WhatWeBethinking

We're all Born for Things This was a brief conversational interlude that went on at Franklin Park as I was trying out my bare-foot jogging. This event weaves through some of the main ideas of this entry. "Doesn't that hurt running bare-foot?" "Yes m'am." "Why are you doing it than?" "I've heard it's good for my feet if I do it enough..." "Do you really think you'll be conscientious enough to keep this up, you don't seem like the type of individual that would." "You're probably right m'am." "I don't know why you're running that way than. It's silly if you ask me and you probably need some direction in your life." "Thank you mam." "You look a little foolish you realize and you're also going at the same pace as me because you're in so much pain and I'm just walking." "Thank you M'am, I just misplaced my sh

So two stories come to mind that remind us evermore that the reaper's scythe is hanging ever closer to the vital organs of our ability to engage as a citizenry. NPR's voracious and longwinded Tom Ashbrook peers into the depths of a gorging swell of micro-labor , tasks, jobs, and other opportunities for work ranging from professional , to degrading , to "I'd rather wallow in frothy, vat of bile  before I work like this for such little pay". From the other end, we're seeing our Supreme Court debate and ejaculate arguments as to whether the Health Care reform law is constitutional, lining themselves up ideologically, and spending time, effort and resources destroying more things sanctimoniously.   We're seeing the nature of work and employment become more schizophrenic; more experimental, but more inhumane, more removed from our public sphere's scrutinizing eye; we're seeing some piece of safety net being eroded by the forces of special

  So apparently there has been empirical, economic and journalistic analysis of my lifetyle in our hearty economy!  Apparently I've been part of the " gig economy " and I didn't even know about it! What a trendy title as well; a "gig", why I sound like a young rock start  fighting his way into the limelight! Alright, so basically this gig economy is the idea of individuals holding multiple jobs or engaging in various types of contract work rather than working for one company full-time. Freelancers, part-timers, or temps are other terms for these individuals but the main idea is that these people do lots of different stuff at more than one place for money.    Now the gig economy has always been around, but apparently now it's gotten more prevalent to the point where 1/3rd of the workforce is in some way involved in the gig economy. How great! So now it's sort of a big deal due to our economic downturn as this has become fairly e

  "If you don't know where you are, that's probably because you don't belong here". My mother told me this was an old New England credo referring to visitors venturing forth through the Boston area . I could see this being true. Streets are curvaceous; signs are sparse or non-existent; there can be many one-way roads and rotaries all up in your grill. The Boston area is tough to get around and I think this causes more problems than we think and I think we could find a creative way for everything just to make a bit more sense navigationally speaking.   We have our MBTA system which can work despite it's massive deficit. However, any lateral movement is strikingly difficult as the subway only goes inbound or outbound. I can't begin to fathom taking the T  to Brookline, Allston or Dorchester as those coordinates are sideways to my current position, nor would I ever want to begin to set foot on the notorious B-section of the green line which is slower

Every morning one can awake. We can look upon the world with eyes that we have. But then we hear something about Rick Santorum and a state of some sort. Then we hear something about Rush Limbaugh calling someone a whore and getting in real big trouble. We go throughout the day being around people but not actually daring to utter a single phoneme to them as that would be socially unacceptable. It might be warm, which is nice, but then we're reminded of "climate change" and we know that the 60 degree days aren't supposed to occur in a New England winter and that we're all gonna die. Then perhaps one gets a hang nail. It hurts. We try to find nail clippers, but they're pretty impossible to find. Our room's are too messy. Our cars are too messy. Society is too messy.  Things can seem bleak friends. Bleak indeed. Below are some videos and examples of media that in some convoluted way  can give us hope if we choose to allow them to.  "The most impo

Alright, I just wanted to air another set of grievance and lord knows I'm a being that can hurl grievances and maybe we should all be doing so as there is much to grieve about from a societal standpoint if you look at things with a grimace like  you should. TV sucks us all in, divides us all, erodes at our social bonds, makes us less fertile and surely will, and probably mostly has been the death of everything. But I'm especially pissed at it because of a show called American Dad . This show, a cartoon that appears on  Fox on the evenings of some day of the week, stems  from the series Family Guy and features an American Family (the father working for the government), his wife, son, daughter an alien and a fish. It's from the same writer as Family Guy, Seth McFergunson or something. Take a guess as to whether you would consider this to be quality programming This show is disgusting . I'm doing a poor job summarizing it but that's mainly because my ver

Alright. I might swear in this one, but here it goes. This entry really stems from listening and reading the news too much this past week. A major theme / question arose as I heard about all the major goings and comings, the actions, the conflicts, and behaviors of individuals, our institutions and political figures. Why can't we stop being dicks? For example, one can hear about the conflict in Syria . At least 3,500 people have been killed . Assad is probably going to be overthrown eventually . He could surrender, escape with his life, but no, he's brutally suppressing his people; he's being a dick. Why can't he choose to not do so? You hear about Egypt and the one year anniversary of the uprising that brought down Mubarak. Women in Egypt still get sexually assaulted quite casually and frequently. Now I'll admit, I too like breasts. But one must remember, we're part of society, and we're actually in the 21st century. Based on these precepts, it

"Sen. Lamar Alexander likes to eat his cheeseburger with a side of internet!" Last night as usual, I was hoping to look up various Icelandic mythological creatures and biographies of Jay-z during. I was shocked to find that I couldn't access the results of my search that I had worked so hard to find as wikipedia had blacked itself out! Azzah! Not only was this site blacked out, but apparently the whole internet might be in Jeopardy! Upon further investigation, it was found that this black-out was due to some anti-piracy legislation that we have all heard so much fanfare about (I didn't of course as I was on a different plane of reality). There is the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the the Protect IP act (PIPA) . This legislation, backed by many senators and congressman across the aisle, is intended to target rogue websites that infringe on U.S. copyright law. This might include movies, music, counterfeit watches. Imagine those guys who sell the counterfei