The uninfluential columnists should be defined here. These are people whom you've never heard of, but whom other uninfluential A-list distopianist columnists all know. I reckon there are about 500 of them. He (or she) influences other like-minded columnists, creating a groupthink form of critical mass, just like atomic fission, as they bounce off each other with repetitive cross-links: trackback links, self-congratulatory links, confirmations, and praise-for-their-genius links. BOOM! You get a formidable explosion—an A-bomb of groupthink. You could get radiation sickness if you happen to be in the area. Except for PC Magazine, nobody is in the area, so nobody outside the groupthink community really cares about any of this. These explosions are generally self-contained and harmless to the environment.
Once in a while one of these crackpot ideas may sneak into the public consciousness and become huge because it was a good idea, although I cannot think of one.
The "folksonomy" notion is the columnists' last hope of invention, although it's a rewrite of the prebubble "semantic Web" technology at best. And it too is doomed to failure. The utopianism and idealism that exist in the online societies ignore the real problem with Trolls, metaTrolls, überTrolls, folksonomies, and the like. This is because they honestly think that most people are goodhearted. The online world, because of its anonymity, encourages bad behavior. "You suck!" is a common post, and it would be the number-one Troll if Trolling ever became popular. Then would come the Trolls about "Online Casino!" One site promoting folksonomies is the darling of the columnists: Flickr.com—an excellent photo-sharing site where being in perpetual beta is a marketing tool. The same people who hate Java and Flash love Flickr, which epitomizes everything good and bad about Java and Flash. Okay, whatever.
Flickr promotes the use of Trolls to add dimensions to photos so you or I could look things up by, uh, the folksonomy. You know, like "dead dog," for example. But when you look into it, someone will post 100 pictures and Troll them all "Yosemite," and that will be the end of it. I see no depth or real usefulness beyond the old-fashioned "title!" It's hard to express how jazzed some people are over the potential of all this. I'm certain someone somewhere will write a book on how this new old thing will change the world for the benefit of everyone. It may even catch on for a month. When you look into it later, you'll find it all deteriorated into spam and "you suck" posts, and then we'll do it again with a new name and a new group of boosters telling us what a great idea Trolling is.
Apparently it's lost on all of them that the term "Trolling," in popular parlance, refers to the worst form of public graffiti. These people don't get out much, it seems.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Monday, April 25, 2005
FORRESTER REPORTS THAT EVERYONE HAS A BLOG
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA ADVISORY
Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2005...According to new findings by Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORR), every human being and business around the globe now has a weblog -- or blog for short -- a type of frequently-updated, chronological online diary that gives insight into the passions of the writer on topics ranging from technology to quilting.
"When I first invented the Internet, I never dreamed that one day each one of us would have our own little piece of real estate," said former Vice President, Al Gore. "But when I saw that even Howard Dean could make a home in cyberspace, well I knew then that Tipper and I had succeeded, that my work as an Internet strategist was complete."
For information on the next wave of online pandemonium, visit podstreet
###
MEDIA ADVISORY
Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2005...According to new findings by Forrester Research, Inc. (NASDAQ: FORR), every human being and business around the globe now has a weblog -- or blog for short -- a type of frequently-updated, chronological online diary that gives insight into the passions of the writer on topics ranging from technology to quilting.
"When I first invented the Internet, I never dreamed that one day each one of us would have our own little piece of real estate," said former Vice President, Al Gore. "But when I saw that even Howard Dean could make a home in cyberspace, well I knew then that Tipper and I had succeeded, that my work as an Internet strategist was complete."
For information on the next wave of online pandemonium, visit podstreet
###
Tuesday, April 19, 2005
A blinding flash of obvious
What if I made myself as a business entity. What if I could completely became a corporation. I substitute myself for corporation. This would be a new type of citizen possibility. Equal.
What if each person in America incorporated themselves? What if each person would create a corporate structure in which their worldly affairs could dwell and play out. This I haven't thought before.
Who can help me with this project? I wan to cease to exist as a human being and become a corporation. I will speak new language. Instead of going to get a haircut I will visit an accountant every month to style my image.
I simply love this idea. Wanna steal it? Run with it? Who wants to join this project?
Talk to me at http://kombinat.us/blogger
What if each person in America incorporated themselves? What if each person would create a corporate structure in which their worldly affairs could dwell and play out. This I haven't thought before.
Who can help me with this project? I wan to cease to exist as a human being and become a corporation. I will speak new language. Instead of going to get a haircut I will visit an accountant every month to style my image.
I simply love this idea. Wanna steal it? Run with it? Who wants to join this project?
Talk to me at http://kombinat.us/blogger
a sort of a homecoming
Sending Hello! Been a while. Travelled a bit. Visited many places. So now I shall welcome myself back. Back to this conversation creation molecular realignment of meaning making production.
Freedom did get me there a bit Harry. Been battling the Warren Commission. I told them I saw that dude in Dallas on a grassy knoll but they still concluded that JFK died of self inflicted gun shot wounds. So much for bearing witness.
And yes Jeneane, I've first visited Pope Johannes Paulus Secundus in December of 1987 at Cite Du Vatican. I was young and full of dreams and I told him I was going to change the world and work for Peace on Earth. He just smiled. - Ever since then I've been embarassed of my dreams. Dreams don't work. So what works? - Human beings have been engaged in this discourse for a long time. Nice Paradox it is. - Let it be, Let it be - Love
Pope is dead. I see him with a Tralfamadorian dimension. All slices of life. As a side note: Tralfamadorians saw Time in it's entirety. They saw its beginning and end, thus a person's life was seen at all possible points of time of their existence and not only the moment you met them. Nice way to see someone. You could see a killer on TV and weep for he was once an innocent baby. You could see a baby and wonder what kind of Human Being-ness will he have along the way towards death. - Alas we don't see people this way. Too bad. It's a lot of fun.
