Thanks to the invention of modern television, we got to witness the public relations horror show that was masquerading itself as the Republican National Convention. In true modern form, I couldn't help but notice how great Mitt's hair looked--nice and thick, greying temples imparting experience and wisdom, but the makeup was a bit too pasty and funeral-esque for me. His skin looked creepy, making his appearance a bit uncanny. Ever since the Nixon and Kennedy debate, candidates cannot go on television without makeup, but tonight it was overdone. Nuance can never be left for the unwashed masses.
Romney's speech was little style, no substance. A career politician with no enduring principals, Romney uttered the usual platitudes about American ethnocentrism, oops, I mean, "American exceptionalism." He talked about his experience as a "business guy," trying to make the connection that somehow this qualifies him to be an effective president. Considering his business was acting as a casino capitalism financier who helped companies send jobs overseas, it is clear why the business community loves him--he would probably be more efficient at dismantling the middle class than Obama. A man who can more quickly accelerate this country's decline into a two-tiered banana republic of rich and poor is just the kind of man who becomes the Republican nominee for president of the United States.
Then there's Paul Ryan. While Romney is simply a careerist robot with no soul--kind of like Bill Clinton--Paul Ryan is actually evil. When he's not busy lying--which is practically all the time--he is worshiping his hero, Ayn Rand. Rand is the author of books proclaiming the benefits of sociopathic selfishness. Hell bent on making sure that the elderly and disabled are denied the meager social safety net and health care benefits that might help them simply to survive, he is lauded as a "serious financial guy" by market fundamentalists. The Ryan House "budget" actually increases the deficit by giving tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, eviscerates Medicare, and increases military spending. Yet somehow, this guy is considered a "deficit hawk?" Only in the final days of a decadent Empire can such foolishness be taken seriously.
The thing that keeps me up at night isn't the fact that corporate money keeps only the most soulless politicians on the payroll. The fact that we are stupid enough to allow this to happen is the thing that bothers me. After all, if we had any critical thinking skills at all, we would see through both Obama and Romney's bullshit. We would see that they aren't serving our interests. We would see through douchebags like Paul Ryan who want to deny health care to disabled people like my father. Instead, we are gullible. We listen to words instead of paying attention to the actions of our politicians. The Wall Street bailouts and the handling of the financial crisis by both Bush and Obama were both intensely anti-middle class.
Obama is better than Romney. I intend on voting for him because I am afraid of the next Supreme Court nomination turning out to be a right wing radical like Justice Scalia. We cannot afford to lose more freedoms at the hands of crypto-fascists like him. But Obama is no saint. He has been a disaster. He could have been like FDR and turned the financial crisis into a real opportunity for change. Instead he squandered his opportunity by kissing Republican ass and trying to accomodate the right. He needed to have more backbone and a fighting spirit. His foreign policy is largely a continuance of the repressive Bush drone attacks, indefinite detention, and extrajudicial killings. He is very largely an Eisenhower Republican. Only in a country as radically right wing as America would he be considered a "socialist." This country is probably more right wing than Iran.
The problem with Romney isn't that he is a soulless, empty suit, who believes in nothing but financial gain at the expense of all else. The problem is that he represents what America has become--a place where short term profit, careerism, superficial looks, and selfishness rule supreme. In a country of millions of people, anyone could have been the Republican nominee. Romney didn't accidentally become the nominee. Ron Paul, a man of integrity, was a real, viable choice who was rejected outright by the people. We chose Romney because he is us--a piece of shit. America is not the exceptional, shining city on the hill. We are a nation of individualists who want to grab our share of the cash, fuck everybody else, because "I gots to gets mine," has become the new spirit of the age.
Obama is more or less the same thing, with a slightly more human touch. He's a nice guy who kills people with attack drones, and he is willing to throw a few scraps to the poor so they won't revolt. But he's no saint. Just like Cornel West said, he is basically a black mascot for Wall Street promoted by the public relations industry. He serves his corporate masters well, although this time they like Romney more, so they've decided to give him a bit more money.
The media coverage of the RNC has been absolutely shameful. On ORA TV, they quite literally had a public relations expert as a panel member discussing the event. As a society, we have become so contemptuous of democracy that we actually have PR guys commenting shamelessly about the event. For supposed "balance," there were the faux-liberal guys and the supposedly right wing pundits like Ben Stein to utter their commentary. We would have been better off listening to the old guys making wisecracks from the Muppets. This kind of "balance" nicely keeps the "debate" within the proper ideological bounds. There is no discussion of substance. We focus on how Mitt's hair looked, the horse race between him and Obama, and whether or not Paul Ryan will bring in more votes. No challenges to the system are mentioned. In a time when the media constantly yammers on about a person's "brand," democracy becomes a commodity, bought and sold to the highest bidder. This reflects a total disregard for democracy.
It is telling that people care so little about the future of their country that the ratings for the convention were terrible. This shouldn't be surprising, considering how few people even bother to vote. They don't care enough to inform themselves and be engaged in the political process. And it's not because they are cynical and believe their votes don't matter--it's because they don't care. As a country, we are so misinformed that there are still a substantial number of people who believe that Obama was not born in America, that Obamacare was going to lead to "death panels" where the government was to decide whether granny would live or die, and morons like "Joe the Plumber' actually are actually considered serious political candidates--a man who shoots fruit with firearms while waxing poetic about Obama's "socialism." The Internet is ubiquitous. A world of knowledge is at our fingertips. Such levels of ignorance are inexcusable.
