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Oct 12 2009
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Ultra Conservative Ideology Visualized

onenation

One Nation Under God

The painting was done by Jon McNaughton. The above link takes you to the artist’s page and gives you a better picture of the characters portrayed. If you mouse-over to the left lower corner you’ll see a politician, a professor holding Darwin’s Origin of the Species, a liberal news reporter, Mr Hollywood, and, of course, Satan. McNaughton writes in his page that he,

…painted this picture to reflect my personal feelings about America. This is not a Republican painting. This is not anything other than one artist’s personal feelings about his love for Christ, this country and a desire to make a point about where we are headed.

600 years ago this guy would have been commissioned to paint part of the Sistine Chapel.

via

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Aug 18 2009
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The Decade so Far

Mister Narrative of the Decade

This is the type of post/article you’d start seeing in the month of December, but iMomus got ahead and takes a look at 2000 so far, the noughties. He talks about design, music, and the post-car society. But of note is his commentary on geopolitics, and the embedded video called the Rise of the Rest(title of a Fareed Zakaria op-ed), which presents a series of data and info graphs about how the non-western world will take prominence in the new millennium. From the iMomus post:

The big picture I see this decade is the decline of Western self-confidence. If the 90s witnessed plenty of “irrational exuberance” in a “New World Order” following the West’s triumph over its Cold War opponents, the 00s saw feeble attempts to define Islam as a worthy opponent, and a spate of misguided wars “justified” by the “wake-up call” of 9/11. But a cave somewhere in Afghanistan isn’t the Kremlin, and Bin Laden isn’t Stalin. Despite a naked neo-imperialism posited on an unholy alliance between Samuel Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations and the right-wing appropriation of liberal ideas like human rights and democracy, the neo-cons’ New American Century lasted about five years. It was rapidly replaced by a more powerful meme: the rise of the rest, and particularly India and China.

via Kottke

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Aug 05 2009
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The Joker is not a Socialist, Batman Is

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This poster that’s been spotted at various places in Los Angeles, could have been more powerful if the creator/s behind it got their Dark Knight characters straight. Cinematic Blend pointed out -and I kind of agree, but it’s debatable(see the comments over there)- that if there’s anyone that’s a socialist on The Dark Knight is the cape crusader himself:

Their political message is clear, but I guess they missed the part of The Dark Knight where the Joker is an anarchist. He has more in common with Rush Limbaugh than he does Barack Obama. He’s not just opposed to big government, he’s opposed to all government. If there’s a socialist figure anywhere in The Dark Knight it’s Batman, who champions the cause of the people and believes in a society where everyone works together for the common good. I mean he’s basically Leon Trotsky in a cape and cowl. Someone scribble some bat ears on those posters. Let’s be accurate about this. 

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Apr 30 2009
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Technology and Web

100 Days of Obama’s Facebook Newsfeed

100days

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

100 Days of Obama’s Facebook Newsfeed

Click the link for the rest. 

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Apr 29 2009
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First 100 Days in Photos

Delivering on Change, An Inside Look

The WhiteHouse.gov blog posted a very neato Flickr set of the President’s term so far.

Pete Souza and the White House Photo Office bring us an exclusive, massive, unique look at the President’s term so far.  Take a few minutes to get a different perspective from the images on television every day.

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Apr 28 2009
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Videos

Right America Feeling Wronged on Google Video

Taking a look at the stats I saw the link to this google video. It appears as a referrer, but I still haven’t figured out how it’s exactly referring to the post I did reviewing the documentary. But anyway, if you haven’t seen the documentary, I highly recommend watching it. It’s at sometimes revealing, at sometimes embarrassing, but it gives a you a peek at conservative America. The good, the bad and the ugly.

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Feb 23 2009
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Technology and Web

Raging Against the Machine

The Unabomber was Right

Kevin Kelly has written another amazing tickling-brain post about the scary side of technological progress. The title is more an attempt to catch eyeballs. He states twice in the essay that, off course, he doesn’t think that what the Unabomber did was right. But he does think that Ted Kaczynski was on to something with his theories of how “the machine” is going to enslave humanity.

