What in the hell …

A while ago Eli mentioned in passing during another discussion that a recurrent theme of my blog is that it’s important not to burn out and as part of that it’s important to take care of oneself. That remark surprised me a bit, I was like “do I really talk about it that much?” and also like a sort of “oh yeah, that *is* something I think is really important.” (more…)

Oh my god I just loathe sitting through meetings that use formal consensus process. I hate it. I hate it so much. I have little to say right now about the details of why. Just… ARGH.

None of which is to say I’m against consensus as a good in many situations, I’m not, I’m all for that. But as a formal decision making process…. fuck that.

Stuff to read later….
http://www.co-intelligence.org/I-comparisonRR-CC-DF.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making#Criticisms

http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/42386

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/sep07/5549

Return to this:
http://whatinthehell.blogsome.com/2007/03/08/is-wrong-with-consensus/

Seriously, go buy the Arrivals‘ albums. They’re really good. (more…)

Some real crappy stuff happened in 2008. Much of the year sucked. Here’s some of the cooler stuff that happened (they don’t call me Mr. Silver Lining for nothing).

- Figured out that I like yoga.
- Turned 30.
- Figured out that I really, really like rock climbing.
- Got a dog.

But here’s the awesomest news of all, arrived just before christmas:

My wife is pregnant! She’s like 8 or 9 weeks along right now. Due date is end of August. Super fantastic. Couldn’t be happier.

I use it some days as a mood lifter, like this: “oh man I don’t want to do this work…. on the plus side, we’re going to have a baby!” It works real good. Whoo!

Okay so I totally love the Green brothers. In a recent video Hank Green suggests that people do the following:

1. Type in “[your name] needs” in the Google search.
2. Type in “[your name] looks like” in Google search.
3. Type in “[your name] says” in Google search.
4. Type in “[your name] wants” in Google search.
5. Type in “[your name] does” in Google search.
6. Type in “[your name] hates” in Google search.
7. Type in “[your name] asks” in Google search.
8. Type in “[your name] likes ” in Google search.
9. Type in “[your name] eats ” in Google search.
10. Type in “[your name] wears ” in Google search.
11. Type in “[your name] was arrested for” in Google Search.
12. Type in “[your name] loves” in Google Search.

I’m going to add an anti-climacitc 13th, “reads.” Here are my answers. When the first didn’t make sense to me I listed a second.

1. help
2. Phil. (Phil in turn looks “like typical Phil” and like “a Mexican jumping bean trying to stamp out a fire.”)
3.”Jints great” (??) and “Goodbye blues.”
4. teamwork
5. the nasty
6. livejournal
7. “Anna to dance” and “how you doin’?”
8. Red velvet
9. a hot tamale
10. cultural icons on his shirts
11. “making terrorist threats and driving on a suspended licence”
12. bath time
13. to himself

Hell if I know, but they are surely topics for a philosopher’s philosopher and have been making a bit of a round in a corner of the bloggiverse I occasionally hang out it. Start with Larval Subjects recent series of posts and take it from there.

Something about all of it reminded me of this quote from the first page of Horwitz’s Transformation of American Law, 1870-1960: “In social thought, belief in the explanatory possibility of very general “covering laws” capable of making “if-then” predictive statements has plummeted (except as economics deploys ever more elaborate tautologies to conceal this fact). The result has been a dramatic turn toward highly specific “thick description” in which narratives and stories purport to substitute for traditional general theories. Today there are scholars in all fields of social thought who view orthodox claims to objectivity as contests over the appropriate generality of discourse.” Horwitz admits to great value in all of this and in the resulting complexifying, but asks, I think with a lamenting tone, “But how does one explain anything objectively in a world of complex multiple causation?”, adding a few lines later that “There remains the serious question of whether the new cult of complexity does not simply avoid through fiat the admirable generalizing and simplifying goals of nineteenth century modes of explanation.” (vii-viii.)

Part of what I like in the quote is that it raise the question for me of appropriate analytical modes, which for academics ties in to the strengths and weaknesses of different academic disciplines and subfields.

I’ve said many times (to the point where I find myself tedious, so surely others must too) that certain contemporary theorists such as Antonio Negri make claims which imply problematic assumptions about the past, including claims which over-emphasize the novelty of the present (or find novelty within elements of the present which are not as novel as they’re suggested to be). I also criticized comrades involved in edu-factory in a way that implied they had an implied overstatement of the newness of their views - I suggested they were calling for basically workers’ co-operatives. I recently had a talk with a friend about this category of The Common in some of the philosophical work by these folk. My hunch is that this category, in terms of its political content, is also quite like an older cooperativist or mutualist perspective. I’d like to back this claim up some more. I don’t have the time now, in part because I’m not as up on that philosophical work anymore. For now, some notes to get back to later. (more…)

No doubt many folk have already seen this, but I have to say, I think Garfield Minus Garfield is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen in the internets.