You Can’t Say That on Television

How many social media networks do you belong to?

I don’t keep up with the trend in online social networks so, a few years ago, I was surprised when a former secondary school girlfriend of mine invited me to a couple of social networks I’d never heard of.

The networks were geared toward schoolaged children, with a lot of the online checkboxes, smiley faces, etc., that we used to exchange in notes passed in classrooms.

I suppose the networks still exist, that the demand is still there, but since I neither have children nor am of schoolage (6-18 years) anymore, those parts of society aren’t of interest to me.

Unless…

Unless, that is, there’s data there worth mining to see where the leaders of tomorrow are going to take society and what the followers expect of their leaders.

Should mainstream media and/or the major blogging/tweeting community members pay attention to these feeder streams of age-specific social networks?

Or are they already buzzing about them and I’ve missed the symbol sets, the codewords, that go with those subcultures?

I never read the teen celebrity-following magazines when I was a kid.  I was more likely to read a technology-based magazine, instead.

I passed notes in class, though, starting around age 8.  No, I actually passed notes in my first year of school, when I was 5 to 6 years of age, but they were mainly drawings of cars, boats and submarines that I shared with other guys.  It wasn’t until age 8 that I started passing love notes to girls.

In the U.S., I see a trend where the candidates for U.S. President are attempting to send love notes to women in an adult sort of way, one type for married/attached heterosexual women, one type for single heterosexual women and another type for nonheterosexual women, attached and/or single.

What kind of social networks did the candidates and the women to whom they’re sending signals use when they were kids?

Answer that question and you’ll know the political trends of the next decade.

Meanwhile, I return to the technological trends of this decade predicted by the view 1000 years from now, before seeing what the Committee wants to discuss at the next meeting…

A nod to Andrea, who attended Lee University.  I hope you meet the person with whom you want to spend your remaining days on this planet, reinforcing the great life you’ve had already.

Drawing of the day

Last night, my wife and I ate in Thai Garden, a local restaurant featuring food styles of SE Asia.

At a nearby table, a couple sitting near the window reminded me of some retrofuturistic social rebels celebrating a recent victory by having a romantic dinner together.

So, of course, I had to draw them on a paper placemat while I had a St. Valentine’s Day romantic evening with my wife:

"To the Revolution!" "To us!"

Links of the day

Digital Illustrations by Rob Shields

They Have Arrived!!! Get Them Today!

Underwater Aliens by Ed “POPS” Centeno

Obsession Photoshoot

What I Find Attractive

Time After Time..

And the Answer is….

Potato Patch – A Proposal

Lexis

LANA BLACK

40 bags in 40 days Challenge

Santorum Speech in Tacoma, WA – 2/13/12 (Occupy Protest excerpt)

“San Pedro (St. Peter’s Square)” – Vatican City – Manolo Garcia – Featured Photographer

199

Justified: Thick as Mud

Göran

Sunny Beadz on Sunny Country Radio – The Band Perry snags some SWAG

INN MEMORIES- The little blue book of my grandfather.

Dear ========

BOOK REVIEW: UN ANNO DOPO (The Year That Follows) by SCOTT LASSER

The Legend of the Hummingbirds

Hope My Prof Likes My Newspaper Ads!

步步惊心 Scarlet Heart

Spacepaintings 1 minute quand tu veux

USA road-trip part 2: what would you like to see? polls are open

A Fitting Sendoff

The Elaborate Spinning Machine Is His Head

April Taylor’s Music

Post Ideas

Moses Melkonian – Beirut Lights

maze a day

Daily Health Boost Feel Good Tribe

Develop your conscious awareness

Here, kitty, kitty, kitty!

Mashup of the day [NSFW]

[Warning:  the links below contain words/ideas/images currently subject to categorisation as inappropriate for family-oriented audiences]

Here’s the story that led me to this mashup.  Word.

