Goodbye, Once Again, To All That

In the great scheme of things, it was a minor event, I know, but whatever is closest is also always largest, right?

Perspective is one of those magical mysteries of our lives. There is a famous writing exercise, courtesy of the late novelist John Gardner, in which you ask the student to write a description of a pond in a park.

First, write it from the point of view of a young woman who has just now been asked by her boyfriend to marry.

Then, write it from the perspective of an elderly lady, whose abusive husband has just now died.

There may be other parts of the exercise, but you take the point. I have used this, several times, with various groups, with wonderful results. How we humans view our collective reality seems highly dependent on our personal sense of where we stand in the bigger picture around us. Becoming conscious of this fact can inform our ability to create stories, drawings, paintings, music, or even (gasp) algorithms that resonate with others.

Today, I was laid off. There are sad parts to this story: I loved my job, as it was the first in my long life that allowed me to exploit both the verbal and the math parts of my brain. Up until the moment my boss called me into a conference room to tell me the sad news, I was doing my job, as I have done every day since the middle of last May.

Ironically, the last headline I ever wrote for this wonderful content site was "Remember Back When We Had Jobs?"

There must be some strange prescience that flows throw a brain like mine just as I was about to be remaindered. Now, if only I could bottle that!

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Why "No Fear" is the New Teeshirt of Choice

It would seem to be obvious, here in America, with our shameful racist history, but the occasion of the inauguration of our new President raises the horrible possibility that an assassination attempt or some other terrorist event may occur, for the first time in our history.

From what I've been able to glean, the Secret Service should be fully capable of protecting POTUS, but if you consider the massive concentric circles of admirers who will be witnessing this historic event, it does seem that Washington, D.C., may well be vulnerable to a terrorist attack two weeks from last night.

So, only because I am currently the Editor in Chief of Predictfy, I am going to make this prediction: No terrorist event will occur during Barack Obama's Inauguration.

My reasoning? The would-be assassins will never be able to get close enough to cause any damage whatsoever.

The other terrorists of the al-Qaeda stripe, are media whores. What value would they gain by killing some innocent civilians far from the new President? None.

Case closed.

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Things My Kids Teach Me

As some of you may know, I blog professionally about the media industry over at Bnet, which was recently absorbed by CBS. So now I receive a (modest but extremely helpful) monthly check from CBS, which means yet another entry to the short list of media empires who have paid me by during my career -- Murdoch, Time Warner, Hearst, The New York Times, and so on.

The nice thing about covering an industry like media in our era is the oft-noted truism that on the Internet, everyone is a publisher.

Today's post, should you care to check it out is called "What Can a Media Exec Learn From Xbox 360?" It as inspired by the sight of all three of my sons (aged 12-27) grouped around a game console last weekend.

As I watched them, it occurred to me that Microsoft (which makes the Xbox) is doing a lot of things right, in this new age of information technology, even as so many conventional publishers are doing almost everything wrong.

That led to today's work, one of the longest posts I've ever published for Bnet. According to that site's ranking system, whereby users can "recommend" an article, the previous post I did about the XBox last summer was my most popular ever -- over 150 users have recommended it to date.

Maybe this one will someday eclipse that record, who knows. But I'm indebted to my boys for even knowing what an Xbox 360 even is, let alone its implications for the industry where I've spent almost my entire career.

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Time for Change

It was not always this way. (Nothing ever was.) The state of Israel was carved out of the ancient territory 60 years ago that is the birthplace, not only of Judaism, but of Christianity and Islam.

The establishment of Israel was a direct consequence of the holocaust during World War II, and the collective guilt felt by Western governments that were complicit, if only by their silence, in the genocidal extermination of millions of innocent Jews by the Nazis.

First: No one can question Israel's essential right to exist. But, as is the case with any religion-based nation state in this era, why should any of us support this concept?

We live in a global political economy that is not based in any idea of religious law but in the concept of democracy and justice, free trade and tolerance. At the end of the current military drama, and its according humanitarian tragedy, what will have to emerge, not only in Israel, but in Iran and many other religious-based states, will have to be a willingness to compromise in order to be full members of the new world community.

To be blunt: It is time for all people to put aside their religion in matters of governance. There is no place for any private biases in our public business. Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and all other faithful adherents to some faith or another must come to realize that their beliefs are simply private, not public matters.

When I think about Israelis, I cannot help but wonder whether they feel that just because they currently happen to have the upper hand, in pure military strength, courtesy of the U.S., do they therefore feel the horrible suffering they are inflicting on the Palestinians is justified in the eyes of God?

If so, who exactly is that God?

Perhaps the same one Adolph Hitler would have worshiped?

Think about it.

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An American Family, 2009

(Photo courtesy of Derek Chu)

I've been laid low by a vicious stomach flu, as have my younger kids the past few days. The nice thing abot it is I've lost a few pounds.

Now, that is an example of Midwestern optimism.











We'll get into this new year pretty soon, I hope. It feels like everything in America is on hold, waiting for Obama. Expectations are too high, I fear.

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2008: The Year of Celebrities

It was (sigh) yet another big year for celebrities, from Paris Hilton’s cheeky faceoff with Sen. John McCain to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s huge and growing family, to Madonna’s renewed performance success, Kanye West's declaration that he is the "voice of this generation," former child star Lindsay Lohan's relationship with Samantha Ronson, Tom Cruise’s strange antics, and the emergence of teen idols Miley Cyrus (and her controversial Vanity Fair photos) and the Jonas Brothers.

But topping the list was the irrepressible Britney Spears, who went from failing drug rehab and having her children seized by the court to an apparent comeback late in the year with a number one hit song.

As far as TV and Hollywood were concerned, it was a very weak year indeed. Starting the year with a writer’s strike was a harbinger of what was to come, or rather, not to come. Had it not been for the election, in fact, audience share and ad revenue for many TV networks would have been in the toilet.

As it was, few TV shows of note emerged; at the movie theatres, “Batman: The Dark Knight” won acclaim as actor Heath Ledger, who died before the film was released, seemed poised to win an Oscar for his role as The Joker.

The popular TV show from the past, “Sex in the City” made a comeback as a movie; a new Harry Potter sequel opened; and the indie filmed in India, "Slumdog Millionaire,” impressed critics.

Perhaps the industry’s greatest hit was the (by TV standards) ancient comedy show SNL, where Tina Fey parodied Sarah Palin with such comic precision that when Palin herself visited the show, viewers had difficulty telling them apart.

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Wasting nothing; Saving Less

On one hand, I'm a classic pack-rat. Anyone who has visited my flat will attest that there is one hell of a lot of junk around here. Much of it is of my own making. There are boxes and boxes of writings, published and unpublished, all along the range from good to terrible, from the past 40 years or so of my life.

Lately, as I have realized just how relentless the process of aging actually is, I've started to wonder whether I should destroy much of this stuff. Part of me thinks I should dump it into a pit in the backyard, just like all those ancient bottles I recovered from the 1880s, safely ensconced in ash from the fireplaces that were dumped into the old privy here once modern plumbing was introduced in the Mission in the 1890s.

I could wrap this written trash in plastic bags, which probably would survive a few decades (?) until someone dug them up and determined they were "exotic" remnants of the pre-digital age.

***

Above is our first effort at wax art. We call this one "turtle."

(He will not be saved in our next cleanup.)

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