Pigeon Shit

1. (At least) 3 examinations yesterday.
   That night I dreamed of buying sneakers.
   
2. Wishing for a real War on Xmas.
3. OG-ing again again.
4. Unrequited blogger.
   
5. Maybe gonna turn on the amplifier, now.
   

Prisonshift

1. Box Elders, Alice and Friends. If this, and not Crooked Rain, 'd followed Slanted and Enchanted, it'd've been less surprising. Gtrs, bs, drum and organ. Songwriting born punk but trending rock, sad stories for lyrics.
   
2. Dental hygenist/shrink/nutritionist, all dancing with me today before Jesus lets me set down.
   
3. Writing on this blog - and not the regular one - in hopes nobody/somebody's reading. A familiar, but embellished, speechlessness and/or gagging has m'befallen.
   
4. I thought I'd known depression by December 2008, but that was numpin. Wait til you actually get the things you want from your life; then you'll know the unhappiness, seasickness and slow dying that come with vivre sa vie.
5. Your gut expands and distends, your chest sours and waking approximates a bloody sneeze. You make a list of people you love the most and become progressively horrified for them and their proximity to you.
6. Spirits and demons take on a rhetorical utility.
7. Reading Blood Meridian, which is a hoot and big time life-affirmer.
   
8. Aqua aerobics also this AM! Damned if we won't have an aggressive internal monologue amidst all the me time therein.
   

Prisonship Twi-ddle-dye-dees

1. Elevated liver enzymes.
   
2. Julie Klausner on TBSOWFMU
3. My 2nd-or3rd red Stax cup from the Soul Museum, filled with sub-room temperature coffee and expired 1/2+1/2 dregs.
   
4. Having seen Thee Oh Sees, the Gories, Teenage Fanclub, Superchunk, Nobunny and Bob Mould in the last coupla months.
   
5. The Poulantzas Reader.
6. Cheaply Priced Blue Note lp reissues, such as Hank Mobley's Workout.
7. Poulantzas: "I was able to avoid conceiving of the different instances (in particular the political, the state) as being by nature and pre-existing, in essence, their meeting together within a precise mode if production." This is what he calls the "regional theory," his elaboration on Althusser's idea of "relative autonomy."
   
8. my first ever for-real toilet punk-ish, killed by desk-ish sounding song for my imaginary punk band, Thee White Vote. Lyrically the inspirations are from The Exorcist and Paul Muldoon. It's entitled, "Captain Howdy Has a Shack."
   

Weigel : Tea Party Patriots Against the Tax Cut Deal [UPDATE: and RedState!]

Weigel : Tea Party Patriots Against the Tax Cut Deal [UPDATE: and RedState!]

And so Charles Krauthammer and Grover Norquist have company in opposition, albeit much more muted than opposition to, say, cap-and-trade.

This is the first "tell" we've gotten yet re: how the tea party will take to compromise-y, everybody's dirty-y life in governance. But note that last bit about how their oppo towards cap-and-trade is much more do-or-die, apparently.

Bottom line? Only tiny ideological minorites really care about deficits and spending enough to choke on tax cuts and/or constituent services. It's just that vast majorities appreciate the discourse of deficits cuz it allows 'em to talk about 1,000 other t(h)ings and s(t)uff and p(e)ople.

Pawlenty: Public unions 'exploiters' - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com

Pawlenty: Public unions 'exploiters' - Jennifer Epstein - POLITICO.com

“Unionized public employees are making more money, receiving more generous benefits and enjoying greater job security than the working families forced to pay for it with ever-higher taxes, deficits and debt,” Pawlenty wrote in an opinion piece.

Working families' wages have been systematically pushed down by whom since the 1980s (- aka, shucks, circa PATCO)???? By you and yours, dick. You think public employee unions are the reason working families suffer under neoliberal tax policy? You dolt.

On the Relative Autonomy of the Capitalist State

Poulantzas

“[attributes] to the capitalist state a precise role as political organizer and unifier, and as a factor for the establishment of the “unstable equilibrium of compromises,” which role is constitutively connected with its relative autonomy. Two directions that are nothing more than two aspects of a single approach. The separation of the economic and the political provides the general framework, depending upon the different states of capitalism (this separation is itself liable to transformation) for an examination of the relative autonomy of the capitalist state – with the concrete form taken by this autonomy depending upon the precise conjuncture of the class struggle at any one time. For this separation of the economic and the political is itself nothing more than the form taken by the constitution of the classes and hence it too is a consequence of their struggles under capitalism.

Pwismship Tin-vin-toddies

1. Stationed at home in Michigan, snow day.
   
2. Crass agit-prop framed on the office wall.
   
3. Blacktop Ikea utilito-desk speckled with paper clips and stems.
   
4. Wedding pics.
5. Zwan memorabilia.
   
6. Dillion Jaguar copy > EH Small Clone > Fender Deluxe tubes
7. File cabinet on wheels
8. Paper-covered dissertation journal/sketchbook. Prominence of Poulantzas therein. WFMU, Goner, In the Red stickers.
   
9. Rob Smith's recent show at Ditch.
10. Superchunk, Majesty Shredding.
11. A deep, wide pile of New York Review of Books ' to further examine -- though their writing about the tea parties and le Right en general has been kinda weak, truth told.