So this was me up in Yellowknife. I did get frost by the last two weeks of August, and Auroras all the way through August, a few months early thanks to solar flare activity (thanks, Sol, you’re a doll), but no snow. People keep asking me when/if I’m going back (or rather, if/when, as my friends are all cynics like me) to the North, and all I can say is, when/if someone makes it worth my while. I didn’t go up there just to get my ass kicked and come straight back to Vangroover. I’ve got leads on several clients up North, but nobody’s making a decision hastily, so this all still pending. What I’d like, ideally, is to get a client whose business is such that it justifies me going back North and working through the winter; what’s the point of going to Yellowknife and NOT going through a real arctic winter? I already got the parka!!!
And there’s an NGO up there who wants to work with me (if and only if I get back there, as a major part of their mandate is supporting the North and Northern businesses); their mission is to get remote communities online and train Aboriginal youth in digital technology: both in terms of blogging and social media (just like I was doing as the social media trainer at Fearless City) and hardware (e-cycling and rebuilding).
George Carlin on Politicians. Reminds me of the joke Second cousins twice removed, once forcibly
For those of you who are aural learners rather than visual, here it is in video:
And for those of you who are more cerebral and/or don’t have your glasses with you right now, here is the transcript:
There’s a reason education SUCKS, and it’s the same reason that it will never, ever, ever be fixed. It’s never going to get any better, don’t look for it, be happy with what you’ve got. Because the owners of this country don’t want that. I’m talking about the REAL owners, now. The REAL owners, the BIG WEALTHY business interests that control things and make all the important decisions — forget the politicians. The politicians are put there to give you the idea that you have freedom of choice. YOU DON’T. You have no choice. You have OWNERS. They OWN YOU. They own EVERYTHING. They own all the important land, they own and control the corporations; they’ve long since bought and paid for the Senate, the Congress, the State houses, the City Halls; they’ve got the judges in their back pockets, and they own all the big media companies so they control just about all the news and information you get to hear. They gotcha by the BALLS. They spend billions of dollars every year lobbying — lobbying to get what they want. Well, we know what they want — they want MORE for themselves and less for everybody else. But I’ll tell you what they don’t want. They DON’T want a population of citizens capable of critical thinking. They don’t want well-informed, well-educated people capable of critical thinking. They’re not interested in that, that doesn’t help them. That’s against their interests. That’s right. They don’t want people who are smart enough to sit around the kitchen table and figure out how badly they’re getting FUCKED by system that threw them overboard 30 fuckin’ years ago. They don’t want that. You know what they want? They want OBEDIENT WORKERS. OBEDIENT WORKERS. People who are just smart enough to run the machines and do the paperwork, and just dumb enough to passably accept all these increasingly shittier jobs with the lower pay, the longer hours, the reduced benefits, the end of overtime, and the vanishing pension that disappears the minute you go to collect it. And now they’re comin’ for your SOCIAL SECURITY MONEY. They want your fuckin’ retirement money. They want it BACK. So they can give it to their criminal friends on Wall Street. And you know something? They’ll get it. They’ll get it ALL from you sooner or later — ‘cuz they OWN this fuckin’ place. It’s a big CLUB. And YOU AIN’T IN IT. You and I are NOT IN the big club. By the way, it’s the same big club they use to beat you over the head with all day long when they tell you what to believe. All day long, beating you over the in their media telling you what to believe — what to think — and what to buy. The table is tilted, folks. The game is rigged. And nobody seems to notice. Nobody seems to care. Good honest hard-workin people — white collar, blue collar — doesn’t matter what color shirt you have on. Good honest hard-workin people CONTINUE — these are people of modest means — continue to elect these RICH COCKSUCKERS who don’t GIVE a fuck about them. They don’t give a fuck about you, they don’t GIVE A FUCK ABOUT YOU. T HEY DON’T CARE ABOUT YOU — AT ALL. AT ALL. AT ALL. You know? And nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care … that’s what the owners count on, the fact that Americans will probably remain willfully ignorant of the big red, white and blue dick that’s being jammed up their assholes every day. Because the owners of this country know the truth — it’s called the American Dream … ‘cuz you have to be asleep to believe it.”
George Carlin’s Final Words To The World…
George Carlin on “The American Dream”. The greatest 3 minutes of his career, and the final 3 minutes of his career. The PTB are aggressively trying to keep this video off YouTube and Google, so I thought I’d upload it so it can’t get deleted as easily. Everyone needs to watch this! “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.
PowerPoint, which can be found on two hundred and fifty million computers around the world, is software you impose on other people. It allows you to arrange text and graphics in a series of pages, which you can project, slide by slide, from a laptop computer onto a screen, or print as a booklet (as Sarah Wyndham did). The usual metaphor for everyday software is the tool, but that doesn’t seem to be right here. PowerPoint is more like a suit of clothes, or a car, or plastic surgery. You take it out with you. You are judged by it—you insist on being judged by it. It is by definition a social instrument, turning middle managers into bullet-point dandies.
I am proud to say that I have stuck firmly to my Never Learning Powerpoint policy and am instead learning Prezi. I think Malcolm Gladwell would be disappointed and Marshall McLuhan would be proud, and that’s enough for me.
