Language of Commerce and the Pokédex

I have to disagree with Dr. Sexson on something. To be honest, I love economics. The dismal science rings true to me almost more than English Lit does, and someday I would love to combine the two into a grand theory. However, this may be too ambitious even for me (but hey, a "man's reach should exceed his grasp" and all that). I know I have been dealing with some esoteric stuff lately, specifically about the war between Saturn and the Mother. I want to bring that to a conclusion next week or the week after, but I have to admit I often feel like the war is playing out inside myself. You see, my other major is the sleaziest of Saturn-like pursuits, Finance--the language of commerce at its worst. If Dr. Sexson is right in that English Majors need to return language to a Golden Age, then I am willing to try. I have my foot in both worlds. Finance, I must admit, is much less appealing to me than Economics. There is something beautiful about looking at a demand-supply equilibrium graph. Its simplicity is what makes me smile. There is usually no exotic derivatives, fixed income durations, or complicated correlation and beta calculations, it's just two lines crossing each other. I have a strong belief that I am under a Dionysian spell, so it would make sense that I would waver between two extremes: hard materialism and holistic Mother Goddesses. Dionysus is mad, caught in the moment, and needs mothering. I think I suffer from several of these faults. As far as business goes, Apollo did leave Dionysus in charge of Delphi three months every year as he chilled with the Hyperboreans in the North. Every rational person needs to spill his mind goo against something sometimes or he will go insane. I was also struck by how Dr. Sexson used my last name as an image for Hephaestus' ax in Zeus' skull. Just the other day someone had misheard me and thought my last name was X-line (as in a X-Y axis). I like this--the break between the Apollonian and Dionysian, and the balance one seeks between them.



On the topic of commerce, I bumped into an article on Money Week today by Seán Keyes titled "How Britain’s cultural revolution transformed the world." I am not sure how you pronounce Seán--I would imagine it would sound something like shaw-AAAAN, as if the mother was asked the baby's name as she was still in the process of giving birth. His thesis, as you could guess from the article's name, was that Britain's focus on markets was what brought Europe out its sty-rolling. He says, "It didn’t matter whether you were born in bucolic 17th century England or a Stone Age cave. Your lot in life would be hardscrabble toil, a cramped dirt-floor home and a swift death at the age of around 30. It would be the same life as your grandparents and your grandchildren." Innovation in the last 10,000 years was painfully slow. There was nothing like Moore's Law to describe the energy of the markets, at least not at a level most men or women could see over a span of a lifetime. It was also dragged down, according to Shaw-AAAAN, by large family sizes. He complains that "before 1800 the economy was like any other ecological habitat. Any improvement in conditions could only be temporary, because more mouths pulled living standards back to subsistence level in the long run." What happened? Shaw-AAAAN's theory is that the attitude towards commerce changed. Before merchants were looked at by the aristocracy, the military, and the Church as committing some sort of evil because it was seen as a threat to their power. But then Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776, morphing opinions to the favor of the merchants. (I don't mean to suggest that Britain wasn't heading towards freer trade before Smith's tome; however, it did open up the idea to a wider range of people.)

Seán Keyes' conclusion is right. "The novel idea that decent people could make profits took root. Aristocratic cultural dominance was coming to an end. That freed both landed gentry and lowly artisans. With the stigma removed, people ‘broke rank’ and came together to pursue opportunities and ideas, which led to further inventions and further opportunities. Cultural barriers had kept innovation hemmed in. When these dissolved, ideas were finally free to proliferate. So the new culture made all the difference between ideas forming slowly and in isolation; or quickly, and together." Economics and markets really did make us better off. Your average poor person in America today is richer than Kings and Queens just a few millennia ago. His money can purchase electricity, indoor plumbing, goods from around the world, television sets and video games, things which no one had access to in 1700s unless you were very rich and could afford a time machine. Commerce is not evil. Not at all. I love it, and we all should. The invention of written language is what brought to us this society we live in today.

