux Klan and condemn it outright as well. CQFD. Or did I miss something?

Mosque fever

What's eating me today? The profound, rampant ignorance of people in this country. It's beyond hope. Ripe for fascism. The formula is there: economic stagnation, endemic bigotry, total lack of critical abilities.

Well, it's still Wednesday as far as I'm concerned

...And we're still in the doldrums.

Although, I must say that the heavy hand that's come crashing down on top banker and insurance executive salaries is heartening.

And so is the continuing news of generational dissidence coming out of Iran. The story of Narges Kalhor in today's Times is really encouraging, even though it means that a family has split. But when it's a question of life or death, tyranny or freedom, so be it.

absence makes the heart grow

...wearier.

I apologize to the two or three of you who've looked for entries here over the last few weeks and found nothing. As you few know, I was in France for September, shuttling back and forth between Paris and Caen in the latter of which I was doing intensive archival research on Duras for the Pléiade edition of her complete works.

Then, the return and the readjustment...

I kept up with news from the U.S. while over there by listening to Countdown downloaded to my iPhone every weekday and be reading the French press about "us". You know what I know, so there's no reason to elaborate further.

Just to get myself back into the swing of this, I'll comment on one little tiny item that I've just heard about. Hélène tells me that Phil Graham has declared his distance from Rush Limbaugh, saying that he's not the voice of the Republican Party, etc. etc. Folks, for those of you who need a translation, this is the first official declaration of candidacy by a Republican for the presidency next time 'round. It basically boiled down to this: the first Republican to declare her or himself more moderate than Glenn Beck or that other pink pig was the first aspirant to the throne.

I'd love to read responses.

And I promise to be back every Wednesday, even if it's not with a big long rambling entry.