In March, 1792, twenty-four of New York City’s leading merchants met secretly at Corre’s Hotel to discuss ways to bring order to the securities business and to wrest it from their competitors, the auctioneers. Two months later, on May 17, 1792, these merchants signed a document named the Buttonwood Agreement, named after their traditional meeting place, a buttonwood tree. The agreement called for the signers to trade securities only among themselves, to set trading fees, and not to participate in other auctions of securities. These twenty-four men had founded what was to become the New York Stock Exchange. The Exchange would later be located at 11 Wall Street.
Born and bred to exclusivity, raised in full view of the public, and propped up by a taxation system that relies on an affluent bourgeoisie that the system itself seeks to extinguish, it’s no wonder that when the American People exercised their Constitutionally protected freedom of assembly on sidewalks that they’d paid for and built, The System struck back.
Having its servants (I thought they were Public Servants? Silly me) net and then mace a group of peaceful women protestors:
Sooner or later, New York City will run out of cops, or perhaps the budget burden will become so steep that Billionaire Bloomberg will petition the President to bring in Erik Prince and his Band of Bloodthirsty Bros.
Some are already writing the eulogy for #OccupyWallStreet, somewhat prematurely. But all voodoo devotees know you have to write it down before you draw the pentagram and cast the spell to make it come true.
Editors at Adbusters, a Vancouver-based magazine (mission: “topple existing power structures”) wanted to see if they could spark demonstrations just by posting the idea using social media. It created a Twitter topic with the hashtag #OccupyWallStreet, asking people to come to New York’s Financial District to join what they said would be tens of thousands in a “leaderless resistance movement” objecting to banks, capitalism and other perceived evils. Egypt’s Tahrir Square was cited as precedent.
The protests last week were a bust, but perhaps the young protesters learned a lesson: Just because it’s on social media doesn’t make it true.
The article goes on to say that the reports of violence were completely overstated. Scroll up on this post. Or, if you prefer, scroll down.
Yes, Noam Chomsky is a tiresome windbag, but every now and again he’s just…right. Like now (alternate G+ link in case Cusack’s retweet has still crashed the website):
Anyone with eyes open knows that the gangsterism of Wall Street — financial institutions generally — has caused severe damage to the people of the United States (and the world). And should also know that it has been doing so increasingly for over 30 years, as their power in the economy has radically increased, and with it their political power. That has set in motion a vicious cycle that has concentrated immense wealth, and with it political power, in a tiny sector of the population, a fraction of 1%, while the rest increasingly become what is sometimes called “a precariat” — seeking to survive in a precarious existence. They also carry out these ugly activities with almost complete impunity — not only too big to fail, but also “too big to jail.”
The courageous and honorable protests underway in Wall Street should serve to bring this calamity to public attention, and to lead to dedicated efforts to overcome it and set the society on a more healthy course.
For the visual learners among us, here are some instructions from those total slackers and hippies at MIT:
Cheers!
In related news, the Vancouver Philospher’s Cafe this Monday is on whether or not violence is a valid form of expression.
Is violence an appropriate medium of expression?
Our city recently witnessed a display of violence as an expression of disappointment over a lost hockey game. We also have seen societies unleashing collective violence to (presumably) contain further violence. So let’s talk about the morality of violence.
As always, I am hopeful our engagement would reflect the fundamental creed of our Café: any idea worthy of conception, is worthy of reflection, of examination, of analysis, of critique (and of even being laughed at, poked at or mocked provided of course if we can manage to do it respectfully or as deliciously as the late George Carlin would do.)
Oooh, we’re back in Vangroover and feeling our oats (or maybe those were just the complimentary beverages at Social Media Week) and it’s no wonder: since we landed, we’ve been buried in swag, and it’s time to share the luv.
We have, on that note, four tickets to give away to the Fifth Annual Mosquito Creek Marina Boat Show that’s opened today and is on right through to Sunday. We’re lazy, and we assume you have either friends or family (not taking any bets on both!) and can roll with a posse. To win the tickets, you have until midnight Friday to post the best pirate joke in the comments here. I’ll email the winner shortly after midnight and you’ll be able to pick up the tickets at the gate.
Thursday, September 22 – Sunday, September 25 • Mosquito Creek Marina, North Vancouver
Mosquito Creek Marina and the British Columbia Yacht Brokers Association present the 5th Annual Boat Show at the Creek. Known as one of Vancouver’s largest floating boat shows, this event is great for families and all ages . There will be hundreds of boats on the water for viewing, marine vendors, yacht brokers and live performances by Jim Foster. Stop by on Saturday for a BBQ with the JRFM RoadShow Crew, enjoy a beer at the beer garden aboard the Celebration on Water, catering by Fishworks Restaurant and four full days of family fun. For more information, visit us online at mosquitocreekmarina.com.
WHAT: Boat Show at Mosquito Creek Marina, North Vancouver
WHERE: 415 West Esplanade, North Vancouver, BC
WHO: All ages – fun for the family and kids
WHY: Destined to become Vancouver’s largest floating boat show
WHEN: September 22-25, 2011
Thursday – Friday: 12 noon – 6 pm
Saturday: 10 am – 6 pm
Sunday 10 am – 4 pm
HOW (MUCH): $12, children under 12 accompanied by an adult are free
Oh. So if you have you, a partner, and two kids, you can bring your babysitter and her boyfriend/girlfriend too!
raincoaster 