There could be no markets without strong laws, something many developing nations have discovered the hard way. No one is going to want to invest if there is not a strong likelihood of getting your money back. In a valuation equation it would go in the denominator, where the high R would make it too risky for anyone to consider putting their money into, even a muckety-muck from Wall Street. Sure there are institutions like the World Bank, but even they are profit orientated. In another class I am learning about currency exchange rates, and in another about propaganda and how during war we create an evil abstract enemy which does not exist. I realized that both these things--fiat currency and the creation of abstract enemies--are in the realm of Saturn. They are themselves a result of literacy and the abstract, logical world we created. Many would argue that we have gone too far down that path, and it has created a great void in the mind's of men. I would agree with this assessment. Something needs to be done to bring oral culture, with its holistic spirit, back to us. Metis needs to be resurrected from the dead to give birth to her prophesied son.

Now for my memory theater (or thea-TRA, in a British accent). I will set it in the Johnstone cafeteria because I feel like I talk about that place a lot in this blog anyway. So here goes, off on my grand interior venture-- The Pokedex!

51. Dugtrio
50. Diglett
49. Venomoth
48. Venonat
47. Parasect
46. Paras
45. Vileplume
44. Gloom
43. Oddish
42. Golbat
41. Zubat
40. Wigglytuff
39. Jigglypuff
38. Ninetales
37. Vulpix
36. Clefable
35. Clefairy
34. Nidoking
33. Nidorino
32. Nidoran Male
31. Nidoqueen
30. Nidorina
29. Nidoran Female
28. Sandslash
27. Sandscrew
26. Raichu
25. Pikachu
24. Arbok
23. Ekans
22. Fearow
21. Spearow
20. Raticate
19. Rattata
18. Pidgeot
17. Pidgeotto
16. Pidgey
15. Beedrill
14. Kakuna
13. Weedle
12. Butterfree
11. Metapod
10. Caterpie
09. Blastoise
08. Wartortle
07. Squirtle
06. Charizard
05. Charmeleon
04. Charmander
03. Venusaur
02. Ivysaur
01. Bulbasaur

As I walk into the lobby of Johnstone I notice three Doug Funny's trying to dig a hole. It's a very small hole though because their shovels are made out of dirt. They are next to the fountain where all the plants are (if you are familiar with the terrain). Flying around one of the largest ferns is a very dangerous looking moth. It's colors are striking--brilliant red, neon green. It flies forward and lands on one of the Doug Funny's noses. He becomes terribly ill, mushrooms blossoming across his skin in the shape of the Eiffel Tower (Paris is sick). He coughs and falls over dead as the virus spreads to the others. It's a vile fate, a gloomy fate, an odd fate (I love these names!).



I walk further into the hall where the furniture is ordered around a big television set. A vampire is watching a football game (Goal Bat) and then switches the channel to Animal Planet (Zoo Bat). A beautiful woman with a wiggly tuffs of hair and jiggly puffs of something (heh) sits down next to the vampire. She pulls out her phone and tells him nine stories (Nine Tales) from the vulgar pics (Vulgar Pics) she has stored in it. The Vampire says that her stories are made up (Clear Fables) and that the people in the pictures were imagination (Clear Fairies). Offended she walks off.

I walk toward the cash register, noticing the racks to hang your coat. They come in all sizes--some for kings, some for queens, some for boys, some for girls. I don't have a coat though. (I don't King, I don't queen, I don't ran male, I don't ran female). I have the guy with the sandy hair run my cat card. He smiles, slashing it through the machine, and then screwing my numbers into when the card doesn't work after several tries (Sandslash, Sandscrew). I spy a pretty girl sitting at one of the tables I rate and her and peak at her (Rate You, Peek at You).

There is the first 26. I will continue on my journey over the weekend. This very, very long weekend. Oh yes.

I ended up looking at my Pokemon image folder on my computer and picked out some with no bad words. Here you go. Disclaimer: they will only be funny if you have ever played any of the games.












okay, just one with bad language: