Unexpected things to think about in the new year:
I. Evidently Kim Jong-un rides a fine white horse better than he walks, but this seems not to be unusual in his crowd. Like Putin, he demonstrates he doesn't mind the cold but appreciates a nice hand-warming fire. Trump can't compete with this macho crowd! You might want to turn the sound off to watch. The music is impressive but the narrative sucks.
2. The second topic is Viagra. I've wondered why old white men in positions of power go truly crazy. Is it their diet? Their alcohol intake? Drug use? Narcissism? It seems consistent and common among Repub senators. I never thought of Viagra until it was suggested on Twitter.
So I looked up the side-effects: hearing loss, eyesight loss, heart attacks. strokes. Google is quite dodgy about showing the list. No Viagra for people taking alpha-blockers for prostate problems or high blood pressure or HIV or HIV protection. The med should be prescribed and monitored by a doctor. Symptoms include unexpected changes in blood pressure or fainting.
Sex is a power perc and a respite from anxiety, a demonstration of power-over and privileged access. Drugs, esp pills, move freely in our culture and encourage scoffing and faking medical care. Someone should write a movie script about a senator who kills himself by fucking, dying on top of his partner like Rockefeller. But guys who want instant performance so they can stay on their schedules and who are used to rhetorical exaggeration will not be upset. So good at denial. Viagra and "poppers"? No comment.
In the past it has been proclaimed that cholesterol will trigger hardening of the arteries, causing heart attacks and dementia. We have noticed that legislators don't necessarily stick to healthy salads. Except maybe the women, but they don't take Viagra.
"A study of seniors finds further evidence that hardened arteries are tied to the development of dementia. Experts have known for some time that heart health and brain health are linked, but new research suggests that hardened arteries are tied to the brain plaques seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease." I saw no studies linking hardened arteries to Viagra, but I didn't look very hard.
Diagnosis, research and publicity for such a med are secretive and discouraged by the corporations making millions by selling Viagra in the time-honored way that glamour sex is advertising, convincing everyone that sex to climax is some kind of golden chalice goal of life, a confirmation of worth in a hostile world.
3. The third little puzzle is from the "good gray Canada" where the academic world is far more daring and intense than Americans, used to beer and fraternities. The saga of the poet and the killer is not finished yet, but certainly challenges traditional English ideas of poetry.
One headline is: "University of Regina rejects calls to cancel lecture by renowned poet over ties to Indigenous woman's killer https://ift.tt/2SMdgvo." The situation is that a recognized poet, George Elliott Clarke, has been invited to speak at the U of Regina and may intend to read a poem written by Steven Kummerfield (a.k.a. Stephen Brown) Kummerfield will not be present. He and Clarke have a long history of working together. The news stories do not include poems by either man.
"Clarke, 59, is a former poet laureate of Canada who has written more than a dozen collections of poetry as well as drama, two novels and literary criticism and received multiple honours for his work, including a Governor General's Literary Award and an Order of Canada." For those who judge writing according to awards (and never read poetry anyway) these are markers of virtue and quality, Such people rarely consider the morality of topics -- Can one write of the lyricism of murdering? It's been done. Should a murderer be allowed to write poetry at all? Who can allow or disallow poetry?
Complicating the plot is Clarke seeking the protection of being ethnic. ("As a black academic with Cherokee and Mi'kmaq heritage, Clarke says he's qualified to approach racial issues with seriousness and sensitivity.") He is dedicating his talk to indigenous women gone missing or murdered. Even more complicated is the crime of Kummerfield who as a young man captured and beat to death an indigenous woman, a mother who did occasional sexwork. A male friend helped him. He served time, a few years.
4. The fourth puzzle to consider is the demographics of the Academy. All the farmers around here, esp. at the end of a long hard day, lectured their kids (esp boys) that they should go to college and get "good" (i.e. physically easy) jobs. So there they are with their splendid Ph.D's which are useless in a rural setting, and -- vaguely -- they intend to write a best-selling novel that will make enough money to save the ranch. Just ahead of them on the career path are their own professors, all with tenure and probably another decade in their positions.
Universities are coming up short financially. Some have become dependent on international corporations that control them, maybe resource-based. Others have shifted all their energy to the "hard" sciences of math and physics while ignoring the "girly" subjects of humanities, including civics. Economics is the backup. Education used to be, but even public schools are hard-pressed to pay salaries. They are hoping computers will save them, though they don't understand either computers or the culture well enough to innovate as well as young garage-thinkers who bravely tinker. Nor do they understand the platform giants of social media. who don't understand themselves.
I'm thinking in terms of cooperatives and think tanks. A dozen people who know stuff and can build together. Forget about money. Think about the medieval invention of colleges and, much later, public education. Think about pregnant teenaged girls who need to know how to raise a functioning human being and guys in gangs who only know how to rumble but have enormous energy. Think about sustainable ag back home.
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