In an attempt to jump on the whole “Economics You Can USE and UNDERSTAND! Yippee, horray!!” bandwagon (and I do admit, Freakonomics was a great book), economist Steven Landsburg has been doing a series of columns over at Slate. As far as I can tell, the Slate spots are essentially Landsburg’s attempt at being edgy, and/or daringly controversial; in the end, he really just comes off looking like a bit of a dickhead.

Yesterday he laid down a piece about Tirhas Habtegiris, a not-as-white, less terminally ill Terri Schiavo whose ventilator was shut off by Plano, Texas hospital workers after she failed to pay her medical bills. Noting that many lefty bloggers (here, here) have been citing this case as an outrage, one in which “economic considerations” triumphed over “compassion,” Landsburg spends a good two thirds of his column jumping on the semantics; he pays particular attention to the phrase “economic consideration,” employing an overly literal, econ-professor-jargon-influenced reasoning that results in a bizarre and unintentionally humorous (if not outright annoying) column trying to break down a tragic case into a weird experiment in iconoclasm and controversial thought.

Landsburg’s early argument, as far as I can tell, essentially contends that “economic consideration” and “compassion” are not at odds in this case. As such, he argues it was right for the hospital to let Habtegiris die, because “there is nothing particularly compassionate about giving ventilator insurance to a person who really feels a more urgent need for milk or eggs.” Essentially, six months before she was diagnosed with cancer, had you offered Habtegiris a choice between buying ventilator insurance or paying for food (or picking up “a few CDs,” as he so delicately throws in), she’d pick the food and CDs. It’s a stupid anology, one that makes specific something that should be treated more generally; Habtegiris’ choice isn’t one between ventilator insurance and some milk and cookies, but really between those milk and cookies and some form of insurance that guarantees your hospital won’t up and let you die for lack of being able to pay. I’d like to think most would take the “Please Don’t Let Me Die If You Can Help It” choice.

To be fair, it looks as though Landsburg’s really trying to say that, if we’re going to spend the money at all, instead of paying for the use of ventilators we should be paying for health education, food-stamps and gym memberships––preventative measures that go a long way to help the poor (and everyone else) avoid ever needing a ventilator in the first place. And that’s a good point, albeit one he makes in a wittless, sloppy way. In that sense, as Julian over at AndrewSullivan.com somewhat alludes to, the whole Habtegiris controversy really just boils down to a cut and dry debate over whether or not government should guarantee some degree of universal health care––a debate in which the left just says “well, duh,” then waits for FEMA to come change their diapers, and the right removes the stick up their asses just long enough to mumble something obtuse and condescending about emerging markets and Joseph Stalin. It’s been done before. Landsburg may be thin and obnoxious (not to mention obtuse and condescending), but at least he’s something new.

I tried watching Fellini’s La Dolce Vita today but became insanely bored by the 7th minute. I shut it off. I’m slowly starting to come to the self-admittance (slowly starting to admit to myself?) that I don’t like old movies. Fuck it, I hate old movies. Fuck old movies. Alexander Payne did this special DVD introduction at the start of Dolce Vita that was so nauseatingly pretentious I had to shut THAT off in the 3rd minute.

I’ve always tried to assure myself that I love old movies because I’ve been spending all this time trying to get into filmmaking and I feel a certain degree of pressure to thus become a bit of a cinephile. All of my movie heroes appear to be big cinema buffs, spouting off references to countless old films I’ve never seen. So then I go to see them (thank you, Netflix), and they blow. They’re so agonizingly slow. I couldn’t bear to sit through the M. Hulot films (a Paul Thomas Anderson recommendation). Is it possible to be a devoted filmmaker/cinema buff if you can only get your head around and sit through contemporary films?

The oldest era I can get down with is the 70s––Network, The Graduate. Anything pre-Dick Nixon makes me want cut off my cinephellic nuts. I Love Cuba? The Last Picture Show? Could barely get through them. What gives?

People always lament the declining American attention span. But what if the phenomenon is really nothing more than the residual result of a ballooning American intelligence? A few months back I kept seeing stuff about that book “Everything Bad is Good For You,” about how pop culture has become increasingly more complex and, despite cries to the contrary, American IQ is on the rise. All these old folks keep complaining about how us youngins are going to hell in a hand-basket because of our shrinking attention spans, but maybe they’re really just jealous because we’re a lot smarter than they ever were. And as result of our increased intelligence, we thrive on our increased saturation in media and information.

Then again, I’m sure if it ever came up, my grandfather would probably tell me to actually read a book before using its thesis in an argument. I’d have to help him pee, but he’d probably be right.

I just came across a shit-ton of live albums by hippy jambamby shite-fest moe. at a local record spot. moe. drives me nuts; I saw them once in concert at Berkfest years ago, an outdoor summer music festival, and the pain-wrenching experience has stuck with me. Ever since that unfortunate patchouli-stenched evening, I’ve had this sneaky suspicion that the band is really nothing more than some huge sociological experiment being run by some sly-willick Grad Student (somewhere in the Northwest) looking to uncover the process by which loose hippy bitches become attached to certain bands/artists/decorative posters not because of personal taste but because of social group dynamics. moe. is the perfect vehicle by which one may determine the threshold of terribleness a band may approach before ceasing to be popular. I really can’t imagine moe.’s popularity being based on anything but the way in which the act of liking the band––going to shows, wearing the t-shirts––fits one into a pre-determined, pre-established group identity. There is no way people go to moe. concerts based on aesthetic choice. The legions of loose hippy bitches that flock to these shows do so out an innate inability to make their own aesthetic decisions, out of a desire to fit into the loose hippy bitch ideal.

Is aesthetic opinion innate, or is it really indistinguishable from the social dynamics of group association?

If the subtitle of this blog is anything as indication––Poetry, Politics, (and the) Boneless Sea Fauna––I’ll say right now I feel like a bit of a pussy starting off with poetry. In fact, I can’t determine whether or not posting poetry here would be a good idea at all, or just an uncomfortable and unintentional indication of my closeted namby-pamby. I’m so out of practice. My blog needs to be redesigned. Is that any reason not to do this? I can’t tell whether or not I should focus on the politics (a not-as-gay, left of right-of-center Andrew Sullivan), or the poetry (a non-Chilean, non-Black, non-as-impressive Amiri Baraka/Pablo Neruda). I’ve already found that this is no reason to start a blog––self-indulgent self-congratulation, unintentional self-parody. But it’s ok; I’m tired and lonely and a little bit thirsty. It’s a yawn, Brooklyn is a sleepy town, but there is some hip hop on the streets and beats in our meats, even for a young vegetarian. This is the introduction, and I just gentrified an entire city block.