Good news and bad news: Astronomers have discovered the first possible
habitable planet other than earth. It's only 20 light years away, a
serious road trip, but doable in a multigenerational flight.
The good news is that some of us might escape the foolishness of the
contemporary politics, social policies and religious practices that keep
us at each other's throats. Just load the family in a space ship, and our
grand kids could have the good life.
There are downsides. For one, we'd become the illegal aliens and would
probably be unwelcome. Whoever or whatever lives there would not
appreciate us using up their resources and perhaps taking their jobs.
Another problem is that if you and I decide to go there, what's to stop
all the people we're trying to escape from? I'm guessing that in a couple
of generations every whacky ideology that plagues us on earth will be
firmly established on this new planet.
So, on second thought, moving isn't going to work. Perhaps the solution is
an advertising campaign, touting this new planet as the promised land, and
when all the "seekers" and opportunists leave, Earth will once again be
the legendary Garden of Eden .
Thursday, September 30, 2010
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Sociology of beer ads
Let's take beer ads to investigate Americans' capacity for analytical thought. An ad tells you why you should buy something, so beer ads should have something to do with flavor.
The most striking example is a very popular beer that bases its ads on it being cold. Now, anyone who got through 4th grade physical science knows that the temperature of beer is the temperature of the refrigerator. One beer in that refrigerator is a cold as any other. Still these ads draw customers.
Another ad just shows people relaxing on a beach, doing nothing particularly other than sipping beer. Hello. You can relax with any beverage, alcoholic or otherwise. You can relax with a bag of peanuts or with nothing at all.
During sports seasons, beer companies advertise that they sponsor the event. Does that mean the players drink it? The coaches? It only says they paid to put their ad on TV.
By the way, what does "Where there's life, there's Bud" actually mean?
How about a beer that claims its name is the Aussie word for beer?
There is one beer ad that comes to mind that actually talks about the flavor, and that just happens to be the better beer. Funny thing.
Now, if people can be manipulated into buying something as mundane as beer by ads that say virtually nothing about the product, how are they going to react to ads that deal with political, economic, social and religious issues?
The most striking example is a very popular beer that bases its ads on it being cold. Now, anyone who got through 4th grade physical science knows that the temperature of beer is the temperature of the refrigerator. One beer in that refrigerator is a cold as any other. Still these ads draw customers.
Another ad just shows people relaxing on a beach, doing nothing particularly other than sipping beer. Hello. You can relax with any beverage, alcoholic or otherwise. You can relax with a bag of peanuts or with nothing at all.
During sports seasons, beer companies advertise that they sponsor the event. Does that mean the players drink it? The coaches? It only says they paid to put their ad on TV.
By the way, what does "Where there's life, there's Bud" actually mean?
How about a beer that claims its name is the Aussie word for beer?
There is one beer ad that comes to mind that actually talks about the flavor, and that just happens to be the better beer. Funny thing.
Now, if people can be manipulated into buying something as mundane as beer by ads that say virtually nothing about the product, how are they going to react to ads that deal with political, economic, social and religious issues?
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Anti Nuke Activists and Ancient Fears
There seems to be a new chapter in the old "no nukes" story. Recent stories tell of old time activists teaming up with younger ones to oppose nuclear power plants. Regarding the demonstrations during the 70s, a 66 year old activist said, "It was just the correct, moral thing to do."
That comment leads me to think that this person equates nuclear power with bombs, which is like saying that since there are wildfires, it is morally wrong to toss a log in the fireplace of your mountain cabin.
Yes, there have been safety issues with nuclear power, and we still don't have a perfect solution to disposal of used materials. However, any way of generating energy has a downside. When you think of coal fired plants, think of fatal mining accidents, whole mountains destroyed, trainloads of coal crossing the country and millions of tons of greenhouse gasses. Oil fired plants? Well how about the BP gulf oil spill. Hydroelectric plants? Think about inundated valleys, disrupted fish spawning grounds, massively altered ecosystems and the silting up behind expensive dams. Wind farms take up huge tracks of land and kill birds, and solar simply isn't developed enough to fill our needs.
