I.Q. Zoo

Argos the dog can look where I point if I spot the toy he's looking for before he does.  If I spot the toy in the kitchen, I can go to the living room and tell him where it is and he'll retrieve it.  He invents games and teaches his humans how to play them.   He knows each of us by name.  He's so good at understanding our speech that we frequently have to spell words in front of him if we don't want him to know what we're talking about, but he's beginning to learn how to spell.  

He can't operate a door.   If a door he needs to traverse is opened a width he can't fit his face through he will stand patiently by until one of us pushes it open for him.  It doesn't matter how badly he wants to be on the other side of it.  He will not operate the door himself.  It's almost pathetic.  Is he stupid?  He is demonstrably not.  Our theory is that when he was a puppy, some parts of the house were off limits to him but not to our cats who preceded him in the family, so we propped the doors open a cat's width with weights on either side of them and he learned (unintentionally on our part) that the door was not a technology that he was permitted to use even as more doors became open to him.  He's not stupid; he's polite.

My cats on the other hand, generally unconfused by the workings of hinges on a cracked door,  have a predilection for an open closet.  If one is unattended for even a minute, there is a good chance a cat will be inside of it when the door is closed and latched.  Whenever this happens, it goes generally unnoticed until the furthest reaches of sleep are disturbed suddenly by the awareness, vague at first, then increasingly certain of meowed calls of distress that force you to rise in search of the source.  The regret that I feel on rescuing a cat from a situation I may well have made by carelessly closing a closet door without first getting a visual on both cats can be repeated as soon as the following night, but it will be revisited over and over again, no matter how heartwrenching the cries the last time the same cat was trapped.  How could the universe have failed to give the cat a mechanism to avoid what was surely traumatic by, for instance, teaching it to steer clear of any open closet door that it comes across in the future.

The answer is not obvious but eventually it comes to me.  The cat is not traumatized or trapped.  The incident happens on purpose.  The closet is entered because it beckons.  The closing of the door is part of the pleasure.  There's no need to panic-- scream loud enough and a human will come.

I tend to believe that the answer to the problem of how humans seem to have gotten the greater part of the available supply of intelligence on the planet is that humans have gotten the human brand of intelligence.  Bees have the bee intelligence.  Haddock have all the haddock intelligence.  To say that human intelligence is superior to ostrich intelligence is to miss the point.  A salamander with requisite salamander intelligence is as gifted salamanderily as an intelligent human is humanly. It takes bat intelligence that I do not have to locate moths by sonar.  It takes human intelligence to conceive, invent, build and operate a door, but dog intelligence is equipped to experience a door doggily just as cat intelligence is all a cat needs to know how to summon a human to open the damn door for it.  

The popularity of dogs has a lot to do with the communing that we do with them.  Dogs engage and experience us with their intelligence and we return the effort with our own.  Cats don't have to impress us with their ability to display human intelligence which takes a certain kind of empathy to appreciate.  They will get attention on their schedule.  They have other priorities.  

Prairie Power

From 2016, the Prairie Fire Choir of Minneapolis with guest artist Matt Latterell sing Lou Reed's Satellite of Love.

Count to ten

Everybody just needs to take a deep collective breath, and chill out for ten seconds.  Here are a few ways to do it:

• English - zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
• Kalalisut (Greenlandish)- nul, ataaseq, marluk, pingasut, sisamat, pingasut, sisamat, arfineq, arfinillit, qulit.
• Tswana (Botswana) - lefela, nngwe, pedi, tharo, nne, tlhano, thataro, supa, robedi, robongwe, lesome.
• French - zéro, un, deux, trois, quatre, cinq, six, sept, huit, neuf, dix.
• Spanish - cero, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez.
• Italian - zero, uno, due, tre, quattro, cinque, sei, sette, otto, nove, dieci.
• Romansch - nulla , in, dus, trais, quatter, tschintg, sis, set, otg, nov,  diesch
• Romanian - zero, unu, doi, trei, patru, cinci, șase, șapte, opt, nouă, zece.
• Romani - nulo, jekh, duj, trin, shtar, panzh, shov, efta, oxto, inja, desh.
• Hindi - शून्य, एक, दो, तीन, चार, पांच, छह, सात, आठ, नौ, दस।(shoony, ek, do, teen, chaar, paanch, chhah, saat, aath, nau, das.)
• Maltese - żero, wieħed, tnejn, tlieta, erbgħa, ħamsa, sitta, sebgħa, tmienja, disgħa, għaxra.
• Lithuanian - nulis, vienas, du, trys, keturi, penki, šeši, septyni, aštuoni, devyni, dešimt.
• Estonian - null, üks, kaks, kolm, neli, viis, kuus, seitse, kaheksa, üheksa, kümme.
• Hungarian - nulla, egy, kettő, három, négy, öt, hat, hét, nyolc, kilenc, tíz.
• Finnish - nolla, yksi, kaksi, kolme, neljä, viisi, kuusi, seitsemän, kahdeksan, yhdeksän, kymmenen.
• Igbo (Nigeria) - efu, otu, abụọ, atọ, anọ, ise, isii, asaa, asatọ, itoolu, iri.
• Arabic - صفر، واحد، اثنان، ثلاثة، أربعة، خمسة، ستة، سبعة، ثمانية، تسعة، عشرة. (sifr, wahd, aithnan, thalathat, 'arbaeat, khamsat, sitat, sabeat, thamaniat, tiseat, eashra.)
• Persian - صفر، یک، دو، سه، چهار، پنج، شش، هفت، هشت، نه، ده.  (safar, yek, do, seh, chehar, panj, shesh, npaft, npasht, nah, dah.)
• Navajo (Diné Bizaad) - názbas/ádin, tʼááłáʼí, naaki, tááʼ, dį́į́ʼ, ashdlaʼ, hastą́ą́, tsostsʼid, tseebíí, náhástʼéí, neeznáá.
• Icelandic - núll, einn, tveir, þrír, fjórir, fimm, sex, sjö, átta, níu, tíu.
• Dinka (South Sudan) - guɛw, tök, rou, diäk, ŋuan, dhiëc, dhetem, dhorou, bɛ̈t, dhoŋuan, thiäär.
• Turkish -  sıfır, bir, iki, üç, dört, beş, altı, yedi, sekiz, dokuz, on.
• Swahili -sifuri, moja, mbili, tatu, nne, tano, sita, saba, nane, tisa, kumi.
• Hebrew - אפס, אחד, שתיים, שלוש, ארבע, חמש, שש, שבע, שמונה, תשע, עשר. (afes, achad, shti'im, shlosh, arba, chamesh, shesh, shba, shmona, tisha, asher.)
• Albanian - zero, një, dy, tre, katër, pesë, gjashtë, shtatë, tetë, nëntë, dhjetë.
• Russian - ноль, один, два, три, четыре, пять, шесть, семь, восемь, девять, десять.(nol', odin, dva, tri, chetyre, pyat', shest', sem', vosem', devyat', desyat'.)
• Chinese - 零、一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十。 (líng, yī', èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, ji, ǔshí.)
• Japanese - ゼロ、一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十。 (zero, ichi, ni, san, shi (or yon), go, roku, shichi (or nana), hachi, kuu (or kyuu), juu.)
• Korean - 영, 하나, 둘, 셋, 넷, 다섯, 여섯, 일곱, 여덟, 아홉, 열.  (yeong, hana, dul, ses, nes, daseos, yeoseos, ilgob, yeodeolb, ahob, yeol.)
• Lakota - tákuni , waŋží, núŋpa, yámni, tópa, záptaŋ, šákpe, šakówiŋ, šaglóǧaŋ, napčíyuŋka, wikčémna
• Esperanto - nul, unu, du, tri, kvar, kvin, ses, sep, ok, naŭ, dek.
• Malay - sifar, satu, dua, tiga, empat, lima, enam, tujuh, lapan, sembilan, sepuluh.
• Basque -zero, bat, bi, hiru, lau, bost, sei, zazpi, zortzi, bederatzi, hamar.
• Greek - μηδέν, ένα, δύο, τρία, τέσσερα, πέντε, έξι, επτά, οκτώ, εννέα, δέκα. (midén, éna, dýo, tría, téssera, pénte, éxi, eptá, októ, ennéa, déka.)
• Zulu - u-zero, oyedwa, ababili, abathathu, abane, abahlanu, abayisithupha, abayisikhombisa, abayisishiyagalombili, abayisishiyagalolunye, abayishumi.
• Danish - nul, en, to, tre, fire, fem, seks, syv, otte, ni, ti.
• Quechua - cero, huk, iskay, kimsa, tawa, pichqa, suqta, qanchis, pusaq, isqun, chunka.
• Hawaiian - ʻole, ʻekahi, ʻelua, ʻekolu, ʻehā, ʻelima, ʻeono, ʻehiku, ʻewalu, ʻeiwa, ʻumi.
• Maori - kore, tahi, rua, toru, whā, rima, ono, whitu, waru, iwa, tekau.
• Rapa Nui (Easter Island) - kore, tahi, rua, toru, hā, rima, ono, hitu, va’u, iva, ho’e ’ahuru
• Georgian - ნული, ერთი, ორი, სამი, ოთხი, ხუთი, ექვსი, შვიდი, რვა, ცხრა, ათი. (nuli, erti, ori, sami, otkhi, khuti, ekvsi, shvidi, rva, tskhra, ati.)
• Telugu (Southeastern India) - సున్నా, ఒకటి, రెండు, మూడు, నాలుగు, ఐదు, ఆరు, ఏడు, ఎనిమిది, తొమ్మిది, పది. (sunnā, okaṭi, reṇḍu, mūḍu, nālugu, aidu, āru, ēḍu, enimidi, tom'midi, padi.)
• Nahuatl (Aztec) -  ahtle, ce, ome, yei, nahui, macuilli, chicuace, chicome, chicuei, chiconahui, mahtlactli
• Q'eqchi' (a Mayan language of Guatemala) -zero, jun, wiib’, oxib’, kaahib’, oob’, waqib’, wuqub’, waqxaqib’, nueve, lajeeb’.
• German - null, eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn
• Latin - nullus, unus, duo, tres, quattuor, quinque, sex, septem, octo, novem, decem.

