The last News-Junkie blog entry goes to press.
What conclusions am I able to draw from the last year of no news?
First off, I AM happier. I still heard about current events, albeit as a word-of-mouth format, but the lack of minute-to-minute news updates did not detract from my well-being but, rather, added to it. I feel less constricted by the push and pull of the greater outside world. My more local world, political or non-political, has become much more important and intimate.
Secondly, I am much more able to laugh at the extreme silliness of the partisan bickering and posturing that goes on all around me. And, I am much less inclined to either get angry or participate in the meaningless and, ultimately, useless, staking out of positions.
Finally, I have started another blog with the intention of being involved, again, in current events. This time, however, I am striving for a non-dogmatic and non-partisan approach to achieving a set of specific goals.
Thanks a lot for spending time with me this last year. It was a great experiment and I learned a lot! Whether or not I get involved again with the news media will depend a great deal on how I feel if and when I do. I am pretty fond of this new way to engage and I enjoy the calmer feeling that I am more able to maintain as a result.
Again, thank you for tolerating this blather. Please check out my new persona, The Reverend Squeaky-Eye as he takes on financial issues in the new blog:
http://reverend-squeaky-eye.blogspot.com
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Day # 311 Booked
Blogging has lapsed. I admit it. The new house, moving, paddling and a resurgence of summer albeit a bit late have all conspired to keep me from the keyboard.
Today is the first day blogging in the "300's" and while I still am not doing the news, I have news of my own. I have booked the flights for my next installment of travel to SE Asia. I am leaving in late January and will be gone for a full month. So, that saga continues.
Despite the absolutely momentous change the year has wrought, both on a personal and world level, I remain safely inside my no-news bubble. With less than two months until the end of the experiment I have to say that I do not miss my former day-to-day, hour-to-hour involvement in the goings on of the world. When the full year rolls around on November 13th, I do not think I will rush out to buy the NY Times.
Today is the first day blogging in the "300's" and while I still am not doing the news, I have news of my own. I have booked the flights for my next installment of travel to SE Asia. I am leaving in late January and will be gone for a full month. So, that saga continues.
Despite the absolutely momentous change the year has wrought, both on a personal and world level, I remain safely inside my no-news bubble. With less than two months until the end of the experiment I have to say that I do not miss my former day-to-day, hour-to-hour involvement in the goings on of the world. When the full year rolls around on November 13th, I do not think I will rush out to buy the NY Times.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Day # 296 Critters
Deer are liars.
I know, they are sweet looking and have convincingly large eyes, but make no mistake: they are treacherous. Last evening I found my same doe and fawn patrolling the estate. I have had gentle conversations with them about staying away from the blueberries but helping themselves to the apples. The fawn just stares at me, sneaking peeks at moms to try to figure out the cues. The doe does her "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know man, you got it..." while looking at me askance. She does her best charming deer routine and then when I go back in the house they start munching away.
To their credit, they have left my precious blueberries alone. The furry little bastards did eat my tomatoes. Who would have thought that deer would pilfer my one cultivated crop when there are apples by the dozen to be had? Right now the squirrel is going insane harvesting the walnuts behind me. Do I care? No I do not. There are lots of walnuts and the little maniac is welcome to them. But not my 'maters, dammit!
I trundled the potted tomato into the newly cleared out greenhouse in an attempt to preserve what is truly mine. Damn furry bandits. But the damage has been done. Next year, next year echoes the sorrowful cry.
Arriving home today I had to stop short in the driveway so as not to hurt the lovely little garter snake sunning itself in the early autumn warmth. Its true, my small slithering friend is sensing the waning of summer and feeling of crisp fall in the night air. I strung up the hammock today, almost predictably, between an ancient apple tree and a fence post, so I could savor the inching away of summer first hand.
My next task in tending to my tribe of critters is the filling and placing of the many bird-feeders I found whilst clearing out the aforementioned greenhouse. I have all manner of ways to make my winged friends more comfortable and well-nourished and I intend to do just that.
