My Stuff

https://umass-my.sharepoint.com/:f:/g/personal/rwolff_umass_edu/EkxJV79tnlBDol82i7bXs7gBAUHadkylrmLgWbXv2nYq_A?e=UcbbW0

Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE USE OF FORMAL METHODS IN POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Now Available: Volumes I, II, III, and IV of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON KANT'S CRITIQUE OF PURE REASON. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for "Robert Paul Wolff Kant." There they will be.

NOW AVAILABLE ON YOUTUBE: LECTURES ON THE THOUGHT OF KARL MARX. To view the lectures, go to YouTube and search for Robert Paul Wolff Marx."





Total Pageviews

Wednesday, January 4, 2017

"WHISPERING IN A CORNER WITH A FEW LADS [AND LASSES]" CALLICLES, IN THE GORGIAS

As the day approaches for the Women’s March on Washington, I have been trying to figure out how I will make my way from the airport to the gathering point, listed as the intersection of Independence Avenue and 3rd street SW.  My principal worry has been finding it, since I do not know Washington very well, but this morning I stumbled on this story in the Washington Post.  Apparently, 150,000 people are expected to show up.  One hundred fifty thousand!  With 1000 buses and enough porta-toilets to service the mob [how many porta-toilets does it take to service 150,000 people?]  My problem will not be finding the damned thing.  My problem will be getting close enough to it so that I feel I am participating and not just visiting the nation’s capital.

The affair is called a march, but I do not think we will march anywhere.  I mean, think about it.  Suppose we were to march from 3rd street SW to 4th street SW.  If we march ten abreast, and if each line of ten passes a given point [say midway between 3rd and 4th] every 2.5 seconds, then it will take 10 hours for all of us to get from 3rd to 4th.  I figure once they have us all there, they will just start speechifying and singing good old progressive songs and chanting slogans, and like that.


My plans call for me to spend two hours at the gathering, which is about all I can stand.  Then I will Uber back to the airport and come home.  Not quite in a league with being crucified on an anthill, as T. S. Eliot would have it, but not nothing, after all.  Without me, there would only by 149,999.  Not the same thing at all.

10 comments:

Tom Cathcart said...

Eloise and I and hopefully many thousands more will be in Dag Hammarskjold Park in Manhattan. It does feel like the old days. As some famous person or other said, "If you live long enough, you have to go through all these things twice." The demonstrations will definitely get media coverage, and at this point that's about the best we can do. They'll whine that they didn't demonstrate at Obama's inauguration. Good. It will give Schumer and Bernie and others the opportunity to say why this is very different.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

My GoogleMaps says that is a block west of the UN. Is that the place? I think there are going to be gatherings all over America. Trump could be the best organizing tool for the left ever invented! When you are done, work your way over to the Upper West Side and stop in at Zabar's for me.

Tom Cathcart said...

Bagel? Schmear?

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I like the story about the little old man who stepped up to the lox counter and, when asked how much, just said, "start slicing." The deli man sliced for a while, and then the man said, "a quarter of a pound from there."

Tom Cathcart said...

Or the guy who goes into the library and says, "I'll have a ham on rye with a pickle." The librarian says, "Sir, this is a library." He whispers, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry. "I'll have a ham on rye with a pickle."

You can't beat Jewish jokes.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Except that mine is actually supposed to be true of Zabar's. Here is one I witnessed. As I was waiting in line to get my novy, a very properly dressed lady stepped up to the counter and asked for "a half pound of stomach lox." The old man behind the counter doing the slicing said, in a loud exasperated voice, "It's belly lox, lady, belly lox!" They didn't stand on ceremony in those days.

LFC said...

The issue won't be finding 3rd and Independence -- if you've google mapped it, you can see that intersection is really just a few steps off the Mall -- the question will be what is the best way to get from Natl Airport to there. *If* the subway (Metro) is running smoothly and without hitches that day, that wd be one alternative, and depending on how well the system is running etc., it might be quicker than cab or Uber (I've never had occasion to use Uber). On the other hand, if you've never used the DC-area subway system, inauguration day or inauguration week, when everything's likely to be more crowded than usual, is probably not the best time to start. Esp. on inauguration day itself, I'd imagine things are likely to be congested, so you should factor that in to your time calculations.

(That people are actually traveling substantial distances to get to these demos may be a sufficient prod to get me to attend, since I live in the DC area. I tend to dislike being in demonstrations, but I shd probably put that dislike aside for the day.)

LFC said...

Was just at the Women's March homepage now and I see it's Jan. 21, the day after the inauguration. So congestion may not be *quite* as bad as on inauguration day itself. Congestion is a relative term here -- traffic, except maybe on a midday morning in August or at 3 a.m., is never esp. good in DC, and the Saturday right after inauguration day it's not likely to be good. The question will be the degree to which, and the speed at which, it's moving, and that's subject to contingencies that may be hard to predict (e.g. will the police decide to restrict the usual routes into downtown or onto the Mall?). Most of the vehicular traffic anyway is likely to be buses and cabs, certainly in the immediate vicinity of the Mall at any rate. Anyone bonkers enough to drive a personal car into town that day is likely to have to park quite a distance away, prob. underground, and pay a lot. (Unless they work in a bldg downtown and have a reserved or paid-for space somewhere.)

Robert Paul Wolff said...

I am going to take my chances with the subway, I think. Hope to see you there.

LFC said...

Sorry for yet another comment on this, but I realized on reflection that it's not, or ordinarily should not be, a long car trip from Natl Airport to 3rd & Independence (again depending on whether there are special conditions b/c it's inauguration week). Anyway the mode of transport is not something you have to decide in advance, so you can play it by ear and decide after you get to the airport. You can check the subway's website in real time
http://www.wmata.com/
for info about any possible delays/issues etc. (And presumably it won't be hard to pick up info on what the traffic situation is.)