An excerpt:

Ted Kaczynski, the convicted bomber who blew up dozens of technophilic professionals, was right about one thing: technology has its own agenda. The technium is not, as most people think, a series of individual artifacts and gadgets for sale. Rather, Kaczynski, speaking as the Unabomber, argued that technology is a dynamic holistic system. It is not mere hardware; rather it is more akin to an organism.  It is not inert, nor passive; rather the technium seeks and grabs resources for its own expansion. It is not merely the sum of human action, but in fact it transcends human actions and desires. I think Kaczynski was right about these claims. In his own words the Unabomber says: “The system does not and cannot exist to satisfy human needs. Instead, it is human behavior that has to be modified to fit the needs of the system. This has nothing to do with the political or social ideology that may pretend to guide the technological system. It is the fault of technology, because the system is guided not by ideology but by technical necessity.”

It’s longish, but if you have been aroused by the philosophical implications woven in the Matrix, Fight Club, and the Amish, you’ll love it.

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Feb 23 2009
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Survival of the Schemers

You Don’t Deserve to be Rich

Capitalism, Socialism, Communism… they’re all political and economic theories. Yeah, they have been thrown under the umbrella of political science, but they aren’t a pure science. The keyword here is theory and like all theories, they have flaws. And the flaw of these economical systems is that they are based on the assumed predictability of human behavior, but history has taught us that human behavior is anything but unpredictable.

For a long time, capitalism has been the system that we most trust. We believe in it because it’s the best system that “gives a shot” to everyone. It gives everyone an opportunity on wealth and how much of it you can acquire depends only on you. “How much effort you put in, is how much reward you’ll receive” goes the saying. But this principle is crumbling.

Matt Miller over at The Daily Beast explains:

Wealth in America increasingly comes not as the proverbial reward of the “free market,” but from rigged compensation systems that reward mediocrity or outright failure. This is causing a brain burp among many professionals — a group I call the Lower Upper Class – because it’s an affront to an idea they’ve cherished since they first started bringing home A’s from school and acing their SATs.

American capitalism is a meritocracy, they’ve always been told, a place where people basically end up economically where they deserve to. Yet you can’t open the paper nowadays without seeing screaming evidence that this notion is a fraud. Does former CEO Kerry Killinger deserve to retire to an island with $100 million after destroying Washington Mutual? Did Bob Rubin deserve his $115 million for making Citigroup a ward of the state? And what about the several thousand less-prominent geniuses across Wall Street who made off with less loot (but tens of millions nonetheless) peddling mortgage-related securities that produced illusory profits?

I still believe that capitalism gives everyone an opportunity at wealth, but it definitely doesn’t give everyone what they deserve.

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Feb 20 2009
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Film and Television

Right America: Feeling Wronged

rightamericaRight America: Feeling Wronged – Some Voices From The Campaign Trail is a documentary done by Alexandra Pelosi, sister of Nancy Pelosi. It’s a film that follows the campaign trail through the so called red states. I don’t follow politics that deeply, but I know that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is viewed by the ultra conservative as a liberal witch lady that likes killing babies or something. So since this is a film done by her sister, the biggest complaint and criticism is that this is another attempt of the “liberal media” at making the conservatives look bad. Many of the interviewees throw this argument at her. One of them had this to say:

“The way the press handles the election, we feel like our side’s never being really represented, never really given a fair shake,” says one man. “It’s almost like they think of us as a bunch of hicks, a bunch of idiots. And they don’t even wanna hear our side or understand us.” 

Fair. It’s a completely valid argument and it’s what drew me in to watch the documentary. I wanted it to shatter my pre-conceived notions and the stereotypes that the “liberal media” has sold me. But what it got me was freaked out that there are actually people that are completely unapologetic about their racism. And these are not old white grandpas, but young people. People that believe that FOX news is balanced. People that doubts Obama’s religious affiliation. 