I know, they are sweet looking and have convincingly large eyes, but make no mistake: they are treacherous. Last evening I found my same doe and fawn patrolling the estate. I have had gentle conversations with them about staying away from the blueberries but helping themselves to the apples. The fawn just stares at me, sneaking peeks at moms to try to figure out the cues. The doe does her "Yeah, yeah, I know, I know man, you got it..." while looking at me askance. She does her best charming deer routine and then when I go back in the house they start munching away.
To their credit, they have left my precious blueberries alone. The furry little bastards did eat my tomatoes. Who would have thought that deer would pilfer my one cultivated crop when there are apples by the dozen to be had? Right now the squirrel is going insane harvesting the walnuts behind me. Do I care? No I do not. There are lots of walnuts and the little maniac is welcome to them. But not my 'maters, dammit!
I trundled the potted tomato into the newly cleared out greenhouse in an attempt to preserve what is truly mine. Damn furry bandits. But the damage has been done. Next year, next year echoes the sorrowful cry.
Arriving home today I had to stop short in the driveway so as not to hurt the lovely little garter snake sunning itself in the early autumn warmth. Its true, my small slithering friend is sensing the waning of summer and feeling of crisp fall in the night air. I strung up the hammock today, almost predictably, between an ancient apple tree and a fence post, so I could savor the inching away of summer first hand.
My next task in tending to my tribe of critters is the filling and placing of the many bird-feeders I found whilst clearing out the aforementioned greenhouse. I have all manner of ways to make my winged friends more comfortable and well-nourished and I intend to do just that.
Monday, September 5, 2011
Day # 294 Blueberries and Bugs
So it comes down to this. I know about the big fire in the Olympic National Park. I did not read or hear about it in the news. I was, however, looking down on it from the summit of Mt. Jupiter. Now that I am living the country life, far flung from the urban center, I am closer to the edge. At least the edge of the Olympics. Hiking in the Cascades will be supplanted by hiking in the land of many consonants. The Dosewallips, Hamma Hamma, Humptulips and all of the other east range rivers are going to be my playground now.
Today I paddled new waters, finding the put-in for Blake Island and the sanctuary between the northern Bremerton ferry run and the southern Southworth ferry run. Not so good being chummed by a ferry boat. They have the right-of-way tonnage.
Yesterday the coals were fired and the salmon seared, to be consumed al fresco at the gloaming of the day.
Today, apres paddle, the blueberries were harvested once again to adorn this evenings ice cream.
A grasshopper just joined me on the deck, soaking up the last sun of the three-day weekend.
I have things to thing about, an apple harvest to do something with, a fig tree that will hopefully produce fruit and a hammock to hang. Busy busy Bokononist I am. Today, exile is not so unpalatable.
Today I paddled new waters, finding the put-in for Blake Island and the sanctuary between the northern Bremerton ferry run and the southern Southworth ferry run. Not so good being chummed by a ferry boat. They have the right-of-way tonnage.
Yesterday the coals were fired and the salmon seared, to be consumed al fresco at the gloaming of the day.
Today, apres paddle, the blueberries were harvested once again to adorn this evenings ice cream.
A grasshopper just joined me on the deck, soaking up the last sun of the three-day weekend.
I have things to thing about, an apple harvest to do something with, a fig tree that will hopefully produce fruit and a hammock to hang. Busy busy Bokononist I am. Today, exile is not so unpalatable.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Day # 286 Coda
After months of planning and loading and carting and unloading it comes down to me, sitting on my new deck, smoking a cigar. Tomorrow is the last load. My shop space, my precious man-cave of the last five years, is almost empty. A few bikes to move tomorrow and it will be done. And not a mark left in the passing, pardon the pun.
It is the same story with my former domicile. I have disappeared without a trace. I guess there is something to be said for passing away so swiftly and with such little notice. There is eternity before one and eternity after one yet we are consumed with the briefest of moments when we strut and fret our hour upon the stage.