Seth Godin has a new marketing book and a new website for it. It's completely idiotic. I've read most of his other books. They too are idiotic. But he is having fun. Perhaps duping us, the readers - selling us the Dream. New shapes of Dreams. Marketing the Marketing Dream. I think if I was him I would be too embarassed to constantly write so much Kaka De La Torro and maintain the excitement of continuous innovation. I am not sure that the world needs another marketing book, and from Seth Godin for that matter. I do hope that what the world needs is people teaching other people how to read and write so they can express their grievances to Governments that oppress them and articulate their commitments so that others know what you find worth living for.
Freedom did get me there a bit Harry. Been battling the Warren Commission. I told them I saw that dude in Dallas on a grassy knoll but they still concluded that JFK died of self inflicted gun shot wounds. So much for bearing witness.
And yes Jeneane, I've first visited Pope Johannes Paulus Secundus in December of 1987 at Cite Du Vatican. I was young and full of dreams and I told him I was going to change the world and work for Peace on Earth. He just smiled. - Ever since then I've been embarassed of my dreams. Dreams don't work. So what works? - Human beings have been engaged in this discourse for a long time. Nice Paradox it is. - Let it be, Let it be - Love
Pope is dead. I see him with a Tralfamadorian dimension. All slices of life. As a side note: Tralfamadorians saw Time in it's entirety. They saw its beginning and end, thus a person's life was seen at all possible points of time of their existence and not only the moment you met them. Nice way to see someone. You could see a killer on TV and weep for he was once an innocent baby. You could see a baby and wonder what kind of Human Being-ness will he have along the way towards death. - Alas we don't see people this way. Too bad. It's a lot of fun.
Seth Godin has a new marketing book and a new website for it. It's completely idiotic. I've read most of his other books. They too are idiotic. But he is having fun. Perhaps duping us, the readers - selling us the Dream. New shapes of Dreams. Marketing the Marketing Dream. I think if I was him I would be too embarassed to constantly write so much Kaka De La Torro and maintain the excitement of continuous innovation. I am not sure that the world needs another marketing book, and from Seth Godin for that matter. I do hope that what the world needs is people teaching other people how to read and write so they can express their grievances to Governments that oppress them and articulate their commitments so that others know what you find worth living for.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Gonzo Programming Language Manual.
Why's (Poignant) Guide to Ruby :: 2. Kon'nichi wa, Ruby:
"Pretend that you’ve opened this book (although you probably have opened this book), just to find a huge onion right in the middle crease of the book. (The manufacturer of the book has included the onion at my request.)
So you’re like, “Wow, this book comes with an onion!” (Even if you don’t particularly like onions, I’m sure you can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual.)
Then you ask yourself, “Wait a minute. I thought this was a book on Ruby, the incredible new programming language from Japan. And although I can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual: Why an onion? What am I supposed to do with it?”
No. Please don’t puzzle over it. You don’t need to do anything with the onion. Set the onion aside and let it do something with you.
I’ll be straight with you. I want you to cry. To weep. To whimper sweetly. This book is a poignant guide to Ruby. That means code so beautiful that tears are shed. That means gallant tales and somber truths that have you waking up the next morning in the arms of this book. Hugging it tightly to you all the day long. If necessary, fashion a makeshift hip holster for Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, so you can always have this book’s tender companionship.
You really must sob once. Or at least sniffle. And if not, then the onion will make it all happen for you"
RUBY! The OFFicial PROgramming LANGuage of GOnzo MARKETING!!!
Pass The ONIONS!!!
"Pretend that you’ve opened this book (although you probably have opened this book), just to find a huge onion right in the middle crease of the book. (The manufacturer of the book has included the onion at my request.)
So you’re like, “Wow, this book comes with an onion!” (Even if you don’t particularly like onions, I’m sure you can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual.)
Then you ask yourself, “Wait a minute. I thought this was a book on Ruby, the incredible new programming language from Japan. And although I can appreciate the logistics of shipping any sort of produce discreetly inside of an alleged programming manual: Why an onion? What am I supposed to do with it?”
No. Please don’t puzzle over it. You don’t need to do anything with the onion. Set the onion aside and let it do something with you.
I’ll be straight with you. I want you to cry. To weep. To whimper sweetly. This book is a poignant guide to Ruby. That means code so beautiful that tears are shed. That means gallant tales and somber truths that have you waking up the next morning in the arms of this book. Hugging it tightly to you all the day long. If necessary, fashion a makeshift hip holster for Why’s (Poignant) Guide to Ruby, so you can always have this book’s tender companionship.
You really must sob once. Or at least sniffle. And if not, then the onion will make it all happen for you"
RUBY! The OFFicial PROgramming LANGuage of GOnzo MARKETING!!!
Pass The ONIONS!!!
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
SpamBlog: 3 Dish Network Satellite TV Dish Network Free Instal
3 Dish Network Satellite TV Dish Network Free Instal. Excellent usage of Blogger by spammers.
Gonzo Engaged Blogger
Stories from the Front Lines
A blog by a high school biology teacher and 20-something single gal in NYC. Kelly writes today "Started reproduction today. You haven't lived until you've talked about reproduction to rooms full of south Bronx teenagers.". Wow. Kelly, thanks for teaching! Gonzo Kudos to you.
A blog by a high school biology teacher and 20-something single gal in NYC. Kelly writes today "Started reproduction today. You haven't lived until you've talked about reproduction to rooms full of south Bronx teenagers.". Wow. Kelly, thanks for teaching! Gonzo Kudos to you.
Rageboy goes to Westpoint
At least the American Army is excited about Cluetrain. The news coming from Rageboy aka Chris Locke aka Chief Blogging Officer is pretty incredible. He is Unleashing the Power of Army Profession. Definitely must read.
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Monday, December 20, 2004
Ken,
Gonzo Marketing has gone to bed with Corporations, as it should be after a brief dating. This is a time for courtship and also a little bit of drinking and late night foreplay. Perhaps some hard core fucking and blogjobs. Corporations and Gonzo Marketing are now discovering each other. Each a bit shy during the day but willing and lustful at night. I think we'll see them going steady soon. For now just keep noticing their attaction to each other, isn't it beautiful?