While the debate on whether we should have dropped the bombs on Japan still rages on without closure, and while few people are coming out in favor of using nuclear weapons in the future, the issue of the peaceful use of nuclear power still seems tethered to these old images of destruction.
For years I drove past the San Onofre power plant weekly, never with the slightest fear. The only two high profile nuclear accidents happened many years ago, and France gets a major part of its energy from nuclear power. Our technology gets progressively better and more reliable, and there are many safety measures in place to prevent accidents. We have a viable way of generating the energy we all use daily, and it's high time to put ancient nightmares to rest and move on.
That comment leads me to think that this person equates nuclear power with bombs, which is like saying that since there are wildfires, it is morally wrong to toss a log in the fireplace of your mountain cabin.
Yes, there have been safety issues with nuclear power, and we still don't have a perfect solution to disposal of used materials. However, any way of generating energy has a downside. When you think of coal fired plants, think of fatal mining accidents, whole mountains destroyed, trainloads of coal crossing the country and millions of tons of greenhouse gasses. Oil fired plants? Well how about the BP gulf oil spill. Hydroelectric plants? Think about inundated valleys, disrupted fish spawning grounds, massively altered ecosystems and the silting up behind expensive dams. Wind farms take up huge tracks of land and kill birds, and solar simply isn't developed enough to fill our needs.
While the debate on whether we should have dropped the bombs on Japan still rages on without closure, and while few people are coming out in favor of using nuclear weapons in the future, the issue of the peaceful use of nuclear power still seems tethered to these old images of destruction.
For years I drove past the San Onofre power plant weekly, never with the slightest fear. The only two high profile nuclear accidents happened many years ago, and France gets a major part of its energy from nuclear power. Our technology gets progressively better and more reliable, and there are many safety measures in place to prevent accidents. We have a viable way of generating the energy we all use daily, and it's high time to put ancient nightmares to rest and move on.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
vote to save our parks
It's common knowledge that our state government is dysfunctional, and it's getting so that the only way to get things done is through the initiative process, which ultimately makes state government even more dysfunctional, if that's possible.
While I can't imagine what clever ballot measure will surface to save our schools from being boarded up and abandoned, we do have the chance to at least save our state parks. A yes vote on proposition 21 in November will keep our parks open and good condition for all Californians. An additional 18 bucks when you renew your auto registration will get you in anywhere, anytime, preserving a park system going on 150 years old.
I've heard weak arguments against it. There are a very few people who claim they never go to a park and feel they shouldn't have to pay. Still, there are people who don't go to school but still pay for that. Then there are the anti tax people who don't want to pay for anything, anytime, any place.
The most interesting was the person who said it would be too expensive, as he had four cars and two motorcycles. Let's see, that comes to 108 extra bucks a year. Seems anyone who can afford four cars and 6 bikes can easily come up with 108 dollars.
True, the most popular parks, like state beaches, will have a parking problem, but that can be solved with the extra money.
Don't forget, yes on 21
While I can't imagine what clever ballot measure will surface to save our schools from being boarded up and abandoned, we do have the chance to at least save our state parks. A yes vote on proposition 21 in November will keep our parks open and good condition for all Californians. An additional 18 bucks when you renew your auto registration will get you in anywhere, anytime, preserving a park system going on 150 years old.
I've heard weak arguments against it. There are a very few people who claim they never go to a park and feel they shouldn't have to pay. Still, there are people who don't go to school but still pay for that. Then there are the anti tax people who don't want to pay for anything, anytime, any place.
The most interesting was the person who said it would be too expensive, as he had four cars and two motorcycles. Let's see, that comes to 108 extra bucks a year. Seems anyone who can afford four cars and 6 bikes can easily come up with 108 dollars.
