In the the US, transportation still means one thing:  automobile.

Here is a graphic from NY Times that shows where DOT stimulus money is going.  70% of the money going to pavement?  I suppose it has something to do with "shovel-ready" projects getting priority, and any repaving is considered shovel-ready.... But this means we lose the golden opportunity to re-think our transportation option, to move away from car-based nation that's dependent on oil to other forms of transportation that would be truly beneficial to our economy, health, and environment over the long run.  I admit that we cannot ignore the crumbling roads and bridges because we have to deal with the present need.  I once hit a large pot hole on the highway and the alignment got screwed up which cost me about $200 to get it fixed.  Nevertheless, to commit a large majority of our precious resource into something that we know is a bottomless pit...  aren't we just digging ourselves into a deeper pothole?

More than a year ago I wondered about the lack of public outcry about Iraq War and general apathy witnessed on a bus.  Now I'm learning in my sociology classes about how collective action happens.  So awesome.

Roger Gould's Insurgent Identities compares the 1848 June insurgence from 1871 Paris Commune uprising.
Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers tries to make sense of the 1994 Rwandan genocide.

Here is a NYT Op-ed written by Columbia's sociology professor about the glaring absence of mass movement in the country today:

Robert Putnam wrote about the Bowling Alone phenomenon (haven't read the book but read one of his article written in the most self-righteous paternalistic tone... but he's basic observations are right), which is linked to Gould's argument about the importance of real social connections (not virtual) in enabling mass movement.

As for the online social networks...  I am weary of them but have learned that it can be used for good, concrete purposes.  One inspiring story was told by Mark Hanis of Genocide Intervention Network, who used the intnernet to urge its members to call/text their politicians to take action in Darfur and have achieve positive results.  I'm sure there are a bunch of coalitions like it.

Don't have energy to make a coherent argument right now, but one day I'll try to put these pieces together.

English is not my native language, and although it's now my first language, many words still escape me.  I have only a vague idea, so I don't use them.  Maybe someone can suggest sentences that would make me go, 'oh, I see!'

• normative
• epistemology
• ontology
• heuristic

Sample sentences:
"The area studies enterprise is underpinned by two core methodological claims.  The first sees state boundaries of knowledge, thereby turning political into epistemological boundaries." (14)   Mahmood Mamdani. When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda.  Princeton University Press, 2001

"[Marx's] communist model was simply this ultimate end of the class (relation) conflict. It required preconditions of intellectual and normative culture." (7)  Bryan Goodrich. "The Rise of European Socialism".

(Obviously, this posting will be updated many, many times.)

(Update - added part 3)

Another reading assignment.  Found full text for Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism.

Finished 2 chapters.  So far so good.  He seems to be of the typical "Western" thought that tries to draw separate spheres of economics, religion, and culture.  From these spheres he tries to determine which one influenced the shaping of the other, in what order, i.e. the causal relationship between religion and culture.

The Taming of the Samurai by Ikegami is a far more superior analysis of how a form of culture becomes dominant and then takes on a life of its own, at which point it influences/constrains/motivates the actions of the participants.

I guess I should finish the book first before I pass more judgments.

..........

Now I'm starting Chapter 5.  Weber talks a bit about Luther, how his conception of 'calling' was central to the Reformation, and how this idea was transformed by Calvinists to complete devaluation of the Church and creating a framework that fostered the spirit of capitalism.  Cool analysis, and he sort of explains why he focuses the religious route as opposed to the material (economic) route.  However he doesn't mention how both of the factors played on each other.  I guess you can't talk about everything in 5 chapters.

I read a little about Martin Luther in Wikipedia.  His early bio sounds mega interesting; would make a great subject of psychoanalysis.  Probably done already.  Anyway, the wiki page says that the Protestant Reformation started when Luther was protesting the sale of indulgences    (incidentally in order to raise money for St. Peters).  By this time the practice of selling indulgence had been abused over and out.  I'm guessing indulgences started with a good intention, and over time, it became such a good money-making machine for the Catholic Church and everyone involved that it was naturally abused.

Sounds a lot like...  Credit Default Swap!

..........

Finally finished, hew!  Took me 3 days to read ~120 pages.  I guess writing 5 Xanga every minutes to reflect and researching the nitty gritty of the book makes reading more arduous.

I'm finally satisfied with his book, because in the very last paragraph of the book, he answers the very thing that was nagging me:
The book was written ~1905.  I'm guessing that the academic consensus of his time for explaining the rise of capitalism was presented purely in capitalist terms, so he was perhaps trying to point out the insufficiency of the existing mode of thinking.  Similar to Emile Durkheim's book Suicide, Weber is forcing me to think, to look at the world analytically, to see the social patterns emerging from the mundane. 

The edition I'm reading has an introduction by Anthony Giddens, in which he says:

This immediately makes me think of Lincoln, because some historians say that Lincoln's insights/brilliance was partly drawn from his depression (I bought Lincoln's Melancholy but haven't read it yet).   Also makes me wonder if Martin Luther went through depressive stage.  His wiki bio says he left law school to become a monk.  First of all, I haven't heard of a happy person choosing to be a monk.  Moreover, the bio states:  "One friend blamed the decision on Luther's sadness over the deaths of two friends. Luther himself seemed saddened by the move."  I suppose I need to read more about Luther's life to see if he was a depressive. 

+ 

On March 9th,  Merck and Schering-Plough announced their merger, to the tune of $41-BILLION dollars.  NYTimes has a neat graphics to outline the M&A of the pharma industry, esp Pfizer + Wyeth and Roche + Genetech.  These companies are becoming huge, trying to stampede competition and buy out innovations.

Right now we are busy bailing out banks that are "too big to fail", the same banks that went on a M&A spree and used the big money bag to lobby politicians into changing the regulatory system.  So, why are these drug companies, who already have too much influence in Washington, able to consolidate even further?  If consumers with good credit cannot get small loans, how can these huge companies get so much loans?

Aren't they becoming yet another "too big to fail" industry?