Previous - 73. Aftermath + retirement
After the election
I probably know some Trump supporters but I don't hear much from them. I do know many people on the other extreme and I have to say that it is interesting to see how they are responding to the election results. The Kumbaya faction is itching for a fight, just like the Trump supporters.My Burkean conservative bias should be familiar to anyone reading this, so you shouldn't be surprised that I find this amusing. We all want The People to speak up for themselves and decide policy until The People disagree with us. Granted, Trump supporters are still a minority of the population, and a substantial percentage of those supporters are simply sexist men (and women) who won't vote for a female pack leader, but still, there's a very large number of people that Progressives would like to disenfranchise here.
And they don't see this as a problem.
A day later
People on the left continue to grow more shrill. There's no doubt in my mind that the most extreme, like the anarchists trashing Oakland every night, didn't vote for Clinton. The logic of being irate when the candidate you didn't support loses is Trumpian, when you think about it.I continue to think this was actually about the best outcome we could have gotten -- the worse alternatives being Cruz, Pence, or Rubio. The lesson I hope someone is noticing is that the Parties need to regain control of their nomination processes. How do we get back to the smoke filled rooms where everything was decided? No sane party would have nominated either of these people. They both have too much emotional and legal baggage. Since my Representative is the Queen of the Democratic money machine, I may actually writer her a letter.
This also got me thinking about revolutions in general, since both sides are so eager for a fight. I know not everyone is a history buff, but have they really not noticed the results of the Arab Spring? Can they really not see that revolution almost always makes things worse?
And that got me thinking about the American Revolution -- the great exception. Or not, because the purpose of the American Revolution was really to maintain the status quo that existed in the Colonies. Technically they were part of the United Kingdom and subject to the the King, but they were mostly self-governing. Not much changed after the Revolution aside from having no one to stop their exploitation of the Midwest or trans-Appalachian area. It wasn't really a revolution in the social sense. It was more like a band of pirates deciding they could ignore the Pirate King and do as they pleased. (Maybe I should teach U.S. History during my retirement. Lesson 1: "Our slave owning, pirate Forefathers.")
La Boulangerie de San Francisco
I had my favorite bread pudding breakfast this morning. What I previously referred to as "the 2nd best French bakery cafe," has finally reopened one of their locations in my part of town following the reorganizing and renaming of the business after Starbucks' decision to close down La Boulange.The location near me is about 80% identical to the way it looked before -- the pastries look and taste about the same -- but, so far there is absolutely no signage, for reasons I can't imagine. You'd think they would at least have temporary signs up pending their final signage, but no. And they've been open for at least a week as I happened to walk past and noticed they were back about a week ago. Whatever. The price for my bread pudding was a little higher, but it had always been a steal. And the portion was smaller, but it had been almost too large before, so I have no complaints.
However, they are no longer the 2nd, but the 3rd best French bakery cafe, as another wonderful bakery has opened up in the interim. Since the 1st and 2nd bakeries are not convenient to me, and since the 3rd is still quite good and now, again, only five blocks away, I don't have any problem with their not ranking as high. Interestingly, though not surprisingly, the new #2 is located in the same upscale neighborhood where the old #2 started, Pacific Heights. (I just checked and b. patisserie opened a couple years before La Boulange was shuttered.)
A Century of Wisdom
Not sure if this is the best or worst time to be reading a book dealing with the Holocaust. In chapter seven we learn that it wasn't until Alice was quite old and had moved to London to be near her son that she started studying philosophy at the University of the Third Age -- a sort of Cambridge extension program for the elderly. She seems to have been mostly interested in Spinoza, though Schopenhauer and Nietzsche are also mentioned. Alice had the advantage of reading the latter two in German but I don't know if she could read Latin.
Spinoza is an interesting philosopher. And it doesn't hurt that I imagine he and Hume with sling-shots sending little thought missiles against the glass windows of the edifice Descartes had built. It's curious that, today, his thought is best known through the derivative writings of Mary Baker Eddy, but at least she didn't abuse his ideas as so many did with Nietzsche.
Spinoza's writings are also not inconsistent (to put it as passively as possible) with pantheism, so, again, a reason for me to approve. Because he is was also a child of the Sephardic Jewish diaspora that Braudel associates with the development of western capitalism, I probably should read him again. I'm not sure if it is his ideas or his Jewishness that causes him to tend to stand alone in the history of modern western philosophy. It is obvious how you connect people like Descartes, Hume, Kant, and Hegel to people before and after, but I can't really think of a disciple of Spinoza. (Wiki suggests Santayana and Wittgenstein, but that isn't until the 20th century.)
Wiki also records the following, Baruch de Espinoza became the first secular Jew of modern Europe.[58] This alludes to his having been expelled from his Jewish community but never having converted to Christianity. This is interesting as, at least so far in the book, nothing has been said about Alice's faith during or after her time in the camps.
Her biographer claims she continued to attend classes into her 104th year. I believe that would mean she studied philosophy for around 20 years -- impressive. It would be interesting to know what classes she took over that long period of time. Toward the end was she revisiting favorite subjects or still looking for new things to learn? And what is it like teaching a class of students with that level of familiarity with the subject? Could be heaven, could be hell.
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