Tomorrow maybe I will paddle around Blake Island for the first time. New waters and all of that, after, of course, I unpack that last load.
It is the same story with my former domicile. I have disappeared without a trace. I guess there is something to be said for passing away so swiftly and with such little notice. There is eternity before one and eternity after one yet we are consumed with the briefest of moments when we strut and fret our hour upon the stage.
Tomorrow maybe I will paddle around Blake Island for the first time. New waters and all of that, after, of course, I unpack that last load.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Day # 281 Simpler Stuff
As a conversational aside, The Kid asked me when I would "be able to watch the news again". I asked him if everyone was starting to position themselves for the 2012 elections and he confirmed that this was the case. I told him that after the year of the experiment was over, I was not at all sure I would resume news consumption. He said he saw my point, clearly illustrated by the possibility of a year plus of Barbara Bachman.
We had just returned from a refreshing four days outside of the United States, communing with our brothers and sisters to the North. We spent the week in West Vancouver, "West Van" to the locals, where diversity is the byword and even stodgy bank branches have pride flags displayed in their windows. It is a neighborhood that is safe and comfortable for gay and lesbian couples to walk hand in hand down the street without a sideways glance from any of the other tourists. While I am sure not everything is as rosy as it appeared, it was four days without a hater in sight. Nice, that. And a good example for The Kid.
In our little suite of rooms, we had an enormous TV with 50 channels of nothing. One channel of nothing was constantly extolling the virtues of the program "Mad Men", which, as almost everyone but me knows, is about the funny shenanigans of ad men on Madison Avenue in the salad days of the new advertising. It is the early 1960's and the times, they are a changin', particularly when it comes to how the Mad Men are going to sell things to their fellow Americans.
Recalling my previous blog post, I listed the first of four eras of modern capitalism :
1) Post World War II -- The rise of modern Corporations until Eisenhower's farewell speech of 1961
A simpler time, the period between the end of The War and the advent of the Mad Men. Some would argue that this period is more accurately bracketed by the end of Korean Conflict on the earlier end but I vote for WW II. After the Big One, American industry quickly converted war production to post-war product production. The Baby Boom was on, Baby, and those that survived the war wanted washing machines, fully electric kitchens and suburban homes to put them in. Unlike England, with its years of post-war rationing, or Japan and Germany with their flattened metropolises, American was ready and able to flood the markets with new products for consumers.
In this simpler time, cigarettes did not kill you, modern life was going to get better and better, and the things you could buy were going to help that process along. All of those modern appliances were going to make life easier, cleaner and more elegant. Manufacturers hired ad men to sell their new products to the new consumers and the way they did that was to tout the benefits of the gizmo they were selling.
This was the era of the Brand "X" comparative ads. There was the happy housewife using the better product. Unlike modern ads which sell lifestyles, sex and health, almost without a product in sight, the advertisements of the 1950's pitched the thing itself. No proper house would use a Brand "X" gas range for cooking when the new Westinghouse electric range was so much better. The gleaming new whats-it was prominently featured with the smiling missus standing near by, eyes shining with wonder at the beauty of the new time-saver.
This was the era of the pitch, the idea that you should buy our stuff because its better stuff than the other stuff. Image was not the primary selling tool. While there is no doubt that the housewives using the good stuff were happier and prettier that the drudges stuck with the Brand "X" crap. the focus of the ad was still the product itself. The idea of selling an image or a lifestyle in and of itself, with product to follow, had not come to the fore yet.
The idea of image in sales was there. W. R. Hearst spoke the truth when he said "Show me a magazine cover with a pretty girl, a baby and a dog and I'll show you a magazine that sells," but fully incorporating that concept into selling a lifestyle would come later. It would be the advent of Madison Avenue in the early 1960's, coupled with a deeper understanding of the psychology of consumers, that would bring about the next era of advertising and capitalism, at least in the theory according to Crash.