True, the most popular parks, like state beaches, will have a parking problem, but that can be solved with the extra money.
Don't forget, yes on 21
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
red and blue money
Our money isn't keeping up with modern trends. We have the same dull green bills we've had for, probably forever. Green doesn't get an emotional reaction or symbolize anything. Well, I guess it could symbolize the Green party, a very small segment of Americans. We need money that reflects the rest of us.
I propose our money resemble the political maps from the last elections, where we had red and blue states. We should have red and blue money. This way, people could carry the money that reflects their political persuasion. When getting change, a republican could say, "Don't give me that blue cash. I want red."
Every time someone made a purchase, he would also be making a political statement. Also, we could start tracking how people use their money. Do Democrats make better tippers? Do Republicans buy top of the line? Which party buys which beer and how much? We could even color code our ATM cards. Soon we'd have a huge data base that could be used to target the left and right. Of course, the few people in the middle would be ignored and left out.
As this moves from ridiculous to absurd, maybe people will stop and think about what they're doing and that answers to our problems don't come in the choice of black and white, or red and blue. And that if they appear that way, we are probably asking the wrong questions about the wrong problems.
I propose our money resemble the political maps from the last elections, where we had red and blue states. We should have red and blue money. This way, people could carry the money that reflects their political persuasion. When getting change, a republican could say, "Don't give me that blue cash. I want red."
Every time someone made a purchase, he would also be making a political statement. Also, we could start tracking how people use their money. Do Democrats make better tippers? Do Republicans buy top of the line? Which party buys which beer and how much? We could even color code our ATM cards. Soon we'd have a huge data base that could be used to target the left and right. Of course, the few people in the middle would be ignored and left out.
As this moves from ridiculous to absurd, maybe people will stop and think about what they're doing and that answers to our problems don't come in the choice of black and white, or red and blue. And that if they appear that way, we are probably asking the wrong questions about the wrong problems.
Thursday, July 29, 2010
The true secret security organization
Many people have taken the recent news of the expanding security and spy system as being equal to Homeland Security. That seems true on the surface, but in reality, Homeland Security is an office in DC with a head and a couple of assistants. It's a cover, a front, a sham designed to keep people from knowing about the actual organization.
It took months of probing, but I've uncovered the real, super top secret organization, called the Department of Suspicion, Outrage and Paranoia, or SOP for short.
This organization is so secret no one knows who actually works for it. Everyone has a seventeen digit secret number. What's more, no one knows the titles of the operatives. You see, the person hiring someone picks the title and is the only one in the organization who knows who that person is and that he or she actually works there. Each person has the right and duty to hire one subordinate, thus becoming the handler or supervisor for that new person. Each person in the organization, which now has over a half million agents, only knows the identity of two other people, his subordinate and his supervisor. I use "he" because most women, once learning how the department works, want no part of it.
This will be easier to explain with an example. Say a level one agent, an L-1, files a report, which says, "Agent Albert Roberts discovered on June 27 of last year that a 57 year old Al-Qaeda agent, one Salib Maqwarh, a Moroccan national, posing as a food importer, passed vital information to three Saudi men in Fatima's coffee house in downtown Damascus." Now, his supervisor gets this information, and in the interest of secrecy, edits out the names, actual locations and exact dates, leaving something like this: "In June of last year an agent identified an Al-Qaeda agent in a business in Damascus who was passing information to three other men."
Now, the supervisor, who is an L-2, passes the information to his supervisor, an L-3, who knows who he is but not the actual name of the other L-2 who reports to him, since he only hired one subordinate. The L-3 further edits the report to make it fit with the other report, so they look like they were written by one person. The L-3 than passes it up to the L-4, where the process repeats again. This continues up to the top of the chain, the L-17, who consolidates all those reports, further editing for secrecy, so that when the final document crosses the President's desk, it says something like: "Last year in the middle east some agents discovered Al-Qaeda operatives passing information."