The problem is that our politicians are us. We elect them. And the picture of America isn't pretty. It's no surprise we are an atomized, selfish culture filled with people who idolize selfish pricks like Steve Jobs, a man who spent his life stealing handicap parking spaces, building sweatshops in China to sell overpriced devices which restrict our freedom, and getting us to build our hopes and dreams around iGadgets which are all style and no substance. Only in America can a man who uses the likeness of Gandhi to sell iCrap at overpriced amounts be worshiped and glorified, while a man like Bradley Manning, who exposes the lies and misdeeds of government be reviled and hated. We are too worried about Mitt's hair to fret over the fact that Manning has been locked up for over 850 days without a trial in solitary confinement, or that the President can now order robotic drones to kill American citizens who are suspected terrorists.
We have made our own bed. Now is our time to lie in it.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Tuesday, August 28, 2012
Why Free Software Matters
In law school, I didn't focus my program based on IP or intellectual property law. Many of my friends who had backgrounds in the sciences and engineering chose to do so and some of them are now patent attorneys. Nevertheless, the subject does interest me. Recently I've been learning more about the Free Software Foundation, run by Richard M. Stallman, founder of the GNU free software license, copyleft, and one of the founding fathers of the GNU/Linux operating system. The areas of copyright, patent and trademark law are all critically important in the Information Age, because more and more of the economy is based on knowledge, not manufactured goods. This means the laws governing how we regulate these areas will greatly affect human well being. Instead of some arcane subject that has no relevance to non-geeks, this is an area that fundamentally affects who we are as citizens, creators, consumers, and workers.
Stallman is the founder of the GNU GPL license, which protects the freedom of the user of software against unfair power being exerted by the authors of software. Usually, this means large corporations with large concentrations of wealth--i.e. Apple and Microsoft.
Here is the definition of free software coming from the Free Software Foundation:
Stallman is the founder of the GNU GPL license, which protects the freedom of the user of software against unfair power being exerted by the authors of software. Usually, this means large corporations with large concentrations of wealth--i.e. Apple and Microsoft.
Here is the definition of free software coming from the Free Software Foundation:
When users don't control the program, the program controls the users. The developer controls the program, and through it controls the users. This nonfree or “proprietary” program is therefore an instrument of unjust power.
Thus, “free software” is a matter of liberty, not price. To understand the concept, you should think of “free” as in “free speech,” not as in “free beer”.
A program is free software if the program's users have the four essential freedoms:
- The freedom to run the program, for any purpose (freedom 0).
- The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
- The freedom to redistribute copies so you can help your neighbor (freedom 2).
- The freedom to distribute copies of your modified versions to others (freedom 3). By doing this you can give the whole community a chance to benefit from your changes. Access to the source code is a precondition for this.
Stallman makes the argument that as the world becomes more digitized, we become more and more dependent upon our machines. When those machines are locked down by the makers of those machines, we become more dependent upon the makers. This reduces our freedom. An analogy he makes is that of a recipe for great soup. What if a chef made a terrific soup, and you wished to make your own. But when you ask him for the recipe, he refuses to share it. Instead, he says "I will make the soup any way you want it, but it will cost you $50,000." After all, he does have a monopoly over how the soup is made (this is what copyright does). "Maybe I will get to making the soup the way you want it in two years. I have a convention to cater so I may or may not get around to it." You would think this is absurd. Yet locked down software code creates a black box that makes altering the software impossible. This alienates you from the devices which affect an increasing share of your life. For tablet and cell phone users, this is no small power.
One of Stallman's biggest concerns is the erosion of traditional freedoms at the hands of technology by so called DRM or "digital restrictions management" technologies. E-books are a great example of this. A normal book cannot be locked out. You are free to share it with a friend, leave it to your heirs, sell it, or keep it indefinitely. Yet places like Amazon and Apple sell you e-books with DRM that limits all of these freedoms. In fact, a few years ago, Amazon reached out to the owners of the Orwellian novel "1984" and took the title off their Kindles after there was a Canadian copyright dispute. How ironic.
Calling sharing "pirating" and equating it with theft is something that erodes the civility of a society. "Piracy", says Stallman, involves the violent raiding of ships at sea and the murdering of the crew. Equating this with sharing is a diseased way to think. It is immoral. It puts you in the awkward position of either being a bad neighbor or not using a software program. Given this dilemma, you are better off not using the software rather than being a bad neighbor.
The other issue is that the sharing of software is something that improves society. Traditional theft involves depriving one person the use of an object to the benefit of another who does not have the right to possess that object. But with digital goods, the sharing of software is more akin to the sharing of ideas, and shared knowledge enriches everyone at the expense of no one. In fact, it is less efficient to arbitrarily deprive the poor of useful software that might help empower them when sharing such knowledge is virtually at no cost to the software author.
But won't people stop writing software if people share their software? This makes the assumption that people only code because they are getting paid. Yet, like art and running, coding is fun. Working on projects, even for free, is rewarding in itself. Just look at the success of the GNU/Linux operating system, which is free, open source, and created mainly by volunteers. The same goes for Firefox, the amazing web browser, Libreoffice and Openoffice are two rivals to Microsoft Office that function beautifully. Thunderbird is an alternative to Microsoft Outlook, and Imgburn is a DVD/Blu Ray authoring program that is much more stable and less bloated than Nero Burning ROM and other crash prone programs. GIMP is an alternative to Photoshop that is very powerful and useful.
While there may be an initial reduction in the amount of software due to programs being free, in the long run the additional collaboration, working out of bugs, and efficiencies built into the free software model will make up the difference.
It is important to note, that Stallman is referring to "free" to mean "free as in freedom" not as in "free beer." Programmers can still be paid for their work. In fact, he envisions a future where programmers are still paid to code, making customized software for private enterprise and providing support for software products. Unlike the Soviet Union where the ability to copy software and documents was heavily restricted and sharers of software were sent to Siberia, or in the United States, where recording industry trade associations send the police in riot gear to raid the homes of teenagers for making copies of Greenday albums, the free software movement is actually more pro-capitalist because it encourages openness, freedom, and customization because the source code can be viewed and modified. It is pro-market and pro-capitalism. It, however, anti-mega corporation. It causes people to become less dependent on the corporation.