Next: The deployment of Madison Avenue
We had just returned from a refreshing four days outside of the United States, communing with our brothers and sisters to the North. We spent the week in West Vancouver, "West Van" to the locals, where diversity is the byword and even stodgy bank branches have pride flags displayed in their windows. It is a neighborhood that is safe and comfortable for gay and lesbian couples to walk hand in hand down the street without a sideways glance from any of the other tourists. While I am sure not everything is as rosy as it appeared, it was four days without a hater in sight. Nice, that. And a good example for The Kid.
In our little suite of rooms, we had an enormous TV with 50 channels of nothing. One channel of nothing was constantly extolling the virtues of the program "Mad Men", which, as almost everyone but me knows, is about the funny shenanigans of ad men on Madison Avenue in the salad days of the new advertising. It is the early 1960's and the times, they are a changin', particularly when it comes to how the Mad Men are going to sell things to their fellow Americans.
Recalling my previous blog post, I listed the first of four eras of modern capitalism :
1) Post World War II -- The rise of modern Corporations until Eisenhower's farewell speech of 1961
A simpler time, the period between the end of The War and the advent of the Mad Men. Some would argue that this period is more accurately bracketed by the end of Korean Conflict on the earlier end but I vote for WW II. After the Big One, American industry quickly converted war production to post-war product production. The Baby Boom was on, Baby, and those that survived the war wanted washing machines, fully electric kitchens and suburban homes to put them in. Unlike England, with its years of post-war rationing, or Japan and Germany with their flattened metropolises, American was ready and able to flood the markets with new products for consumers.
In this simpler time, cigarettes did not kill you, modern life was going to get better and better, and the things you could buy were going to help that process along. All of those modern appliances were going to make life easier, cleaner and more elegant. Manufacturers hired ad men to sell their new products to the new consumers and the way they did that was to tout the benefits of the gizmo they were selling.
This was the era of the Brand "X" comparative ads. There was the happy housewife using the better product. Unlike modern ads which sell lifestyles, sex and health, almost without a product in sight, the advertisements of the 1950's pitched the thing itself. No proper house would use a Brand "X" gas range for cooking when the new Westinghouse electric range was so much better. The gleaming new whats-it was prominently featured with the smiling missus standing near by, eyes shining with wonder at the beauty of the new time-saver.
This was the era of the pitch, the idea that you should buy our stuff because its better stuff than the other stuff. Image was not the primary selling tool. While there is no doubt that the housewives using the good stuff were happier and prettier that the drudges stuck with the Brand "X" crap. the focus of the ad was still the product itself. The idea of selling an image or a lifestyle in and of itself, with product to follow, had not come to the fore yet.
The idea of image in sales was there. W. R. Hearst spoke the truth when he said "Show me a magazine cover with a pretty girl, a baby and a dog and I'll show you a magazine that sells," but fully incorporating that concept into selling a lifestyle would come later. It would be the advent of Madison Avenue in the early 1960's, coupled with a deeper understanding of the psychology of consumers, that would bring about the next era of advertising and capitalism, at least in the theory according to Crash.
Next: The deployment of Madison Avenue
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Day # 272 Balance and Checks
In the Film adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel Fight Club, Tyler Durden addresses the assembled members of the fight club, thusly:
"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
I am starting to look at my next topic in the manner of the beginning of Fight Club. The movie is one long flash-back, leaping backwards from the penultimate scene in the high rise windows. In the continuing saga of movie education for my giant Kid, we watched Fight Club last night. Once again, I watched the twin themes of the disease of consumerism, the 'Ikea Nesting" virus, and the masculine poverty of generations of men raised by women, intertwine and stagger to a cathartic end.
So, we begin at the present for the briefest of moments. Are corporations, lost in their own greed and insular culture, eating themselves from the inside? Cracks open in the gleaming chrome facades of the corporate culture as giant but inoffensive modernist sculptures are trucked away from recently locked doors at the headquarters of failed behemoths of business. Washington Mutual Bank, Enron, Lehman Brothers and General Motors are just a few of the houses of cards that have tumbled recently. Is the structure of Capitalism rotting from within?
