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Armchair political pundit (and psychologist)

First of all, one of the drawbacks to having my twitter feed auto-published each week as a post is that it’s easy to see at a glance how many weeks its been since I’ve posted any actual content. For instance, there are 4 twitter summary posts since my last real blog entry. That’s 4 weeks of nothing. It’d be fine if my twitter comments actually rose to the level of “interesting.” But they don’t.

As is almost always the case, the reason I’m finally popping over to post another entry is because I’ve been doing some thinking about the current political climate. There are a couple of things that have me concerned. The SCOTUS decision to open the floodgates to corporate spending on political campaigns is frightening in its scope and terrifying in its implications. And I don’t get how a corporate entity can be protected under the free speech clause of the 1st amendment. The campaign part of it is scary enough but let me take just a minute to posit a non-political situation: Say you have two companies producing two competing products, toilet paper for example. And company number 1 is losing the TP sales war big time to company #2. So company #1 decides it’s time to take bold action to get the public to buy more of their product. Toilet paper is made from wood pulp, right? And in order to get the wood pulp, you’ve got to cut down trees. And it goes without saying that if you cut down some trees, you’re impacting bird habitats and there’s a good likelihood that a bird or two is going to die. So they begin running an ad campaign accusing their competitor of killing cute little birds. You can even imagine the commercials with sweet cartoon birds as they drop out of the sky as a result of the horrible bird-killing practices of company #2. And as a conscientious consumer, you just can’t stomach the idea of buying a product from a bird-killer. Now, company #2 probably wouldn’t win a libel suit cause the reality is, birds are going to die in some form or fashion from the clear cutting of forests to make products like toilet paper. So, in effect, while it may be a wild and irresponsible accusation, it carries a nugget of truth. But company #2 could still sue to have their competitor take down the advertising, couldn’t they? Well, thanks to the Supreme Court, company #1 could now claim that they have a 1st amendment right to free speech and that taking down their advertising would violate that right. But, hey…no need to worry because the so-called “Constitutionalists” on the Supreme Court are only upholding what our founding father’s gave us as the unassailable framework for our government. Besides, the free market is self-regulating and if things seem to be getting a little out of control, the consumer will step in and set things right by sending a clear financial message to the company who is obviously in the wrong here. But wait. Who’s in the wrong? Company #2 isn’t really going around murdering birds in cold blood, are they? But company #1 has a right to free speech regardless of the consequences. So maybe you find it a little distasteful but is there really a critical mass of consumers who will think likewise? Even if the prevailing opinion is that the advertising goes a bit far, maybe company #1 can just lower their prices a bit. That will probably mollify the maddening crowd, wouldn’t it? In fact, it probably would. And before I let this drop, let’s not forget that company #2 can do the same thing in retaliation, can’t they. Maybe they launch a campaign of their own saying that company #1 is killing dolphins as a result of the toxic run off from the pulp processing plant thanks to the chlorine bleach used to make that toilet paper a pretty, sanitary, white color. And so on and so forth.

I’m trying to explore just how damaging the recent Supreme Court decision is and I’m trying to do a little armchair analyzing of consumer behavior, at least as it works today. Because I think there are some unintended and unrecognized consequences between the two. Don’t forget, our orgy of consumerism is one of the factors that brought us to the financial collapse we’re struggling to emerge from right now. And while you and I (we can, of course, exclude the many intelligent consumers smart enough to live within their means no matter what the rest of the world was doing around them) have to live with the consequences of over-spending and in some cases desperately seek out new employment while shouldering the burden of soul-crushing debt, the companies that stood above it all, reaping the benefits, got paid to stay afloat. They got paid obscene sums of money, which was then passed on to their senior executives as bonuses, for making the same sorts of bad decisions that many of us lowly consumers are suffering from. And when I say suffering, I don’t mean in a esoteric or metaphorical sense. Real suffering. People are losing their homes, families are being displaced, marriages are ending, lives are ending. And as of this morning, we’re hearing that the kindly senior citizens who used to greet us at Wal-Mart or offer us a sample of lil’smokies cocktail wieners are confused as to why they’re being told not to come in tomorrow. As a society, we understood this fundamental principle: Work hard and you will be rewarded. In fact, it’s part of the fabric of our culture. Of our religion, even. Work hard, do what is right, you will be rewarded.