Make sure you listen to it accompanied by Delibes “Coppelia/Slow Waltz and Final Gallop” performed by the Royal Opera House – Covent Garden, Mark Ermie, Conductor, on satellite radio or digital TV.

What are you selling?

Do you want the codewords of your subculture to join the repertoire of the general [regional/national/global/solar] culture?

Are you a member of a guild?  You know, a craft/workers union, a medical association, a political party, a corporation, a sports club, that sort of thing.

Do you share a set of words solely around something like Earl Grey Tea?

What do I share with the bird pecking on the shagbark hickory tree outside my window?

What do I call the bird?  Do I give it a common name?  A botanical/Latin name?  A list of descriptors?  The sounds that it makes?

Black and white feathers.  Tends to hop up the tree.  Can’t hear what, if any, sounds that it makes from its throat.

Should I say downy woodpecker?  How about Picoides pubescens?

As I drink a cup of water which contains a prepackaged bag of Twinings Classics Earl Grey Tea I zapped together in the microwave oven, what else do I observe that doesn’t necessarily pass by the viewhole-cut-in-the-wall called a window?

Today, I am alive.

Thoughts left over from previous days’ influences vie for my conscious action to record them here.

One to remember: [“Fascism under the guise of democracy is the rule of financial capital itself.” — Laibach], ironically read and recorded from a video on the commercial website, YouTube, along with [“What is art?  Art is the goal and the end of progress.”], “Stop the parahuman” and the fact that art both creates a new mythology and should take the system more seriously than the system takes itself seriously.

Which means a performer like Jimmy Fallon is just another fascist propagandist, if you follow that line of reasoning.

IF, that is, you take art seriously and believe that politics is in the service of theatrical performances.

Global absurdistcynical art means nothing to the bird looking for a few bites to eat on this cool, late winter day.  The larvae and other insects being eaten have no philosophical funny point to make in sacrificing their lives to feed the bird.

Can you protest against a government that provides the roads and education that brought you to the steps of the government building to wave legible signs of protest?

Of course you can.

What is education?  Is it not our way of tricking people of all ages, not just children, into adopting a set of codewords to increase their success when interacting with others who most often use the same codewords; i.e., share the same [sub]culture?

A white breasted nuthatch, Sitta carolinensis, clears out an old nesting hole in the same tree on which the woodpecker was searching a few minutes ago.

How do we train ourselves to observe our codeword sets and our behaviours so we can make changes before we get to the point where we feel our only recourse is to generally protest the system that got us to that point?

How do we enhance our [bio]feedback system to protect ourselves as individuals, giving easily-accessible new routes for those who wish not to perpetuate the codeword set of the [sub]culture in which they/we feel trapped?

In other words, how do we take those who are mostly followers and readily give themselves over to hypnotic leaders, who aren’t interested in promoting more than one subcultural codeword set, and give those followers the ability to break their trances and follow the leaders they are best predisposed to emulate?

Those who can follow themselves, are able to self-hypnotise belief in the power of nonconformance, no matter how much the self is a product of mass hypnosis and thus not completely individualistic/unique, just a unique combination of mass [sub]cultural codewords, we need not worry about, but should still give them the same protection under the law as conforming, hypnotised followers.

No matter how much we adore/abhore the prevailing system of social interactions, we all contribute.  In fact, diversity of beliefs is an inherent part of species survival.

We can still belong to our codeword groups — our clubs, corporations and associations — creating entrance exams and other means of excluding codeword noncompliers, including official denial/rejection codeword sets (“that person is an enemy of our [religious/political] belief system,” “your team sucks,” “you are not qualified to be an official member of our witchdoctor medical practitioners,” etc.), if we wish.

In the end, we are all selling something, ourselves in opposition to or ourselves as part of a system.

How do you/I buy or buy into a system?

That’s a question the birds would understand.  Sometimes, they’re species-specific, mating with others of their kind, and sometimes, they’re members of a bigger flock, taking advantage of numbers, a group of different species gathering to elude a predator and feed upon the fat of the land.  Safety in numbers as prey while the predator simply gets a wider variety of food to choose from.

