Beyond Rivalry

"It's so disappointing," Linda Wilmesherr, a local resident, tells the Associated Press. "With all the guns in this county, couldn't we kill a muskrat?"

from Muskrats blamed for levee breach in Missouri, in USA Today 

Five Dials is a new, hot-off-the-non-press British literary magazine from Hamish Hamilton publishers, freely available in PDF format (18 pages for the first issue).

Love the Agony Uncle (advice) column written by Alain de Botton -- topics this issue are public speaking, dining out, and giving and receiving compliments: "In short, we want to be loved for simply existing, not for doing a certain thing or looking a certain way. Then again, the desire is somewhat unrealistic and many people, philosophers among them, have at times judged it wise to continue visiting the gym."

And the excerpt from Gustav Flaubert's letters: In Feb. 1852, while struggling with the writing of Madame Bovary, he writes to a friend:

"Bad week. Work didn't go; I had reached a point where I didn't know what to say. It was all shadings and refinements; I was completely in the dark: it is very difficult to clarify by means of words what is still obscure in your thoughts. I made outlines, spoiled a lot of paper, floundered and fumbled."

There's also poetry, fiction, art, reportage of current-ish events...

I'm moving towards writing about status, from a Girardian perspective, some time soon. Meanwhile, this post of Canadian pastor/not-pastor Scott Williams, is on the same topic; specifically, it's about mega-churches and the underplayed celebrity of some evanglical Christian leaders labelled as 'ordinary radicals.' It's about jealousy, envy, hero-worship, desire, man's search for meaning and purpose, and most of all, status anxiety.

Here are the phrases and sentences that stand out for me:

** "I think I was also experiencing a low-burn jealousy that was to last for many years." 

This is the kind of jealousy we don't admit to others except in jest, clouded in ambiguity and mixed signals, and we may not even be conscious of feeling it. It's the kind where we say, "It's great that he's doing so well" and then give reasons why we don't want that exact situation or position, explain why what we have is good enough, explore what it is -- about us, about those around us, our circumstances, the system, nature and God -- that keeps us from being and getting what we envy. 

** "The emerging church movement wants to let you know that it is made up of little people, regular fallible leaders and friends. We want to be known as ordinary radicals -- regular people who do extraordinary things.

"Some time ago I happened upon the Ordinary Radicals website, a website featuring some of the most highly regarded thinkers in the North American church." Scott lists about 15 names of so-called ordinary radicals (I've heard of 3 of them), then says,

"When I read a list like that ... I am frustrated by the absolute 'un-ordinary-ness' of the people it is about. Several of the people on the list are international superstars in the religious world, have been on The Colbert Report and any number of high profile talk shows and television appearances. ... Though I genuinely laud the intentions for such projects it is simply symptomatic of the problem in North American faith and culture. We cannot seem to get beyond the love affair we have with celebrity culture. Even in a climate of anti-heroes we are easily infatuated with the cult of personality."

My thought is that this is the same motivation we have for watching reality TV shows -- they too are 'ordinary people' we can easily identify with, and yet they're doing something extraordinary (they're on national TV, for one), so we can also model ourselves after them, look to them as ideals and the embodiment of our manifold desires (i.e., one desire: to be valued for who we are).

DALMATIANS

'Hey, look, the truck's stopping.'

'Did they take us to the park this time?'

'No -- it's a fire. Another horrible fire.'

'What the hell is wrong with these people?'

From 'Animal Tales' by Simon Rich in the 30 June 2008 New Yorker.

Some of what moves through us, and how it keeps us moving. 

sunlight, air, water, nutrients, blood, instincts, our neurons' electric spark, sensations, perceptions, information, ideas, conceptions, conversations, emotions, communion...

I like it, and I think I like the colours he uses for the words even more.