Ice ICE, Baby

I like to mix things up when I'm reading.  If I've just finished a book on genetics, it might be time for a show business autobiography.  But somehow I've managed to read two books in a row about the extreme right wing-- its ideology and theoretical foundation as well as its designs on the American political system.  The first, Furious Minds by Laura K. Field is about the recent history of particularly 4 strains of far right conservatism which she calls Claremonter (i.e., Straussian "Ideas First" foundational theory coming out of the Claremont Institute and its ideological affiliate Hillsdale College), Post-Liberalism, National Conservatism and the Hard Right all of which have come together in spite of quibbles in their approaches to support and influence Trump in contrast to the more genteel Never-Trumper faction of more mainstream and establishment conservatives.  The second is Jesus and John Wayne by Kristin Kobes du Mez, which has as its subject the rise in America of a hyper masculinized Christian Nationalist Fundamentalism.  The obsession of these damaged aggrieved men plagued with inadequacies real and imagined for an idealized notion of  the manhood of other men could be channeled into something healthy like self-awareness but instead it is tamped down into a regressive compensatory fantasy of a rancid, stunted, flaccid male-centered world order that they are bent on imposing on the rest of us.  There is certainly overlap in the themes and content of both books.  Unfortunately, it is also bleeding into and saturating current events.

I keep getting haunted by the thought that ICE is a black hole that is being brandished against the American people.  If there is one thing to take to heart from the themes explored in Field and du Mez's books, it's that there is a thick strain on the right that would like to Holocaust the left, and it’s not hard for me to believe that the gigantic plaything called ICE that they now have at their disposal thanks to Trump and their mutual enablement is piloting the clampdown.  I don’t know ultimately how well this is going to go over with "average Americans" though. I think the idea of an American Gestapo having carte blanche to kill citizens, even "radical lesbian" citizens is probably not going to sit well with people’s ideas of what America should be like.  I don’t know though.  How deep do the right’s tentacles go?  Am I being paranoid?  I think it’s a big agency with theoretical impunity and prosecutorial immunity that is not getting a lot of oversight out of the administration, an administration run by the most proudly horrible human beings whose horribleness is bolstered by a large network of like-minded academics, theologians, opinion makers and knuckleheads.

Jessica Burbank, who also goes by Ka, raised an interesting thought experiment on which she solicited opinions from her podcast audience.  Her question was "What do you think about ICE Agents quitting for moral reasons?  Do you forgive them?  What questions do you have?"  The conversation struck me as being the evil cousin of the Graham Platner oppo reveal controversy that tested the mettle (and familiarly rent the fabric) of online leftism last fall. As with that earlier stink, Burbank's audience seemed split between forgiveness and vengeance.  

