Billy Joel - No Man's Land

From the Album River of Dreams - No Man's Land:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MzoGHYdLUPo

Lyrics/commentary:

I've seen those big machines come rolling through the quiet pines

Large scale capital is used to develop unspoiled wilderness, but ultimately unproductive land. Is capital available from prudent savers orgovernment subsidized bankers?

Blue suits and bankers with their Volvos and their valentines

The ultimate boss – the consumer, his and her demands reflect their values – Volvo: safety, family, Swedish Engineering: http://www.sw-em.com/volvostack.jpg
This family is sustained by romantic love. The clothing and job indicate that money won’t be a pressing concern, assuming modest consumption…

Give us this day our daily discount outlet merchandise

Consumption as an end in itself, the very concept of an “outlet” implies a large, energy intensive infrastructure, is that efficient compared to other forms of communities? Also, these are non-durable goods – mostly crap.

Raise up a multiplex and we will make a sacrifice

They want a multi-screen theatre, to consume more of the culture, both a mirror and a feast. Yes, they will sacrifice, but what?

Now we're gonna get the big business

Maybe they’ll build a mall around here!

Now we're gonna get the real thing

Sharper Image!

Everybody's all excited about it

Residential and light commercial blight essentially kills everything that was there before and replaces it with enforced non-growth or even crazier, the intensive cultivation of ornamental grass. You can’t even eat it!

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

What were the values and intentions of these people that moved away from somewhere else and tried to for a community based on nothing in particular.

Before they passed the master plan - out here in No Man's Land

Master planned communities, boring and uninspired by design. Strictly functional and at the worst, demeaning. But all this grows from a mistake about the customer, this “resident” is not an animal, it’s a human and it needs a society a community.

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

That says it all, the ‘community’ just consumes. Rand might say, they’re all looters.

There ain't much work out here in our consumer power base

Economics based on consumption always end up making mistakes about job creation. Saving is noted valued, capital accumulation is nil, as is investment. Yet they ask, why no jobs?

No major industry, just miles and miles of parking space

What about minor industry? There is no productive labor, just services

This morning's paper says our neighbor's in a cocaine bust

The community is starting to reap, black market employment flourishes.

Lots more to read about Lolita and suburban lust

Symptoms decried, causes denied. The social impact of non-community.

Now we're gonna get the whole story

Truth seems accessible only because it is assumed. The media outlets, the opinions of others are substituted for thinking and debating.

Now we're gonna be in prime time

Everybody's all excited about it

The love of the thing, the symbol, becomes an end itself - the cultural itself demands worship.

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

We've just begun to understand - out here in No Man's Land

The cracks in the edifice are begining to show, only now are a few starting to think of how they came to such an end.

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

I see these children with their boredom and their vacant stares

God help us all if we're to blame for their unanswered prayers

Education becomes as formulaic and one-size-fits-all as the roads and retail stores. The next generation of this community is experiencing spiritual and emotional death, they would be the first generation to be outdone by their parents.

They roll the sidewalks up at night this place goes underground

Thanks to the Condo Kings there's cable now in Zombietown

More and more of society rebels against the oppression of non-ideas and sterilized lives. A social black market is just as alive as the drug trade. Whatever this Zombietown is - people are fleeing it, in any way they can. Others can't get enough:

Now we're gonna get the closed circuit

Now we're gonna get the Top 40

Now we're gonna get the sports franchise

Now we're gonna get the major attractions

Financial, cultural and spiritual servitude - grasping at the wind.

Who remembers when it all began - out here in No Man's Land

Before the whole world was in our hands - out here in No Man's Land

Before the banners and the marching bands - out here in No Man's Land

Low supply and high demand - here in No Man's Land

This "community" probably has few voluntary social institutions. Lives are lived as the houses are build, separate and indistinguishable. No one remembers, because there is nothing to remember. History records events of human significance, all they can muster are symbols, that signify nothing.

The Hunger Games

What a wonderful set of books and so very timely. My friend Andy summed up the emotional feel of the books quite well:
I did not enjoy a diet of one bitter pill after another, and felt somewhat cheated that all the tension only ever paid off with misery and more tension.

See, the games are quite horrifying and creatively so. 'Chosen' children from each district battle to the death, in an arena designed to enhance the excitement, because the entire affair is televised! Each book shows suceessively deeper human suffering, through the eyes of children. A natural reaction is to ask - why? Why, within the narrative, why to the question of evil in the world, why even read these depressing series of books? Well every tragedy must address the problem pain and the problem of evil. But didn’t we get enough of that in school? Andy again:
We didn't need to read tragedies in English class. We already had an entire class dedicated to tragedy and suffering. It was called "History".

I wholly agree and remember the many hours of forced reading in school. I am convinced now, that it was to make us hate literature :(

I think the “why” in this book is quite telling. Specifically, what kind of society heaps praise on such a horrifying spectacle? See, I don’t think the books are about the games, rather the games are the emotional hook, to interest you in the context – the society that produces the games.
The setting is a distopian America, where the "Federal" government exerts near complete control over the "districts" - each district specializes in what it produces and the majority of the output is taken and redistributed by the central government. Personal liberties are few, productive capital is virtually non-existant. As the series progresses, more of the economy and political structure of the country is revealed. The "redistribution" seems to mean that much of the goods produced in districts, end up in the capital, while the districts are left in various stages of near starvation and squalor. The only real prosperity is in government work (which a couple of the districts and many individuals have managed) or, of course, the lucky chance of winning the Hunger Games.

