(second block, fourth letter of the prisoners' quadratic tap code...)

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...am here to tap through the walls.


Tue Dec, 23 2003

Attack The Premise

Kim du Toit gets up on a rant about Bush's latest contribution to the advance of Amsoc: the "Healthier US initiative". He's right, so far as he goes, but I do have a complaint.

I cannot remember the last time that I ever saw a fully rigorous analysis of the logic behind this sort of rot, if I ever have. Let me draw a very brief analogy: Henry Hazlitt once pointed out that the difference between a good economist and a bad one is that, where the latter sees only consequences which are immediately obvious on the surface of things, the good economist grasps underlying implications.

I am only here to point out that so long as the premise that government should be responsible for health care is accepted, and to the degree that it is accepted, then abject decadence like a "Healthier US initiative" is a necessary consequence. It is fully, internally, consistent that people who pay for health care (like: taxpayers) should demand control over others' behavior. This principle extends in every direction. If, for one obvious instance, you ride motorcyles, then it is perfectly logcial that some sandalized wheat-germing wood-spoke Luddite can come along and, if he can't exactly scrap your scooter, he can certainly cramp your own judgment and force you to wear a helmet. Just because he's got the angle on you.

America is a now culture in which nobody is individually responsible for anything (if you doubt that, then just bear in mind that "responsibility" and authority are naturally inseparable: they are two different sides of the very same metaphysical coin), but everyone is responsible for everyone else.

And that means that any contemptible fool -- like the president of the United States, for instance -- can come along and arbitrarily demand that you conduct your private affairs according to his judgment, because nothing you do is private, anymore.

The essential problem is not that Bush -- or anyone else -- wants to control your life. The problem is that he can, because of the prevailing conviction that your life doesn't belong to you. At root, the prevailing conviction is that you belong to "society".

Well: do you?

Dec 23, 03 | 1:03 pm

AxeBites

Various guitars I see floating by, mostly Gibson and mostly eBay.

Early Norlin ES-335 -- 1970, in Walnut ("ES-335TDW"). This is a period-piece look and feel, and arguably the sound as well but that's to cut things very finely. A "classic" 335 would be the original of 1958 in the Sunburst or Natural finish, or the Cherry Red of 1959; the Walnut of 1970 (second year of that finish offering) is not really a "classic" 335. In the history of the Gibson aesthetic, this is analogous to, say, vertically-striped polyester bell-bottoms or Bahama Blue shag carpeting. None of this is to say that they're not cool guitars, and this is a nice one. Excellent photographs.

Chrome hardware, featuring the trapeze tailpiece (like my L-47 and I've always liked it) and ABR-1 bridge with period-typical nylon saddles. Bound rosewood fretboard, with small block markers, and then the crown inlay at the machine head. These would be the T-top Humbuckers. Vintage Nazis would moan that the upper bouts are pointy (the body templates were wearing-out in the factory) and the fourteen-degree machine head with the volute signals a sometimes not-fun era of the line, but these things really do rock or moan or whatever you want a 335-type semi-hollow to do. ...which, of course, is because it really is a 335.


In the months since I've let AxeBites languish all to bleedin' hell, Gibson's Robot Guitar technology has sifted out to other models than the original Les Paul application. I don't know how it's going: I still haven't even seen one of these self-tuners. I don't see piles of them burning on the sides of the highway, nor reverent hangings in display cases over bars, so who knows? This 2008 Robot SG is ready to rock in the Metallic Red. Nickel hardware; it's the stoptail wired for data to send to the tuners, with dual Humbuckers. It's a bound rosewood fretboard, but I really like the single-bound machine head with the crown inlay. That's a real cool old-school look, right there, to set off that crazy-ass color. {nod}