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In Praise of Prejudice: The Necessity of Preconceived Ideas
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Defending The West:
by Ibn Warraq |
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Nations, Language and Citizenship:
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Romancing Opiates
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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Which Koran?
by Ibn Warraq |
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Our Culture, What's Left of It
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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What The Koran Really Says
by Ibn Warraq |
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Life at the Bottom
by Theodore Dalrymple |
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The Origins of the Koran
by Ibn Warraq |
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Why I Am Not Muslim
by Ibn Warraq |
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Spanish Vignettes: An Offbeat Look Into Spain's Culture, Society & History
by Norman Berdichevsky |
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Leaving Islam
Edited by Ibn Warraq |
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Tuesday, 7 August 2007
Pseudsday Tuesday
 Some empowering thoughts from Leon Trotsky (my emphasis):
'The Shatura electric power station is a thing of beauty. Gifted and devoted builders made it. Its beauty is not put on, is not an affair of tinsel decoration, but grows from the inherent properties and needs of technology itself. The highest and only criterion of technology is fitness for purpose. The test of functional fitness is economic efficiency. And this presupposes the most complete correspondence between part and whole, means and end. Economic and technological criteria fully coincide with aesthetic ones. One may say, and it will not be a paradox, that Shatura is a thing of beauty because a kilowatt of its power is cheaper than a kilowatt-hour of power from other stations situated in similar conditions.'
One may say it, certainly, but it will be less a paradox than a load of twaddle. My local branch of Kwik Save sells baked beans that are cheaper than you can get at Tesco. Does that make it a thing of beauty, and therefore, perhaps, a joy for ever (or forever)? How, in any case, can a "kilowatt of power" be cheaper than a "kilowatt-hour of power"? Readers, please correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a kilowatt-hour was a unit of energy, and a kilowatt a unit of power. It's a bit like saying that £20,000 is more money than £20,000 per annum. Unless I'm missing something, I think Trotsky didn't know watt's watt. Watt's more, the power station is hideously ugly.
And now for the obvious Trotsky question: what's an ice pick like you doing in a skull like that? Posted on 10:41 AM by Mary Jackson
Comments
7 Aug 2007
Alan
Doesn't this railway station beat Trotsky's power station on beauty and utility?:
"Arch of Triumph"(7 Aug.)
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk
7 Aug 2007
Hugh Fitzgerald
Kommunizm -- eto est' sovetskaja vlast' plyus elekrifikatsiya vsej strany."
Communism is Soviet Power Plus the Electrification of the Whole Country.
Is it so very different in the current It's-Glorious-to-Get-Rich climate (a climate soon about to change, as it becomes clear that Europe is on the way to becoming, much more quickly than any suspected, Tristes Tropiques) to be found in China, in India, or for that matter in the United States?
A thing of beauty is a power plant, or a hedge fund. Is there really such a difference in the attitude of worship for Bill Gates, because he is so very rich, or of the Maximo Leader who supposedly makes the country so very rich, with those seven-league-boot strides toward increasing that appetizing thing, the GNP?
Besides, Trotsky goes back to the Russians of the 60s and 70s and 80s, Chernyshevsky (as limned by Nabokov's, and history'[s, Strangelove, nekij Strannolyubskij), Dobrolyubov, and others, the ones who thought a good shoemaker was worth more than all of Pushkin.
There are plenty of people now ruling in the West who, if for "shoemaker" you substited "computer manufatcrer" would enthusiastically agree.
Finally, a quiz: what Russian Revolutionary leader was a descendant of Aleksandr Pushkin? Hint: his first name was "Leon." 7 Aug 2007
 Robert Bove
No Bill Gates worshippers here. At least not until he slips NER a few mil.
Now, back to typing on my CCPP (Pretty Cool People's Computer). 7 Aug 2007
Mary Jackson
Is there really such a difference in the attitude of worship for Bill Gates, because he is so very rich, or of the Maximo Leader who supposedly makes the country so very rich, with those seven-league-boot strides toward increasing that appetizing thing, the GNP?
Yes. One works, and produces something very useful. The other produces lies, damn lies and statistics with a fair smattering of oppression and ruin. If, in making his country rich (GNP) and providing a very useful product, Bill Gates, who worked hard and took risks, also gets rich himself, good luck to him - he deserves it. Worship, no, but respect and admiration, yes. Especially as he now gives a lot of his money to good causes. I wish, as Robert says, he would give some to NER.
There are plenty of people now ruling in the West who, if for "shoemaker" you substited "computer manufatcrer" would enthusiastically agree.
And how did you manage to get that onto my screen? With a quill pen?
Don't tell me Trotsky was related to Pushkin? How about Leon Pushkin? Was I right about the kilowatts? I think I was, which proves that, despite his apparent utilitarianism, Trotsky was neither use nor ornament. 7 Aug 2007
Reactionry
Crossing the Mercador
Or: Double Hitters
Or: The Remains of the Doubleday & The Duma
Not just empowering; positively Chernobling. -All that and "Socialist Realism" in Art, and classic tales of, "Boy meets girl, boy falls in love with tractor."
I'll probably continue to get low marks or not Marx at all for noting that Ramon Mercador (Lenin should have employed a double) was a designated hitter.
When I hear the word "culture', unlike Hermann Goering, I reach, not for my "revolver"*, but for my semi-automatic pistols and I'll risk accusations of using too much "inside baseball" with a modest double:
Abner Doubleday and Fedor "Double-Tap" Tokarev**
*The "revolver" remark is a misquote of a misquote from a play about the safety-catch of a Browning; either that, or HG was a fan of a poet, but we didn't know it. (apologies again for ruining the Contentment of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes)
** Not as famous as Kalashnikov, but shares the surname with one of my son's former math profs at St. John's U. 7 Aug 2007
Reactionry
Black-Eyed "Peace"
["Don't tell me Trotsky was related to Pushkin?" -MJ
A very sick joke goes: "What do you say to a woman with a couple of black eyes?
-Nothing; she's already been told twice." -Granted, my memory is far inferior to her's and strictly speaking, Hugh "told" RB or EW -not, MJ last year]
Another Trotsky Double
Or: Pushcarting the Pushkin before (shoving?) the Icepick
Some of the above was covered in NER on November 20, 2006,- "Intrigue Swirls in Ex-K.G.B. Man’s Illness." I suspect and hope that a nearby thread provided justification for adding remarks about Trotsky, chief of which referred to the clumsily updated, "The Trotskys and Wellstones make the revolutions; The Bronsteins and Boschwitzes pay the bills"
7 Aug 2007
Mary Jackson
What do you say to a woman with a couple of black eyes?
Well, I have a couple of blackish - or very dark brown -eyes, and you can say anything you like. Hugh, of course, has never, and would never, hit me - that wouldn't be cricket - but he has knocked me for six at times and probably knows how to bowl a maiden over. Amazing for an American - they generally stump their middle wicket long before tea.
Not that we are any good at baseball, but that hardly counts.
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