Back to the Supreme Court. Clearly, I’m more concerned about the effect the ruling has on the perception of “free speech” protection for corporations than I am about the campaign finance issue specifically. One of the reasons why is this thoughtful article by Juan Cole of the Global Americana Institute. He soberly addresses the issue and calmly let’s us know (this is my interpretation only) that it doesn’t really matter cause we’re fucked anyway. OK. I’m overreacting. But he does point out all the areas in which the average American has already long since lost their voice in politics and conversely how some companies are still willing to use their money to serve the common good.

Something I think he misses, however, is the behavior of the consumer…er…voter. Yeah, that’s what I meant, voter. Cause we’re not actually purchasing a President, we’re exercising our right to vote for one based on thoughtful consideration of the issues and not a 3am infomercial. Right? Today, you have to do a little bit of work to dig around and find out which executives of which companies paid top-dollar for a candidate’s campaign. Partly because of contribution limits and the FEC. See, instead of giving $400,000 of their own money directly to a candidate, they have to give it to a PAC which then pools that money with other fat-cat donations and eventually they put out an attack ad or they use it to set-up a robocalling operation. And those PACs have innocuous sounding names like “Doggone Down-home Americans for Freedom!” Who can argue with freedom?!? It must be an awesome group who loves our country cause they’re just down-home kinda folks and heck! So am I! And I love freedom! But maybe it’s a bunch of lobbyists who are planning to gerrymander your district so they can elect someone who’ll acquiesce to the decision to let Halliburton test nuclear weapons in your backyard. Not as pleasant. And here comes the Supreme Court ruling effectively taking the gloves off and letting the companies do whatever they want. And the consumer (whoops…did it again. I mean voter, of course) is the pawn. If you really like AT&T, just to use one example, and you’ll buy their products because you love them so much, what’s to keep them from using that loyalty to convince you that the candidate they support is the one you should vote for? Isn’t that actually a violation of the trust you have in them? And let’s not forget that these companies already spend a fortune analyzing as much marketing data about you as they can so that they even know, down to the neighborhood, who’s most likely to buy certain products, behave in certain ways, and respond positively to certain advertising. If you think the telemarketer problem was bad before, hoo-doggie! You ain’t seen nothing yet. And what’s going to keep companies from using their marketing employees to spend their time and energy researching which of their consumers would vote for candidate 1 over candidate 2? And when your company announces their intention to spend half a million dollars to support a candidate you absolutely disagree with, will you quit your job? Or worse, will you have to demonstrate fealty to a political party to keep your job or hope for a promotion? If you’re a person reading this who doesn’t live in the south, you probably don’t have a real understanding of NASCAR, so let me illuminate you. Down here, we have NASCAR fans who would set fire to their own pickup trucks rather than drink a soda advertised by a driver they hate. And I am not kidding. That’s the kind of loyalty I’m talking about. Do you still think that the “free market” will work this one out? Let’s just slap some corporate logos all over our Presidential candidates and be done with it.

I think the decision stinks. And I don’t think it will “bring greater transparency and honesty” to our political process as is being touted by the right-wing mouthpiece Fox News. See, there’s an example of how scary this is. In the next election, be prepared for an all-republican, all the time, news channel abandoning all pretense and funding an actual political campaign using the incredibly deep pockets of Rupert Murdoch. All this does is legitimize the behavior of people like Murdoch who can now, thanks to their billions, buy the truth. You know who used to do this? The mafia. When Al Capone needed to beat a murder wrap, he just bought the judge.

It’s just another day

The end of the decade is a little over 12 hours away. Here’s a short collection of “best of the year/decade” articles I’ve been enjoying:

The Onion A.V. Club article on best TV of the decade

Roger Ebert’s best films of the decade article on the Chicago Sun-Times

Salon.com’s article on bogus stories of the year (and yes, death panels is number 1)

Paste Magazine has a meta-list of lists of the best of the decade possibly landing them the title of best list of the decade of lists of the decade. Parse that sentence, I triple-dog-dare you. I have a minor quibble with the list of best video game characters – I think the Big Daddy from Bioshock should’ve been #1 over Nathan Drake from the Uncharted Series.

I liked this list of the best cancelled TV shows of the decade only because it has one of my all-time favorite “shows-that-should-have-been-given-a-chance” on it; Andy Richter Controls the Universe.

