tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post671920928462746625..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: InconsequentialUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-23673754508987617412012-03-09T05:12:34.649-08:002012-03-09T05:12:34.649-08:00My word. That's not a murderer, that's an ...My word. That's not a murderer, that's an industry.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2688517198832258222012-03-08T14:32:55.287-08:002012-03-08T14:32:55.287-08:00David Parker Ray, November 6, 1939 - May 28, 2002,...David Parker Ray, November 6, 1939 - May 28, 2002, is said by the FBI to have murdered at least one person per year for forty years, in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico!Martin Timothyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06653961061907487216noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-57918496599832407482011-08-12T04:29:49.827-07:002011-08-12T04:29:49.827-07:00And thanks to you, Laura. There's nothing lik...And thanks to you, Laura. There's nothing like the real thing.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84944603028436150852011-08-11T13:33:36.377-07:002011-08-11T13:33:36.377-07:00Thanks for putting my T & C photos to good use...Thanks for putting my T & C photos to good use! Glad you liked them :) - LauraLaurahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14541742301417191768noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-90865499892905281322011-06-30T05:49:18.351-07:002011-06-30T05:49:18.351-07:00Computer problems, like the flu, seem to be contag...Computer problems, like the flu, seem to be contagious. I can't open the browser on my own computer. (I'm using Jane's. The summer camp she traveled to yesterday forbids "electronics", which seems like a good idea.) I'm off to the computer store now, trying to be filled with hope, which is difficult when you're running near empty. But it looks like a beautiful day for a trip to the computer store. CurtisACravanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00315707533118640284noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-207587979055767652011-06-30T04:58:22.009-07:002011-06-30T04:58:22.009-07:00Curtis,
This is crazy. The Blogger cognoscenti ar...Curtis,<br /><br />This is crazy. The Blogger cognoscenti are advising me to drop my cookies. I did that last time and it took three weeks to get over. Now I've burrowed into the engine room with a Stone Age browser and a terribly Futuristic Migraine. It's almost enough to drive one to... reason. <br /><br />At any rate, in order to illustrate this extremely aethereal discussion of ours, that is, to blow it up into a magnum cannonball of confusion...<br /><br /><a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/06/of-unintended-consequences-large-coat.html" rel="nofollow">Of Unintended Consequences</a><br /><br />Everyone here with fur is coughing. All they do is eat, cough... one fears for them.<br /><br />And as for the humans... (Large hood, no coat.)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-80826178480858693432011-06-30T01:29:09.216-07:002011-06-30T01:29:09.216-07:00Blogger Dashboard seems to be a good place to star...Blogger Dashboard seems to be a good place to start. I foresee it all ending there also. It seems to be an unmoved mover (or something like that). Thanks for responding so thoughtfully and in such detail on this subject. The things you write about (which I have an unfortunate tendency to link to the news of the day) have actually kept me up most of the night. (That, and Caroline's coughing; Jane brought some illness home from England that affected her only slightly, and then left for the rest of the summer yesterday, having made her influence felt.) The fact that I actually rose from my slab (actually, it's a really comfortable mattress) at 3:33 am, following this weird pattern I've established), seems significant. Yesterday I finished reading Jules Verne's The Adventures of Captain Hatteras, his second novel and apparently one of Alfred Jarry's favorite books, which features a magnificent and mysterious Great Dane character named Duke, who I would love to see put up for president. Meaning well, while it can be an attractive quality, obviously isn't necessarily a virtue. When we adopted our cats Rose and Pansy from the North Shore Animal League, a very fine "no kill" shelter on Long Island, I read up on the origin of the American Shorthair cat, which is essentially identical to the British Shorthair. (One book, describing the characteristics of this pure-breed, wrote about them: "the cat that looks like a cat.") These cats were apparently brought to North America by the Mayflower party in the role of shipboard mousers. One unintended consequence, I suppose, was centuries of pleasurable human-cat interaction. Pausing on the last 6 lines of Steve's poem gives me pleasure and, dare I say it, hope.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-87279858579517781982011-06-29T23:58:55.503-07:002011-06-29T23:58:55.503-07:00Curtis,
