No surprise that life is a life-long pulling and tugging affair. There's always something just up ahead pulling and drawing us on to it; then something just behind tugging and calling us back to it. Case in point -- my home town Chicago in this summer of 2011.
Along the lakefront, Bono and his U2 band are rocking Soldiers Field with a multi-million dollar concert extravaganza. Talk about new? Change? Future? Here's where you can see, hear and feel it from a stage roaring with sound-and-fury signifying everything the 60,000 fans want to experience. From the opening "Even Better Than the Real Thing" to the finale "The Joshua Tree," U2 is the tomorrow its fans love to love.
Meanwhile along State Street, the historical landmark entrance-way to the old Carson Pirie Scott store stands as a stunning steel-lacework throwback to the architecture of the 19th C. Now a successful newcomer -- big-box retailer Target -- proposes to re-interpret this landmark status by allowing their big red logo to gleam from behind the lacework. As their advertising argument goes: present meets past, no one loses, everyone wins!
Most fans at Soldiers Field probably don't much care who wins or loses this architectural debate. They never shopped in Carson's grand old State Street store anyway (now known as the Sullivan Center). Anymore than they did in Marshall Field's celebrated store further up State Street (now known as Macy's). I mean, come on guys, this is 2011. Lets rock. Working up a sweat over grandma's shopping days isn't very relevant, man.
Still, there may be a bridge somewhere between State Street's cherished yesterday and Soldier Field's exciting tomorrow. Upon closer inspection, that bridge is already here. The bridge called life. On which we all walk everyday. The young trod the starting steps on one end and the elders the finishing steps on the the other end. Easy to see why each may see the journey from a different perspective. However, here's the secret to the plot....
...we're all traveling the same bridge. We all share the same journey. And we're all doing it at the very same time. We may not always be able to hear exactly what the other is saying from their end, but whatever it is, it's all coming from the same bridge. And we all need to be be sure this bridge holds. I mean, lets get this generational thing straight once and for all. Be it the rocking young at Soldiers Field or the reminiscing elders on State Street, we're in this thing together,
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
CURIOSITY CAN KILL MORE THAN CATS
Curiosity may have killed a great many cats and people, but both of us still remain desperately curious. About our world and especially about ourselves. After all, am I not that object in life about which to be most curious...?
This fixation with self begins at the very beginning. At first there was that serpent, later the tribal witch doctor, still later our philosophers, painters and playwrights. We have gone to each for answers. From Aristotle to Oprah, from hieroglyphics to body art, from Aeschylus to Arthur Miller, they've done their best. But now in our present age, enter the scientist-technologist. Humanity's newest Delphic Oracles.
Be it minds like Einstein and Hawking coupled with technocrats like Jobs and Gates, we are today the beneficiaries of ideas and instruments not even emperors could have dreamed. However, when living with such a flood, the trick is to know how not to drown. How to swim with the successes, not the sharks.
Here I'm thinking of random examples. Like my friends who are so technologically dependent, they can be found for days inside their homes checking television & computer weather data without ever stepping outside to actually feel the weather. [Something like those forecasters who report from inside their hermetically sealed, windowless TV studios]. Or the researchers from the University of Vanderbilt who recently studied the brain circuitry of memory-building, apparently without any reference to those masters of memory like Marcel Proust and Thomas Wolfe. Or the BMW drivers who smartly use their GPS system to find where they are going, then their steerage system to automatically park, often without a sentient clue as to the amazing spaces and places outside the BMW.
I know, I know, this sounds like another Luddite rant against machines, Or a later edition of the Twilight Zone fear of computers. Actually, it is none of these. Nothing so academic or pretentious. If anyone in my family really cares to know, it's mostly about what happened once I bought that scientifically-designed pillow meant to perfectly conform to my head, guaranteeing me the ultimate in psychosomatic comfort. Well -- it didn't!!
I did my own scientific-technological research. After wrestling with that bewitched rubber pillow for three weeks, I discovered science and technology simply can't improve the cozy cushiness and comfort of my own little long-lived-with down pillow. And that, fellow cats & seekers, is a fact....