There are nearly a gazillion “best-tech-of-the-decade” lists. I picked this one from the HuffingtonPost because I felt it handled “best” vs. “most influential” vs. “most recognizable” rather well.

Boston.com has, in my humble opinion, never missed the mark with it’s “Big Picture” segment. So I picked their decade in news photographs for my list. Fair warning, some of these pictures are both very graphic and deeply sad.

Rolling Stone gives the 100 best albums of the decade. I own maybe 9 of them and only 1 in the top 10. Does that say anything about my taste in music?

A Washington Post article on best tech innovations of the decade would’ve been better had it not been for the fact that navigating the Washington Post website is a nightmare made worse by the fact that tons of content is behind a pay-wall.

One more…Here’s Salon’s take on the best books of the decade. I’m proud to say I’ve read 6 on the list and one of them is still on my bookshelf, patiently waiting for me to get around to it.

I don’t have clear memories of the entire decade of the 90’s. The 80’s are, of course, less clear (I was only 10 in 1980). But the 00’s (aught’s? 2000’s?) are clear as crystal. It was the decade of my 30’s. The decade started with me only 4 years removed from the career that flung me out of its gravitational orbit with such tremendous centrifugal force that I’m still occasionally puzzled by how I got here, 10 years later. The decade ends with me as one of the millions who are still without permanent employment. And in between is too much good and bad to recount.

Every year’s end we go about the business of nostalgically recalling the previous year’s highs and lows and at the end of a decade, the exercise is elevated to a level of self-centered historical significance that baffles me a little. After all, it’s just another day.  But this year, I keep reading stories about how the decade was such a disappointment, what with all of the disasters both natural and man-made (Katrina, 9/11, Bernie Madoff, the Bush presidency). Maybe, since it was the first decade of the new millennium, we expected too much of it.  As depressing as all of that is, some of the most important and best things happened in my life. So I’m going to look back and try to remember the good.

‘M*A*S*H’ writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81

I was so caught up in feeling bad about the Panther’s embarrassing season opener that I almost missed this.

‘M*A*S*H’ writer Larry Gelbart dies at 81 – Television- msnbc.com.

My one and only picture of the World Trade Center

I think I posted this pic once before but I can’t seem to find the post. Maybe it got lost in one or the other of the snafu’s I had while upgrading my Wordpress installation. In any case, here it is again (click the image to see a full size version).

This is the only picture I took of the World Trade towers. Its from the ferry either going to or coming back from Liberty Island probably in 1995.

A little bit of perspective

This was in the Charlotte Observer on Sunday. It’s definitely worth a read.

Obama’s speech to students has a precedent

Franken talks healthcare

Franken Calms Down Health Care Opponents VIDEO.

This video, posted on the Huffington Post, sort of promises a juicy visual of Al Franken in the midst of a torch-weilding mob which he somehow diffuses with a mixture of frank talk and, I don’t know, humor maybe? The truth is, the “mob” isn’t all that ferocious in the first place. Nevertheless, Franken does a masterful job of addressing the real problems with healthcare in America.

It’s not long (only 9 minutes) but there were a few things about it that I found especially interesting. One, not all tea party folks are angry mobs. That’s a misperception promoted by the media. Two, its very, very clear who are the tea-baggers. And not just because one of them is wearing a t-shirt. Several times, they try to make points that are straight out of the Glenn Beck/Bill O’Reilly/Fox News playbook such as, “immigrants are the reason that costs are so high.” And that’s the one time that Franken gets a little testy when he has to remind someone that, no, he just said that the demographics in the two examples are the same. But even then, he’s deferential and he goes back to explaining things again. Three, a casual observer or one who is predisposed to not believe anything no matter how sensible, might probably dismiss the whole affair as lots of Washington double-speak peppered by hollow rhetoric. But it’s not. It’s complex. Very complex. I know what Medicare Part D is, for example, but I couldn’t explain it to you if you were holding a gun to my head. This issue is so complex that it’s no wonder it’s been so easy for the right to take advantage of the fear. Plus, as you watch, you can easily identify the moment that the tea-bag lady’s eye glaze over because of the overwhelming complexity of the information. It really isn’t the brainwashing that limits her ability to understand the issue, it’s her attention span. The brainwashing only works because she doesn’t have room for anything else. She needs it to be as simple as, “my taxes will go up and Obama is a socialist.” Never mind that neither of those things is true. And finally, there is probably no way you’re going to see this on the news. You’ll only see it here. It won’t show up on Fox. It won’t be discussed on Rush’s show. It won’t see the light of day in main stream media because it’s too damn nice. And it’s too damn complicated.