Gonzo Marketing has gone to bed with Corporations, as it should be after a brief dating. This is a time for courtship and also a little bit of drinking and late night foreplay. Perhaps some hard core fucking and blogjobs. Corporations and Gonzo Marketing are now discovering each other. Each a bit shy during the day but willing and lustful at night. I think we'll see them going steady soon. For now just keep noticing their attaction to each other, isn't it beautiful?
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Why Do We Blog?
It's not all about Gonzo. Sometimes a little navel gazing is good for the spirit. It can, I think, keep our Gonzo engaged.
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Why do You Blog?
I don't know. Really I don't know. It's like I am sending these encrypted messages out there into the universe. The universe resonds sometimes. Sometimes not. I am sending signals. Hello, I say. Hello! and I just want to someone to hear my Hello! I don't even need a response back, I don't need the universe to talk back to me. I just want to know that it listens. It's like love I guess. It's love when someone just listens.
Paynter, you bastard!
Paynter, you bastard!
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Life Stealing
Someone is stealing your life
---
by Michael Ventura
---
(Excerpted from LA Weekly 26-Jan-90)
Most American adults wake around 6 ot 7 in the morning. Get to work at 8 or 9. Knock off around 5. Home again, 6-ish. Fifty weeks a year. For about 45 years.
Most are glad to have the work, but don't really choose it. They may dream, they may study and even train for work they intensely want; but sooner or later, for most, that doesn't pan out. Then they take what they can and make do. Most have families to aupport, so they need their jobs more than their jobs admit to needing them. They're employees. And, as employees, most have no say whatsoever about much of anything on the job. The purpose or service, the short and long-term goals of the company, are considered quite literally "none of their business" - though these issues drastically influence every aspect of their lives. No matter that they've given years to the day-to-day survival of the business; employees (even when they're called "managers") mostly take orders. Or else. It seems an odd way to structure a free society: Most people have little or no authority over what they do five days a week for 45 years. Doesn't sound much like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." Sounds like a nation of drones.
It used to be that one's compensation for being an American drone was the freedom to live in one's own house, in one's own quirky way, in a clean and safe community in which your children had the chance to be happier, richer drones than you. But working stiffs can't afford houses now, fewer communities are clean, none are safe, and your kid's prospects are worse. (This condition may be because for five days a week, for 45 years, you had no say - while other people have been making decisions that haven't been good for you.) I'm not sure whose happiness we've been pursuing lately, but one thing is clear: It's not the happiness of those who've done our society's work.
On the other hand - or so they say - you're free, and if you don't like your job you can pursue happiness by starting a business of your very own, by becoming an "independent" entrepreneur. But you're only as independent as your credit rating. And to compete in the business community, you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with. Pay them as little as they'll tolerate and give them no say in anything, because that's what's most efficient and profitable. Money is the absolute standard. Freedom, and the dignity and well-being of one's fellow creatures, simply don't figure in the basic formula.
This may seem a fairly harsh way to state the rules America now lives by. But if I sound radical, it's not from doing a lot of reading in some cozy university, then dashing off to dispense opinion as a prima donna of the alternative press. I learned about drones by droning. From ages 18 to 29 (minus a few distracted months at college when I was 24) I worked the sort of jobs that I expected to have all my life: typesetter for two years, tape transcriber for three, proofreader (a grossly incompetent one) for a few weeks, messenger for a few months, and secretary (yes, secretary) for a year and a half. Then I stopped working steadily and the jobs got funkier: hospital orderly, vacuum-cleaner salesman, Jack-in-the-Box counterperson,
waiter, nail hammerer, cement mixer, toilet scrubber, driver.
It was during the years of office work that I caught on: I got two weeks' paid vacation per year. A year has 52 weeks. Even a comparatively unskilled, uneducated worker like me, who couldn't (still can't) do fractions or long division - even I had enough math to figure that two goes into 52 ... how many times? Twenty-sic. Meaning it would take me 26 years on the job to accumulate one year for myself. And I could only have that in 26 pieces, so it wouldn't even feel like a year. In other words, no time was truly mine. My boss merely allowed me an illusion of freedom, a little space in which to catch my breath, in between the 50 weeks that I lived that he owned. My employer uses 26 years of my life for every year I get to keep. And what do I get in return for this enormous thing I am giving? What do I get in return
for my life?
A paycheck that's as skimpy as they can get away with. If I'm lucky, some health insurance. (If I'm really lucky, the employer's definition of "health" will include my teeth and my eyes - maybe even my mind.) And, in a truly enlightened workplace, just enough pension or "profit-sharing" to keep me sweet but not enough to make life different. And that's it.
Compare this to what my employer gets: If the company is successful, he (it's usually a he) gets a standard of living beyond my wildest dreams, including what I would consider fantastic protection for his family, and a world of access that I can only pitifully mimic by changing channels on my TV. His standard of living wouldn't be possible without the labor of people like me - but my employer doesn't think that's a very significant fact. He certainly doesn't think that this fact entitles me to any say about the business. Not to mention a significant share in ownership. Oh no. The business is his to do with as he pleases, and he owns my work. Period.
I don't mean that bosses don't work. Most work hard, and have the satisfaction of knowning that what they do is thiers. Great. The problem is: What I do is theirs too. Yet if my companion workers and I didn't do what we do - then nobody would be anybody's. So how come what we do is hardly ours? How come he can get rich while we're lucky to break even? How come he can do anything he wants with the company without consulting us, yet we do the bulk of the work and take the brunt of the consequences?
The only answer provided is that the employer came up with the money to start the enterprise in the first place; hence, he and his money people decide everything and get all the benefits.
Excuse me, but that seems a little unbalanced. It doesn't take into account that nothing happens unless work is done. Shouldn't it follow that, work being so important, the doers of that work deserve a more just formula for measuring who gets what? There's no doubt that the people who risked or raised the money to form a company, or bail it out of trouble, deserve a fair return on their investment - but is it fair that they get everything? It takes more than investment and management to make a company live. It takes the labor, skill, and talent of the people who do the company's work. Isn't that an investment? Doesn't it deserve a fair return, a voice, a share of the power?