--- 

Leroy Sievers (My Cancer) asks how you want people to remember you. My instinctual response is, I don't. Maybe, somehow, in these things Dave Pollard lists, above, that move through us, but without my name attached. Maybe I don't want to be remembered or missed in my absence so much as felt in my presence. Ask me another day and I might respond differently. Sometimes I feel anxious and sad when I think about so much personality and experience (each person's) removed from our midst in an instant, never to be replicated in exactly the same way (or so I believe)  ... Of what use was it all, all this striving, all this becoming, all these relationships, all this unique composition of particles, waves, energy, self? Then I answer myself: of no use. That's a calming thought somehow. 

I like this aspiration, in the comments: "That I went through my bout with cancer with ... a sick sense of humor." Another one says, "Off to get fresh bread for breakfast. Please remember that I did things like that."

--- 

Addicted to grief ... In the journal 10 May 2008 issue of Neurolmage, UCLA scientists report a study of grief that may help explain why some people "grieve and ultimately adapt, while others can't get over the loss of someone held dear." Grief may be an addiction; thinking about the loss may stimulate the reward region of the brain, which provides the griever with a kind of pleasure in the midst of pain. The reveries about the loved one may not be felt as emotionally satisfying, but they may be craved and re-enacted because of the reward response they trigger in the brain.

The lead author of the study, asst. professor of psychiatry Mary-Frances O'Connor, explains:

"'The idea is that when our loved ones are alive, we get a rewarding cue from seeing them or things that remind us of them. ... After the loved one dies, those who adapt to the loss stop getting this neural reward. But those who don't adapt continue to crave it, because each time they do see a cue, they still get that neural reward. Of course, all of this is outside of conscious thought, so there isn't an intention about it.'"

In the study, women whose mothers or sisters had died of breast cancer looked at either a photo of their loved one or a photo of a female stranger while their brains were scanned. They found that while both those with complicated grief (the kind that continues and can be debilitating) and with uncomplicated grief have activity in the pain network of the brain after looking at the photo of the loved one, only those with complicated grief showed significant activation in the nucleus accumbens, a region of the brain associated with reward.

What this synopsis of the study doesn't say is whether someone is chemically determined to have complicated grief with every loss or only with some losses.

Abstract and link to full report ($) here. 

Love this meditation, "Starbucks Log: To the pretty but stern lady in line," by Stephen Berg at Grow Mercy today. I've re-formatted it to poem form and added some commas for ease of reading and to open it to the slower, shuddering, reverberating voice of poetry.

The existential lack you wake up with is real enough.
The thing you fill it with is not.

The thing, whether object or being, has no substance.
You look and see and desire and look to another to know
what it is you should desire
and it is all helium.
Up it goes, no hanging on or retrieval.
But you tell yourself the romantic lie that, in fact, you did hang on,
and that it is now what is filling you and giving you your bit of buoyancy.

And without knowing what you're doing,
you add to the lie
by convincing yourself that if only you could acquire
a bit more of whatever that was,
you would finally satisfy that deficiency
and come into yourself discovering your trueness.

And without knowing you're doing it,
you cast about to see who it is that is leading the fulfilled life,
and you seize upon your neighbour three doors down.

Your neighbour two doors down you know well enough to conclude he has his own problems.
In fact, one time you caught him giving you the envy-eye,
so you know his environ is a dead end.

But she, of the next-door-to-the-two-doors-down, looks altogether put together.
She had seemed average enough but you caught something else,
something more the day you passed her on the sidewalk outside your office.
What was it, you wonder?

You catch yourself looking for an answer
but not really looking
and not conscious that you're looking,
yet one morning at 3:30 AM you wake up and wonder what kind of salad she eats.
What's her breakfast?

She might as well have her own line of clothes, fragrance, hair products,
so well is she pieced and plaited!
Where did she find her poise, you wonder?
What's her regime? Her program? Her magazines?

Yes, obviously, she lacks the lack you wake up with.
Can't be. Can it? It is!
Has her own line of clothes? Silly! Go back to sleep!

You press all this down far under the threshold of awareness from where it came
and you get on with your day.
Except without knowing it
you allow the play of the romantic lie
and you make little raids on the inarticulate something that tells you of her preeminence.