It’s been a while since I got around to posting anything. This one, however, is actually only a small part of some things I’ve been thinking about lately. Stay tuned. A rant’s probably coming soon.

The Internet About to Turn 40

Nice article from Mashable. Anytime I’m feeling particularly old, all I have to do is remember that at least I’m still younger than the internet. That makes me feel better. Sort of.

The Internet About to Turn 40, Last Seen With a Blonde in a Red Corvette.

Planned communities and reality

If you haven’t seen it, there’s a very interesting slide-show essay on Slate.com about walkable, transit-oriented development. You can get to the essay here. I’ve read several articles about this kind of development. And there are plenty of good websites that you can explore if you’re so inclined. I’d start here at NewUrbanism.org. The site isn’t much to look at but it at least gives you the horse’s mouth introduction to walkable, transit-oriented development. But I also like Inhabitat.com which is a much more interesting website and expands its reach into sustainability, eco-friendly design, and the like.

The hardest part of this whole process is pinning down what is really meant by walkable and transit-oriented. On one hand for example, Marc and Jamie’s community, only an hour (give or take) from Manhattan, could be considered a new urbanist community since they can walk to the train and can leave their car at home for as long as they like. But the neighborhood certainly isn’t new nor is it known for its “planned” eco-friendly design (then again, maybe everyone who lives there has low-flow toilets and nothing but CFL lightbulbs throughout the house. Who knows.) But there is open community space (an important component of New Urbanism) and the community has access to safe, reliable public transit and there are plenty of shops and other services that are within walking distance of much of the population. But was it planned that way or did it just grow up that way? 100 years ago (Metuchen is supposedly much older than this. I’m just using 100 years as an example because the time frame fits) NYC was growing and towns like Metuchen represented an opportunity to demonstrate that you were well enough off that you could own a home in a quiet, leafy retreat away from the dirt and noise of the city. But as far as I can tell, nobody really “planned” for it to be that way. There was probably no committee or company that sat down and mapped out the perfect new urbanist town like we see happening today. Today, new urbanism is hip and lucrative. The little towns that grow up around it are windfalls for the home builders, the real-estate companies and the countless boroughs and municipalities where these artificial communities are built, bringing millions in new tax revenue. But are the people who buy into the concept actually reaping any of the rewards of the promise? Wouldn’t it just make more sense for those people to resist the temptation of brand new construction and buy a home in one of the thousands of existing older communities that have developed, over decades, into the exact kind of community that fulfills the promise of the “idea” of New Urbanism? And what could be more environmentally friendly than buying an existing home instead of wasting the materials on a new one? And am I assigning too much idealism to the homebuyers themselves?

I’m getting away from the initial reason for the post. And I really hate it when I start to act a like a nay-sayer. I think the proponents of walkable and transit-oriented development have the right idea. And, as a bleeding heart liberal, I stand by all things eco-friendly and socially responsible. So let me get back to the point I wanted to make.

About 9 years ago or so, we went looking for a new house and stumbled on Vermillion in Huntersville. Vermillion was Mecklenburg County’s first big foray into new urbanist development. It was getting press and it’s developer was grand-standing over walkable, transit-oriented development. There were going to be townhomes in the neighborhood center that have store-fronts on the 1st level and the living quarters above. There were green spaces that were going to be scattered around. Everyone picked up their mail at the centrally located post boxes. And the homes were built close together with alleys in the back for garage access. You were going to be able to walk to dinner, walk to the dry-cleaner, walk to get your mail, etc. But here’s where it got frustrating and the reality didn’t match the promise. The developer’s whims were to build the townhomes first, sink money into bringing whatever small businesses he could, start building in a new, disconnected section of the neighborhood and lobby the town to bring light-rail up the I-77 corridor. The light-rail was the lynch pin in his entire plan. At least as far as we could tell. But the town blocked him. And the light-rail was a billion dollar project that one man didn’t really have a whole lot of say in. Over time, the list of unfinished projects started growing. We bought an affordable home in the area that was disconnected from the rest of the community meaning we couldn’t take advantage of the central tenet of new urbanism: walkability. We were told to wait for about a year and the connection would be built. That year-long wait became another year and another year while the developer fought with whoever he thought was holding him back, which eventually turned out to be just about everyone in his opinion. If it wasn’t the county dragging its feet over public transit, it was the local government. If it wasn’t the local government, it was the residents of the community constantly nagging him over when, just as a teeny tiny example, we’d ever be able to FREAKIN’ WALK TO ANYTHING IN OUR WALKABLE COMMUNITY!

