west world

The Tea Party movement could have been a legitimate protest against US government intrusion in what should otherwise be private affairs, but this new coalition of libertarians have transformed into something quite different--like a band of cowboys lead by Yosemite Sam and Miss Kitty, and this sort of sage brush, gun smoke justice is one that removes all the trappings of civil society. J. J. Rousseau (Dy-no-mite) argued that a functional republic is held together by a social contract, whose government is lent power through the consent of the governed.

The Tea Partiers would elevate themselves above all obligations, civic duties, altogether, and try to realize this sort of cowboys and indians fantasy. It is not unadulterated democratic goals, however, that they are striving noisily for, rather, it is just to unseat whatever new meddlesome, benevolent, or indifferent force that has their old unseated meddlesome, benevolent, or indifferent corporate interests. The Tea Party is not offering reform or a real alternate in their jumbled vitriol, only an uncomfortable choice between two masters, which tries to vacillate among the better qualities of both.

Sophitry can be a dangerous thing, especially if other societies interpret this model as sustainable or honest.  If the sheriff is a socially responsible government, then the public activities are guided and within the framework of general will and overall welfare, and if the sheriff is some corporate entity, there are no inconvenient laws and regulations and greed becomes a means, a measure and an end.  The military-industrial complex can afford security, but its charges, untempered by rights and government leveling, can quickly fall from favour.  Companies may be able to do things more nimbly without bureaucracy and checks and balances, but it is government regulations that give a company motivation to improve its products and services.  Skirting regulations or moving to abandon them altogether accomplishes nothing.  Life gets rather nasty, brutish and short.

middle earth or hope 2.0

Time Magazine has an interesting interview session with Arianne Huffington on her latest bleak and honest take of America's rapid decline into Third World nation status.  I distinctly remember watching talk shows when I was younger, especially late night ones like Joan Rivers on the UHF Fox channel, and the moment of coming to the realization that my celebrity friends were doing the talk show circuit not just to pay a cordial visit to the hosts and not just for the audience's entertainment but rather to promote their latest book or movie or political campaign.

That felt kind of hollow, that their agents were coordinating these charm offensives, but I think the venues and outlets available today have changed the message, and in many cases it is an occasion for dialogue and not just publicity.  Like her aggregator and forum, the Huffington Post, I am sure her book is a dire and desperate clarion, but for those with the stamina to read further than the groping headlines, like Time's reporter echoed, the book's second part, after the morbid assessment, has some brighter prescriptions on what to do and what could be America's reprieve.  It makes me want to compare Obama to Don Quixote, but not just for dare-devil hopes and certainly not for mistaken delusions, but for the author, Miguel Cervantes, having to deal with libel in his own time, ghost-written adventures and unauthorized biographies on his main characters.  There was a difficult choice to face between indulging bewitchment and moving towards disenchantment.  The photograph is from the seaward facing wall of the ruins of the resort at Prora during our trip to the Baltic coast over the summer.  There was a mural with "Yes, we hope."  I am not sure how recently the art work was added or the original message, but the world should certainly never leave off wanting to remain informed and hopeful.

with what shall I fix it, dear liza, dear liza

As the Washington Post reports, debt and infrastructure and regulatory shortcomings have dulled the competitive edge of American business. I believe that it is not only the Americans that subscribe to American-Exceptionalism, and the whole world over expects something superlative and undeniable, self-assured to come out of that nation. Switzerland still directs the most sophisticated game going, but America is slipping in the ranks.

The US, and other nations on the decline, are also suffering due to diminished future prospects and lack of a clear policy direction that can help them address it. While I understand that the World Economic Forum projects its ratings based on economic criteria, the resulting descriptors, like competitiveness, nimbleness and adaptability, remind me a lot of Geert Hofstede's indices and cultural framework as factors that limn business relations. I wrote a few papers on the subject for school and found it to be pretty fascinating material. National character determines whether a people are risk adverse and the attitude they take in forming partnerships, but I wonder how these influences look in reverse. Does an injury to one's national security change the scales from cultural individualism towards collectivism--or vice-versa, and for entrenched ideas for power distance?  Culture is more permanent, surely, than daily shocks and sputters and definitely not monolithic, but historically, I feel, one's dealings matched and were supported by their cultural totems.

zan & jayna

Chair--form of sofa. Students at École polytechnique fédérale in Lausanne, France are experimenting with intelligent, modular furnishings, Roombots, that autonomously reconfigures itself to suit the situation, like a dining table lowering to a bed, extra rows of chairs shape shifting in a conference table, or even an unneeded office suite transforming, desk, chairs and all, into a cubicle wall or shelving unit.  Aware of independent components, smaller units divide and unite according to design and need.  Developments from such prototypes could really innovate space utilization, in conference centers and exposition halls, museums, warehouses (where the shelves are the forklifts), day care centers and hotels, not to mention greater flexibility to the tiny home movement by making better use of a modest footprint.

public service announcement

Diploma mill university did not saddle me with an excessive student loan burden, but the more I peek and poke around it, eying to undercut any exorbitant interest payments for myself and not bankroll the loan sharks, the more I realize what a tar pit of inescapable debt, and perhaps the next financial bubble student loans are.

College Scholarships makes the issue, the game, wholly accessible, if still indigestible, with their infographic (what does that even mean? Rebus sentence, collage, vanity license plate?) in the marginalia.  While at the height of the mortgage, sub-prime lending crisis--which the US has not exactly recovered or apparently gleaned much of a lesson from either, defaults on something so serious as home and hearth hovered at around a quarter of households.  Student loan default rates for recent graduates, however, range from 30% to 60% and that's without any government intervention and forgiveness, which attempts to make amends to keep people from loosing everything, but defaulting on student loans has no recourse.  Ever.  Recent government reform, coinciding with student loan debt surpassing credit card debt in America, only served to cut out the intermediaries and keep more of the profit that high tuition and outrageous, long-lived repayment terms have milked from young people.  Someone in America has the chance to start over through declaring bankruptcy and absolve bad credit, but the government will always recuperate student loans, with interest, for the academics that it vetted.  This sort of servitude is despicable and self-perpetuating, either pushing young professionals to the highest-salaried, most soulless positions that they can find to repay debts or to the citizen service corps to erase accumulated loans.  It is really rather terrifying to think that this sort of abject treatment and cornering could bloom into a great reckoning, especially compared to the nominal cost associated with university any where else in the world, and levels of private impoverishment that would challenge any soverereign debt default.

drizzle, drazzle, druzzle, drome--time for zis one to come home

The privacy debate, and not without good cause, is still part of the German Zeitgeist over Google Maps and Street View.  People, no matter where, should not become complacent to the extent with their private lives or reasonable expectations thereof where they accept any possible encroachment at face value, though what not readily available online, whether unwillingly or freely given, is becoming more and more rare and precious.  To get more acquainted with the vistas that Google affords, however, Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate student Joe McMichael developed this Global Genie that can beam one around the earth at random.