This is one of the reasons why I hate Apple so much. Apple is the embodiment of anti-free. The products themselves are locked down so you can't even change the battery without relying on the big brother Apple to do the work for you. You can't change the software because the source code is hidden. On the iPhone, you can't use apps that haven't been censored by Apple. If they don't like something, you don't even get to see it. You don't control the programs. The programs control you. And Apple controls the programs.
Stallman makes the important point that to lose your freedom in the name of convenience ultimately causes the user and society overall to lose. Having your freedom is more important than having a new shiny gadget that is being used to maximize you as an economic commodity, not as a human being.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
The Simple Things, aka Slowing Down A Bit
Yesterday, my wife and I had a modest dinner. For an appetizer, we split a garden fresh tomato. It was perfectly red, ripe, and naturally sweet. With a little salt and pepper, each bite was delectable. The main course was farm fresh Italian sausage, made on the grill with garden zucchini and summer squash. The entire meal came from our neighbor's farm. Sometimes, simplicity is the best sauce. What surprised the both of us was how quickly we became full from just the tomato. Ordinarily, splitting a medium sized tomato wouldn't have this affect. It's almost as if nature had packed it with so many vitamins and fiber, it filled us up in a deeper way. Instead of just taking up stomach space, it actually provided nourishment, and the body could feel it. In response, the appetite felt satiated because the body had finally gotten what it needed.
In a similar way, slowing down helps us to take in the spiritual vitamins and minerals we need. In a time when people are busily running from this scheduled event to that, it is easy to get caught up in the anticipation and not savor the moment. It's a form of spiritual fast food--you can gorge yourself with activity and be starving for meaning. In my own life, I find myself harried on a frequent basis. Running to the post office, the bank, filing things, drafting documents and meeting with clients, it is easy to forget to slow down sometimes. I was looking out the window yesterday and noticing that summer is rapidly drawing to an end. There won't be many more days of the leaves on the trees, and it will be cold here in Ohio. There will be plenty of time for indoor activities.
A friend of mine was the postmaster of a small post office. I used to see him every day. We would chat about this and that. He always took the time to be friendly and make the visit an authentic experience. He was never in a hurry, and the pace of the post office was perfect in this way. It is the little things like this that helps make life more flavorful. He recently retired, and I am going to miss him. In the big push to increase "efficiency", older postal workers are being encouraged to retire while many of the smaller offices are being closed. The lucky ones are only having their hours cut back. It's unfortunate, because these small offices and these seasoned workers in rural areas are like garden vegetables--they taste just a little more sweet because they are closer to home. They aren't rushed, they aren't plucked early and shipped from afar--they are personal and thoroughly human. The same goes for chatting with your local carrier and Saturday delivery. In an increasingly atomized society, the mail carrier is sometimes the only human interaction some folks have all day. As it stands now, we are encouraged to live more and more of our lives interacting with screens--computer monitors, television screens, smartphone screens, and iPad screens. Going to the county fair, I saw more teenagers looking at their phones receiving text messages than the lonely animals and rides begging for attention.
The whole notion of modern "efficiency" is perplexing. Somehow, we have become convinced that it is more efficient to ship jobs halfway across the planet so we can have the Chinese make things. From a bottom line cost perspective, it may be cheaper to make goods this way, but it certainly isn't more efficient, not when you have people needing jobs in the U.S., and not when we used to have factories and an infrastructure designed to manufacture goods and ship them around the U.S. But efficiency in the U.S. is only measured by cost, not by real-impact cost. Externalities don't count. So if I pollute a river to make a pair of shoes and then sell those shoes at a profit but don't have to pay for the environmental cleanup, I am acting "efficiently." Never mind if this costs the community more in medical costs because more children get leukemia. This doesn't count.
In a mad world, obsessed with profit and always running, it is nice to take the time to slow down a bit, enjoy a tasty tomato, and open one's mail--while the postal system still exists.
In a similar way, slowing down helps us to take in the spiritual vitamins and minerals we need. In a time when people are busily running from this scheduled event to that, it is easy to get caught up in the anticipation and not savor the moment. It's a form of spiritual fast food--you can gorge yourself with activity and be starving for meaning. In my own life, I find myself harried on a frequent basis. Running to the post office, the bank, filing things, drafting documents and meeting with clients, it is easy to forget to slow down sometimes. I was looking out the window yesterday and noticing that summer is rapidly drawing to an end. There won't be many more days of the leaves on the trees, and it will be cold here in Ohio. There will be plenty of time for indoor activities.
A friend of mine was the postmaster of a small post office. I used to see him every day. We would chat about this and that. He always took the time to be friendly and make the visit an authentic experience. He was never in a hurry, and the pace of the post office was perfect in this way. It is the little things like this that helps make life more flavorful. He recently retired, and I am going to miss him. In the big push to increase "efficiency", older postal workers are being encouraged to retire while many of the smaller offices are being closed. The lucky ones are only having their hours cut back. It's unfortunate, because these small offices and these seasoned workers in rural areas are like garden vegetables--they taste just a little more sweet because they are closer to home. They aren't rushed, they aren't plucked early and shipped from afar--they are personal and thoroughly human. The same goes for chatting with your local carrier and Saturday delivery. In an increasingly atomized society, the mail carrier is sometimes the only human interaction some folks have all day. As it stands now, we are encouraged to live more and more of our lives interacting with screens--computer monitors, television screens, smartphone screens, and iPad screens. Going to the county fair, I saw more teenagers looking at their phones receiving text messages than the lonely animals and rides begging for attention.
