Political Parties in the United States as instruments of conformity - call for solidarity and "us versus them" leads to banding together of thoughts, definitions of movements, issue divisions with two sides aligned by those parties. This makes sense to a degree - movements and general approaches to politics and governance tend to be coherent enough to be broader than a single issue, but what about when the wrong issues are being highlit? There are more approaches than parties in most European systems, but far more approaches than parties in the American system. Single issue parties are claimed as a mechanism to "test" issues for inclusion into one (or both) of the major parties, but this test is so strong that it omits many worthwhile issues and demands people sacrifice an effective role on other issues that they care about almost entirely. Two-party politics are an example of the power of framing and bundling. What would it look like to have parties that have sole domain over single issues and have no parties that cover all issues? Would be then say "I'm a member of the Jeffersonian Party on State-Federal relations, and a member of the Montisori Party on Education"? Would that be workable? Would it be better? In one sense, it would take us closer to direct democracy, for better or for worse.. Also, defining the scopes of these realms of influence, working out their interactions, and making them all otherwise independent spheres of government would be tricky. It would be an interesting experiment.

Just rewatched David Lynch's Mulholland Drive. I'm beginning to enjoy the idea of attempting to analyse the film - a mix of amusement and irritation with him for making it so difficult, but it's also a bit like a puzzle. The first element that jumps out at me is the implication of different layers of reality - starting with the opening of the box and the way people disappear into it, we see the roles of characters change. Other parts of the film also suggest a significant "in-mind" versus reality perspective. It's hard to take that any further right now - the other significant aspect is the notion of power relationships between all the characters - most interactions in both halves of the film have a definite power relationship, and while those on the lower end are made uneasy by it, they submit in the end. Most of these top dog-bottom dog relations are reversed by the opening of that box, showing us both sides of all characters (apart from the cowboy, who acts as the hand of the director). Those are my first impressions anyhow..

Increased frequency: Migraines, getting lost staring at walls, not wanting to get out of bed, no appetite. There are some upcoming events that I need to figure out if/when I'm going to...

Playing a game with pets - feel actual guilt over protests of ill treatment by those not-real creatures, in one of them endless supplies of cute kittens are given out for completing something - somehow I'm sensitive to the idea of giving away/selling those.