That’s all we are, too.  You/me/us.

The Gilded Ageless Ones

She sighed.

Month after month, she and her mother arranged, managed and attended about four weddings a weekend, on average.

Herethy looked at the current mess.

A drunk bride and groom.

A conservative Baptist church and an even more conservative pastor.

But most importantly, cans of beers everywhere, hidden in nooks and crannies, out of sight of the pastor and the church elders.

Herethy’s mother could see the look of concern in the pastor’s eyes as he performed the marriage ritual.

After the wedding, she pulled the pastor aside before he walked downstairs to the reception about to take place in the basement fellowship hall.

“Pastor, we have a problem.”

“I’ll say.  What’s gotten into those kids?  I’ve never seen such wild looks in eyes of two newlyweds.  Of course, I consider that a good thing.  Most likely means they’re still pure and are really looking forward to their honeymoon.”

“Well, sir, that could be the issue.  But I think the real problem is something else.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, sir.  You see, Pastor, the wedding party has brought cases of beer into the church…”

“Alcohol?!  In the house of the Lord?!  Never!”

“Yes, sir, I agree.”

“Did you put them up to this?”

“No, sir.  I neither condone nor provide alcohol for any of the hundreds of weddings over which I’ve presided.”

“Then how do you know…?”

“It’s my daughter, Pastor.  She went downstairs to prepare the punch and saw cases of beer under the kitchen counter.  Now, I know and you know that alcohol is forbidden so when my daughter told me, I…well, I knew I needed your help.  Is there someone you can trust to help me without the wedding guests finding out?”

“Someone I can trust?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To do what?”

“Well, to get rid of the beer.”

“Hmm…let me see.  This sort of gossip will spread like a hot syrup over my wife’s good pancakes.  I suppose William, one of the senior deacons, will keep this under his belt.”

“Shall I go and fetch him?”

“No, let me.”

Minutes later, while Herethy kept her hand on the fellowship hall door under the pretense of keeping the guests out until the food was ready and the post-wedding photographs had been finished, the pastor, senior deacon and Herethy’s mother filled trash bags with empty cans, full cans and cases of beer, hauling them to Herethy’s mother’s van for later disposal.

After the reception, the pastor thanked Herethy for being a good Christian girl.  He also scolded the bride and groom privately, telling them he hoped they had a child like Herethy one day who would keep someone else’s wedding from becoming a disaster, and sent them on their way.

The marriage lasted three months, less time than the beer had to spoil while packed under garbage in the landfill outside Knoxville.

Herethy says most other weddings were not as memorable, although she remembers a few times when brides, grooms or members of the wedding party would lock their knees and pass out.

The life of a wedding planner’s daughter, although busy, was not all bad in retrospect.  A child like that grows up quickly, learning the secrets of other people’s lives in a hurry and knowing how to keep those family secrets from seeing the light of day.

Important traits and habits for an adult corporate leader, mother, and future politician like Herethy.

Wouldn’t you like to know who she is?

Why looking at us as in living in countries doesn’t work anymore…

The best bottom line statement of the year!:

“Mais le pays manque d’un secteur dominant, comme la haute technologie pour la République tchèque ou le secteur automobile pour la Slovaquie”, nuance-t-elle. Les exportations du pays sont très diversifiées – appareils électriques, petites machines, automobiles bas de gamme, textiles – mais génèrent peu de valeur ajoutée.

Translated:

“But the country lacks a dominant sector, such as high technology for the Czech Republic or Slovakia automotive sector,” she detailed. The country’s exports are highly diversified – electrical appliances, small machinery, low-end automobiles, textiles – but generate little value added.

Little value added — that is the major problem, n’est pas?   We have too much comparative advantage to deal with in this century.

Are you ready for global centralised capitalism?

Those who don’t have a competitive advantage can’t compete, can they, if domestic demand has little effect.