The whole notion of modern "efficiency" is perplexing. Somehow, we have become convinced that it is more efficient to ship jobs halfway across the planet so we can have the Chinese make things. From a bottom line cost perspective, it may be cheaper to make goods this way, but it certainly isn't more efficient, not when you have people needing jobs in the U.S., and not when we used to have factories and an infrastructure designed to manufacture goods and ship them around the U.S. But efficiency in the U.S. is only measured by cost, not by real-impact cost. Externalities don't count. So if I pollute a river to make a pair of shoes and then sell those shoes at a profit but don't have to pay for the environmental cleanup, I am acting "efficiently." Never mind if this costs the community more in medical costs because more children get leukemia. This doesn't count.
In a mad world, obsessed with profit and always running, it is nice to take the time to slow down a bit, enjoy a tasty tomato, and open one's mail--while the postal system still exists.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
The Working Man's Economic Survival Guide
The system isn't set up to benefit the average, working class American. In fact, it is designed to impoverish the average American with unnecessary consumption fueled by the great Chinese credit card. Billions of dollars are spent by the advertising industry to create artificial wants and artificial "needs" in people. The government issues bonds, prints money, and the Chinese buy these bonds. The banks get lent the money, who offer it to consumers to buy things they cannot afford. This is supposed to fuel "economic growth." Unfortunately, this model isn't sustainable. You can only play economic shell games for so long without creating real value before the system collapses. The Chinese are currently in the business of making things. We aren't. Most of our manufacturing was offshored to create short term profits for investors and CEOs. Sure, everyone's lives got ruined, but that's neither here nor there.
After the housing bubble burst and the financial meltdown of 2008, Wall Street got bailed out while Main Street got foreclosed on. Debts were socialized while profits were privatized to the big banks. In a system like this, if you aren't a big investor, you are going to lose. Big time. Due to the corruption of money in the electoral system, change isn't coming, regardless of the next set of elections.
That means you are going to have to rely on self-help if you plan on surviving. The politicians aren't going to look out for your needs, not when they are busy giving large agribusiness more subsidies and cutting food stamps for poor children.
One of the big areas of inflation lately has been food prices. The drought of 2012 is only going to make these worse. People are going to need to start growing their own food. If you have land in the country, this shouldn't be too difficult. Living in the city is more challenging. Thankfully, it only takes a small amount of space to grow your own vegetables, even if you have to do so in flower pots. The other alternative is to join together with our folks in a food cooperative. Everyone pitches in the money to work together in raising a community garden where the food is apportioned. The other benefit is you can choose to grow your food organically and avoid pesticides and herbicides.
Meat is more difficult to come by. I have friends who are big deer hunters. If hunting isn't your thing, then networking with friends who are deer hunters is a great idea. Many catch more than enough meat for themselves and are looking to sell it. The benefit of deer meat is that it is rich with Omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce inflammation in the body and are good for the heart. The same goes for fishing, although you have to be aware of where fish were caught to avoid eating fish contaminated by toxins. Living in the country, you can also find farm fresh eggs at very reasonable cost. The other option is to go together with another family and buy a whole, half, or quarter cow from an Amish farmer. You buy in bulk and pay much less. Many of these cows are not raised on factory farms, so it is much more humane for them. It also supports local agriculture, which is better for the local economy, not to mention how much cleaner pastured beef can be and how much more health it is for the cow because it isn't feeding exclusively on grains which harm the cow's digestive system and make it sick.
Trading is another important survival skill. Much of the time, friends and neighbors have skills you don't. Both of you may be lacking money, but not the need for services. My neighbor is a mechanic. He can open my car hood and tell me what is wrong. I look at a broken down car and make the sign of the cross. I do know about fixing computers. If your computer has a virus, then I can get rid of it. My neighbor isn't into computers, although he has one and needs it to conduct his business. Thanks to the fun of barter, he now has a working computer and I have a running car. Not bad.
But what if you need something that a friend or neighbor can't do? What if you need a plumber but you don't know one? The first thing you should try is to look up the problem on the Internet and try to solve the problem yourself. Many times there are tutorials on Youtube about how to fix things that are much more helpful than looking up the problem in a book with diagrams. Most plumbing repairs can be done with a little patience and a lot of dedication. You just have to be willing to get your hands dirty. But if the problem is beyond you, then all hope is not lost. That's where craigslist comes in. By putting a free ad on craigslist, you can seek a plumber or handyman with experience and make an offer on the price. In a depressed labor market, usually someone will be willing to do the work for a reasonable price. This person might even be willing to barter with you if you have some special skill they need. It could be that his or her computer is broke, too.
Getting rid of TV is the best thing you can do to keep your budget in survival mode. The ads on TV are designed to make you think your life sucks. Just watch TV shows and in them everyone seems rich. Remember "Friends"? Those people had shitty jobs and lived in a super posh apartment in New York. Plus they never seemed to actually have to work. When you live in Manhattan, you have to work your ass off just to live in a broom closet. The same goes for clothing.
The Real Housewives of Whatever live luxurious lifestyles filled with gossip and ease. Seeing how they live can really make you question your own existence. This is especially true with the Kardashians, who are famous for being famous. They buy Bentleys and pose for magazine covers. This is how they "work." Unfortunately, most of us have nothing in common with these kinds of lifestyles.
We aren't in a "Leave it to Beaver" world anymore. America's days of producing things and creating value based on reality seem limited. We are going to become more and more like a Third World country. That means a huge number of poor people and a small number of immensely rich people, like Mitt Romney. The remaining 99% need to start thinking creatively and out of the box if they expect to survive. Now is the time to begin.
