blog posts unwritten by TiR in August 2010
(a partial list of topics)
:on the likely next step, in the USA, beyond last year's sometimes tiresome & predictable speculations about the "
optimism gene": speculations about a "tea partier gene"
idle & gloomy reflections on:
Darwinian politics;
the Pleistocene-era "Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness" (EEA);
the purveyors of the new social darwinism, or the truth about (the new) de-evolution;
the cultivation and harnessing of the energy behind consumer panics;
who can profit, and how, from a wider urge towards hoarding behavior;
the popularization and encouragement of interpersonal mercantilism & beggar-my-neighbour mentality;
(the mercantilist roots of the original Boston Tea Party); and
research studies, and probably overly reductionistic conclusions drawn therefrom, of the possible neurochemical roots of the brain's switchover to constant zero-sum thinking under perceived conditions of stress, fear, competition & scarcity.
on the economics of informed, democratic deliberation during the first Great Recession of the subscription-only cable TV/internet news & information age:
for example: whither the fate of cable TV in the USA, with increasing numbers of long-term unemployed
99ers?
on the likelihood of a shift away from the frivolous in cable TV reporting and commentary?
. . . as unemployment increases, and subscribers and viewership drop off, will cable news producers, out of concern for their bottom line, wake up and begin to show a new seriousness and maturity about economic and social issues?
. . . Yes?
No, and no!
On the contrary -- at least for the time being:
DirecTV, Cablevision Sales Rise as People Watch Television to Save Money
DirecTV, Cablevision Systems Corp. and Time Warner Cable Inc. reported second-quarter sales that beat analysts’ estimates, signaling consumers are continuing to spend on pay-TV programming as the economic recovery sputters. . . .
Consumers may be putting more value on their time at home and curbing restaurant and cinema visits, benefiting the pay-TV providers, said Tom Eagan, an analyst at Collins Stewart LLC in New York. More Americans than projected filed applications for unemployment insurance last week, indicating firings remain elevated as the U.S. economic growth moderates.
"Cable and satellite has been relatively recession proof," Eagan said.
a new government economic stimulus program, dreamed about by
TiR:
vouchers for the purchase of new interview suits, two for each of the long-term unemployed, of a larger size and waistline, to take into account all the weight gained during depressing months out of work, and the unemployed's resulting inability to fit into their previous interview suits and go job hunt; . . .
. . . and the regulatory requirement that one of the new suits must be charcoal grey in color.
on Japan's newly
rediscovered (by some) "Lost Decade":
How "lost" was it really? One pair of columnists last year offered an answer:
Yet while Japan has been used as a cautionary tale, in many ways even at the peak of its recession Japan remained better off than the United States today. Japan did not see its middle class disappear into swelling rates of poverty and unemployment. And Japan was not plagued by growing class resentment. Its inequality remained modest and its large corporations did not have bloated CEO salaries, including at those firms receiving government aid. . . .
While unions in both Japan and the United States have declined in recent years, the level of unionization in the United States today is about half that in Japan. And in nonunion Japanese corporations, human capital still is valued more deeply.
(& how the above dovetails w/ some of Geoghegan's recent thoughts)
On the other hand, to the extent it truly was "lost," who might have been the "winners"? One set of candidates: temporary employment agencies.
on F. Castro's latest
reading . . . and
Adorno as the
sixth Beatle?
on a possibly even deeper (related?
?) conspiracy: Mr. Justice Mervyn Davies, who
presided over the J. Lydon v. M. McLaren
battle royal: an office-holding
Freemason?
on the urgent need for new taxonomy and analysis of the proliferating, subtle varieties of ignorance in America, i.e.:
wilful ignorance;
knowing ignorance;
like, y'know . . . you know. . . knowing ignorance;
feigned ignorance;
tactical ignorance;
ironic ignorance / "ignorance" in quotes;
plausible deniability ignorance;
coy ignorance;
innocent ignorance;
Big Sort-related ignorance, or shelteredness;
ignorance caused by over-focusing
well-meaning ignorance;
conceptual or terminological confusion;
curable ignorance;
tone-deafness;
general cluelessness;
self-reinforcing ignorance;
low information ignorance;
useful idiot-ic ignorance;
ignorance purposefully cultivated in others, by the knowing;
actively hostile ignorance;
proud-of-being-ignorant;
the new Know Nothing-ism;
ig'nant / plain old ignorant ignorance;
etc., etc.
. . . in the spirit of timely examinations some years back of
b.s.
[3/3/11 edit:
to add to the list:
agnotology, or "culturally-induced ignorance"
as noted by PK, here]
on the high praise deserved by all persons who upload to YouTube tunes by the
great Bébé Manga, and
Afro National.
on what Blogger does not tell you about the hidden powers of its "Publish Post" button, i.e., how the button automatically commences a countdown clock to transform most of one's posts, no matter how painstakingly crafted, sometime after publication, when retrospectively viewed, into masses of transparent stupidities . . . .
and how this post of course will be no exception to the rule of the aforementioned clock.
posted by TiR at 7:01 AM