To be completely fair, the residents were a big part of the problem. And I’m not talking about those of us who were still enthusiastic about the vision of a new urban oasis. Things got so bad at the HOA meetings that at one point, and I am not making this up, someone actually complained about having to walk to get their mail. Indeed, we have met the enemy and they are us.

The real enemies of new urbanism and smart growth are the developers, builders and residents who are far more concerned with the bottom line, whether its the value of their home or what its going to cost to build that connector road. Meanwhile, urban towns like Metuchen have sort of naturally developed into, if not the ideal of, at least a relatively close approximation to, new urbanism. Maybe development dollars would be better spent in reinvigorating neighborhoods like these. Of course, we’ve got other problems right now. Not the least of which is an economy that’s down the crapper. Much as I’d jump at a chance to live in a community like Metuchen; without  a job, there isn’t much at all I can do. And I certainly can’t sell a house in this economy.

Eventually, we found a better deal elsewhere and left that community long before a road was ever built and just before the original developer sold what remained of the land to other new home builders who demanded larger lots and larger homes, bastardizing (in my humble opinion) the original concept. And things haven’t much changed in Mecklenburg county or the communities that surround it. In fact, the upcoming mayoral election might just hinge on the fact that the county commission just recently voted for a 4.5 million dollar study for a streetcar line in Charlotte which would be an important component in the overall light rail plan. Current mayor Pat McCrory vetoed the spending plan, by the way.  Veto notwithstanding, the vote itself has some conservatives in Charlotte hopping mad. Of course, any kind of spending on community projects makes the conservatives angry but the issue here is a little deeper than that. We had quite a public fight over the initial light rail line. And the scars from that battle are still fresh even though the result was a light rail line that regularly sees double its originally projected number of riders and has been successful beyond anyone’s expectation. This streetcar extension and the new north-bound line would cost somewhere north of a billion dollars to complete, assuming its approved and the funding is there. But the initial phase would probably take light rail only half-way to Huntersville. The long-ago dream of a transit oriented community at Vermillion isn’t likely to come to fruition until well after 2015 or later. And in the meanwhile, whatever empty space is left around the I-77 corridor and the new I-485 corridor will probably be snapped up by developers who will build several dozen strip malls and countless new home communities that connect to nothing, go nowhere, and are filled with expensive (and in this economy, probably empty) homes.

I’m not saying I’m bitter. Just frustrated. Most of what I’m talking about doesn’t really apply to me anyway. To take advantage of whatever public transportation there is in Charlotte, we’d have to drive to get there. And for us, public transportation actually means the bus, not the light rail. The light rail is too far away for it to be of any use to us. Besides, I don’t have a job. So where the hell am I planning to go anyway?

Mourning Ted Kennedy

There are tributes, obituaries, and rememberances of Ted Kennedy everywhere you look this morning. And you’ll have plenty of time to hear more about it for probably the next few weeks.

I just wanted to pass along this understated political cartoon this morning. I thought it was very good:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-danziger/kennedy-dead_b_269053.html

Pop culture edition

Update:

This doesn’t so much fall under the heading of me being as good as predicting what’s coming as others are. Rather, it falls under the heading of me being terrible at doing some simple research. Either way, here’s a little blog post that helps to prove my point about the iPod Touch. Really, I ought to do just a little bit of searching before I open my mouth. But in this case, I feel OK about it since I came up with my little theory on my own.

To prove my opinionated point that I have an opinion about everything, I thought I’d drop a pop-culture post on you. And its sort of wide-ranging, so bear with me.