The books below are fantastic and highly recommended for the remaining 99%.
How To Survive Without A Salary: Learning to Live the Conserver Lifestyle by Charles Long
Your Money or Your Life
After the housing bubble burst and the financial meltdown of 2008, Wall Street got bailed out while Main Street got foreclosed on. Debts were socialized while profits were privatized to the big banks. In a system like this, if you aren't a big investor, you are going to lose. Big time. Due to the corruption of money in the electoral system, change isn't coming, regardless of the next set of elections.
That means you are going to have to rely on self-help if you plan on surviving. The politicians aren't going to look out for your needs, not when they are busy giving large agribusiness more subsidies and cutting food stamps for poor children.
One of the big areas of inflation lately has been food prices. The drought of 2012 is only going to make these worse. People are going to need to start growing their own food. If you have land in the country, this shouldn't be too difficult. Living in the city is more challenging. Thankfully, it only takes a small amount of space to grow your own vegetables, even if you have to do so in flower pots. The other alternative is to join together with our folks in a food cooperative. Everyone pitches in the money to work together in raising a community garden where the food is apportioned. The other benefit is you can choose to grow your food organically and avoid pesticides and herbicides.
Meat is more difficult to come by. I have friends who are big deer hunters. If hunting isn't your thing, then networking with friends who are deer hunters is a great idea. Many catch more than enough meat for themselves and are looking to sell it. The benefit of deer meat is that it is rich with Omega-3 fatty acids, which reduce inflammation in the body and are good for the heart. The same goes for fishing, although you have to be aware of where fish were caught to avoid eating fish contaminated by toxins. Living in the country, you can also find farm fresh eggs at very reasonable cost. The other option is to go together with another family and buy a whole, half, or quarter cow from an Amish farmer. You buy in bulk and pay much less. Many of these cows are not raised on factory farms, so it is much more humane for them. It also supports local agriculture, which is better for the local economy, not to mention how much cleaner pastured beef can be and how much more health it is for the cow because it isn't feeding exclusively on grains which harm the cow's digestive system and make it sick.
Trading is another important survival skill. Much of the time, friends and neighbors have skills you don't. Both of you may be lacking money, but not the need for services. My neighbor is a mechanic. He can open my car hood and tell me what is wrong. I look at a broken down car and make the sign of the cross. I do know about fixing computers. If your computer has a virus, then I can get rid of it. My neighbor isn't into computers, although he has one and needs it to conduct his business. Thanks to the fun of barter, he now has a working computer and I have a running car. Not bad.
But what if you need something that a friend or neighbor can't do? What if you need a plumber but you don't know one? The first thing you should try is to look up the problem on the Internet and try to solve the problem yourself. Many times there are tutorials on Youtube about how to fix things that are much more helpful than looking up the problem in a book with diagrams. Most plumbing repairs can be done with a little patience and a lot of dedication. You just have to be willing to get your hands dirty. But if the problem is beyond you, then all hope is not lost. That's where craigslist comes in. By putting a free ad on craigslist, you can seek a plumber or handyman with experience and make an offer on the price. In a depressed labor market, usually someone will be willing to do the work for a reasonable price. This person might even be willing to barter with you if you have some special skill they need. It could be that his or her computer is broke, too.
Getting rid of TV is the best thing you can do to keep your budget in survival mode. The ads on TV are designed to make you think your life sucks. Just watch TV shows and in them everyone seems rich. Remember "Friends"? Those people had shitty jobs and lived in a super posh apartment in New York. Plus they never seemed to actually have to work. When you live in Manhattan, you have to work your ass off just to live in a broom closet. The same goes for clothing.
The Real Housewives of Whatever live luxurious lifestyles filled with gossip and ease. Seeing how they live can really make you question your own existence. This is especially true with the Kardashians, who are famous for being famous. They buy Bentleys and pose for magazine covers. This is how they "work." Unfortunately, most of us have nothing in common with these kinds of lifestyles.
We aren't in a "Leave it to Beaver" world anymore. America's days of producing things and creating value based on reality seem limited. We are going to become more and more like a Third World country. That means a huge number of poor people and a small number of immensely rich people, like Mitt Romney. The remaining 99% need to start thinking creatively and out of the box if they expect to survive. Now is the time to begin.
The books below are fantastic and highly recommended for the remaining 99%.
How To Survive Without A Salary: Learning to Live the Conserver Lifestyle by Charles Long
Your Money or Your Life
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Genius of Sarah Silverman
Great satire, when done right, can be enjoyed on multiple levels. While appearing simplistic and relatively crude in cartoonish form, the Simpsons has been a brilliant social satire for over the last twenty years. It is something that educated adults can enjoy while the kids laugh along. Being able to pull of satire well calls for a very delicate mastery not only of the original source material, but an ability to spoof that material in a subtle way without going "over the line."
At the present moment in American history, you can say whatever you want about a person's religion, sexual habits, or drug use and get away with it. So called "shock jocks" employ these mindless tactics to gain audience share in a pathetic attempt to seem edgy and relevant. It's a winning formula only because the average audience is filled with enough unsophisticated dolts who think they are rebels.
But making jokes about a person's race is considered the ultimate taboo. That will get your career tanked faster than anything. As I mentioned earlier, you can't even say "nigger" because it is considered so anathema, people will simply die if they hear the word, so you have to say "the n-word" instead.
Dave Chappelle is hilarious. His short lived "Dave Chappelle Show" poked fun at all races, but not without some measure of controversy. The difference was that because Chappelle was black, he could get away with it. No white person could of done what Chappelle did without Al Sharpton having a heart attack and demanding you bow down before him in supplication.
