where interesting ideas have sex and breed like rabbits
January 27, 2012 Leave a Comment
If you pay attention to online reviews like I do before I buy something, you need to read this article from the New York Times explaining how the system is gamed. (And also, use your instincts: if it sounds to good to be true, it probably is.)
For $2 a Star, a Retailer Gets 5-Star Reviews – NYTimes.com.
January 9, 2012 1 Comment
Arriving Immigrant
When a 1%er tells you to “Get a Job,” obviously, you have to go where the jobs are. If it isn’t in the US, maybe it’s China.
Jonathan Levine did it for himself, as you see his article in the NY Times. It might be instructive for some Americans to begin to understand the appeal and the difficulties of being an immigrant. Of course, it sounds like China values immigrants, so it might be an apples and oranges kind of thing. But it IS an available choice, with the usual benefits and drawbacks.
As we continue to see Wall Street’s robber barons getting a free pass in America, China’s swift and final response – at least a couple of people were executed for their part in the scandal – to the baby formula tragedy looks mighty attractive to some.
But the pollution in China has been horrific for decades, and their energy policy seems mostly to be a matter of building more coal plants. One hopes they have a longer-term, more sustainable strategy, and good health care in the meantime.
Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum, in their recent book, That Used to Be Us, contrast the “get ‘er done ” abilities of China with the current American capacity for dithering and delay. They discuss, at the beginning of the first chapter, the difference between the Tianjin Meijiang Convention and Visitor Center, about 2.5 million square feet in size and constructed in 8 months, and the escalators at the heavily used Bethesda Metrorail station, that had been out of service and under repair for six months. As Friedman notes, the most damning thing about America’s current condition is that we have gotten used to it. I would add, we also DEFEND this state of affairs. And we avoid addressing the big issues, like climate change, health care, illiteracy and obesity, ad infinitum, because we no longer have the confidence – and, perhaps, the competence? – to address them.
As with every country, there are pros and cons. But if you need work, above all, it seems China might be a welcoming place for Americans, and an eye-opener.
December 14, 2011 Leave a Comment
labeled
Well. You can see why this philosophy is so reviled.
December 14, 2011 Leave a Comment
Designed by John Stitch
A friend asked me on Facebook why I would want to Occupy Amazon. He grew up in an era and area of big chain and online bookstores, and didn’t see the point of this occupation. I wrote the following to him in response, and hope you find it interesting – and a conversation starter:
There are a number of tacks to take with this. There is an old joke that says that opening a bookstore is the best way to make a small fortune . . . out of a large one. Still, an independent bookstore, in my experience, is a good way to be exposed to all manner of new ideas. When there were a bunch of them, you would find the one that carried the books most to your taste. The buyers READ the books, and saw them as, I think, you and I both do: not mere tools to pry money from the pockets of consumers, but as works of art, of philosophy, carriers of ideas. Dangerous, in other words. The demise of independents means some of those voices are not heard, especially minority opinions.
I tend to believe that Amazon has kept some books in print that would otherwise have gone out of print. So they have not been all bad, and I have done more business with them than my friends in the book business would want to know.
Competition is good. I have nothing against it. I don’t think it belongs everywhere, but some people rise better to competition than to cooperation, and that’s fine.
But diversity is also good. The reason I roared at Amazon’s most recent tacky, sleazy action is because it was just pissing on an already disadvantaged competitor’s boots. Professional courtesy is also good.
You can, actually, buy e-books from independent bookstores. Which is what I intend to do from now on. They are Google books, and won’t work on a Kindle (I use an iPad, so no problem for me), but are otherwise equal in style and content, though the selection is sometimes not as great.
Also, our small towns and cities are hurting. They need tax revenue. Amazon pays none on purchases made with them, is my understanding. (Checking my own recent invoices, that is the case.)
I’m sorry you have grown up in a culture without independent bookstores. They have been a very important part of my intellectual development, my career, and a great source of good friends. If I went through my list of favorite books and authors, I could probably remember a bunch that were introduced to me by booksellers without whom I’d never have known about them. Amazon does sometimes make good recommendations. Their suggestion software is amazing. But it’s all based on what I have bought or read before; if I want to move forward into new territory, I need to speak with someone well-read. That may be a friend who is a bookseller. It might even have been someone who worked at Borders, since so much of their staff was taken from independent bookstores that failed to compete with them (often because Borders could get terms from publishers that independents could not get). But the personal human interaction is not something available from Amazon.
I don’t begrudge Amazon’s right to exist, or even to dominate. Bezos and company have put together an amazing resource. But independent booksellers offer benefits that Amazon doesn’t, and can’t. Amazon is trying to put them out of business. So I support an occupation, and will no longer do business with them unless it is absolutely necessary.
November 28, 2011 Leave a Comment
Occupy Climate Talks. But, in this case, they need to be occupied, not just by the people who are already feeling the effects most acutely, but by the scientific community. At the end of every paltry governmental proposal, scientists need to do a mic check and tell those present exactly what the implications of their inadequacies are.
I have begun to greet news of climate summits with something like a yawn, but with more angst. I think the first shock was the Earth Summit in Rio, when President Bush, Sr. would not sign the biodiversity treaty and the Pope would not permit any discussion of population control. Having been raised both American and Catholic, I was aghast that my representatives represented the diametric opposite of my views. At every summit since then, after major scientific studies always revised their predictions to be increasingly dire in the face of human intransigence, those whom we persist in calling our leaders have habitually failed to take significant, much less adequate, action.
After all, Severin Suzuki gave the most articulate speech about the subject 19 years ago. 40 years ago high school students like m were being told of the dangers of a human population explosion (our population has increased 75% since then). We have been warned. No one can say we didn’t see this coming.