And now you move beyond her surface
to the substance of things
and consider her friends, her intimacies --
yes, of course hers are the right friends and intimacies and soulish powers
and here lies her secret.

But just how did she acquire them?
No, that's the wrong question…she has them…how do you get them?
Now we're getting someplace.

And then the conclusion comes naturally enough,
almost divine in its revelatory shimmer
with you self-possessed
and in control of your innocent desires,
not trying to evince a solution in any way,
and now you know that in order to be yourself
it's her being you must possess.
And so in every way you must kill her off.
Your existential completeness is just that close.
Three doors down.
This is your awakening that you remain unaware of.

Comedian, political humourist, anti-censorship crusader and thinker George Carlin died yesterday of a heart attack at age 71. He released his first comedy album, Take-Offs and Put-Ons, in 1967, acted in 'That Girl' and the movie 'With Six You Get Egg-Roll,'  and by the end of the 1960s, "he was one of America’s best known comedians." In 1970, feeling he was "living a lie," he ditched his clean-cut, conventional image and material for the long-haired look and seven-words-riddled, edgy patter he's known for. That switch resulted in the cancellation of a 3-year-contract and "he was advised to leave town when an angry mob threatened him at the Lake Geneva Playboy Club"! 

NYT obituary

BBC News obituary 

Time magazine already has "How George Carlin Changed Comedy" on its website.

AP/Chicago Tribune tribute 

Transcript of "The Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television," from his 1972 album Class Clown. (NSFW)

An editorial cartoon featuring Carlin, printed in today's Chicago Tribune, which went to press before news of Carlin's death.

I've read Leroy Sievers' My Cancer every morning for a couple of years. It's often a difficult way to start the day, and it's an important touchstone for me, too. His latest scans showed cancer in multiple places (9 June) and his story seems to be taking yet another turn. Many of the commenters also have cancer or care for someone with cancer.

______________________________________________

This blog entry, by Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution today, from and about the novel Atmospheric Disturbances, got my attention:

"'It may be that friendship is nourished on observation and conversation, but love is born from and nourished on silent interpretation. ... The beloved expresses a possible world unknown to us ... that must be deciphered.'

"That is Gilles Deleuze and it is the front quotation in the new novel Atmospheric Disturbances, by the very beautiful Rivka Galchen.  The key premise of this novel is that a 51-year-old psychiatrist suddenly believes that his wife has been replaced with an exact look-alike; he refers to her as the Simulacrum.  I read it straight through."

______________________________________________

I'm still reading Alain de Botton's Status Anxiety and about to begin Charles Tilly's Why: What Happens When People Give Reasons ... and Why. When I saw it recommended, it reminded me of a House MD episode, "It's a Wonderful Lie" (ep. 4x10), and House's assertion that the "only reason to give multiple reasons is that you're seasching for what the person wants to hear." 

It's been another month since I last blogged about mob violence, which continues pretty well unabated. Below are some of the latest incidents reported, and some commentary on the phenomenon by others. (And here's why I'm doing it.)

I won't be making the Girardian connections for each of these as I have previously because the connections are the same as always -- scapegoat is often someone from the margins (disabled, poor, stranger, female, old, young, from another caste or class or country, seen as privileged, etc. ), mob often forms spontaneously or grows larger as the scapegoating occurs due to accusatory mimesis, perpetrators easily justify the scapegoating as necessary and right, scapegoating's intention is to bring about peace in the community.

INCIDENTS

** 15 May 2008, Baltimore MD: "Child Was a 'Demon'"
"One Mind Ministries of Baltimore, MD, allegedly starved an 18-month old child because he was viewed as a ‘demon' ... after the baby wouldn’t say 'amen' at mealtime." The baby's "body was found last month in a suitcase in Philadelphia two years after his death." Immediately after his death, "the baby was placed on a mattress, on which cult members said God would resurrect him from the dead."  Examiner article here.

