ok back to the travel section.

i really dig nyc.

Pedro for president indeed.

public good is arbitrary....ex. a religouse fanatic might stake that it is in the publics good to prohibit sex unless maried and thus outlaw unmarital sex

sorry don't mind last post...my fav city is san fran...good weather nice neighberhoods and the best food

it is important to know that we are not 'going back to the travel section' this higher discussion of 'why' about place is what this thread was supposed to be about....they are same thing, but lets let the debate of individual v. collective frame our discussion of American cities....does individual vs. collective change from American city to American city?

if we are just choosing based on weather and food we should all move the fuck out of the u.s., but we don't....

thanks petey. thats two votes. only 140 mil more for a majority...

i think public good can be ascertained through speech. and by that i mean it is deduceable by all humans though philosophy. it might promote some 'council of elders' sort of thing, or a benevolent king sort of thing, but just as likely, if conditions allow it, great times and great nations have contingencies aligned that might allow a democratic plurality that can communicate with each other in a coherent, vibrant, way. this cohesion can only happen when the communicative benefits of a definable public space is embraced.

houston has no place for a wonderful and productive clash and exchange of ideas to take place. because the emphasis on private rights and individual liberty has eliminated the public space of that city. it is impoverished.

caleb, rand is the worst. sentimentality draped over a thought structure messily sketched. she's not what you'd call a penetrating thinker.

i read fountainhead and about two pages of atlas shrugged.

i guess thats why i like houston, i love industrialized greed

Community consensus indeed. Truth by consenses, I think that is what led to slavery, christianity and all other isms...

don't read her novels read her essays

Pedro: I would say that Rand can articulate a more thought out world view than the rehashed crap you've been spewing. You may not agree with her ideas, but that doesn't make them "messily sketched".

i enjoy both the food and weather of san fran and seattle especially the former. the latter is pretty damn good though.

do i have to? you could have said adam smith or friedman. i'd take those on.

you and optimk ought to check out john dewey's 'public and its problems'. and anything at all by plato.

i guess i touched a nerve.

so now it gets personal...fair enough.

your garbage is about as uninformed and sophomoric as the stuff i read freshman year in college written by the guy on the wrestling team who just discovered atlas shrugged in his fraternities urine-covered bookshelf. i'm searching for answers my friend.

if you care to elaborate on the details of my 'rehashed garbage' or whatever you call it please do so. i truly welcome it.

in the meantime please take a remedial spelling course and get your ged.

caleb likes houston. what can you say? the man is consistent.

Pedro my sweet:

If only your philiosophical musings were as witty as your insults, then perhaps you might be a tad more provocative. You made this argument personal by labeling Rand as being "messily sketched" without giving a reason why. You are now calling me "uninformed and sophmoric" to rile me. I wish you would extend the courtesy of disecting my argument as I have done to you. I have listed the reasons why I disagreed with your assment of liberalism. Remember you asked ME about my beleifs.

optim, your stuff, i'm really sorry to say, is hardly coherent enough to critique. if you can somehow see it in yourself to take me at my word, please believe me: i hardly doubt you possess the horsepower to wade though leo strauss with any clarity let alone something as low calorie as rand. the cartoonlike depictions of rational clarity and romantic notions of operatic strength are laughable.

i imagine you read her and put on the cape in some pathetic dormroom and whoosh, off you go, superman. the prediliction you have for kneejerk praise of individual might and courage is really probably just a festering freudian remnant of what, contending with a domineering older brother, or being pushed around in school.

just the same rand had her desire to be born german and male denied, hence the recourse to all manner of super-individual mythmaking. typically libertarians hail from the wallet. when an architect identifies an adherence to that philosophy you have 1) an intersting contrarian or 2) an uninformed naif.

i suspect door number 1 is not the case for you.

Dear Emperor Pedro the Myopic:

I never stated that I liked Rand, nor have I written that I agree with her. Most of what Rand argues is mere abstraction; however, she should be merited for noting that fallacy of the synthetic / analystic dichtomy. This is perhaps her #1 acheivement.

I never argued for "individual might and courage". Instead I argue for individual liberty as the goal of government, and my reasons are listed about 2 pages ago.

I do know this:

1. You have yet to make a point.
2. You have yet to discredit my point
3. your ignorance is only surpassed by your erroneous conclusions regarding my intellect
4. As Kimberly Mann once stated "Comparing your ideas to my own is like lighting a single match on the surface of the sun."

Pedro:

And when you are ready "to go" I'll be happy to point out strauss's failings.

My friend, what good is your own mind if you are merely going to rehearse the ideas of another thinker?

"you should read Plato" Hmmm I wonder who might have said that?

While I enjoed my time in Houston, it was the smelliest and most flood ridden city I had ever lived in. Only the people made it bareable.

Rand was a douche.

i am with abra about LA..lived here for only 3.5 years uptil now and love it

and bothands, NIN is from seattle, not LA

sameolddoctor

i figured i was bound to miss a few in that list -- if you rattle off a hundred or so bands vis-a-vis their native cities you're bound to miss a few...In retrospect, I can't believe I forgot the Residents for San Francisco. And since I stretched as far as Stockton being part of SF (Pavement), I guess you could include Yo La Tengo or the Boss (Hoboken/NJ) for NY...By tye way where are the Flaming Lips from again?

To the poster who mentioned Janis Joplin being from Austin, she may have been born there, but much of her career taking off (particularly with Big Brother and the Holding Co.) is affiliated with SF, and esp. the Fillmore/Bill Graham. And finally, the poster who thought it was perhaps inane to rate cites based on what music comes from/came from them, I was merely reacting to posts saying there was a 'great music scene' in a specific city (indie or otherwise). Anyway happy listening/living wherever you are....

and it would depend on one's perspective of whether it inane to rate cites based on what music comes from/came from them. some would. some wouldn't.

"Pedro offers you his protection."

and let the Napoleon Dynamite references flow like milk and honey!

original topic: I don't think this has been mentioned, butfor those discussing cities, in the last edition of Metropolis (the one with LTL's 'Millenium Falcon' bakery on the cover) there is an article on how Minneapolis is on the fast track to becoming the 'design capital' of the US...

Design Capital indeed. There is a saying: If you can make it as a designer or in advertising in Mpls, then you can make it anywhere...

Mpls Minnesnowduh...

The Flaming Lips are from Oklahoma