Ah yes, lest we forget the stated reason for the games: to punish the districts for rebellion. Not to mention, entertainment for the people of the Capital!
What is wrong with this society ends in poverty - and that always begins with property. It is not clear if the Capital owns everything, but they exercise direct control over seemingly everyone and everything. Suffice to say, it is a command/control economy, run by a dictator (President Snow). Without robust property rights, individuals make little improvements in the land (other than the slave masters command) and little capital is accumulated. That puts the breaks on any real economic growth. All this coupled with the powerful exploitation of the districts - we should not be surprised that everyone is hungry. Central planning and malinvestment that follows will always produce shortages. Price, is simply the most efficient tool for achieving highest marginal utility for scarce resources. But of course, that is a “free market” price.

These novels are half observation, half warning. To what extent does this dystopia already exist?
Increasingly the problems of our country are at root, the results of central planning and centralized administration. Finance, education, agriculture, healthcare, transportation, media – all in a crisis of having to sell a homogenous product, to a non-homogenous customer.

The poorest districts produce agriculture and coal – if they had property rights, those would be the richest districts. They produce energy for people and energy for machines, literally, the motive power behind all development. If you had to guess about the United States today, would you guess that the coal mining and agricultural areas were the most wealthy?

These books are an innoculation, against the tide of cultural force that says: "obey - even in the face of abject failure." Though I wouldn't force it on youngsters, though that would be the hieght of irony.

King Rabbit

The first round of rabbit stew came out all right... I'm going to run a few iterations before posting a recipe (cloves were a mistake).

In addition to being tender and juicy, it turns out rabbit is quite nutritious. About one small cottontail will yield your daily requirement of:

Omega 3, Omega 6, Niacin, Phosphorus, all 9 essential amino acids and 3x the daily requirement of B12.

Mineral content is equally ridiculous: Iron (83%) Phosphorus (72%) Selenium (65%) Zinc (47%) Potassium (29%) Copper (26%) Magnesium (23%).

A furry, bioavailable multivitamin.

I speculate this to be a result of their ability to get many of the nutrients produced by GI bacteria. Rabbits are too small for the complex digestive system of larger ruminates (cows, sheep). Instead, after they wash and rinse - they repeat. After sufficient nutrition is extracted, there is a 'final rinse'. So actually, the rabbit gut is quite complex in its own way.

But alas, it is no miracle food. In fact, subsisting on solely rabbit has startling consequences.

Eating lean meat exclusively will make you quite ill and if continued, will make you quite dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit_starvation

Thankfully, all it takes is a bit of fat and/or carbohydrates. I'll continue to mix with liberal amounts of lentils, yogurt, rice and whatever spices happen to be in abundance. Speaking of abundance, North America has about 50% of the worlds supply of rabbits (this is pretty typical of most valuable resources). I propose we let the exploitation begin.

Last minute 'interesting' facts about rabbits:

1) They cannot physically vomit.

2) Cottontails don't live in burrows, rather in above-ground nests.

3) 1946 New Zealand had over 100 rabbit boards whose top priority was to kill rabbits, 'almost regardless of cost'

4) Rabbits were declassified as Rodentia in 1912, now they're in it with the pikas.

5) There is a war being wages for, and against rabbits. The weapons: genetically modified viruses.
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s934318.htm

References:

http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/omega-3-000316.htm

http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/lamb-veal-and-game-products/4650/2

http://www.rabbit.org/journal/3-3/digestibility.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabbit

Eating wild rabbit

I ate some wild rabbit the other day and it tasted great! There was some health concerns at the time, so I did some research on the subject.

Consuming wild rabbit presents three main risks:

Tularemia - (rabbit fever) – Identified by animal behavior / general appearance and possible liver spotting, minimal risk present in gutting / skinning. Meat is edible if cooked fully. 150-300 cases per year, most acquired through tick bites, very few cases of transmission from rabbit viscera – use of gloves while gutting will further decease this very minimal risk.

Taenia pisiforme (tapeworm) – Identified by bladder-like larval cysts free in the body cavity. The biggest risk here is to the dogs and then, only if they are fed uncooked, infected tissue.

Myiasi (fly larvae) – Larvae can be observed embedded in skin muscle or nasal passage. Meat is edible after removal of infested areas.

For those who are not quite convinced, there are a few additional precautions that would reduce the risk from ‘negligible’ to ‘non-existent’:

1) Only eat healthy rabbits (duh) – given that we are only culling from the population that comes on the property, it is unlikely that any are sick. Risk factors are: rabbits that seem confused, or don’t run.

2) Physical inspection – the rabbit should have a clean and healthy coat, free from lesions or abscesses. The organs should be inspected for parasites, discoloration, lesions etc

3) Marinating / cooking with anthelmintic and antibacterial spices and foods (e.g. mustard, onions, garlic, turmeric, star anise, etc)

Overall, the risk (even before the above precautions) is equivalent to commercially available meat sources. After all, this is organic, free-range bunny!

References:

http://www.nwhc.usgs.gov/publications/disease_emergence/Chapter5.pdf

http://www.bt.cdc.gov/agent/tularemia/facts.asp

http://www.wikihow.com/Eat-Wild-Rabbit