My advice to any ICE agents who suddenly wake from their incel repressed homoerotic Nazi dream and want to walk away:  Do it.  Don't ask for permission or forgiveness from the Americans whose tax dollars you have taken to wage war against.  Just come back from the darkness.  Join us on the streets that you will have made that much safer.

Gaye Su Akyol - İstikrarlı Hayal Hakikattir

From the Turkish singer, painter, bus driver -- and anthropologist!-- Gaye Su Akyol comes a reminder (and none too soon) that Stable Dreams Are Reality (which is to say: Reality is a stable dream):

Lyrics: 

Of, bu ne biçim hayat
Bu nasıl bi kafa?
Yatırır adamı, hop falakaya
Dere gibi akar, dertte yüzeriz
Uçuyoruz evet, çünkü güzeliz
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var mı yoksa bir rüya mı?
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Aşk şarabın, düşle dolsun
Al, sazım anlat ben yoruldum
Sığamadım her yerden kovuldum
Denize yakışan martı gibiyiz
Nereye eserse oraya gideriz
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Salla be hayat rock'n roll
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
İstikrarlı hayal hakikattir
Ölüm var ve bu bir rüyadır
Derdim derdine ortak olsun
Salla be hayat rock'n roll

In English*: 

Stable Dreams Are Reality

Oh, what kind of life is this?

What kind of mindset is this?

It lays a man down, then throws him on the rack

It flows like a river, we swim in sorrow

Yes, we're flying, because we're beautiful

Stable dreams are reality

Is there death or is it just a dream? Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Let love be filled with wine and dreams

Take my instrument, tell me, I'm tired

I couldn't fit in, I was chased away from everywhere

We're like seagulls suited to the sea

We go wherever the wind blows

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Shake it up, life, rock'n roll