Sarah Silverman lacks the proper credentials on race to make the same kind of jokes, yet she does it--and gets away with it because of her extreme verbal giftedness. While playing the ironic, socially clueless, girl next door, she effortlessly two steps through the minefield of racial taboos, combining these with a comedy that is smart and dynamic. She is essentially a Garrison Keillor or Stephen Colbert--but with ten times the wit. Silverman makes it all seem so easy. It is only until you think about what she has managed to do with her work that you come to appreciate how verbally agile she actually is.
Even at the age of 21, reviewing her earlier work, there are periods where she spontaneously interacts with her audience, sparring with them and thinking on her feet. She manages to move from one subject to the next, playing with language like a cat with a caught mouse. It's the same sort of skill that would have made her an excellent trial lawyer, or, more artistically, a poet.
Silverman herself is liberal, not racist, and comes from a progressive minded family. In fact, her mother was a photographer for the liberal McGovern for president campaign back in the 1970's. But it's only through the looking up of her background that you discover these details. The great thing about Silverman is that you don't need to--she says one thing but you already know she means another. Dressed up like the devil, she's an angel in disguise.
At the present moment in American history, you can say whatever you want about a person's religion, sexual habits, or drug use and get away with it. So called "shock jocks" employ these mindless tactics to gain audience share in a pathetic attempt to seem edgy and relevant. It's a winning formula only because the average audience is filled with enough unsophisticated dolts who think they are rebels.
But making jokes about a person's race is considered the ultimate taboo. That will get your career tanked faster than anything. As I mentioned earlier, you can't even say "nigger" because it is considered so anathema, people will simply die if they hear the word, so you have to say "the n-word" instead.
Dave Chappelle is hilarious. His short lived "Dave Chappelle Show" poked fun at all races, but not without some measure of controversy. The difference was that because Chappelle was black, he could get away with it. No white person could of done what Chappelle did without Al Sharpton having a heart attack and demanding you bow down before him in supplication.
Sarah Silverman lacks the proper credentials on race to make the same kind of jokes, yet she does it--and gets away with it because of her extreme verbal giftedness. While playing the ironic, socially clueless, girl next door, she effortlessly two steps through the minefield of racial taboos, combining these with a comedy that is smart and dynamic. She is essentially a Garrison Keillor or Stephen Colbert--but with ten times the wit. Silverman makes it all seem so easy. It is only until you think about what she has managed to do with her work that you come to appreciate how verbally agile she actually is.
Even at the age of 21, reviewing her earlier work, there are periods where she spontaneously interacts with her audience, sparring with them and thinking on her feet. She manages to move from one subject to the next, playing with language like a cat with a caught mouse. It's the same sort of skill that would have made her an excellent trial lawyer, or, more artistically, a poet.
Silverman herself is liberal, not racist, and comes from a progressive minded family. In fact, her mother was a photographer for the liberal McGovern for president campaign back in the 1970's. But it's only through the looking up of her background that you discover these details. The great thing about Silverman is that you don't need to--she says one thing but you already know she means another. Dressed up like the devil, she's an angel in disguise.
Sunday, July 15, 2012
How To Fix the American Economy
It should be no surprise as to why the American economy is such a disaster for your average, working class person. Beginning in the 1970's, the Bretton-Woods system that regulated capital markets, prevented speculation on currency, and helped balance the markets was dismantled. Add to this the growth of information technology. Capital could be transferred from nation to nation in the flash of an instant. Trades began to occur by computer. The financial system grew larger than any one nation to control. Outsourcing, thanks to better communication technology, became feasible and profitable. It used to be that 90% of capital was used for productive purposes. Now, the tides have turned--90% of invested capital is used to speculate on currencies. This means no real value is being created. It's no wonder no real wealth in America is being created.
It is a large shell game. Unlike the 1930's, the new technology isn't going to go away. Blue collar jobs are going to China and if power remains in the hands of large multinational corporations, these jobs aren't coming back. White collar jobs are next. This means engineers, lawyers, scientists, and other professions are being outsourced to highly educated countries like India. After all, an email travels just as fast to India as it does to the office in Boston. Those with vocational skills are safe--at least temporarily. We still don't have robots to act as truck drivers, plumbers, and carpenters.
All of this is supposedly to increase "efficiency." The problem is that using fuel to ship materials half way across the planet just to exploit cheap labor is hardly efficient. It is cheaper, yes, but certainly not efficient. It was not efficient to mothball already existing factories in the U.S. to move them to China. But in our system, the costs, or "externalities," are not factored into the bottom line prospectus so these things don't matter. So, for example, if you build a factory and pollute a river that costs millions of dollars of public funds to clean up and costs millions of dollars in health care costs to families with children who develop leukemia, these don't count. So long as the next quarter's profits are good, then all is well. And if the CEO doesn't follow this formula, he or she gets fired. That's the way things work.
Because of the corrupt campaign system, only those politicians who cater to the needs of special interests with deep pockets get elected. This isn't going away. The sad thing is that the populace has become so indoctrinated, so docile, and so propagandized that the flood of special interest money works so well. It should be that people are educated enough to see through the obvious lies and deception contained in political advertising. Yet they don't. In school, children need to be taught critical thinking skills and should learn in civics and economics how marketing and propaganda work so they aren't deceived. Yet we are going in the opposite direction. Children are forced to take an endless series of mindless standardized tests which require them to memorize basic facts and perform other mundane tasks.
After having the benefit of working longer hours for lower pay, people are tired when they get home. They don't want to work at reading several newspapers, analyzing the news, and breaking things down. They want to relax. This means worrying more about what Kim Kardashian or Snooki are doing. Being tired also helps break down your defenses. So when the newest political advertisement for some jerk or another comes on, they are more easily sucked in.