Now, since each person can and should hire one other person, by the time you read this the L-1s will have hired another layer, who will then become the new L-1s, moving everyone else up one number and making the top layer now L-18 and adding ten or fifteen thousand new agents, each with a unique title, to the organization.
And that, my fellow citizens, is how we keep America safe.
It took months of probing, but I've uncovered the real, super top secret organization, called the Department of Suspicion, Outrage and Paranoia, or SOP for short.
This organization is so secret no one knows who actually works for it. Everyone has a seventeen digit secret number. What's more, no one knows the titles of the operatives. You see, the person hiring someone picks the title and is the only one in the organization who knows who that person is and that he or she actually works there. Each person has the right and duty to hire one subordinate, thus becoming the handler or supervisor for that new person. Each person in the organization, which now has over a half million agents, only knows the identity of two other people, his subordinate and his supervisor. I use "he" because most women, once learning how the department works, want no part of it.
This will be easier to explain with an example. Say a level one agent, an L-1, files a report, which says, "Agent Albert Roberts discovered on June 27 of last year that a 57 year old Al-Qaeda agent, one Salib Maqwarh, a Moroccan national, posing as a food importer, passed vital information to three Saudi men in Fatima's coffee house in downtown Damascus." Now, his supervisor gets this information, and in the interest of secrecy, edits out the names, actual locations and exact dates, leaving something like this: "In June of last year an agent identified an Al-Qaeda agent in a business in Damascus who was passing information to three other men."
Now, the supervisor, who is an L-2, passes the information to his supervisor, an L-3, who knows who he is but not the actual name of the other L-2 who reports to him, since he only hired one subordinate. The L-3 further edits the report to make it fit with the other report, so they look like they were written by one person. The L-3 than passes it up to the L-4, where the process repeats again. This continues up to the top of the chain, the L-17, who consolidates all those reports, further editing for secrecy, so that when the final document crosses the President's desk, it says something like: "Last year in the middle east some agents discovered Al-Qaeda operatives passing information."
Now, since each person can and should hire one other person, by the time you read this the L-1s will have hired another layer, who will then become the new L-1s, moving everyone else up one number and making the top layer now L-18 and adding ten or fifteen thousand new agents, each with a unique title, to the organization.
And that, my fellow citizens, is how we keep America safe.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Bell, CA: a lesson for us all
There is a huge lesson in the recent developments in Bell, California. After the news got out on how much some people were earning, the townsfolk got the biggest earners fired and the council to take a 90 percent cut in pay. So, you can fight city hall after all, and you, the public, can prevail over the entrenched political machines. So, what's the trick?
The Bell saga points to three steps in the process. First the news of something egregious needs to get out to the public. Openness and transparency is vital to our civic life, as are the people who dig through records and bring these things to the people.
Second, you need a critical mass. People who dislike what's happening go about to the community, stirring people out of their apathy, until a number of people, all with the same issue in hand, constitute a movement.
Finally, there is the demand, not request or humble suggestion, that things change and change now. A large and vocal group confronts the power structure and says it ends right here, right now. The officials have the choice of backing down or beating a hasty retreat out the back door.
Admittedly, it's easier in a small town, a bit harder at the state level and harder still in DC. However, it has been done before, and it can be done again. Get informed; get up and get involved.
The Bell saga points to three steps in the process. First the news of something egregious needs to get out to the public. Openness and transparency is vital to our civic life, as are the people who dig through records and bring these things to the people.
Second, you need a critical mass. People who dislike what's happening go about to the community, stirring people out of their apathy, until a number of people, all with the same issue in hand, constitute a movement.
Finally, there is the demand, not request or humble suggestion, that things change and change now. A large and vocal group confronts the power structure and says it ends right here, right now. The officials have the choice of backing down or beating a hasty retreat out the back door.
Admittedly, it's easier in a small town, a bit harder at the state level and harder still in DC. However, it has been done before, and it can be done again. Get informed; get up and get involved.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)