First, there’s too much nonsense on my TV these days. I’ve said that before and until it gets better, which is probably not likely to happen, I’ll keep saying it. So for now I’m turning my attention to the fall TV season. And that doesn’t look much better. During the day, when I can get the time, I’ve been watching a couple of shows on Hulu that I sort of like. One of them is SyFy’s Warehouse 13. It’s good. I like it. But I’m not head-over-heels in love with it. The production values are as good as they can be for an original series on a 2nd or 3rd tier cable network. And the acting is mostly OK. The overall effect is rescued by Saul Rubinek who kind of carries the burden of the acting through most of it. I also started catching up on J.J. Abrams new show, Fringe. It premiered last season on Fox and while I was enthusiastic about it, I never got around to checking in on a weekly basis. So the first season passed me by and now I’m trying to catch up on iTunes and on Hulu. [side note: if you're not really familiar with how Hulu works, they have contractual arrangements with the various networks that limits them to hosting only a set number of episodes of any given show; usually the last 5 or 7 episodes. So, you can't really use Hulu to watch an entire season of a show. I guess that helps the studios make their money on DVD sales and helps the sponsors make their money on ads.] Anyway, if you remember any of my previous posts bemoaning network television scheduling and the shows I enjoyed getting the axe before they had a chance to gain an audience, you can imagine that once I found that I really liked Fringe, my first thought was, “since I like it, it probably wouldn’t surprise me to find that it got killed by Fox.” Luckily, it wasn’t. They picked it up for season 2. To find out what’s still on, what’s new, and what might be interesting, I  popped over to the TV Guide.com network fall schedule. What I found was depressing. Too many reality shows (some of which actually air twice each week) and too many crappy teen-angst shows. One the bright side, we’re down to only 3 CSI shows and 2 Law & Orders. Family Guy is still going strong on Fox soon to be joined by The Cleveland Show. And there’s always football to look forward to for most of the fall/winter season. Add that to the fact that Lost won’t premier until 2010 and you’re in for some bland TV watching all through the fall.

Item 2 in my pop-culture drivel, er…I mean, well thought out post, is the rumored new iPod Touch. According to the rumor mills, Apple’s about to introduce a new version of the iPod Touch with a camera. Originally, my thoughts about the iPod Touch were kind of ho-hum. I couldn’t understand why someone would want to buy what is essentially an iPhone without the phone part. But I’ve had an iPhone for a couple of years now and I can tell you that the experience with AT&T has been, well, crappy. What I really want is everything that the iPhone does but without the headache that is AT&T. And suddenly, I’m understanding some of the reasons behind Apple’s efforts on improving the iPod Touch. First, if you’re a business person who’s forced to use a blackberry because that’s what you’re company supports, you’re probably not interested in paying a premium for your personal cell phone. You probably just want something that makes the occasional call and is generally reliable. But maybe you also want to take advantage of some the cool apps you can get on the iTunes store. Then the iPod Touch is probably for you. Its a little cheaper and still has WiFi if you want to get some network connectivity with it. And with a camera (and, who knows, maybe even video capabilities) you still can do a lot of the same things with it that you can do with an iPhone. Apple could address the frustration that most people have with AT&T by simply adding other carriers to the list of those who support the iPhone. But its hard to tell exactly how that might work. After all, its hard to find someone who doesn’t have at least a few bad things to say about their cell service provider. If it isn’t coverage, it’s cost. If it isn’t cost, its customer service. Etc., etc.

But lets assume that the Palm Pre and/or phones that run the Android operating system (like the HTC G1) start getting some traction right around the time that the AT&T and Apple exclusivity agreement comes to an end along with several million customer contracts. If the iPod Touch has enough compelling features, maybe some of the current crop of iPhone owners will look to the competitors for a replacement. In that case, its smart of Apple to still work on adding compelling features to a device which, at first glance, poaches the business of another of Apple’s own products.

The last little pop-culture item that was on my mind lately has been a rumor that some e-book retailers (the folks like Amazon and others who supply books for users of the Sony E-Reader and the Kindle) might consider putting ads in the books to help defray the cost of the device and the content. That’s right, advertisements inside the ebook content! Just image, you can be quietly enjoying your electronic copy of Kaled Hosseini’s “The Kite Runner.” You’ve immersed yourself in the world of this young boy’s Afghanistan and the history of a very troubled region and the lives of those around him. Basically, you’re doing what most people do who read books: you’re engaging with the book completely to the exclusion of the rest of the world around you. Its great escapism. But then, you flip the page and suddenly you’re hit with an ad for Macy’s latest 10% off sale. Talk about a jarring experience. I don’t like having my focus interrupted that way. Frankly, I think its an awful idea.

Those are my pop-culture thoughts for the day.