I know this sounds awfully simplistic, but no school ever taught me anything about the ways of economics and power (perhaps because they didn't want me to know), so I had to figure it out slowly, based on what I saw around me every day. And I saw:
That it didn't matter how long I worked or what a good job I did. I could get incremental raises, perhaps even medical benefits and a few bonuses, but I would not be allowed power over my own life - no power over the fundamental decisions on which my life depends. My future is in the hands of people whose names I often don't know and whom I never meet. Their investment is the only factor taken seriously. They feed on my work, on my life, but reserve for themselves all power, perogative, and profit.
Slowly, very slowly, I came to a conclusion that for me was fundamental: My employwers are stealing my life.
They. Are. Stealing. My. Life.
If the people who do the work don't own some part of the product, and don't have any power over what happens to their enterprise - they are being robbed.
And don't think for a minute that those who are robbing you don't know they are robbing you. They know how much they get from you and how little they give back. They are thieves. They are stealing your life.
The assembly-line worker isn't responsible for the decimation of the American auto industry, for instance. Those responsible are those who've been hurt least, executives and stockholders who, according to the Los Angeles Times, make 50 to 500 times what the assembly-line worker makes, but who've done a miserable job of managing. Yet it's the workers who suffer most. Layoffs, plant closings, and such are no doubt necessary - like the bumper stickers say, shit happens - but it is not necessary that workers have no power in the fundamental management decisions involved.
As a worker, I am not an "operating cost." I am how the job gets done. I am the job. I am the company. Without me and my companion workers, there's nothing. I'm willing to take my lumps in a world in which little is certain, but I deserve a say. Not just some cosmetic "input," but significant power in good times or bad. A place at the table where decisions are made. Nothing less is fair. So nothing less is moral.
And if you, as owners or management or government, deny me this - then you are choosing not to be moral, and you are committing a crime against me. Do you expect me not to struggle?
Do you expect us to be forever passive while you get rich stealing our lives?
---
by Michael Ventura
---
(Excerpted from LA Weekly 26-Jan-90)
Most American adults wake around 6 ot 7 in the morning. Get to work at 8 or 9. Knock off around 5. Home again, 6-ish. Fifty weeks a year. For about 45 years.
Most are glad to have the work, but don't really choose it. They may dream, they may study and even train for work they intensely want; but sooner or later, for most, that doesn't pan out. Then they take what they can and make do. Most have families to aupport, so they need their jobs more than their jobs admit to needing them. They're employees. And, as employees, most have no say whatsoever about much of anything on the job. The purpose or service, the short and long-term goals of the company, are considered quite literally "none of their business" - though these issues drastically influence every aspect of their lives. No matter that they've given years to the day-to-day survival of the business; employees (even when they're called "managers") mostly take orders. Or else. It seems an odd way to structure a free society: Most people have little or no authority over what they do five days a week for 45 years. Doesn't sound much like "life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness." Sounds like a nation of drones.
It used to be that one's compensation for being an American drone was the freedom to live in one's own house, in one's own quirky way, in a clean and safe community in which your children had the chance to be happier, richer drones than you. But working stiffs can't afford houses now, fewer communities are clean, none are safe, and your kid's prospects are worse. (This condition may be because for five days a week, for 45 years, you had no say - while other people have been making decisions that haven't been good for you.) I'm not sure whose happiness we've been pursuing lately, but one thing is clear: It's not the happiness of those who've done our society's work.
On the other hand - or so they say - you're free, and if you don't like your job you can pursue happiness by starting a business of your very own, by becoming an "independent" entrepreneur. But you're only as independent as your credit rating. And to compete in the business community, you'll find yourself having to treat others - your employees - as much like slaves as you can get away with. Pay them as little as they'll tolerate and give them no say in anything, because that's what's most efficient and profitable. Money is the absolute standard. Freedom, and the dignity and well-being of one's fellow creatures, simply don't figure in the basic formula.
This may seem a fairly harsh way to state the rules America now lives by. But if I sound radical, it's not from doing a lot of reading in some cozy university, then dashing off to dispense opinion as a prima donna of the alternative press. I learned about drones by droning. From ages 18 to 29 (minus a few distracted months at college when I was 24) I worked the sort of jobs that I expected to have all my life: typesetter for two years, tape transcriber for three, proofreader (a grossly incompetent one) for a few weeks, messenger for a few months, and secretary (yes, secretary) for a year and a half. Then I stopped working steadily and the jobs got funkier: hospital orderly, vacuum-cleaner salesman, Jack-in-the-Box counterperson,
waiter, nail hammerer, cement mixer, toilet scrubber, driver.
It was during the years of office work that I caught on: I got two weeks' paid vacation per year. A year has 52 weeks. Even a comparatively unskilled, uneducated worker like me, who couldn't (still can't) do fractions or long division - even I had enough math to figure that two goes into 52 ... how many times? Twenty-sic. Meaning it would take me 26 years on the job to accumulate one year for myself. And I could only have that in 26 pieces, so it wouldn't even feel like a year. In other words, no time was truly mine. My boss merely allowed me an illusion of freedom, a little space in which to catch my breath, in between the 50 weeks that I lived that he owned. My employer uses 26 years of my life for every year I get to keep. And what do I get in return for this enormous thing I am giving? What do I get in return
for my life?
A paycheck that's as skimpy as they can get away with. If I'm lucky, some health insurance. (If I'm really lucky, the employer's definition of "health" will include my teeth and my eyes - maybe even my mind.) And, in a truly enlightened workplace, just enough pension or "profit-sharing" to keep me sweet but not enough to make life different. And that's it.
