Home
Vacuum Cleaner
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2180
8 months now in the apartment, without a vacuum cleaner. Other than the kitchen it's pretty wall-to-wall carpet.
Guessing by the color of my shed hair and belly-button lint, I'd guess it was grey, but the dark mouse colored patches along the wall and the centipedes brazenly marching across the living room floor were clues that maybe I should vacuum...
I have a vacuum, hidden away somewhere deep in a storage locker, I remember it, and on one of those rare weeks where the payments are current and the weather is nice I go and do a quick raid...I'll find it. Opening the door, the first thing to fall on me is the long-carpet-sweeper attachment...this has to be a good sign...
...but the world is full of false omens, and a more thorough search of the locker turns up no further trace...it could be anywhere, under a hundred boxes...I do manage to find an old spare tire, however, from the old Volvo, I had wondered what had become of it, now I know...it's here...
So I need to buy a vacuum, and I hit a few thrift shops, nearby, on my days off, eventually I find one, $20, working, and I set to work in a particularly difficult corner...it works a charm, a few passes with the furry attachment and I find the carpet, I really should have raked it first...
And so I clean, it seems a bit obsessive, I think to myself, but no-one looking at my apartment would find me obsessive, really, it's just my own prejudice, and it kind of feels good, like a hot bath or brushing your teeth, there's a zen-ness to cleanliness that I respect and admire, only I haven't the patience or training for it...
When I'm done I wonder if I should throw away the vacuum bag, or try and sell on ebay, easy 5 lbs of gold dust and diamond bits in that, remnants from the summer...
World's 2nd Largest Diamond Found in Botswana
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Found
- Hits: 1825
The World's 2nd largest diamond found in Botswana, apparently on the news yesterday and everyone was telling me about it today...we had customers reserve tables just to tell me...
Don't count me out, I'm not done by a long shot...
Read the full article here: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-34867929
Found by the Canadian Mining company Lucara, and at 1,111 Carats (that's only 210 grams, or a little under 8 oz) the 2nd largest gem quality diamond ever recovered.
Immigrants against Immigration
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Miscellany
- Hits: 2262
Every single one of them, barring one exception, is an immigrant, the Philippines, Italy, Romania, in the past we've covered Croatia, Tunisia, Mexico, too many other countries to list...
And they're all curiously against this Syrian immigration thing, "They don't like to work" the owner tells me, "they're all terrorists" G*** tells me, these immigrants, they're a real problem.
I have some prejudices too, not necessarily against the Syrians that will be arriving, but against the knee-jerk politics that sees us rushing with outstretched arms at every problem with a good headline and heartbreaking photo-op, we'll love 'em all to death, that'll show them. Good intentions don't always make for good choices. And I'm cautious, too, there have been a few waves of immigrants lately that have been nothing but problems, look closely at Calgary's murder rate and you'll find that about 50% of the murders in the past few years have been committed by nationalities and new arrivals that represent less than 1% of the population, hardly a stellar track record at integrating and welcoming our new citizenry...
Still, it's funny this, listening to them all talk, immigrants against immigration...
The Aggregation & Consolidation of Power
- Details
- Written by: Rod Boyle
- Category: Ideas & Questions
- Hits: 2482
The evolution and aggregation of power is a curious thing.
One can imagine our earliest ancestors - primates, monkeys-ish, ape-ish, power would have belonged to the strongest member of the troop or tribe.
We don't have to imagine too hard, we have plenty of living cousins to examine.
And in the earlier days of our evolution, if you chose to challenge power, you won or you lost. If you won, well, you were now power. And if you lost you were banished from the tribe, or you bowed before it's rules.
Power could never be too abused, if it were then two, three, a dozen members of the tribe together could overthrow it. We figured that out pretty early I'm guessing, shortly into the development of language.
Now power in the troop organized to prevent power from other troops and tribes usurping, The strong united to protect the tribe against the threat of other animals and tribes and troops of monkeys, and so it goes, perhaps for a million years, until we evolved into the first proto-humans.
Intelligence became a part of power, and the powerful could be overthrown by the clever, think of ambushes, weapons, traps, plots...
The clever will always win out over the strong. It's how we are evolving, not bigger, but smarter. This is the proof, this is why.
And so we built weapons, atl-atl's, bows and arrows, slings, and the powerful discovered they could easily be overthrown, and so they befriended the clever, a sort of symbiosis, and together they were the new power. And perhaps now it took a hundred ape-men to overthrow power...
Power is now concentrated in the hands of kings, warlords, and it came to be represented through the abstraction of money - gold, gems, those rare and coveted items, to own these things symbolized power, not only in the ownership, but in the resources required to protect these things from others interested in them. Power is transferred to objects, the objects, status symbols that exhibit the power of the owner. We now have the birth of Status Symbols, an entire subculture that fetishizes the accouterments of power, it began with the possession of rare and precious things, then became the ability to buy the labors and skills of others (think of the clothing worn in the 16th, 17th centuries, even now), it has evolved since them to reflect itself in things like luxury handbags, ostentatious housing and expensive cars, all designed to display to potential mates and rivals the "power" of the owner.
In times of revolution, when the abuses of power have become so intolerable, it's wielder could be overthrown and the wealth - gold, money, gems - redistributed amongst the populace.
Kings grow ever more powerful. There are other contenders for power as well, there is now religion, which aggregates power beyond state borders and country lines, it allies itself with some states, alienates others, and exempts itself from the the local laws and taxation. In return it grants "legitimacy" to Kings beyond what is theirs through force or inheritance - The Divine Right of Kings. And while religions (thinking especially of Catholicism and Christianity) advertise and promote charity and missions for the unfortunate and unsaved, a surprising amount of wealth and power seem to stick with them - think of the Vatican and the Pope.
This sets the precedence for what will become the new religion: Corporations.
The aggregation of power has resulted now in Nations, where no longer can a single citizen, or hundreds, or thousands even, hope to overthrow the state, it take the will of other nations, or the combined will of an entire populace to stage a revolution.
Until now, money, wealth, merely coagulated in banks, debts were written against the concrete security of vaulted gold, gems and other valuables. But a couple of curious fictions take place. The first, banks begin to print and lend money against what they have in "reserve". As time continues this practice grows unchecked until - as of this moment - there is at least 100 times more money in circulation than there exist in reserves. The explanation of this is rather long and convoluted, but check the facts, please, don't take my word for it.
The second fiction is that of the corporation, that a group of people can unite to form a fictitious "person" whose sole interest lies in making money.
From the combination of these two fictions we see the rise of corporate Juggernauts, whose wealth outstrips that of nations and moves fluidly between countries, hidden bank accounts, and quiet stockholders and CEO's, fictional personas that yet can actively lobby, write and even enforce laws to their own end. We write mythologies of their deeds and adventures, write of their adherents, disciples, their chosen priests, we immortalize them in film and devote countless pages in books and newspapers to their exploits. They represent the final consolidation of power, Gods, imaginary beings in control of vast quantities of imaginary wealth, yet with real world impacts and consequence. They - the corporations - are the final aggregation of power, devouring one another, spawning children, and when finally we defeat them all their inflated buffoonery, wealth and power will vanish into a sea of bits and bytes, illusory, fleeting, forever lost, and we will wonder that ever we believed in them at all...
Page 570 of 878