Can we crowdsource an answer region by bankrupt region?

Candle Wax

The issue then becomes one of explaining to the full range of age groups and belief subsets how every data point, although unique, is made of the same ingredients as the set in total.

“But if we are all the same, how are we all different?”

Well, you see, we are all connected.

“But my subculture is diametrically opposed to yours.  We do not feel connected.”

Emotionally opposed, yes, and thus connected by emotions.

“We would never participate in any of your activities.”

And, therefore, we complement each other, one performing the tasks the other would not.

“It makes no sense.”

Observe the candle.  The wick is not the same as the wax.  However, both react to fire, one feeding off the other, giving light as a heat byproduct.

“Or heat as a light byproduct.”

Precisely.  It is the observation point from which one finds one’s place of understanding.  ‘Who am I?’ becomes ‘I am the collection of states of energy that detects heat and light.’

“Or hot wax.”

Or carbon with which to record symbols that represent your subculture.  You are the stuff of stars.

“I don’t know…  My elders say I am a gift from God.”

Stars.  God.  I am telling you they are the same.

“We do not practice pagan religions.  Stars are not living beings.  Only God can create people.”

Religion I do not know.  I only know states of energy, atoms, molecules and the like.  And their connectedness.  The teachings of your elders are your guide to follow freely as you wish.

“So why am I sitting here with you?”

And I ask myself the same question.  Why do two states of energy such as ourselves choose to interact using sound shaped by our vocal chords and other movements of our states of energy we call bodies?  It is what it is.  Questioning it prolongs the next moment of discovery between us, adding to the wonder of the universe that is us, our states of energy, in momentary synchronisation.

“Are you not wise, then, as they told me you are?”

I am wiser than the trees, they say, and yet I cannot sprout a single leaf.  This hair upon my arm cannot convert sunlight into energy yet, like bark, it provides a modicum of warmth against a winter’s cold.  Wisdom is application of one’s knowledge of one’s ignorance.  What I do not know tells me more about what you and I will say next to each other more than what I know says about what we can say to each other.

“So you can’t tell me if I should eat this bowl of ice cream, Great Uncle?”

A container of frozen cow’s milk and other ingredients… Does it taste good to you?

“My tongue says it does.”

Your tongue is not a separate object.  It is you as much as these words we have left behind.  Including the rest of you, not just your tongue, does the ice cream taste good to you?

“I don’t know.  I’ve never thought about it.”

Precisely.  Look at the object you call a bowl.  Look at the object you call a spoon.  Look at the object you call ice cream.  They are connected, their function and form, their origin and destiny, all one.  In reality, they are not separate objects.  Imagine they and you are all part of the same universe, created, as you say, as a gift from God.  Is the place where the cow came from, how it was raised, how it was milked, how its milk was sanitised and mixed with special ingredients to make ice cream, and how the spoon and bowl came into being also a gift from God?

“Of course.”

Then tell me without putting the ice cream in your mouth, does the ice cream taste good to you?

“Wow!  Uh… that seems like a lot to think about just to decide if I should eat the ice cream.”

But don’t you already have an idea what the ice cream will taste like?  Don’t you already think the ice cream tastes good?

“Yes.”

Then, in the space before you smell the ice cream with your ‘nose’ or place the ice cream on your ‘tongue,’ in that moment when you cannot stop the ice cream from hitting your ‘taste buds,’ I tell you the ice cream will taste like motor oil and burn like hot lava, can your thoughts switch to disliking the ice cream?

“Yes.”

Are you sure.  This moment I describe takes place faster than the speed of light, an imperceptible split second before your thoughts can travel from one neuron to the next.

“Then I guess not.”

Your life is made up of all those imperceptible split seconds.

“Which means…”

Taste is a deception.

“Which means…’

All the imperceptible moments up to now have already determined whether you’re going to eat the ice cream within that bowl, which, by the way, has melted quite a bit since we first started talking.

“And I hate warm ice cream!”

There you go.  You have your answer.