Compare this to what my employer gets: If the company is successful, he (it's usually a he) gets a standard of living beyond my wildest dreams, including what I would consider fantastic protection for his family, and a world of access that I can only pitifully mimic by changing channels on my TV. His standard of living wouldn't be possible without the labor of people like me - but my employer doesn't think that's a very significant fact. He certainly doesn't think that this fact entitles me to any say about the business. Not to mention a significant share in ownership. Oh no. The business is his to do with as he pleases, and he owns my work. Period.
I don't mean that bosses don't work. Most work hard, and have the satisfaction of knowning that what they do is thiers. Great. The problem is: What I do is theirs too. Yet if my companion workers and I didn't do what we do - then nobody would be anybody's. So how come what we do is hardly ours? How come he can get rich while we're lucky to break even? How come he can do anything he wants with the company without consulting us, yet we do the bulk of the work and take the brunt of the consequences?
The only answer provided is that the employer came up with the money to start the enterprise in the first place; hence, he and his money people decide everything and get all the benefits.
Excuse me, but that seems a little unbalanced. It doesn't take into account that nothing happens unless work is done. Shouldn't it follow that, work being so important, the doers of that work deserve a more just formula for measuring who gets what? There's no doubt that the people who risked or raised the money to form a company, or bail it out of trouble, deserve a fair return on their investment - but is it fair that they get everything? It takes more than investment and management to make a company live. It takes the labor, skill, and talent of the people who do the company's work. Isn't that an investment? Doesn't it deserve a fair return, a voice, a share of the power?
I know this sounds awfully simplistic, but no school ever taught me anything about the ways of economics and power (perhaps because they didn't want me to know), so I had to figure it out slowly, based on what I saw around me every day. And I saw:
That it didn't matter how long I worked or what a good job I did. I could get incremental raises, perhaps even medical benefits and a few bonuses, but I would not be allowed power over my own life - no power over the fundamental decisions on which my life depends. My future is in the hands of people whose names I often don't know and whom I never meet. Their investment is the only factor taken seriously. They feed on my work, on my life, but reserve for themselves all power, perogative, and profit.
Slowly, very slowly, I came to a conclusion that for me was fundamental: My employwers are stealing my life.
They. Are. Stealing. My. Life.
If the people who do the work don't own some part of the product, and don't have any power over what happens to their enterprise - they are being robbed.
And don't think for a minute that those who are robbing you don't know they are robbing you. They know how much they get from you and how little they give back. They are thieves. They are stealing your life.
The assembly-line worker isn't responsible for the decimation of the American auto industry, for instance. Those responsible are those who've been hurt least, executives and stockholders who, according to the Los Angeles Times, make 50 to 500 times what the assembly-line worker makes, but who've done a miserable job of managing. Yet it's the workers who suffer most. Layoffs, plant closings, and such are no doubt necessary - like the bumper stickers say, shit happens - but it is not necessary that workers have no power in the fundamental management decisions involved.
As a worker, I am not an "operating cost." I am how the job gets done. I am the job. I am the company. Without me and my companion workers, there's nothing. I'm willing to take my lumps in a world in which little is certain, but I deserve a say. Not just some cosmetic "input," but significant power in good times or bad. A place at the table where decisions are made. Nothing less is fair. So nothing less is moral.
And if you, as owners or management or government, deny me this - then you are choosing not to be moral, and you are committing a crime against me. Do you expect me not to struggle?
Do you expect us to be forever passive while you get rich stealing our lives?
Monday, September 13, 2004
Monday, August 16, 2004
Worst Practices, Best Ads
Grant Henninger thinks Wells Fargo holds the title for "Best line in any ad. Ever." He may be right. I just heard the ad that prompted Grant's excitement, and it does rock out loud that Wells has its lemonade-and-free-checking hawking youngster explain, when asked if she can print out statements, "I'm not allowed to use the computer since I got sued for downloading music."
Wells has strong competition though from the Co-Op Network for credit unions, which promises (on its billboard at the 405/110 interchange, and elsewhere) ATMs "Out the Wazoo!"
[Cross-posted from B&B]
Friday, June 25, 2004
Resuming Normalcy As Once We Knew It
It seems apparent that the firestorm over the temporarily lost blogs has calmed to the point of only being a partially smoldering reminder of its former self.
Some of us moved to other blogging clients, other hosting services. Some of us just waited it out and resumed blogging at the newly created facility which seems to be the heir to weblogs.com, that being buzzword.com, a site run by Rogers Cadenhead.
Some had already abandoned their blogs, and this either awakened them and prompted a rennaissance, or clarified and reiterated their status as deadblogs.
Then there are those of us who created a fauxblog in a personally hosted space, and who are still waiting to see what else shakes out (hello, weblogger.com, et al!!).
My take: continue to use the fauxblog, simultaneously post the same items on the buzzword.com blog, and see what the near future may bring.
One more important note: the backup facility, to get one's entire weblogs.com history up to and until the pages went dark, is working. Like a charm, I might add.
And to his credit, Rogers is reactive to the discussion group, and responds to user questions. He and Dave have been using deanland.weblogs.com in somewhat of a beta capacity, and that's fine with me. I am glad to see the blog have other uses, productive ones, at that. I'd posted some questions in the Discussion Area and in e-mails; some were how-to questions, some were what-if questions, and others were general queries. Almost all have been addressed, and some of them seem to require some analysis or development time before an answer can be offered.
This is a welcome and appreciated method, with open communication and a sense of there being goals and all parties involved having some input. Even the tech-challenged, such as yours truly.
The period of days during the firestorm, at some points reaching peaks of rage and hostility, seems to have revived the spirits of some of the bloggers. I addressed this in my open letter di scussing the return of DeanLand via the fauxblog my son and his pal created for me. I was fortunate in having my tech-savvy son there, ready to put together a band-aid solution for me. After 4+ years of creating what one friend properly characterized as "my brand," my most pressing concern was to get back on the blogosphere, maintain the ability to post, and have a forum in which to do so.
Not every blogger using weblogs.com had that luxury.
It was a discomfiting time, but things seem to be mellowing out, returning to something that approximates Normalcy As We Once Knew It. If, indeed, ever we did know such a thing.
