The worst of winter hits us all this time of year. The darkness of the Soltice takes a month or so to sink in, and we have arrived in our discontent of Winter right on schedule. This is a time for friends and family huddling up with whatever warmth we have. I’m very pleased to have seen how many friends I have out on the internet, just in time for the chill outside.
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Yearly Archives: 2009
Stupid Like a Fox
It’s a common problem in the nooze lately. A story is told with blank objectivity over a few minutes of radio time or a several column inches of newspaper. It may have a decent interjection of context in the form of a short history lesson or a few juicy quotes that allow the participants to describe why they did what they did. Yet, in the end, there seems to be something missing. The story, despite the best efforts of the reporter, still just doesn’t make sense.
Spontaneous
A record 4.6 million people are drawing unemployment checks, and as many as 2 million could join them in the next year. That may seem like a Depression to some people, but what we can be sure of is that these losses will not be felt evenly. As companies opt to cut the highest paid workers through buy-outs, you can be sure that the Baby Boomers, ages 45 to 63, will disappear fast than anyone else. That means that one effect we can be sure of is faster generational change.
Awards
This week voting continues for the 2008 Weblog Awards, and I am proud and humbled to be a finalist in the category Best Culture Blog. With a tremendous number of new visitors coming through and wondering just what this mess of language is all about, this is a good time to explain myself. What is my point, after all? As usual, I’ll answer that by questioning the value of blogging in the first place, and then point you to a few other nominated sites that I hope you’ll consider alongside Barataria. Hopefully it’ll all work out.
Ad Value
During a recent marathon of “The Twilight Zone”, my daughter and I saw the classic figure many times over. Not Rod Serling and his smoldering cigarette, but the figure of a driven, successful young man from the black and white world of fifty years ago. Every time a character was given the Zonal treatment for his exhaustion, tension or ennui it was a man who had made it to the top of the leading occupation of the day: Advertising. Clearly, this was what the industrial machine of the USofA’s Baroque Era saw as the pinnacle of success.
Barataria - The work of Erik Hare 