Pop Culture Comes in Time to All Things
08/26/2008 (Changing times, Social commentary)
No, no, not the Tibetan Book of the Dead as a comic. No. No …. Yes. The Preamble is below.
Click here to take the whole ride, so to speak.
Archive for the 'Social commentary' Category
The Side Effects Zone
06/30/2008 (Health, Social commentary)
It’s a pharmaceutical Twilight Zone — you’re not sure what’s there, and what is there may not be a pleasant surprise. This clip from a commercial for Abilify is about as good (or as bad) as it gets. Alternative treatment modalities anyone?
It’s Still All Over but the Shouting, er, I Mean, Counting
04/28/2008 (Politics, Social commentary, The return of the commons, Web 2.0)
The shouting in and about the Obama and Clinton campaigns continues, but the basic context remains and the quest for the Democratic presidential nomination unfolds within it. All the tactical decisions, the evaluations of those decisions, all the campaign ads, all the surrogates’s advocacy, etc., are subordinate to the larger question of whether a [...]
A Boomer’s Reflection on Aging
03/31/2008 (Aging, Reflections on living, Social commentary)
In the April 7 issue of The New Yorker, Michael Kinsley reflects on aging, both his own and that of his generation. I’ve excerpted a small piece below.
We are born thinking that we’ll live forever. Then death becomes an intermittent reality, as grandparents and parents die, and tragedy of some kind removes one or two [...]
I’m Not a Senior Yet
03/18/2008 (Changing times, Social commentary, The return of the commons)
Back in November I wrote about becoming a senior and some of what that entailed. I wrote too soon.
No I haven’t reversed the aging process, nor have I succumbed to the tranquilizing motto that “60 is the new 40.” Rather I heard Marc Freedman talking about his book Encore: Finding Work that Matters in [...]
Ralph, I Like the Lyrics, but the Melody Lingers Not
02/29/2008 (Politics, Social commentary)
Ralph Nader is back running for president. I do not begrudge him taking another shot. I believe in democracy. Let 10,000 flowers (candidates) bloom. And yes, restructure ballot requirements for federal offices making access easier and uniform.
But at this stage of the game, he will have less electoral support than ever. We’re not going to [...]
Emotions and Politics, Take 2
02/28/2008 (Politics, Social commentary)
This video pretty much speaks for itself. Clinton is prone to resentment, and while resentment may feel “good” to the one who expresses it, it rarely seduces anyone other than fellow sufferers. First up is Obama setting the levels, so to speak. Watch what happens to the audience responses as Clinton speaks. The video is [...]
It’s All Over but the Counting
02/24/2008 (Changing times, Politics, Social commentary, The return of the commons)
After the Texas debate with Hilary testing a gracious exit from her hopes of the presidency, not to mention the delegate totals and the virtual impossibility of her catching Obama, it’s all over but the counting. I predict that Obama will win the Democratic nomination and then the general election.
What’s happening here? The pundits for [...]
Emotions and Politics
01/27/2008 (Politics, Social commentary)
We talk about positions and policies and experience, but what matters most about candidates and their political narratives are the emotions they evoke — and it is emotion that propels us to action. Could what we see below in a video from Slate Video called “Hillary’s Inner Tracy Flick” contribute to Hillary Clinton’s high and [...]
Jerry Falwell, R.I.P.
05/20/2007 (Social commentary)
An old order is dying, literally and figuratively. The death of Jerry Falwell harbingers an era of greater tolerance. The historical movement toward the acceptance of diversity of many kinds (a phenomenon of the mid-50’s and the 60’s) has been slowed by the rise of Falwell, Pat Robertson and their ilk in the 70’s and [...]
Fernando Flores’s Work in the Harvard Business Review
04/09/2007 (Changing times, Social commentary)
From when he first started offering public workshops in 1982 until now, Fernando Flores’s groundbreaking work has stayed outside the mainstream of business thinking/writing. With the publication of “Promise-Based Management: The Essence of Execution” in the Harvard Business Review it has entered that stream. Click here for the article graciously provided free by the [...]
Medieval Tech Support
03/27/2007 (Social commentary)
No, this is not about the state of Dell or any other tech support provider, but rather a comedic take on on learning how to use a book. Funny and perceptive. From youTube via Fred Mitouer and Devil Ducky.
On the Way to Universal Health Care
03/26/2007 (Health, Politics, Social commentary)
We’ll be the last wealthy country to provide at least basic health care to its citizens, but the day will come. My guess is 2011 when the next president (if a Democrat) is looking to be re-elected in 2012. What form it will take is unclear, but the push for single payer gets stronger with [...]
Commitments of the inauthentic self
03/01/2007 (Reflections on living, Social commentary)
As human beings we are always already committed. The question is not whether we are committed, but what we are committed to. In the ordinary, average, everyday, “mass,” self that the German philosopher Martin Heidegger characterized as “inauthentic,” we find embedded certain commitments that are easily recognizable when they are distinguished. I take the [...]
Television, ticking bombs and torture
02/20/2007 (Politics, Social commentary)
The argument for using torture usually comes down to the “ticking bomb” scenario. A bomb is about to go off and, as the plot goes, the only way to stop it is to torture someone who you think knows where that bomb is.
Fox’s “24″ is based on the “ticking bomb” plot line. The necessity of [...]
Getting to know you, getting to know all about you…
12/07/2006 (Politics, Social commentary)
No, this isn’t another post on the demise of privacy. This is getting to know one our Saudi neighbors, the official Saudi executioner for Mecca. We get to know him in a video (just an interview at home, not a visit at work) and in a transcript of the video.
The video illuminates both stark differences [...]
Milton Friedman - The Dark Side
11/29/2006 (Politics, Social commentary)
Rummaging around my RSS feeds I came across an article by William Grieder in The Nation that presents a less hagiographic obituary of Milton Friedman than those in the mainstream press. The article, “Friedman’s Cruel Legacy“, portrays some consequences when all other human values are subordinated to economic value or, more traditionally, greed. Here is [...]
Everybody’s an expert: Putting predictions to the test
11/27/2006 (Politics, Social commentary)
In making assessments of the political future, what is the value of expert advice? An answer to this question can be found in a review of Philip Tetlock’s book, “Expert Political Judgment: How Good Is It? How Can We Know?” by Louis Menand in an article last year in the New Yorker magazine. An informative, [...]
Advertising confronts the Open Source movement
11/20/2006 (Changing times, Social commentary)
Life is about what changes. What changes is about what is being conserved. This is one way to understand the interconnected Open Source and Creative Commons movements. In the worlds of software and intellectual property the focus is on maximizing (conserving) creativity and public access to content and not on maximizing profit and control of [...]
Milton Friedman Meets Whole Foods
11/17/2006 (Social commentary)
Milton Friedman has passed. His time is passing, too. Not the time of the value of free markets, but the time that holds that the sole good (and purpose) of business is maximizing profits for investors. Evidence of the changing times can be found among other places in Open Source software movement and the Creative [...]