Some of us moved to other blogging clients, other hosting services. Some of us just waited it out and resumed blogging at the newly created facility which seems to be the heir to weblogs.com, that being buzzword.com, a site run by Rogers Cadenhead.
Some had already abandoned their blogs, and this either awakened them and prompted a rennaissance, or clarified and reiterated their status as deadblogs.
Then there are those of us who created a fauxblog in a personally hosted space, and who are still waiting to see what else shakes out (hello, weblogger.com, et al!!).
My take: continue to use the fauxblog, simultaneously post the same items on the buzzword.com blog, and see what the near future may bring.
One more important note: the backup facility, to get one's entire weblogs.com history up to and until the pages went dark, is working. Like a charm, I might add.
And to his credit, Rogers is reactive to the discussion group, and responds to user questions. He and Dave have been using deanland.weblogs.com in somewhat of a beta capacity, and that's fine with me. I am glad to see the blog have other uses, productive ones, at that. I'd posted some questions in the Discussion Area and in e-mails; some were how-to questions, some were what-if questions, and others were general queries. Almost all have been addressed, and some of them seem to require some analysis or development time before an answer can be offered.
This is a welcome and appreciated method, with open communication and a sense of there being goals and all parties involved having some input. Even the tech-challenged, such as yours truly.
The period of days during the firestorm, at some points reaching peaks of rage and hostility, seems to have revived the spirits of some of the bloggers. I addressed this in my open letter di scussing the return of DeanLand via the fauxblog my son and his pal created for me. I was fortunate in having my tech-savvy son there, ready to put together a band-aid solution for me. After 4+ years of creating what one friend properly characterized as "my brand," my most pressing concern was to get back on the blogosphere, maintain the ability to post, and have a forum in which to do so.
Not every blogger using weblogs.com had that luxury.
It was a discomfiting time, but things seem to be mellowing out, returning to something that approximates Normalcy As We Once Knew It. If, indeed, ever we did know such a thing.
Tuesday, June 22, 2004
Unveiling the Islamic train
The amazingly polylingual Iggy at Blogalization offers a work in progress translation of an Al Jazeera text which, says Iggy, "reads something like an Islamic Cluetrain Manifesto."
The original text, entitled The Islamic Internet: Where are its flaws?, by Khatib al-Mu'tazz, can be found here with Iggy's translation.
A few snips:
The piece goes on to explore other views, in which, instead of shrinking the world (which has "monstrous" implications for the cultural view described by al-Mu'tazz), the Internet is described as a new world that has opened new territories. From this perspective, al-Mu'tazz offers a memorable description of "the old school," which, he memorably says, "tends to approach the Internet like a man screaming in a canyon."
The piece moves toward sketching a vision of a more complex view of the Net and how Islam can approach it. It's a good read.
The original text, entitled The Islamic Internet: Where are its flaws?, by Khatib al-Mu'tazz, can be found here with Iggy's translation.
A few snips:
Different standards apply in this virtual world than in its real counterpart, which was once ruled by intimate ties of human consanguinity. This virtual mathematical realm puts each individual into contact with the entire world, granting him access to the ideas of every philosophical and religious tendency. It is this that dissolves established social and educational roles, detracts from the exercise of moral guardianship, and undermines thought founded upon one authoritative source.
Indeed there is a fundamental social symptom that we can attribute directly to the Internet: the tendency toward "uncovering and unveiling." On the Internet, the naked face of every person is on open display, together with their similarities and their subtle differences.
...although the Internet is considered a product of modernity and of the Western intellectual tradition, we discover that Islamist (and especially Salafi) discourse continues to view the present from the point of view of an imminent end of the world in its evaluation of the world, so that the Internet becomes equivalent in their eyes to what they call the mere "wisdom of the moment," a mere "gathering at the marketplaces", an "ephemeral coming together," the "circulation of trade," the "dissemination of immorality," the "rise of usury" and the "cornucopeia of lies."
If the world has indeed contracted into the tiny, intimate "global village" which modern thought regards as one of the great accomplishments of globalization, then that change itself is viewed by the Salafi as "a clear sign that we are living at the end of time,"...
The piece goes on to explore other views, in which, instead of shrinking the world (which has "monstrous" implications for the cultural view described by al-Mu'tazz), the Internet is described as a new world that has opened new territories. From this perspective, al-Mu'tazz offers a memorable description of "the old school," which, he memorably says, "tends to approach the Internet like a man screaming in a canyon."
The piece moves toward sketching a vision of a more complex view of the Net and how Islam can approach it. It's a good read.
Monday, June 21, 2004
OK already
Been gone so long, I know - but I have a valid excuse. Really.
Found this site about two months ago...been incapable of coherent thought since.
New template full of minty freshness. I like it.
Now back to the pickles.
Found this site about two months ago...been incapable of coherent thought since.
New template full of minty freshness. I like it.
Now back to the pickles.
Gonzo Enraged
Listen, gonzo engaged participants, what is, is. Stop jumping up and down. Now, another new template is in place. Sorry the other one was so sucky, but I'm in the middle of 25 other things over here, and I gave it a shot.
If you wish to continue posting to Gonzo, please update your blogger profiles within the next week. Otherwise I'll assume you don't want to post to the blog anymore and will delete your ass completely. Reason being, it's kinda nice the way blogger has set up the "Contributors" section of the template to pull your blogger profile info, which shows ALL the blogs you post to, as well as things you probably don't want readers of gonzo engaged to know, like your email address and town of residence.
Ah well, another day...
Stay out of the template for now. Or consult your local posse before entering.
If you wish to continue posting to Gonzo, please update your blogger profiles within the next week. Otherwise I'll assume you don't want to post to the blog anymore and will delete your ass completely. Reason being, it's kinda nice the way blogger has set up the "Contributors" section of the template to pull your blogger profile info, which shows ALL the blogs you post to, as well as things you probably don't want readers of gonzo engaged to know, like your email address and town of residence.
Ah well, another day...
Stay out of the template for now. Or consult your local posse before entering.
...
