Society Wide Open

Talked with a fellow yesterday whom I've been nodding to for years. It was established some time ago that he was legalistic; thought he was a business manager for some law office. Turns out he's a lobbyist. A former Phoenix firefighter and union official. Intensely hip to "the process."

I had taken along, to the coffee house, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy for the purpose of captioning photographs. The happy medium between objective reality and the subjectivities at play thereupon, if you will. He had a look at the text and asked me if I was familiar with Karl Popper. I said I'd heard of him, but was unfamiliar.

We went on to have a wide-ranging discussion, touching on many subjects in the "political economy" along with the practicalities of "being here" as I was also processing my photographs. Hadn't experienced anything like this in years, and mentioned the all night long sessions in the dorm at Fordham College. Told him I would look into Popper.

I see he was a founder of the Mont Pèlerin Society along with Hayak and von Mises. The fellow told me that George Soros was interested in continuing their work, which didn't make sense to me since I've gathered that Soros, a patron of socialist activism, was not of the same school as Hayak by a long shot. At any rate, I've commenced to look into the matter.

To tell you the truth, I'd rather look at the picture than read the text - the single year of German not quite enough. Two "D"s; I'll never live it down. Frankly, I'd really rather be right there. But I'm here and now, being here another matter of "multi-tasking."

The music at the coffee place is jazzy and Big Bands. There's chatter all about. A woman across I'm ready to jump on. To say I'm on edge is an understatement indeed. Some comic relief indicated.

While finishing off this post, I inadvertently hit the publish button. I communicated that toward her - oops; didn't mean to. Go back. Fail safe. Don't worry about it. I wanted to ask her if she'd ever seen The Bedford Incident, where a slight misunderstanding brought on thermo-nuclear war.

"If he fires one, I'll fire one."

"Fire one."