In answering your comment I have found my...Curtis,<br /><br />In answering your comment I have found myself locked out of Blogger Dashboard again.<br /><br />Surely this is a consequence of something, but just as surely it must be an unintended consequence. <br /><br />Lately I've been growing increasingly bewildered by the idea of causality. It is hard to deny that one thing happens after another thing, but the inference of a logical or causal connection between events often seems to exist principally, or even solely, in the mind of the beholder.<br /><br />The unintended consequences of human decisions seem too often to cause us to forget the good intentions, if indeed there were any.<br /><br />Rabbits were introduced into Australia for hunting purposes. In the (extremely limited) view of some, the opportunity to kill harmless animals for sport was regarded as a good.<br /><br />There were however unintended consequences, as it turned out, and in environmental terms these were extremely negative. The rabbits multiplied, as rabbits have a way of doing. Soon they had created whole gaping stretches of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rabbit-erosion.jpg" rel="nofollow">eroded-gully-wasteland</a>.<br /><br />Perhaps it's the weather that's getting to me.<br /><br />The Lorenz Attractor model illustrates the process of a dynamic system, which is essentially chaotic and unpredictable. Its original application, of course, was in the field of meteorology.<br /><br />But that's a field in which no one does not live (until they're dead).<br /><br />The radical and dramatic shift of weather patterns we've been seeing in the North Pacific are certainly the consequence of something.<br /><br />The accelerating collapse of the Antarctic ice mass is certainly the consequence of something.<br /><br />The X factor in the equation seems to be the introduction into the planetary picture of human beings, with all those good (??) intentions implemented by what GE used to call "our most important product" -- progress.<br /><br />That theory of progress seems to have attained its apogee concurrently with the complex of events and ideas that led to the devil's workshop in the desert where the work of many highly refined minds came to <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/78/Trinity_Test_Fireball_16ms.jpg" rel="nofollow">this</a> infernal consequence.<br /><br />It did occur to me that to locate a tv program whose "hook" was humans' congenial myopia concerning the consequences of their actions, and for the town most proximate to that site of annihilation to re-name itself after the show, may have been appropriate in some way too subtle for anyone to comprehend.<br /><br />Perhaps the sound of inconsequence occurs at a frequency only dogs can hear.<br /><br />In that case it might not be entirely unreasonable to put up a Dog for president. No matter how loyal and gentle, no animal can ever be accused of Meaning Well.TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-37040759713871310412011-06-29T18:02:48.431-07:002011-06-29T18:02:48.431-07:00Tom -- This is really wonderful and there will be ...Tom -- This is really wonderful and there will be a lot to come back to. It's very rich, funny and, I think, touching. Thinking about it, I expect "inconsequential" is one of the words I say most often; that and "unimportant". (This happens in situations of advising clients, trying to help Jane put things into perspective and doing the same thing for myself, often talking to myself as I do it.) I used to love Truth or Consequences as a child, but had no idea about the town that changed its name. That is SO peculiar. I'm going to think more about Benjamin's and Wittgenstein's derogation of "consequence" and "consequential". I'm not sure I agree with either of them and think they're overcomplicating (in the service of legitimate inquiry and examination) something that's reasonably simple and well understood. "Inconsequential" wouldn't have its rich meaning and implications without "consequential".Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-35997622631227226192011-06-28T17:51:39.302-07:002011-06-28T17:51:39.302-07:00Steve,
imprisoned in present, past
(inundating r...Steve,<br /><br />imprisoned in present, past<br /><br />(inundating rains again morn to night, where has that cloudless blue sky gone? was it ever really up there?)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68616500581874176402011-06-28T06:28:53.729-07:002011-06-28T06:28:53.729-07:00Tom,
"The genuineness of an expression canno...Tom,<br /><br />"The genuineness of an expression cannot be proved."<br /><br />(What were those city fathers in Hot Springs thinking?)<br /><br />6.28<br /><br />grey whiteness of fog against invisible<br />ridge, song sparrows calling from field<br />in foreground, wave sounding in channel<br /><br /> imprisoned in present, past<br /> and future which move<br /><br /> new idea, one realizes only<br /> such, blue impression<br /><br />sunlight reflected in windblown channel,<br />cloudless blue sky above fog on horizonSTEPHEN RATCLIFFEhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12339481653546188412noreply@blogger.com