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June 05, 2007
DUDE! WAKE UP!
Today I was at the library for five hours. I drank a lot of coffee so I had to go to the bathroom a lot. Sitting in front of the bathroom was this Napoleon Dynamite looking dude . . . he wasn't sitting he was sleeping. The whole time. I suppose at one point he was reading, because he had a BOURNE IDENTITY book folded across his chest.
I was hot in the middle of my much-procrastinated paper on Kant, but I still couldn't help thinking that this was like the Grasshopper and the Ants, where I'm the ants, only there will be no moral to this story because dude slept all day and this paper isl probably too general to ever get published. I just can't imagine why dude wanted to sleep in a chair in front of the bathroom at the U of M library. It was kind of irritating - there had to be some more productive way to spend the day. I wanted to go into "teacher mode." Or maybe it was just that I wanted to do that.
But then, I guess, maybe I did, maybe that's why I'm turning this paper in a week late. Maybe dude was just a symbolic embodiment of what I've been doing for the last two weeks instead of working.
I'm getting pretty sick of this paper. I'm defending someone (Immanuel Kant) for attacking something (Rhetoric) for no apparent reason (by simplifying and generalizing it into something clearly bad). Kant certainly wouldn't thank me for taking on this project; he'd probably say it was pointless. And now I'm almost done with it and I have no idea why I was so interested in doing this: Kant wrote about Rhetoric once, in the negative, and never referred to it again. And I'm trying to suggest that he actually likes rhetoric. And the thing is, I think I've done it (though not exhaustively) and, assuming it works, I feel like a lawyer whose gotten off a client who is clearly guilty (this is all high talk, I know, but still). Kant clearly wanted us to think he hated rhetoric, and I've just proven that he makes extremist statements that can be justified by reading volume after volume of his opaque philosophy. I've basically justified his priggishness and disciplinary snobbery. It has taught me a lot about how to choose paper topics in the future.
Michael Moore was on OPRAH today. This is only the second time I've watched Oprah in my life - the other time Martin Scorsese was on. I have no basis to evaluate Oprah as a cultural phenomenon or a competent TV host, but I was curious to see what Moore is up to with his latest movie. Apparently, he's back to the corporate lion-taming act, which is usually the kind of gut-punching liberalism that I get up for. I liked ROGER & ME and THE BIG ONE because it proved once and for all the fallacious reasoning behind corporate layoff practices, and also the deadened state of retail stores because of bad management and profiteering sleazebags.
But Moore's new movie is, among other things, a call for socialized health care. At one point, Moore told Oprah, "It's not about me, it's about we. We're all on this boat together." And Moore shows many virtuous people who are either being denied health care or can't get it to begin with. But here's my question for Moore, and it's one he has never dealt with: what about the people who exploit the system? Doesn't this just give them more avenues for exploitation? I'm pretty sure that if Moore had his druthers, I'd be paying for health care for illegal immigrants, who take away more than they add, and people who get sexually transmitted diseases because they are irresponsible. No one would take steps to see that these problems change, because we have such an easy quick-fix solution that they can force me to pay for. Meanwhile, I don't make money for the first four months of the year. Why? I realize that as a nation we should be more "we," but this seems to have within it a presumption that everyone is actively participating in their community, democracy, and economy, and this is often not the cass. The answer is NOT more government control. Although I do agree that we have to hold these huge companies accountable.
If anyone wants my Pandora Alt-Country radio station, which is awesome, email me. I did get one post 9/11 Country song explaining why the War with Iraq is a good thing, and one Jessica Simpson song, but I thumbed-down them and now I'm on a steady diet of some seriously good music.
Through another Memphisblog, I found out about this funny story about the Arcade Fire. The blog will take you there.
| By Andytown | 06:01 PM
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Comments
About Kant... I am going to go back and read some and see if I can see where you are on this whole rhetoric thing. What is your primary text? I think I know, but I don't want to be a dufus.
About Oprah... I tuned in so that I could watch the Cormac McCarthy interview. Oprah is ridiculous and was way out of her league with him. She faltered the whole way through and left me wishing I hadn't looked forward to it so much. On a positive note, I was glad I got to see the Moore stuff. I was pretty put off by the antics he displayed on the Gitmo sojourn, but in a roundabout way it was justified. As far as his exploitation of the system, I just can't think of a better way to get a point across than going on Oprah. If anything, that man knows where to make the biggest ripple. He consistently splashes into the Amercian psyche with a reverberation that lasts well into infinity. Appearing on Oprah is just the equivalent of jumping into a slightly shallow, albeit expansive, pool
Posted by: Sarah Beth at June 5, 2007 08:31 PM
Working in healthcare, I tend to agree with Mr. Moore. And, I think if Congress worked proactively on this issue a socialized medicine system could have measures in place to prevent abuse as well as methods for amendment in cases of unanticipated exploitation. With medicine we have to seperate the moral issues (STD's) from the social/political issues, and we also must realize that with the current system illegal aliens receive treatment all the time but the healthcare providers are just left to swallow the costs. Would there be problems with socialized medicine? Sure, why did the AMA fight against it all through the 1980's, but if we look realistically at healthcare coverage and listen to the doctors that are providing care, I think that more and more people in medicine think a socialized solution may be in order.
As to the following: "He consistently splashes into the Amercian psyche with a reverberation that lasts well into infinity." What does that even mean?
Posted by: Ben Roberts at June 6, 2007 01:38 PM
Ben I hardly think that selling the syringes you find in dumpsters outside the hospital qualifies you as a health care professional.
Joking . . . Joking . . .
But seriously, as to putting "measures in place to prevent abuse as well as methods for amendment in cases of unanticipated exploitation" - can you think of one social program that's doing this? People continue to exploit welfare precisely because Congress is so inept at dealing with the gazillion programs they throw out every year and expect to work without any type of close monitoring. Because all of these gestures are political, they're often done near crunch-time in election years, and who gives a good damn if they're working next term?
Also, I think all Sarah Beth means is that Michael Moore is good at reminding people that he's there, by broadly attacking a number of different issues.
Health Care reform? I'm for it. Socialized Medicine. No thanks.
Posted by: andytown at June 6, 2007 06:23 PM