** 31 May 2008 Para, Brasil, in the Amazon: "Brazilian Tribes Say Dam Threatens Way of Life" reported at NPR

Indigenous people protesting a proposed hydroelectric dam on the "remote, pristine Xingu River," near the mouth of the Amazon River, attack Paulo Fernando Rezende, a representative from the state's electric power enterprise, with machetes as he speaks to them about the dam:

"Roquivan Alves Silva takes the microphone and declares: 'If necessary, I will make war to protect the Xingu and the people of the entire region.' Moments later, the Indians rise in unison. A mix of warriors and women moves menacingly across the room toward Rezende. Then suddenly they're on him. Machetes and sticks flailing, they push Rezende to the floor, poking him with their weapons. The warriors rip his shirt to shreds and carve a deep gash in his right arm. Blood pooling on the floor, Dom Erwin, the Catholic Bishop of Xingu, steps in. The gymnasium hangs suspended between fear and euphoria. Chief Tabata, whose tribe lives in the Xingu National Park in the state of Mato Grosso, says he feels the Eletrobras representative lied. ... 'We have to hurt them. They weren't respecting the Indians. ... That's our fight. I want the people, the white people to understand why the Indians are so angry.'"

** 2 June 2008 Imphal, Manipur, India: Woman killer lynched: Mob justice at Umathel:

"In a macabre incident, a woman (45) was hacked to death by a man (60) who was subsequently lynched by an angry mob at Umathel Mamang Leikai under Waikhong Police Station this morning. ... According to police report, at around 6 am today, Sangai was returning home from collecting monthly subscription of a Marup from a person at Umathel Mamang Leikai.  While she was preparing to cross a bailey bridge, Khullachandra, who was then splitting bamboo, came from behind and hacked her on the neck killing the woman on the spot. When the news of the incident spread, angry locals came out in large number and beat up Khullachandra to death. The body of Khullachandra has been picked up by the Waikhong police. None of his family members have come to claim the body so far."

** 2 June 2008 Flushing, New York: "Mob Violence Against Falun Gong Worsens in Absence of Police"

"About forty Falun Gong practitioners were surrounded on Main Street in front of the Flushing Library Saturday evening between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. by a large, angry mob. According to eyewitness reports and Epoch Times reporters on the scene, the mob was emboldened by the absence of the police. ... 'These mobs, there were hundreds of them, at least 200-300 of them.'" ... There is speculation that the Chinese consulate is organizing the mobs and that "some of the violence is being aggravated and encouraged by well-placed individuals among crowds of Chinese. On Sunday, an unidentified Chinese man, standing among a large crowd of Chinese on Sanford and Kissena Streets, described how he had attacked a female Falun Gong practitioner the previous week, ripping the sign she was holding and knocking her to the ground. The man, who was described as about 5'7" and in his mid-40's with scars on his face, encouraged people in the crowd to attack Falun Gong practitioners themselves." More on an earlier incident here.

** 9 June 2008 Bagamoyo, Tanzania: 

Kate Kozonasky reports on her blog of an incident of mob violence: "A few nights ago ... us girls were sitting outside at night, probably around 730, inside out home base just talking. All of the sudden, we heard this massive ROAR of people coming from outside the gate; it was ridiculous. at first it just sounded strictly like shouting, but as we ran outside our protective gates to see what the fuss was, we realized that at LEAST 150 people were running down the road with torches and spears, screaming "THIEF!" Our Tanzanian security gaurd explained that this often happens in Bagamoyo when there is a crime; when something happens and a citizen witnesses it, he has to scream to get others attention to catch the criminal themselves, because police are not affective here. So apparently, a man stole from a local store and they were literally chasing him out of the town to kill him!"  

