ReplyReply AllMove...AgentsBankingCommunity SolidarityHistory lessonsIWWJanaJennyLejeune cancerLiterary ideas and t...MauraMay DayMikeOnline ordersRental propertyRetirement Fidelitysnail mail adressessubscription infoVoting Flag this messagelbo-talk Digest, Vol 1298, Issue 1Sunday, 1 August, 2010 2:38 AMFrom: "lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org" <lbo-talk-request at lbo-talk.org>Add sender to ContactsTo: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.orgSend lbo-talk mailing list submissions to
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Today's Topics:
1. problem with addiction memoirs (Doug Henwood)
2. Fired bondage club worker charged in shooting death of former
boss, burning club (Dennis Claxton)
3. Re: Jews and the CP (Was: Jobless Workers Look to
ShiftElections) (Carrol Cox)
4. Krugman wonders (Chuck Grimes)
5. Re: Jews and the CP (Was: Jobless Workers Look to Shift
Elections) (123hop at comcast.net)
6. Re: Jews and the CP (Was: Jobless Workers Look to Shift
Elections) (Michael Smith)
7. Re: Cousin Bill (Marv Gandall)
8. Re: problem with addiction memoirs (123hop at comcast.net)
9. Long talk by Robert Fisk (Chuck Grimes)
10. Terry Bisson makes a passing comment about Pacifica Doug will
appreciate (Gar Lipow)
11. Re: Terry Bisson makes a passing comment about Pacifica Doug
will appreciate (Doug Henwood)
12. Re: problem with addiction memoirs (Andy)
13. Re: problem with addiction memoirs (Joseph Catron)
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Message: 1 Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:47:06 -0400 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> Subject: [lbo-talk] problem with addiction memoirs To: lbo-talk <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <44D6D80C-11FC-4122-9BC0-7440BD9F7BC3 at panix.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
<http://www.theawl.com/2010/07/the-problem-with-addiction-memoirs>
The Problem With Addiction Memoirs by Balk posted @11:50 AM
The happy news about Awl pal Julie Klausner sent me down a relatively shallow rabbit hole which resulted in my seeing this promo, for the short film Successful Alcoholics, for the first time. It looks great?Lizzy Caplan is involved, how could it not?but it stirred up resentments which I have held at bay for a long time but no longer feel capable of restraint in remarking upon. Specifically, what the hell is the deal with all the recovery memoirs?
You know what I'm talking about. "I was a successful literary agent, but I had a terrible secret life of drug abuse and sex in super swank hotels that brought me down." "No one knew the sheer horror of my Jelly Belly addiction." "I would hire prostitutes to make a doody on my chest because of my deep issues with inadequacy." Etc. There's one for every "addiction."
But what the fuck? Where are the books from the guy who drinks half a handle of whiskey of an evening but still shows up on time at work the next morning and gets the job done? How come we're not hearing from the mom with the minor meth habit who can still put together a play date at a moment's notice while making freshly-baked cupcakes which she will never eat because the very sight of them disgusts her? The executive who snorts a couple rails every hour to keep himself sharp for the deals he makes and manages to skate through with no ill effects (other than to the economy), where is his voice in our culture?
It is all well and good that people who have "problems" have somehow been able to get the help they need and a platform from which to trumpet it, but, really, aren't we basically celebrating failure here? There's a reason you don't read memoirs from the guy who finished fourth in every race: He couldn't cut it, and there's enough of that in life already. Show me a recovery memoir and I will show you a story about a quitter, someone who refuses to make a serious commitment and gives up when things get a little unpleasant. Basically, every book about a reformed addict is Sarah Palin's Going Rogue but with more self-aware debasement at the beginning. Where is the recognition for the people who stick it out and deal with their problems the way that they're supposed to: with drugs and booze?
I guess what I'm saying is, where's my goddamn book deal? You want a tale of persistence against the (medical and emotional) odds? I'm right here! But get in touch quickly; I plan to knock off early today and get my weekend started sooner than usual.