This fixation with self begins at the very beginning. At first there was that serpent, later the tribal witch doctor, still later our philosophers, painters and playwrights. We have gone to each for answers. From Aristotle to Oprah, from hieroglyphics to body art, from Aeschylus to Arthur Miller, they've done their best. But now in our present age, enter the scientist-technologist. Humanity's newest Delphic Oracles.
Be it minds like Einstein and Hawking coupled with technocrats like Jobs and Gates, we are today the beneficiaries of ideas and instruments not even emperors could have dreamed. However, when living with such a flood, the trick is to know how not to drown. How to swim with the successes, not the sharks.
Here I'm thinking of random examples. Like my friends who are so technologically dependent, they can be found for days inside their homes checking television & computer weather data without ever stepping outside to actually feel the weather. [Something like those forecasters who report from inside their hermetically sealed, windowless TV studios]. Or the researchers from the University of Vanderbilt who recently studied the brain circuitry of memory-building, apparently without any reference to those masters of memory like Marcel Proust and Thomas Wolfe. Or the BMW drivers who smartly use their GPS system to find where they are going, then their steerage system to automatically park, often without a sentient clue as to the amazing spaces and places outside the BMW.
I know, I know, this sounds like another Luddite rant against machines, Or a later edition of the Twilight Zone fear of computers. Actually, it is none of these. Nothing so academic or pretentious. If anyone in my family really cares to know, it's mostly about what happened once I bought that scientifically-designed pillow meant to perfectly conform to my head, guaranteeing me the ultimate in psychosomatic comfort. Well -- it didn't!!
I did my own scientific-technological research. After wrestling with that bewitched rubber pillow for three weeks, I discovered science and technology simply can't improve the cozy cushiness and comfort of my own little long-lived-with down pillow. And that, fellow cats & seekers, is a fact....
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
IN THIS CORNER JOHN LENNON; IN THE OTHER HENRY KISSINGER
OK, so we're all a little schizophrenic at times. And so are nations. But just maybe Americans and America is more so than most. And why not, since we've been a patchwork of so many different races, cultures and religions from the get-go. Among this personality-splitting is our mixed emotions about the wealthy and about the military.
When it comes to the wealthy, we resent them (proudly calling this our spirit of Populism) at the very same time we aspire to become them (conveniently calling this the American Dream). This psychological tug-of-war has peppered our politics ever since Andrew Jackson's populist election to a White House that had until him housed only our political aristocrats.
When it comes to the military, our schizo personality has come most to the surface since Vietnam. Our Civil War and World Wars seemed moral crusades that allowed us to readily rally-round-the-flag. But Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan seem less like crusades, more like geopolitical power plays. If the Vietcong had not been communists and had the Middle East not been the world's reservoir of oil -- well, would we have sent in our youth to die? Something like asking is there a difference between John Lennon and Henry Kissinger....?
Put it this way. When you watch our young men and women in the military -- both their bloody efforts overseas and the crisp snap of their salutes here at home -- don't you feel the schizophrenia right down to your libido? Part of you desperately admires them; another part desperately cries for them. One part stands in awe of their discipline and courage; the other part weeps for the ugly fact we need to put them in uniform in the first place.
In the final measure, what counts most is which part of you prevails most.
When it comes to the wealthy, we resent them (proudly calling this our spirit of Populism) at the very same time we aspire to become them (conveniently calling this the American Dream). This psychological tug-of-war has peppered our politics ever since Andrew Jackson's populist election to a White House that had until him housed only our political aristocrats.
When it comes to the military, our schizo personality has come most to the surface since Vietnam. Our Civil War and World Wars seemed moral crusades that allowed us to readily rally-round-the-flag. But Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan seem less like crusades, more like geopolitical power plays. If the Vietcong had not been communists and had the Middle East not been the world's reservoir of oil -- well, would we have sent in our youth to die? Something like asking is there a difference between John Lennon and Henry Kissinger....?