It feels like living for years with a fatal diagnosis, and getting bored with the visits of impotent or incompetent doctors and the hand-wringing of well-meaning friends bringing crystals and herbal remedies. I would feel completely giddy if, for a change, someone knowledgeable and competent, who knew what it would take to beat the diagnosis, would come visit and tell me the truth, whether it was what I wanted to hear or not. And if I could watch them berate and verbally abuse the doctors who had been charged with healing, but instead allowed my condition to deteriorate in the years since my diagnosis, I would be ecstatic.
Or would I? Because what strikes me is that the human response to climate change is so similar to a person’s response to being told that their cigarettes will, indeed, kill them. The addict’s response is almost always, “Well, yes, but I’m not dead yet, am I?” It is not information we lack. It is, perhaps, not even the will. There are lots of smokers who would like to quit, and have tried to quit. It’s the combination of knowing the steps needed to break the habit and addiction, the support to reinforce new behaviors, and the courage and community needed to actually go through that process.
We need an intervention.
November 23, 2011 Leave a Comment
A scientist has been sentenced in New Zealand for helping his mother to end her pain-filled life with morphine.
This is criminal.
Doesn’t he understand that the purpose of our lives is to assist health care providers in making profits, and that by helping his mother to end her suffering early, he deprived various hospitals, pharmaceutical and insurance companies from improving their bottom lines? How selfish. Now the money they didn’t spend will go god knows where. These companies depend on the medical expenses of our last year or so of life to pay for their CEOs’ salaries, bonuses and stock options, not to mention defraying the extraordinary cost of lobbyists. Unconscionable! Oh, for the days when the social contract meant something and life had value (in the range of tens of thousands of dollars, at last count). It’s a good thing we have laws to protect our most sacred values.
A toast to Sean Davison. Your mother would be proud of you, and grateful for a son with the courage of his convictions. She taught you well, sir.
November 23, 2011 2 Comments
Yes, the economy is stagnating again. The do-nothings on capital hill aren’t helping one bit. The reality you and I (I’m assuming you’re in the lower 99%, unless you’re having this read to you by your slaves) live in is just not getting through to our elected officials. But did you or I elect them? Did you bother to vote in the midterms? Slate has a clearer view:
Much has been made of the depth of the economic crisis facing the United States, and it should not be underestimated. But only about 30 percent of the trouble facing the U.S. today is economic — the U.S. economy, compared with all the other developed economies, is in the best structural and demographic shape to weather this storm and ultimately regain its health. But a cancer does exist: The real problem America faces is political, and once again today, it is on stark display.
The warring tribes of Capitol Hill rolled out their carefully prepared talking points over the weekend looking to ensure the other side got the blame for the failure of the congressional super committee on Monday. “The President was AWOL,” cried the GOP, “the Republicans sold their soul to the anti-tax lobby,” counter the Dems.
In fact, blame for the failure of the congressional super committee belongs with every American who failed to vote in the 2010 midterm election. Nothing encapsulates the dysfunction of American democracy better than the fact that we abdicate responsibility for governing our country (and running our economy) to a radical minority every four years out of laziness and, to a smaller extent, deliberate efforts by both parties to depress turnout they know will favor their rivals.
The result: an American economic crisis that is eminently solvable has been trusted to the hands of political hacks representing fringe minority factions within each political parties whose primary incentive is to avoid providing ammunition to the other side. Thus has our political system turned a simple question of accounting into an economic version of the Arab-Israeli conflict – a conflict for which the solution has been clear for 40 years if only either side were willing to deal with reality.
Read the rest: It’s the Politics, Stupid!.
November 22, 2011 1 Comment
Small Business Saturday: a shopping event brought to you by American Express. Which wishes more small, locally-owned shops would accept Amex so they could charge the largest fee of the major credit card companies – up to 8%. Note that it is not planned for Black Friday, when you should shop at the nationally-owned stores as usual, but the next day, when you should be so stuffed to the gills with shopping that you are sick of it and tempted to stop. But, oh, you must do your duty, American consumer, and support your local retailer (for one day out of 365). So do not tire. Do not rest. Go forth! Spend more! And ask Mom and Pop, when you see them, why they don’t take Amex, when clearly Amex is doing So Much to support Mom and Pop.
Ahh, yes: shopping as an expression of one’s values. How else can you or, more to the point, your neighbors and co-workers, know your mettle, if not by shopping? And what a sacrifice: to go out into the traffic and crowds yet again, the day after Black Friday, having been already seduced and used by corporations for whose sake we live and move and have our being, to spend and buy and rack up debt yet again on Saturday.
I have a suggestion. Shift Your Shopping. Not just on Saturday. If you must spend – and really, though everyone says it’s your duty, you don’t have to – spend wisely so your spending is also investing in your community. Money spent in locally-owned stores stays in the community more than money spent in big national stores – 45 cents on the dollar, compared to 13 cents on the dollar. Of course, no matter where you buy, and how good the deal is, if you buy it on credit, and don’t pay for it immediately, the sale price doesn’t matter because you are paying interest to Amex, Visa, and others, instead of using those interest payments to buy new stuff that you might actually need.
So if you MUST shop, shop locally EVERY day. But wherever you shop, don’t go into debt to do it. Because then your money doesn’t go to ANY store, but to a credit card company, which doesn’t produce or sell anything. You think you bought that toy on sale for $19.95? By the time you have your credit card paid off, you may have paid double for it. Like your house. But that’s another story.
Jack Jamison
John McAndrew
wildmountainonline
ryarobin