Paraphrased from myself some time ago -
I've got an excuse. Yeah I know changing career paths and moving across the country is a feeble fucking excuse, but it's an excuse. Where the hell are the rest of you motherfuckers? Did you all drink the fucking koolaid and slip into a stupor? I'll be alive again (and enraged, outraged, engaged), but some of you all seem to have gone into stasis. Maybe it's time to start yanking plugs out.
Our collective writing of late has been de-fucking-plorable.
Read Scoble from a year or two ago and read Scoble today. Is this what we've all become. Shoot my ass.
I'm not sure when things will pick up significantly here. Reaching for roots. Questing about for that gritty realism that makes the words feel valuable rather than mundane. As I read here, I find we've become so mundane that even I'd delete us from my blogroll.
I've got an excuse. Yeah I know changing career paths and moving across the country is a feeble fucking excuse, but it's an excuse. Where the hell are the rest of you motherfuckers? Did you all drink the fucking koolaid and slip into a stupor? I'll be alive again (and enraged, outraged, engaged), but some of you all seem to have gone into stasis. Maybe it's time to start yanking plugs out.
Our collective writing of late has been de-fucking-plorable.
Read Scoble from a year or two ago and read Scoble today. Is this what we've all become. Shoot my ass.
I've hosted you for free for all these years and this is what I get?
FIRST of all, epeus, you came along and whacked the sidebar. Well fuck. That sucks. I went and found everyone's blog and made the blogroll and now it's gone.
AS for the typeface and template, well you are correct. It does suck. Bad. Especially now that the SIDEBAR is gone.
Look, I don't want to write an entire essay on this, because my feeling is, people really don't read essays.
So just hold on and I'll try to fix the problem myself, because I doubt a posse of men will come along and do it for me.
People just love to jump up and down.
AS for the typeface and template, well you are correct. It does suck. Bad. Especially now that the SIDEBAR is gone.
Look, I don't want to write an entire essay on this, because my feeling is, people really don't read essays.
So just hold on and I'll try to fix the problem myself, because I doubt a posse of men will come along and do it for me.
People just love to jump up and down.
I miss the old template
I fixed the author thingy, but this one really is very ugly, and you blew away our technorati claims too.
I'm all for moving with the times, but how about picking one of he templates that looks less like it forgot what we learned about onscreen typefaces in the last 15 years?
I'm all for moving with the times, but how about picking one of he templates that looks less like it forgot what we learned about onscreen typefaces in the last 15 years?
I went and did this because I could.
Some things look different here. That is a good thing. They also looked different previously. Now, they look more different than before. BUT then.
Did I ask you? No, I just did it.
Did I mess you up? No, you hardly ever write here, and you still can!
Did I brighten your day? Absofuckinglutely.
I have a problem though. All is not working well. We have a missing doodadder. The little doodadder that might tell our generous readers which blogger has posted which post is missing from the footer of each post. I think there is some kind of profile container tag-like thing, which would include the poster's name-and-link-to-blogger-profile, that must be inserted into the template, if I could figure out how to do it.
It might have been there once. It might be gone now. I have no clue.
I am going to go ask on my blog for someone to tell me where into the template to insert what HTML doodadder that will indicate, in the footer of each post, who the poster is. Or whom. I'm too tired to think it through. Not the template. The who or whom thing.
ALSO, my dear and esteemed colleagues, I have not a damn clue who writes over here anymore besides the folks on the right. If you're not listed and you plan to post before the year 2010, email me and I'll add you. If you're not on the team and would like to be, email me and if I don't think your email is spam, I might possibly read it and add you in, say, within one day to one week, depending.
I would say sometime after July 1st, but someone beat me too that this week.
Oh, love to all.
--jeneane
Did I ask you? No, I just did it.
Did I mess you up? No, you hardly ever write here, and you still can!
Did I brighten your day? Absofuckinglutely.
I have a problem though. All is not working well. We have a missing doodadder. The little doodadder that might tell our generous readers which blogger has posted which post is missing from the footer of each post. I think there is some kind of profile container tag-like thing, which would include the poster's name-and-link-to-blogger-profile, that must be inserted into the template, if I could figure out how to do it.
It might have been there once. It might be gone now. I have no clue.
I am going to go ask on my blog for someone to tell me where into the template to insert what HTML doodadder that will indicate, in the footer of each post, who the poster is. Or whom. I'm too tired to think it through. Not the template. The who or whom thing.
ALSO, my dear and esteemed colleagues, I have not a damn clue who writes over here anymore besides the folks on the right. If you're not listed and you plan to post before the year 2010, email me and I'll add you. If you're not on the team and would like to be, email me and if I don't think your email is spam, I might possibly read it and add you in, say, within one day to one week, depending.
I would say sometime after July 1st, but someone beat me too that this week.
Oh, love to all.
--jeneane
Friday, June 11, 2004
pit of my stomach
can't tell, really, whether it is the latest conference, the garlic ravioli, or the mix of night time medicines I've taken that has tied a knot in my stomach. I think it's the BlogOn conference, but it might be mixing Levaquin and Celexa, or it might be the cheese Ravioli from Bergamos. What do you think? I think it might be the conference. Whatever it is, it hurts like hell just now, and I'm lying on my side typing for lack of a better way to handle it. Dearest brethren. I take wing when I read how much you care about what we say, what we do, who we are. You still care. I care too. Except the words. They too make knots in my stomach. Every day something ties knots. Everyday I try to write them free. I used to be able to write them untied. But now I can't seem to untwist the double-knots. It's not every day I read about a BlogOn conference, nor is it every day I have to take Levaquin at night, and this is, after all, the first time I've had Bergamos ravioli. So, I'd like to think of this most recent pain as an anomalie. But it's been coming. Little knots, tighter knots, all trapped up inside this editing window, this screen.
I used to see inside the screen. I used to see beyond the white and blue to a new world outside of any familiar dimension. I used to see you and you and you. I used to see everything--every single thing--and nothing, and both had meaning.
Now I see pixels and letters and words.