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Stable dreams are reality

Death exists and this is a dream

Let my sorrow be shared with yours

Shake it up, life, rock'n roll

~~~~~

* I dabble in Turkish, but this translation is unedited from Google Translate.

Fame is a Gun

Let's see what little Rebecca Black is up to:

Holy Smokes!  It appears this excellence is not a fluke for grown up Rebecca Black!

Entertaining Forgiveness

I ain't no freakin' monument to justice.

The past few years have been notable for their official egregiousness.  They have also been marked for me by two major sources of alienation, both of which have origins in the dismaying state of global affairs.  Israel's enormous response (in the pedantic sense of outside the scope of what could be considered normal) to the Hamas attack of October 7  2023 forced sides to be taken in what had been an uneasy truce between those with Zionist sympathies and those of us (myself included) increasingly questioning our tolerance of Israel's privileged exemptions from claims of special pleading and double standards for its treatment of the Palestinians whose homeland it has occupied.  I'm thinking in particular of artists I had an uncomplicated admiration for, whose recalcitrant Zionist stance post Oct 7 has complicated my admiration.  To be sure, plenty of assholes I had no feelings for have come out of the woodwork to bear down hard on their Israel chauvinism and they get the brunt of my unhesitant irritation.   But its always disappointing to learn (or have suspicions confirmed) that someone I'm a fan of is on the wrong side of an issue with such devastating consequences.

A bit closer to home-- ever since Bernie Sanders conceded the 2016 Democratic Primary to Hillary Clinton, a dismayingly large number of former Sanders allies have cordoned themselves off from those on the left who so prefer to take their chances with Democratic politicians / presidents as opposed to Republican ones that they will actually continue to vote for them.  These post left leftists will readily admit that the system is structured so that only one of two parties will win; that one of those parties -- corrupt and entrenched and elitist and venal though it is-- wreaks less havoc on the rights and needs and futures of the laboring majority of people.  They disavow electoral politics while at the same time participating in ways that hinder the least harmful outcomes and they think absolve them from the worst. Many of them are otherwise very intelligent people who on the issue of electoral politics are basically idiots.  To me, harm reduction isn't a political strategy, it's a survival mechanism.

The time has not come for forgiveness.  That will not be possible in the first case until an Israel/Palestine with a fully restored Gaza becomes a democratic non-apartheid state in which residents of all religions and ethnicities live in equality and peace.  In the second case, some corner must be turned in which all who value freedom, peace, equality and a society in which needs are treated not as privileges but as rights begin to work together to turn the tide against fascism, capitalism and oligarchy.  It shouldn't be the case, but as of this moment, it's easier for me to imagine forgiveness of the first category of transgressors than of the second.

In the meantime, I guess I still have a capacity to be horrified at acceptance of the fascist outcome.  This is a winner take all system we’re living under (against our desires).  In 2024, either Joe Biden’s DEI VP was going to take all -- she who was very likely taking a sloppy tack of promising continuance of Biden’s legacy in her campaign in order to try to overcome the perceived multiple handicaps of her ethnicity and gender  as well as her lack of cultural currency as a political brand (thanks to being sheltered away in the vice president’s residence for four years by the senile fart who very openly let voters know he was only using her ironically enough for the youth, ethnicity and gender he lacked in order to overcome his own decrepit racist and sexist brand).   Or the Fascists were going to take all.   The Biden tack failed with low-information Biden haters—it was a bad strategy based on the typical bad dem notions about the electorate as bars on a bar graph.  But even high information voters, including single issue voters did not seem to me to take the care that they needed to with the history changing differences in the two outcomes this time.   Because of that the Fascists won all.  Is this not what we are dealing with?  By the slimmest of majorities among the fraction of the electorate who actually voted, Donald Trump got it all.  I don’t think because of political wisdom or honor.  I think because people with the same information as me projected an image on Kamala Harris that was tainted by her association with Joe Biden.  People didn’t want to give Joe Biden the satisfaction, even though he wasn’t running.  You projected continuation of Biden’s administration onto her.  I projected a break from Trump and Biden.  Neither of us knew which way things would go with a Harris administration, but frankly KH was not Joe Biden.  She had resentments.  She had secret disagreements.  She was movable.  She was a different person who would I felt very probably want her own legacy.  I saw signs of the difference in the beginning before the Biden team and Jill and Joe Biden got to her.  She and Walz clammed up at one point, and I think it’s because she was advised very badly and given the limited amount of time she had available she trusted the pros. And note—I am not saying she would have been a great president.  She undoubtedly would have sucked.  But I don’t think she would have kept up a Joe Biden continuation façade, and I know we would not have the big beautiful bill and cracker racists kidnapping our neighbors and Stephen Miller and Pam Bondi and Hegseth and Kennedy and the Trump-Kennedy Center and the Trump court and Congress rolling over and playing dead.

I agree we need a new political system—Trump is the proof of that.  But what are we supposed to do in the meantime?  Watch families get ripped apart?  Watch Gaza get razed to the ground while Trump gets the Peace prize for it (Because Joe Biden chose Kamala Harris as his DEI mascot and therefore she had to be punished because he was no longer around to be)?  Pretend the planet is not dying because Trump doesn’t believe in climate change?  Watch reproductive rights and civil rights and voting rights and other social gains drift away?  All of those are hostage to the political system we’ve got.

The leadership of the dems has said it: For every vote they lose among the working class or the radical left, they pick up two more in the republican suburbs.  And I believe that strategy actually worked for them once so they expect it work everytime regardless of whatever else is going on. (And these are the evil soul-less neolibs I’m talking about.)  That’s why they don’t view lost voters as teachers and lesson givers but rather as ballast necessary in order for the statistics to come together for them—the spaces they leave in the democratic constituency just make extra room for the multiples of suburban professionals coming on board in response.  The ones who need the lesson don’t get the lesson.  They haven’t learned anything new since 1992.  That’s the problem.  And then the fascists win and their response is not – gee maybe if we were only more palatable to the working classes and the radical left.  It’s more like, “Maybe if we offer fascism lite we’ll attract even more Republicans.”  They are worthless.  This is actually what makes them preferable to Republicans every time.  Because the Dems are at their very worst (which sucks I agree) feckless.  But the Republicans will deliver on the fascism that they promise because they mean it.  This is a glorious, glorious time for them. And the Dems did not even learn their lesson.

I resent having to be the one to help the unsexy loser Dems keep the fascists at bay.  I resent the shirking that people whose politics (and distaste for corporate dems) I share, who winkingly give each other permission to shirk. who winkingly excuse themselves from blame for the fascists winning because the Dems, being feckless fools, can be agreed upon by them to be at fault.

At least Zionists own the havoc they wreak.