Daily Archives: June 9, 2004

one big union of all the Dementors

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According to the the Maoist International Movement movie guide, Harry Potter is an anti-fascist series that nevertheless caters to the piggy bourgeois appetite. Their parting shot in the review of the latest movie:

We would only add that in real life Dementos [sic] would have unions, and those unions would make sure that more prisons get built, guards hired and secrecy built in connection to any abuses by prison guards, most recently including two prison guards who went to Iraq and continued their profession at Abu Ghraib.

What is with these guys? When I went to hear Mike Albert of ZMag give a talk at MIT, he talked about how important it was to reach out to those who don’t believe in progressive causes. The communist bookstore guy and Aimee Smith derided his position, saying that “Joe Sixpack” would never try and work for real change. How fucking elitist is that? The Socialist Worker and MIMnotes people have the same dialogue-denying asshat attitude that born-again evangelists have.

I don’t know why I’m so angry — perhaps its because I believe that a lot of the injustices they point at need to be addressed but that their approach to fixing them is so untenable.

hemiola

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Johannes Brahms is the master of the hemiola. I’m listening to the Concerto for violin, cello and orchestra in A minor, Op. 102, and it’s rocking my world. I heard it at the SFSO last year with two fantastic pieces by Brahms, but when the orchestra really weighs in during the first movement it’s like being lifted out of your seat.

perseverance

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I’ve been able to bike most of the way up Hearst now, although rather than run the risk of being flattened by a bus I duck into North Gate and work my way up around the Naval Architecture shack. I realized at some point that all it took was a little more willpower to get up the section right after Tolman.

I was recently told that I had good potential but needed to work harder. Somewhere twixt Boston and Berkeley I lost my work ethic, but perhaps all it will take is a little more willpower?