Yes, it is probably the Ravioli.
I think you're right.
I used to see inside the screen. I used to see beyond the white and blue to a new world outside of any familiar dimension. I used to see you and you and you. I used to see everything--every single thing--and nothing, and both had meaning.
Now I see pixels and letters and words.
Yes, it is probably the Ravioli.
I think you're right.
Thursday, June 10, 2004
Write Now
Dear Jeneane,
You have my vote for sticking a fork in blogging and calling it done. The post mortem will probably show the time of death as somewhere about the time I started blogging. certainly it was dead by the time of the bizarro Blogger-Con, that event where creativity, authorship, and the craft of writing were subordinated to the ego and get-rich-and-powerful fantasies of the Big Gouda himself.
Recently, when Gary Turner's Memoria Technica went white-screen, I stole a good line from somewhere and suggested that "not blogging is the new black." By this I meant of course, that if Gary Turner was (not) doing it, then it was high avant fashion.
I like these little on-line spaces that people have labeled blogs. They're a convenient place to hoist first drafts into the light of day. For some, they're a medium and for others they're an intermediate step to the final product. Regardless, they really beat the ruled pad and the number two pencil.
I have been so happy to hang out with a set of genii and excellent writers, people who basically get what I'm saying when I say it and are fairly accepting of much of my more nonsensical and outre utterances. I don't think community necessarily dissolves as boundary conditions shift. But I could be wrong. Look at the cities, the suburbs and the motor car.
For now, thank you Nina June. Thank you for the reminder that it is really about the writing. After a few years anywhere we get so stuck with cliches and commonplaces rattling around our brains that we need a good shake or an ultrasound treatment to chip them loose. High time I took the old cranial unit into the hygienist and swept out the dusty corners of my (don't call it a blog!) online publishing space.
Bada bingo... best regards from the spill-chucker,
fp
You have my vote for sticking a fork in blogging and calling it done. The post mortem will probably show the time of death as somewhere about the time I started blogging. certainly it was dead by the time of the bizarro Blogger-Con, that event where creativity, authorship, and the craft of writing were subordinated to the ego and get-rich-and-powerful fantasies of the Big Gouda himself.
Recently, when Gary Turner's Memoria Technica went white-screen, I stole a good line from somewhere and suggested that "not blogging is the new black." By this I meant of course, that if Gary Turner was (not) doing it, then it was high avant fashion.
I like these little on-line spaces that people have labeled blogs. They're a convenient place to hoist first drafts into the light of day. For some, they're a medium and for others they're an intermediate step to the final product. Regardless, they really beat the ruled pad and the number two pencil.
I have been so happy to hang out with a set of genii and excellent writers, people who basically get what I'm saying when I say it and are fairly accepting of much of my more nonsensical and outre utterances. I don't think community necessarily dissolves as boundary conditions shift. But I could be wrong. Look at the cities, the suburbs and the motor car.
For now, thank you Nina June. Thank you for the reminder that it is really about the writing. After a few years anywhere we get so stuck with cliches and commonplaces rattling around our brains that we need a good shake or an ultrasound treatment to chip them loose. High time I took the old cranial unit into the hygienist and swept out the dusty corners of my (don't call it a blog!) online publishing space.
Bada bingo... best regards from the spill-chucker,
fp
Wednesday, June 09, 2004
Blogging is Dead. Long live Writng
Dear J.
I received your email. Much thanks. Much love to you.
Blogging is dead you say. Yes, we buried Blogging a long time ago. Fishrush was one of the first who buried blogging. Others followed. Most are still trying to reinvent blogging. It will not be so. Blogging is dead. There is no going back.
Writing is alive you say. Yes, we are writing again. Writing about dreams and fears and spanish guitar sounds and moss covered trees and sex and love and loneliness and angst.
Solution is poetry. It remains so. It's always been this way. Is poetry solution?
Somewhere in between there is resignation, cynicism and love and hope. All practical and completely impractical things that humans have always done and will continue to do.
And we constantly rediscover ourselves. Gain answers. Loser answers. Search for answers. Curse that we ever found those answers. Then found out the answers were not the answers to find. Then found out there are no answers to have. Then found out that the answer about the answers was not the answer to have as an answer, which begets more questions. But as long as the music is on we dance. And we dance. And we dance.
...solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is???
Signal. Signal. Sendig Signal.
Ba Ba Bidi Bi Blocks.
Bird changes Gold Cage's Golden locks
Birdy, bi, ba bada bi bi!!!!
You got got got a new gold key.
For you new golden cage, age age.
Ba Ba Bidi Bi Ba.
Keep on changing keys keys keys
Bada bi bis bis bis
Peekaboo! to you all.
I received your email. Much thanks. Much love to you.
Blogging is dead you say. Yes, we buried Blogging a long time ago. Fishrush was one of the first who buried blogging. Others followed. Most are still trying to reinvent blogging. It will not be so. Blogging is dead. There is no going back.
Writing is alive you say. Yes, we are writing again. Writing about dreams and fears and spanish guitar sounds and moss covered trees and sex and love and loneliness and angst.
Solution is poetry. It remains so. It's always been this way. Is poetry solution?
Somewhere in between there is resignation, cynicism and love and hope. All practical and completely impractical things that humans have always done and will continue to do.
And we constantly rediscover ourselves. Gain answers. Loser answers. Search for answers. Curse that we ever found those answers. Then found out the answers were not the answers to find. Then found out there are no answers to have. Then found out that the answer about the answers was not the answer to have as an answer, which begets more questions. But as long as the music is on we dance. And we dance. And we dance.
...solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is poetry the solution is???
Signal. Signal. Sendig Signal.
Ba Ba Bidi Bi Blocks.
Bird changes Gold Cage's Golden locks
Birdy, bi, ba bada bi bi!!!!
You got got got a new gold key.
For you new golden cage, age age.
Ba Ba Bidi Bi Ba.
Keep on changing keys keys keys
Bada bi bis bis bis
Peekaboo! to you all.
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