There’s an interview over at Salon.com with Alexandra Pelosi discussing the film and she warns that we shouldn’t focus on the crazies that say that Obama is the Antichrist. She believes she was fair and there are hundreds of “sane and normal people” that just simply disagree with Obama’s politics. It’s true, but those sane and normal people, don’t give any reasonable argument that isn’t an ideological stance. That is, they cling on to issues like gay rights and abortion like it’s the only conservative stance that’s going to save the country. Alexandra explains that the people willing to talk on camera are a certain kind of people, and that the intelligent and reasonable are less willing to talk, but that’s not a good reason to justify, excuse, and tolerate racism and flat out stupidness.

I’m sure the “left side” has it’s crazies too. There are probably people that believed that if McCain won, he would take us to WWIII. Politics is just a faux-civilized form of tribalism and it tends to bring up the ugly side of people. But I don’t believe this was a battle of the liberals vs the conservatives or right vs left. This was a battle of practicality vs ideology and this time practicality and reason won.

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Dec 04 2008
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Technology and Web

The Problem with the Idea of “Personal Blogging”

Daily Show’s Jon Stewart interviewed Arianna Hufftington promoting the book The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. This interview encapsulates my biggest beef with the eternal “what is a blog” argument. People like Arianna Hufftington and other “weblebrities”, keep perpetuating this idea that blogging is about being personal and intimate. That you should write about your passions and even your “secret passions”. That it’s ok to publish that first draft, because as she says to Stewart, “first thoughts… best thoughts”.

The problem with that is that you’re never going to get really get good at “blogging”, and writing for that matter, spitting out your first mental fart about x topic. Sure, you will always find an “audience”, but it won’t be as big if you actually take a little more time, try harder, and just simply ask yourself if what you have  to say matters.

There’s a part in the interview that gets at the gist of the problem with the “what is a Blog meme”. Part of the interview is resumed below:

Stewart: But write about your passion, write about what you know… isn’t that the essence of writing? What is blogging? How is that different?

Huffington: The difference about blogging is that as we say now… rule #2, first thoughts… best thoughts. Like don’t over think it. Don’t over write it. It’s more of a way you would email a friend.

Stewart: It’s a first draft.

Hufftington: It’s a first draft of history. For example, email a friend or blog about… Your show… How many people haven’t blogged about the fact that you compared Keith Olberman to Sean Hannity.

Stewart: What? How many people blogged about it? I don’t know?

Hufftington: On the Hufftington Post many people blogged about asking, “Can you believe that Jon compared Keith Olberman to Sean Hannity?” So the idea is that you blog about that.

Stewart: But doesn’t that seem like a waste of people’s time? Shouldn’t those people be out discussing cheese?

Hufftington: That’s actually a very good point your making. Because…

Stewart: But how is that different… It’s just a larger… When you say blogged about it… I’m confused know with the difference between… you know, lets say a guy like Josh Marshall who is doing the Talking Points Memo and it… really analyses issues and just people commenting. Just commenting like, “I think he’s a dick for saying something I disagree with” is different than…

Huffintington: Absolutely. And thats were we cover the spectrum in the book from the kind of thing that Josh Marshall does to what we do, which is breaking stories….

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Stewart: You asked me backstage, when are you going to blog for me and I said to you, I have a television show. So when I have thoughts I put them in the little screen in the living room.

Hufftington: But I bet you have more thoughts than what you use in the show. As you know I’m a blogging evangelist….

Stewart: But why should I give people the dreck? Shouldn’t I try to and focus it and make it as good as I can? Because my other thoughts… there’s a reason I haven’t put them in the show.

Also check out these videos were Jon Stewart gets asked by Hufftington why he doesn’t blog. His reply is priceless.

The beauty of the web is that everyone can express themselves, but don’t make self expression and opinion into something more than it actually is. The interview captures everything that’s wrong with defining blogging as personal opinion and as something more profound than it actually is. Again, there’s nothing theoretically wrong with everyone expressing and sharing themselves online, but because you can, it doesn’t mean that you should. 

I don’t read the Hufftinton Post, but by taking a look at it, I’m pretty doubtful that they get read a lot because they’re intimate, personal, and post immediately the first draft.

The problem is not that the word “blog” or “blogging” is defined erroneously, that’s beside the point and who cares by now when it means so many things to so many different people. The real problem is saying and promoting the idea that writing about everything that you think about, without giving it much thought before hand, is going to lead you somewhere. It’s not.

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