COMMENTARY examining triggers for mob violence:

South Africa: Ugly Politics Aggravate Xenophobia by Terence Corrigan and Faten Aggad, 4 June 2008: The "recent eruption of mob violence targeting foreigners living among us" in South Africa" have been put down to "xenophobia,"  but this, the authors contend, "cannot on its own explain the violence. After all, South Africans have been living alongside foreign nationals for decades. This suggests that other factors are involved. We need to understand what they are – urgently." Factors the suggest and explore are (1) the inability of the existing democratic process to mitigate conflict; (2) the 'uneven' South African policy on immigraton, which leads to grievances such as "anger at competition for jobs and services, envy at the perceived success of foreigners, and suspicion of other cultures;" (3) a political system that fails "to channel people's grievances into formal channels;" (4) "a lack of understanding on the part of ordinary people as to how they can make themselves heard."

South Africa: Graca Machel Warns of Revolt Among Victims of Pogroms, 10 June 2008:

"Mozambique's former first lady, Graca Machel, who today heads one of the country's most respected NGOS, the Community Development Foundation (FDC), on Tuesday warned of possible revolt among the tens of thousands of Mozambicans who have fled from anti-foreigner pogroms in South Africa. ... Should the government prove unable to satisfy their demands, and to reinsert them into Mozambican society, that could lead the victims of the pogroms to revolt against their own government" with mob violence.  ...

"She added that the solutions to such problems must lie in the establishment of governments that are able to respond to the needs of their citizens, and reduce the likelihood that they will be driven to the margins of society. Machel claimed that the mob violence in South Africa was aimed more against the sub-human living conditions in the townships than against foreign citizens. She argued that the attacks had been unleashed by people who were 'rejected, marginalized and unused' by the South African system. (However, contrary to this view, there is good evidence that the initial riots were far from spontaneous, but were organised by self-styled 'community leaders'). Machel argued that the development models adopted by African governments have produced millions of marginalized and excluded people, living in conditions favourable to outbreaks of brutal violence. 'Extreme poverty dehumanizes people and leads them to madness,' she said. 'That's what happened in Rwanda over ten years ago.'

South Africa: Xenophobia on Trial at Boekehuis: Dark Tales and Hope by Liesl Jobson, 2 June 2008:

"Johannesburg readers crammed into Boekehuis" recently to "talk about xenophobia in literature. ... Store manager Corina Van der Spoel [chaired] the event," introducing "the topic with a series of salient readings and reflections, starting with an excerpt from the Goldstone Report of 1993/4, which noted the different ways that perpetrators, victims and bystanders react to massive human rights abuses -- the callousness with which innocent people are murdered, raped and tortured, and the shallow excuses produced by the perpetrators for such brutality.

"'He finds similar behaviour everywhere,' said Van der Spoel. 'The situations are universal. Throughout the world one must recognise that any people, anywhere, has the potential for evil on a massive scale. And all victims, whoever they may be, need the opportunity to heal. No continent, no region, and no people are immune from it.'" ...

"Van der Spoel also quoted from the Southern African Migration Project's World Values Survey on International Attitudes to Immigration, which she described as 'astounding'. In calibrating attitudes to foreigners it was found that South Africans held the harshest anti-immigrant views among the 29 nations surveyed.  'More than 20% of people surveyed here wanted all foreigners barred from entering the country on any grounds, compared with 13% holding this view in Britain, 11% in China, and 4% in the USA and Mozambique.'"

Pakistan: Burning of robbers shows lack of justice, police inefficiency by Zamir Sheikh, 26 May 2008:

Speaking of "the unfortunate burning of two alleged robbers by an angry crowd in Karachi recently" -- due to "a daylight robbery in a flat located in the congested locality" -- Skeikh points to "the rising unbearable cost of living" as a possible cause.

He also notes, "The desperate element in the street justified the mob justice arguing that there is no other way than to handout instant justice to the perpetrators of heinous crime. ... It is difficult to single out one single factor as the cause of the incident. It was just the instant anger with no restraining saner voice in the mob that caused the gruesome and inhumane act. But if discussed from various angles, one could reach the conclusion that snail pace process of justice, overburdened police force dominated by a few corrupt elements, tribal justice system prevalent in some areas the country and lack of trust of the judicial system were some of the factors that forced the unconscious mind of an enraged mob to indulge in an act which is prohibited both by the God and the man made laws.

