Lost Faith

It wasn't supposed to end this way.

Not Stirred

Party Time (& Economics)

Sure, yeah, it is campaign season,
The three of you still checking in here might remember, if you have been checking in here for a while, that I may on occasion opine on the politics.

Maybe not opine, that may be the wrong word...
I might just call people I disagree with simple, dull-witted shitbrids, more than opine.


Rather than talk about the shitbird Whitman's sampler we have been presented with, of late, I thought I might toss out the occasional  piece of reading that gets my head gears turning...

There is no implication that I know anything about anything, when it comes to this stuff.  These days, I try to honor my obligations in this democratic society, by continuing to learn and think about the machinations which shape the world my nephew will be left to live in, down the road, and then apply that consideration, as best I can, to whatever confronts me in a voting booth.


This Richard d. Wolff article on the intersection of our two party political system with market policy, for example, I thought was a rather interesting read.
Here is an outtake, to whet your appetite for economic policy and politics reading.-

However, a much deeper level of discussion about the intersection of politics and economics exists. It concerns economic issues ignored by the mainstream, and questions not raised but rather swept under ideological rugs. Mainstream debates in political economy conceal more than they illuminate. They never explore the complex relation between contemporary politics and the reproduction of the capitalist economic system versus transition to alternatives.

No, the article is not some communist manifesto for our American future.  Just go read it.  There is a point there which is worth turning over in your brain.
You know, just something to ponder on, while these political circus hacks twirl across the evening news...

Goggles

Really odd way to wear goggles...

Win Wait What

"It is not whether you win or lose, it's whether you win."

What?

Martini Monday

When is lunch?

The Big Game

I suppose it is the season of team sports...

College football recently done, now the basketball...
The NFL dealing out another slow build to another Super Bowl.

Never been much of a fan for any of that stuff, as you might know.
I mean if you have tickets to any game, sure, I am going with.
To sit down and watch most sports eek across a television screen, I can skip any of that...


Last weekend I was out and about, for a snack and to tip some glasses.  The inevitable sports stuff was on, on every screen minus one, in my destination pub.  Some big deal NFL action had the crowd exercised and when that had gone to yet another commercial, well, everybody fixated on Midwestern college teams doing the basketball.

And then, oddly, on a tiny TV in the corner was playing some giant ski slalom action.  Not this, obvioulsy, but like this...




Nobody was watching.
I mean, I guess I was.
People didn't even glance at that screen when all the other were commercials for random prescription drugs (for soft dicks, or high blood pressure, high cholesterol, anxiety, depression - no comment on this but clearly targeted advertising).

And I was baffled.


Here were these warriors, heaving themselves off an icy cliff, down the side of a damned mountain.
Bashing barriers, skidding against the glacial abyss, quite literally flying to victory...
Nobody even saw it in their periphery...

All eyes were on some similarly dressed men, in a big room, waiting for other differently attired men to review video footage of their last momentary burst of actual action and tell them to have at it again, but just right after a commercial break...


Now, I know we all bring our own baggage to these things.  We like teams for this reason or another, even me.  It involves us, or connects us to something, perhaps provides an aspirational comfort by association.
Shit, I don't know.  People like sports...

What I was wondering was - do we like certain sports because they have become easily packaged, commodified and delivered?  Is our interest shaped by the delivery of the media content?

Certainly, it must be easier to find two dudes who played basketball somewhere and can carry on conversation about the sport, send them to a game with four guys who can work a camera and deliver that to a television time slot than trying to cover a giant slalom?
Is that why we collectively care about Jayhawks basketball, or NASCAR more than Olympic skiing or the Dakar?
Because it is simply the more convenient, cost effective sporting event to cover and push as content?

(Golf would be the obvious exception to this premise, sure-it's an individual sport, hard to cover, with minuscule actual action, but well represented in the mainstream media.  I'm bullshitting here, so just go with this...)


I mean, I don't know...
People get into that team stuff as kids and maybe keep loving it?
It's fucking winter, so who wants to go freeze when there's beer and nachos - and some game on?
My hometown or alma mater is better than yours, that seems like a big deal to some folks?

Why do you care about the sports you care about?
Are they covered in any effective way, by the media?
Why, still, do women's sports get shafted if we watch for the love of a game?


It's all fine, mindless distraction from whatever awful thing is happening someplace, all the time...

Enjoy the game.

EE C

Bust a 40

Closings and Delays

Hey, Dale!
Fuck you, you're working anyway...




Everybody else, take the day off.

Art & Politics

Right there is some abstract art...


And right here is an article about the political or non-political nature of abstract art.

I recommend the article, but only if that sort of thing/thinking appeals to you.




(The artist behind this bit is Wolfgang Tillmans, by the way.  More in the link.)

Rover

Well, that pushes some buttons, doesn't it?

There is more on this thing over here...

Seen It?

Hey, have you seen this?

Yeah, I did.


I, uhm...


There is a half an hour or so of just listening to Leo breathe heavily.
Heavy breathing, some coughing, wheezing.


Very artful, "performance of a lifetime" huffing.





What this movie needs in more bears...


I guess it is good.
More bears would be better.

I was rooting for the bear.

Well...

Have I shaken off every last reader this damned thing ever had?

Yeah, that was like a nine month broadcast break.  No content on a method of communication declared dead by most tech savvy types.
I guess I went silent on those other channels, as well, now that I think about it...

Audience is over-rated, I think.
Does that guy at the bus stop care about what you think of his rambling diatribe about what people with alternative sexual preferences are doing to the soil around Des Moines, Iowa...for example?
I think not.

I forgot where I was going with that...

And for some reason, I think I will turn the lights back on here.


Perhaps with a different flow.

The prettynotgood-super-computer had a core meltdown, while we were off line, here.
All those folders stuffed full of random pics that served as the no-thought content here were lost.  So, that mindless rhythm will probably have to change.

I may not have anything to say, really.
It may be a continuation of that random river of crap that happens to humor me.
Don't look to lift whatever low already expectations you might have for me or this whole whatever-it-is...
My long time guarantee has always been to disappoint.
Expect that, before anything else.