08.18.04: Today I checked my referrer tracking, and was surprised to see the link from, I kid you not, www.teensexlocator.com. Apparently the spider saw the following post, from July 2002:

Fuck Heidegger. I'm done with him for quite a while. I think I'm going to spend the bulk of my remaining time in graduate school trying to find alternatives to the Heideggerian system . . . Per usual, I get about 30 hits a week from some angsty teen typing "fuck the world" into Google . . . I'm writing this right now to avoid re-reading the A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge looking for any use of the word "number" which will give me one or two more good holes to fill about five pages . . .

08.17.04: A few thoughts on the democratic process in America today.

It has been a staple in American politics that we get to 'choose' between the rich boy on the left, and the rich boy on the right. For all the rednecks and congressmen talking about 'freedom' that we have, the election is not a free choice. Rarely is there any real difference between the two, both have special interests and contributors, have a party to whom they must answer and never endorse the sweeping changes that are needed to make capitalism 'work.' The rhetoric of 'freedom' is rarely made explicit: if it were it must be conceded that we do not yet have a choice that represents economic freedom. How is this election any different? Perhaps in scale alone.

Before this is said and done, 300 million dollars will be spent on novelties such as buttons and stickers, not to mention advertising and the expense of trailing from town to town and from coast to coast. Meanwhile we're bitching about perhaps offsetting a bit the cost prescription drugs (as if the drug companies won;t be able to pay the rent if Amricans pay the same price as Canadians) and 'defending the institution of marriage' (as if its gays and lesbians that do more harm to it than your average Hollywood four-month marriages).

The recent Democratic convention in Boston is perhaps the most egregious example of what is wrong with American politics. For the last several months, the Democratic nominee has been hand-picked and sheltered from the torrents of the press and the American people. The principle of a nominating convention when the nomination has already been decided for months is the height of political excess. What it amounted to is a three day commercial on why Bush is fucking our country up, as if any half-intelligent person could not understand that. Yet Kerry offers little difference between Bush on the matter of economic change. Kerry calls himself a friend of 'entrepreneurship,' the euphemism of a new generation of economic slavery. The rhetoric of 'jobs' is a tour de force, as if all jobs were the same. This economic 'recovery' is creating thousands of low paying positions while widening the difference between the rich and poor.

To my proletariat brethren: don't forget from which class they have come. And don't forget from which class you have come. Your 'choice' is rich Yale frat boy A, or rich Yale frat boy B--at least last time we got a rich boy from Harvard to break up the monotony. What Bush-or-Kerry want is your continued and permanent position at Wal-mart (the 'job' created) and for you to work really hard, your labor stolen hour by hour, so that the Dow Jones can improve and stockholders like Bush-or-Kerry will reap the benefits. A modest proposal: a 'none of the above' choice on the ballot in November.

08.07.04: I have spent the summer reading and writing. I have made signifigant progress towards the dissertation. As it stands, I have three (3) required courses before I take my area exam next summer.

Here are a few of the titles I've been pouring over:

• Theodor Adorno and Mak Horkheimer, Dialectic of Enlightenment
• Robert Brandom, Making it Explicit
• Donald Davidson, Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation
• Michael Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language
• G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit
• --., Science of Logic
• Martin Heidegger, Origin of the Work of Art
• Alexandre Kojeve, An Introduction to the Reading of Hegel
• Saul Kripke, Wittgenstein on Rule Following
• Wilfred Sellars, Science Perception and Reality
• William Wimsatt and Clenth Brooks, Literary Criticism: A Short History
• Ludwig Wittgenstein, Blue and Brown Books
• --., Philosophical Grammar
• --., Philosophical Investigations

Tired. Will write more soon.