"None other than William Shakespeare had written about the mob mentality in his famous drama Julius Caesar, how Mark Antony is his funeral speech played with mobs emotions in order to whip them into a frenzy of rage. 

"The crowd that caught hold of the robbers as soon as the victims raised hue and cry had to react immediately and in the fit of mob anger they found no alternate than to beat them near death. Some one in the crowd who might have seen or undergone the sufferings of facing a similar personal experience lost his sanity and resorted to an act which otherwise under normal circumstance he would have just avoided and handed over the culprits to the police."

Pakistan: Rule of the mob by Ishtiaq Ahmed, 7 June 2008:

"In the wake of viciously gruesome attacks recently by angry mobs on criminals -- robbers and thieves -- caught recently red-handed on the scene in Karachi and other parts of the country, Gallup Pakistan conducted an opinion survey on May 18 and 19, 2008 ... Fifty-two percent (52%) of the total respondents were of the opinion that beating to death and then burning the bodies of those robbers apprehended on the spot was the "right thing to do" while 42 percent (42%) disapproved of such brutal methods. ...

"If we now recall that in the past few weeks a Hindu worker has been killed in a similar fashion by a mob which suspected him of blasphemy, incensed lawyers beat up pro-Musharraf ministers of the previous government in Lahore, and rival groups of lawyers fell upon each other in Karachi, causing a number of deaths, then the situation becomes very worrisome. It is symptomatic of not only a state and its institutions failing to establish and uphold law and order but civil society failing as well to inculcate norms and ethics that discourage violent conduct.

"When such a situation becomes endemic the name for the phenomenon is ochlocracy, devised by the ancient Greeks to describe mob rule or mob justice. Sometimes another word, "mobocracy," is applied instead to describe the power of the masses, in contrast to the power of an established ruling elite. ...

"The outbursts of mob fury and the concomitant 'rough' justice meted out to the culprits [in Pakistan] reflect not only loss of faith in the political leaders and state institutions' ability to maintain law and order and practice justice. Rather, in a more serious manner such extreme behaviour is a manifestation of helplessness and despondency in relation to the ruling class. "

More on Pakistan's blasphemy laws and the consequences for those accused of it. ("The blasphemy laws impact everyone, regardless of religion -- and the tragedy is that almost every case is completely fabricated. ... The reason is simple. The blasphemy law requires no evidence other than an accusation made by one person against another.")
 

Now a sixth severed foot has washed up on the shores of British Columbia, encased in an athletic show like all the others.

It was a hoax!, an animal paw skeleton stuck in a shoe.  (Isn't that a bit obvious? I guess not.)

Anyway, the first five feet were real human dead feet, four of them right feet, the fifth foot, which washed up on Monday, the only left foot. The leading theory seems to be that the feet and shoes might belong to four of the five men who were killed in a float plane crash in the area in Feb. 2005 (the fifth man's remains were found and identified soon after the crash). Where are the rest of the bodies? Why would the feet all detach? 

I don't know if I would be taking more beach walks or fewer if I lived near the Campbell River in Vancouver, B.C. ...  Hello, CSI: Canada!

More facts and theorising ...  "The leg bone was still attached to the foot bone and there was no remaining muscle. The leg bone was 'cut on a straight line" just 3 to 4 inches above the ankle.' ... DNA profiles developed for the first three feet do not match any known missing-person cases. ... It's unlikely the feet are washing in from the Pacific Ocean. Rather, they're probably originating from B.C. waters. ... A disarticulated foot could float for up to 1,600 kilometers in a buoyant sneaker."

23 June 2008 update: More speculation, particularly as DNA testing has now concluded that three of the feet don't belong to any of the plane crash victims. Results are still pending for the remaining two feet.

10 July 2008 update: Two of the five feet belong to the same person, a male, and one of the feet belongs to a woman. As that article mentions at the end, another foot washed up on Tuesday in southern Sweden.  Photos of the 'Canadian'shoes at the National Post, plus more details.