Thoughts on Black Friday

I was the odd man out at the Thanksgiving dinner with my opinion on Black Friday.  My opinion: Black Friday is a festering sore of American culture, theirs: there’s nothing wrong with shopping when the stuff is cheap.  I think they missed the point, but that’s fine, I’ll try and make it again (and better).
By [...]

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A Time for Thanks

I would like to thank God and Turkeys for this wonderful holiday.  Without God and Turkeys there would be no Thanksgiving, there would only be Sara Palin.

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Remembering COINTELPRO

In times when the government seems to bungle everything, a common conclusion drawn by many is that the government is incapable of producing “results.”  The recent spate of governmental ineptness and inadequacy (Iraq, Katrina, the economy) is not only a spicy combination of ideology, bureaucracy, and nepotism, it is dangerous in the sense that it [...]

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Nixonland

I just finished Rick Perlstein’s book Nixonland, which is a biography of Richard Nixon but also a study of 60s era politics and how the divisions that existed then reverberate today. The book was so well done that I can’t think of many substantial criticisms. It is one of the most detailed biographical [...]

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Negative Campaigning

Many of the major media outlets are carrying the determination by al-Zawahiri that President-elect Obama is not the true candidate of change. Such an outcry will clearly hurt al-Qaeda’s attempt to become the brand of resistance. The group clearly has not realized that negative campaigning does not work with Obama.
In a campaign to [...]

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Urban Apartheid

I’ve started living among the swells in Philadelphia’s Rittenhouse square district.  Tonight was one of those “when in Rome” nights.  We started with wine on the 19th floor of the Bellevue hotel (where I hear every president since Wilson has stayed, and Sarah Palin recently held a fund raiser).  This city’s skyline is an utter fireworks [...]

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Walmart and the child consumer

Was watching Hardball, or something of the sort, and during a break Walmart aired a commercial that struck me.  It featured several children, and each wanted something for Christmas.  “I want a dinosaur,” etc.  At the end, it flashed to a “mother” of the children, who stated, “This Christmas, I want my children to follow [...]

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We Need A Scapegoat

As the economic recession settles upon the global economy we can expect an increase in criminal behavior.  There should be an increase in theft and an increase in domestic abuse (See http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive//crimwage.htm and  http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/208346.pdf).  This correlation has been known for some time, but does not seem to be getting any fresh attention as the economy [...]

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The stupid man

The StupidMan in advertising is something not particularly talked about, even though we talk about stupidity elsewhere in entertainment-land (America’s Next Top Model, Beverly Hills Chihuahua). I remember being first subjected to witnessing such adverts and thinking to myself, well isn’t it nice that the men are being needled a bit here in the [...]

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Cultural forms: betel nut girls

The following did not come to my attention through..uh..illicit surfing of the interwebs.  Betel nut girl came into my life through Nietzsche.  Nietzsche complains that culture is the result of narcotics like hash (!!) and betel-nut chewing (???).  The joy of google+wikipedia brings me to the knowledge of the betel nut (mild stimulant, which from [...]

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