As I turn this over in my head I keep coming up with distinct corporate "eras" for lack of a better term. While the periods of time I am going to list could be broken down many ways or subdivided ever smaller, compartmentalizing some of the last fifty years is helping me to develop a different perspective on capitalism as I experience it today.
Mark's most certainly flawed list of the epochs of modern Capitalism goes like this:
1) Post World War II -- The rise of modern Corporations until Eisenhower's farewell speech of 1961
2) Corporations deploy Madison Avenue -- While advertising was certainly a force prior to the the early1960's, this, to me is the beginning of the paradigm shift from selling a product to selling a life-style that requires a product to be complete
3) Omnipotence -- During the 1960's and 1970's corporations become more and more monolithic and omnipotent, the guiding hand behind the scenes. Howard Beale rants and rails against the modern corporation in the 1976 film "Network" and is killed for his trouble. The nightmare vision of of a world controlled by a cabal of corporations rather than individual governments comes to the fore.
4) Interior Decay -- Somewhere along the way, US Corporations stop building products and the US economy shifts to a service economy. Manufacturing jobs begin to disappear and Wall Street becomes a place where money is moved for the sake of moving money in ever increasing spirals of greed. This is our time.
Looking back at each of these periods is going to be the current work. While the US credit rating falters and talking head pundits scream at each other, I think that my time will be better spent trying to understand the context. Could the work of the self-grasping and greedy corporate and Wall Street magnates bring down that which all of the demonstrations and boycotts of the last forty years could not? Stay tuned.
"Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off."
I am starting to look at my next topic in the manner of the beginning of Fight Club. The movie is one long flash-back, leaping backwards from the penultimate scene in the high rise windows. In the continuing saga of movie education for my giant Kid, we watched Fight Club last night. Once again, I watched the twin themes of the disease of consumerism, the 'Ikea Nesting" virus, and the masculine poverty of generations of men raised by women, intertwine and stagger to a cathartic end.
So, we begin at the present for the briefest of moments. Are corporations, lost in their own greed and insular culture, eating themselves from the inside? Cracks open in the gleaming chrome facades of the corporate culture as giant but inoffensive modernist sculptures are trucked away from recently locked doors at the headquarters of failed behemoths of business. Washington Mutual Bank, Enron, Lehman Brothers and General Motors are just a few of the houses of cards that have tumbled recently. Is the structure of Capitalism rotting from within?
As I turn this over in my head I keep coming up with distinct corporate "eras" for lack of a better term. While the periods of time I am going to list could be broken down many ways or subdivided ever smaller, compartmentalizing some of the last fifty years is helping me to develop a different perspective on capitalism as I experience it today.
Mark's most certainly flawed list of the epochs of modern Capitalism goes like this:
1) Post World War II -- The rise of modern Corporations until Eisenhower's farewell speech of 1961
2) Corporations deploy Madison Avenue -- While advertising was certainly a force prior to the the early1960's, this, to me is the beginning of the paradigm shift from selling a product to selling a life-style that requires a product to be complete
3) Omnipotence -- During the 1960's and 1970's corporations become more and more monolithic and omnipotent, the guiding hand behind the scenes. Howard Beale rants and rails against the modern corporation in the 1976 film "Network" and is killed for his trouble. The nightmare vision of of a world controlled by a cabal of corporations rather than individual governments comes to the fore.
4) Interior Decay -- Somewhere along the way, US Corporations stop building products and the US economy shifts to a service economy. Manufacturing jobs begin to disappear and Wall Street becomes a place where money is moved for the sake of moving money in ever increasing spirals of greed. This is our time.
Looking back at each of these periods is going to be the current work. While the US credit rating falters and talking head pundits scream at each other, I think that my time will be better spent trying to understand the context. Could the work of the self-grasping and greedy corporate and Wall Street magnates bring down that which all of the demonstrations and boycotts of the last forty years could not? Stay tuned.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)