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Message: 2 Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 13:49:26 -0700 From: Dennis Claxton <ddclaxton at earthlink.net> Subject: [lbo-talk] Fired bondage club worker charged in shooting
death of former boss, burning club To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <E1OewrH-0006ZV-Ij at elasmtp-mealy.atl.sa.earthlink.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
BDSM related news hasn't graced the list for some time now. The myspace page linked to in this story is filled with condolences for Lavine:
Fired bondage club worker charged in shooting death of former boss, burning club
July 30, 2010 | 7:20 am
L.A. prosecutors have filed murder charges against a former employee accused of shooting the owner of a bondage club near Los Angeles International Airport and then setting the business on fire.
David Edward Albert, 53, was booked early Wednesday on suspicion of arson and murder in connection with Tuesday's fire at the Passive Arts Studio, a bondage club near Los Angeles International Airport described on <http://www.myspace.com/passiveartsstudio>its Myspace page as the "largest, most elegant and best equipped play area in the nation." He was formally charged Thursday. Authorities said the owner, identified as John Lavine, no age available, was found shot to death inside the burning business.
Albert had been fired from the club last week, said Luis Castro, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Deputies discovered him across the street from the blaze, hiding in the bushes. He was bleeding and said he had been hit by a car.
After some questioning, he was arrested. His bail was set at $1 million.
The fire was reported at 11:35 a.m. Tuesday at 10914 S. La Cienega Blvd. When firefighters arrived, they found the 50-by-100-foot building engulfed in flames and smoke, said L.A. County Fire Inspector Frederic Stowers.
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Message: 3 Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:44:00 -0500 From: Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Jews and the CP (Was: Jobless Workers Look to
ShiftElections) To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Message-ID: <4C5347A0.24630A89 at ilstu.edu> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
123hop at comcast.net wrote:
>
> roughly parallel to the three means of attaining enlightenment:
>
> attention, attention, attention.
>
> I met Dorothy at a wedding reception in L.A. in the seventies. She seemed a decent and quite cheerful woman.
>
> I don't know about cultivating irony. It always struck me that "irony" is a mood for those who have a choice about collaboration. The vast quantity of the working class has no such choice, unless the other option is death. So "irony" is for the "middle" class, those who do have a choice. Much of agitational literature is suffused with irony. I don't think this really reflects the existential position of the working class, and I think it is demoralizing.
>
There are details to be worked out here -- but this is essentially correct.
I would put it a bit stronger: leftists should _never_ use irony. Irony, as is most obvious in Socratic irony but is in fact a general characteristic, _always_ involved a pretence of not knowing, and the suggestion is usually (perhaps always) that the prtender in fact knows while the reader does not. In other words, the implied reader of irony is a fool!
It is the weapon of the detached observer, in defence of his/her detachment. What fools these mortals be.
If one know any Athenian history, and the relationships of the 30 tyrants, and links that to the Socratic persona as shown in Plato's dialgoues, the decision of the jury to give Socrates the hemlock makes perfect sense.
Carrol
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Message: 4 Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:31:14 -0700 From: "Chuck Grimes" <c123grimes at att.net> Subject: [lbo-talk] Krugman wonders To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Message-ID: <9F13E9514E9D48AFA2F5B1C159EB02E6 at fx0> Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
[From Paul Krugman's column}:
Why does the Obama administration keep looking for love in all the wrong places? Why does it go out of its way to alienate its friends, while wooing people who will never waver in their hatred?
These questions were inspired by the ongoing suspense over whether President Obama will do the obviously right thing and nominate Elizabeth Warren to lead the new consumer financial protection agency. But the Warren affair is only the latest chapter in an ongoing saga.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/opinion/30krugman.html?_r=2&src=twr
Krugman doesn't answer the question because Obama still seems an engima to him. I think what Krugman is missing is Obama and the Democratic leadership protect their base, i.e. corporate elites where the money and power come from. ************************************************************* and in Australia....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9evMeUqfOFU&feature=player_embedded
Capitalists rule...Krugman and the liberals dare not speak that truth.
Mike B) *********************************************************************** http://wobblytimes.blogspot.com/