Christmas 2013?

I thought I would not bother anyone with this before Christmas. This way you have 364 days to think about it. While I would give more emphase to the consumerism aspects of Christmas, these aspects are true as well. 

Manufacturing Consent

I recently rewatched this documentary Manufacturing Consent.  While I am not an Anarcho-Syndicalist as Noam Chomsky is, I have found many important ideas about how the media controls the way we think in this video. This is called framing.  If you never hear about the massacres in East Timor, you cannot be against the massacres.

 

There is no big conspiracy. It is the world view of the editors that cause them to act this way. I have talked about this in another post.

 

A Christmas Eve Bonus Post

Into the Belly of the Beast

A TernLittle did I know that when I was asked to get some whole wheat French bread on the way home, that it would lead me into the belly of the Beast. But I promise to leave no tern unstoned in my search for blogging excellence, so I share with you the experience.

As I approached the Beast, I noticed a man on a motorcycle. As any good citizen would, he wore a proper helmet. I would even say a friendly helmet. On it was a skeletal hand with one finger raised in salute. I salute you too, random citizen of Babylon.

I had to park a long way away from the Beast. I wish I could say I was using the trick I learned in diet class of parking far away from the store for the exercise, but it was just that the Beast was busy. It must have been someone's birthday or something. Outside the Beast was a women dressed in red who said hi to everyone who entered. She even had a bucket on a tripod for cigarette butts. I do not smoke so I just smiled.

In the store was popcorn in metal tins. It seemed a strange way to buy popcorn, but since there were Disney Princesses on them, how could I say no? It is for the children. (Yes I was correct, the popcorn was a big hit at my house.) 

After finding the wheat bread, I decided that we had peppers at home that needed stuffing. I paid a premium for the low fat type of ground meat, as the fat will be absorbed into the pepper as it cooks. I know that the fat is artificially added to the ground meat in order to reduce the quality and make more money, but I am sure that Babylon has my best interest in mind. My health is important to them!

I went down the "beer" isle. I use the quotation marks since you cannot call the alcoholized water the Beast sells beer. I bought Asti Spumante for New Year's Day. This is a big day in any Russian household so I need to be ready.

It seemed that everyone and his brother was in line to check out. I had less than 20 items so I could go to the slightly faster lane. As I left I saw a different woman in a blue vest at the exit. What a boring job I thought. But on reconsideration, with Obama as president, this might be a premier job in our near future. I smiled at her, she smiled at me and said, "Thanks for shopping at Walmart."

Grant Interview

This is more raw footage from the documentary Bubble. 

Grant is something of an expert on interest rates. One interesting point Grant made was that if interest rates returned to a more normal rate of 5%, then in order to pay this interest the Federal Government would have to cut spending by 40%. When this is added to the fact that we should also cut spending by 40% right now to balance the budget, we have a potential disaster of 80% cuts in spending. 

I am something of a spending hawk, but even I find this appalling.

I am not worried about the supposed fiscal cliff, I am worried about some combination of factors that leads to a fiscal tsunami if nothing is done in the next 2 to 6 years.