Sometimes, there is a candidate that does in fact stand out and isn't totally eliminated by the system. Ron Paul would be a good example. He actually has integrity and is calling for real, meaningful reform. But the media have done their best to shut him out. On NPR, Don Siegel chided Paul for even exercising his right to run for President. Fox News is hardly more sympathetic. The media has a way of limiting the range of political discussion. They will select one supposedly "left" pundit and one supposedly "right" pundit and let them go at it. That is supposed to be "balanced" coverage. The system frowns upon having a wider area of discussion because this would be offensive to its advertisers, who don't want their entrenched interests compromised. The media themselves are corporations. So, for example, on Fox News you aren't going to see advocates of laws which break up the highly consolidated media industry. Rupert Murdoch would never allow that to happen, not with his ownership of multiple newspapers, TV channels, cable TV holdings, magazines, and everything else he owns. The same goes for MSNBC. You aren't going to be getting advocates of worker owned, collaborative corporations making their pitch on a station owned by General Electric.
Things could get better. We could have a surge in manufacturing here in America once again. We could make it happen if we worked together and organized. The problem is that we are competing against a massive, very well organized, and serious lobby that doesn't want to be challenged. It wants to keep the masses docile, uninformed, and in the dark. Overcoming this isn't easy. Thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook, people in the Middle East organized to overcome some very brutal regimes. These technologies can help people get together in America as well. But sometimes it takes a disaster to get people mobilized. The financial meltdown was that opportunity a few years ago but it was squandered. Given the current direction of the country, it may take another crisis before enough people are angry enough to favor real change. In the mean time, we are heading toward Third World status, with a few rich and an overwhelming number of poor.
It is a large shell game. Unlike the 1930's, the new technology isn't going to go away. Blue collar jobs are going to China and if power remains in the hands of large multinational corporations, these jobs aren't coming back. White collar jobs are next. This means engineers, lawyers, scientists, and other professions are being outsourced to highly educated countries like India. After all, an email travels just as fast to India as it does to the office in Boston. Those with vocational skills are safe--at least temporarily. We still don't have robots to act as truck drivers, plumbers, and carpenters.
All of this is supposedly to increase "efficiency." The problem is that using fuel to ship materials half way across the planet just to exploit cheap labor is hardly efficient. It is cheaper, yes, but certainly not efficient. It was not efficient to mothball already existing factories in the U.S. to move them to China. But in our system, the costs, or "externalities," are not factored into the bottom line prospectus so these things don't matter. So, for example, if you build a factory and pollute a river that costs millions of dollars of public funds to clean up and costs millions of dollars in health care costs to families with children who develop leukemia, these don't count. So long as the next quarter's profits are good, then all is well. And if the CEO doesn't follow this formula, he or she gets fired. That's the way things work.
Because of the corrupt campaign system, only those politicians who cater to the needs of special interests with deep pockets get elected. This isn't going away. The sad thing is that the populace has become so indoctrinated, so docile, and so propagandized that the flood of special interest money works so well. It should be that people are educated enough to see through the obvious lies and deception contained in political advertising. Yet they don't. In school, children need to be taught critical thinking skills and should learn in civics and economics how marketing and propaganda work so they aren't deceived. Yet we are going in the opposite direction. Children are forced to take an endless series of mindless standardized tests which require them to memorize basic facts and perform other mundane tasks.
After having the benefit of working longer hours for lower pay, people are tired when they get home. They don't want to work at reading several newspapers, analyzing the news, and breaking things down. They want to relax. This means worrying more about what Kim Kardashian or Snooki are doing. Being tired also helps break down your defenses. So when the newest political advertisement for some jerk or another comes on, they are more easily sucked in.
Sometimes, there is a candidate that does in fact stand out and isn't totally eliminated by the system. Ron Paul would be a good example. He actually has integrity and is calling for real, meaningful reform. But the media have done their best to shut him out. On NPR, Don Siegel chided Paul for even exercising his right to run for President. Fox News is hardly more sympathetic. The media has a way of limiting the range of political discussion. They will select one supposedly "left" pundit and one supposedly "right" pundit and let them go at it. That is supposed to be "balanced" coverage. The system frowns upon having a wider area of discussion because this would be offensive to its advertisers, who don't want their entrenched interests compromised. The media themselves are corporations. So, for example, on Fox News you aren't going to see advocates of laws which break up the highly consolidated media industry. Rupert Murdoch would never allow that to happen, not with his ownership of multiple newspapers, TV channels, cable TV holdings, magazines, and everything else he owns. The same goes for MSNBC. You aren't going to be getting advocates of worker owned, collaborative corporations making their pitch on a station owned by General Electric.
Things could get better. We could have a surge in manufacturing here in America once again. We could make it happen if we worked together and organized. The problem is that we are competing against a massive, very well organized, and serious lobby that doesn't want to be challenged. It wants to keep the masses docile, uninformed, and in the dark. Overcoming this isn't easy. Thanks to social media like Twitter and Facebook, people in the Middle East organized to overcome some very brutal regimes. These technologies can help people get together in America as well. But sometimes it takes a disaster to get people mobilized. The financial meltdown was that opportunity a few years ago but it was squandered. Given the current direction of the country, it may take another crisis before enough people are angry enough to favor real change. In the mean time, we are heading toward Third World status, with a few rich and an overwhelming number of poor.
Monday, July 9, 2012
Embracing E-Readers
Originally a skeptic, it took me a long time to become convinced that an e-reader was a good idea. When you buy a paper book, you get to keep it, lend it, and do whatever you want with it. Because it is an analogue medium, it is readable by the human eye and doesn't require special software to access its content. There is a romantic feel about an old, luxurious library filled with knowledge contained within its ancient texts. My fear that one day paper books would become obsolete remains.
My initial distrust was over DRM technology. E-readers that use DRM technology limit what you can see if you change devices, or if you upgrade your equipment. As an iPod owner, I remember buying music off iTunes and then being unable to transfer my music to another computer or re-load it after my iPod crashed and needed reformatting. It was hell. Refusing to pay for the same thing twice, that was my final time buying music from iTunes. Apparently Apple has done away with its DRM technology, but the bitter taste in my mouth still hasn't gone away. If I am going to pay for a book, damnit, I expect to be able to read it forever.
When the Cleveland Public Library System started lending out e-books, my curiosity was piqued. I could get books electronically, eliminating my need to drive to the library. Plus, there would be no more late charges because the content would simply not be accessible anymore, so there wasn't anything to return. Another benefit was the access to free books, such as from Project Gutenberg, which provides access to thousands of out of copyright books. These include everything from classics to art to history. Not bad. No more waiting for library materials to arrive through the interlibrary loan system. The books were available for download immediately.
The final issue was my arthritis. Heavy books hurt my joints to hold for long periods. They are also hard on my back to carry. The other issue was space--I used to have piles and piles of books all over my bedroom and spread all over my bed, making a huge mess and a pain in the back if you accidentally jumped into bed on top of a rock-like hardcover. The e-reader can hold thousands of books with no mess, little weight, and tons of portability. So I decided to take the leap when the Kindle Touch arrived. Originally I liked it. However, the firmware for the device was garbage. It would lock up and nothing would undo it. I looked up the problem online and apparently other Kindle Touches suffered the same fate. The device would permanently brick itself. So it went back to the store. I traded it in for the Nook Simple Touch. This was the device I was looking for. The firmware was rock solid. No crashes whatsoever. In fact, I have used mine since last November and it has never crashed, not even once. The pages "turn" quickly with a swipe. The processor has no problem keeping up with the demands of reading a book comfortably. It has a micro SDHC slot so one can add extra memory. I bought a 32 gb card. This gives me enough space to hold over 64,000 books. That is essentially the same amount as a medium sized public library. Not bad. The text itself is crisp and the device is so lightweight it feels more comfortable to hold for long periods than a regular book.
My non-copyrighted books are in a non-DRM based epub format, which means I won't have DRM problems transferring materials in the future. The amount of paper saved because of this device is incredible. Instead of printing long Supreme Court cases while doing legal research, I can download my cases, save them in pdf format and then convert them to epub format and read them on my Nook. This means reams of paper saved. The environment is smiling right now, and so am I, thanks to my Nook.
I hate to say it, but I've become so used to the large, crisp text of my Nook that I actually prefer it to my paper books. I have to admit I've become a full convert to the e-reader revolution. Now, I get upset when forced to read "regular" books. I hope the old, beautiful libraries aren't doomed...
Other Places to Get E-Books
Open Library
Internet Archive
Google Books
Clevnet E-Media Library Collection
My initial distrust was over DRM technology. E-readers that use DRM technology limit what you can see if you change devices, or if you upgrade your equipment. As an iPod owner, I remember buying music off iTunes and then being unable to transfer my music to another computer or re-load it after my iPod crashed and needed reformatting. It was hell. Refusing to pay for the same thing twice, that was my final time buying music from iTunes. Apparently Apple has done away with its DRM technology, but the bitter taste in my mouth still hasn't gone away. If I am going to pay for a book, damnit, I expect to be able to read it forever.
When the Cleveland Public Library System started lending out e-books, my curiosity was piqued. I could get books electronically, eliminating my need to drive to the library. Plus, there would be no more late charges because the content would simply not be accessible anymore, so there wasn't anything to return. Another benefit was the access to free books, such as from Project Gutenberg, which provides access to thousands of out of copyright books. These include everything from classics to art to history. Not bad. No more waiting for library materials to arrive through the interlibrary loan system. The books were available for download immediately.
The final issue was my arthritis. Heavy books hurt my joints to hold for long periods. They are also hard on my back to carry. The other issue was space--I used to have piles and piles of books all over my bedroom and spread all over my bed, making a huge mess and a pain in the back if you accidentally jumped into bed on top of a rock-like hardcover. The e-reader can hold thousands of books with no mess, little weight, and tons of portability. So I decided to take the leap when the Kindle Touch arrived. Originally I liked it. However, the firmware for the device was garbage. It would lock up and nothing would undo it. I looked up the problem online and apparently other Kindle Touches suffered the same fate. The device would permanently brick itself. So it went back to the store. I traded it in for the Nook Simple Touch. This was the device I was looking for. The firmware was rock solid. No crashes whatsoever. In fact, I have used mine since last November and it has never crashed, not even once. The pages "turn" quickly with a swipe. The processor has no problem keeping up with the demands of reading a book comfortably. It has a micro SDHC slot so one can add extra memory. I bought a 32 gb card. This gives me enough space to hold over 64,000 books. That is essentially the same amount as a medium sized public library. Not bad. The text itself is crisp and the device is so lightweight it feels more comfortable to hold for long periods than a regular book.
My non-copyrighted books are in a non-DRM based epub format, which means I won't have DRM problems transferring materials in the future. The amount of paper saved because of this device is incredible. Instead of printing long Supreme Court cases while doing legal research, I can download my cases, save them in pdf format and then convert them to epub format and read them on my Nook. This means reams of paper saved. The environment is smiling right now, and so am I, thanks to my Nook.
I hate to say it, but I've become so used to the large, crisp text of my Nook that I actually prefer it to my paper books. I have to admit I've become a full convert to the e-reader revolution. Now, I get upset when forced to read "regular" books. I hope the old, beautiful libraries aren't doomed...
Other Places to Get E-Books
Open Library
Internet Archive
Google Books
Clevnet E-Media Library Collection
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