Put it this way. When you watch our young men and women in the military -- both their bloody efforts overseas and the crisp snap of their salutes here at home -- don't you feel the schizophrenia right down to your libido? Part of you desperately admires them; another part desperately cries for them. One part stands in awe of their discipline and courage; the other part weeps for the ugly fact we need to put them in uniform in the first place.
In the final measure, what counts most is which part of you prevails most.
Monday, July 4, 2011
THE DECEPTION OF PERCEPTION; OR WHAT THE HELL??
We say it in a hundred different ways. Looks can be deceiving...can't tell a book by its cover...all that glitters is not gold. Consider even Einstein: "The more success the quantum theory has, the sillier it looks." Or what about Tolkien's entire Lord of the Rings trilogy.
In a land and in an age where image is everything, there are legions of image-makers who would deceive us into believing their glitter really is gold. Sometimes called publicists, PR reps, managers, or strategists, they exist for the singular striving purpose of spinning the story. The old Hollywood Studios were masters of the trade, and now Hollywood image-making has gone viral. From making movies to making presidents. From selling products to selling wars.
Among the many troubles that image-making can breed is the handy habit of simplifying and stereotyping everyone and everything. It's a cruel shorthand for thinking. By now we are -- or should be -- aware of the most blatant examples. Our culture has consistently stereotyped Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Arabs, Blonds, Gays, and the overweight.
That said, there are two new subjects: Our government and our CEOs. In an ironic twist of historical fate, these once highly regarded elites have been steadily re-imaged as both dastardly and dangerous:
* When is the last time you saw a movie, read a book, or watched a TV series in which federal agents were seen as they once were -- daring and dedicated defenders of our safety and security? Not lately! Most times they are portrayed as part of vast networks of secret power engaging in global plots, coverups, and cold-blooded assassinations. Tracing all the way up to the FBI, CIA, and even the Oval Office. Clancy, Turow and Stone have made entire careers writing these nightmares for us
* Then there is the class-warfare imagery of our corporate executives. From Wall Street banks to Fortune 500 board rooms, we imagine effete elites manipulating our stock markets and foreign policies in order to suck the sweat of a nation into self-serving personal agendas. Money making more money. Power amassing more power. Like the scurrilously anti-semetic19th C Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the fanciful 21st C Dan Brown novels, there is this imagineering that sees heads of business and religion meeting in secret havens to plot their rule of the world
Two cautions....! One, we can too easily get caught up in the fear-mongering about "the dangerous other." Two, we can too easily dismiss these fears as just that, fears.
In a land and in an age where image is everything, there are legions of image-makers who would deceive us into believing their glitter really is gold. Sometimes called publicists, PR reps, managers, or strategists, they exist for the singular striving purpose of spinning the story. The old Hollywood Studios were masters of the trade, and now Hollywood image-making has gone viral. From making movies to making presidents. From selling products to selling wars.
Among the many troubles that image-making can breed is the handy habit of simplifying and stereotyping everyone and everything. It's a cruel shorthand for thinking. By now we are -- or should be -- aware of the most blatant examples. Our culture has consistently stereotyped Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, Arabs, Blonds, Gays, and the overweight.
That said, there are two new subjects: Our government and our CEOs. In an ironic twist of historical fate, these once highly regarded elites have been steadily re-imaged as both dastardly and dangerous:
* When is the last time you saw a movie, read a book, or watched a TV series in which federal agents were seen as they once were -- daring and dedicated defenders of our safety and security? Not lately! Most times they are portrayed as part of vast networks of secret power engaging in global plots, coverups, and cold-blooded assassinations. Tracing all the way up to the FBI, CIA, and even the Oval Office. Clancy, Turow and Stone have made entire careers writing these nightmares for us
* Then there is the class-warfare imagery of our corporate executives. From Wall Street banks to Fortune 500 board rooms, we imagine effete elites manipulating our stock markets and foreign policies in order to suck the sweat of a nation into self-serving personal agendas. Money making more money. Power amassing more power. Like the scurrilously anti-semetic19th C Protocols of the Elders of Zion or the fanciful 21st C Dan Brown novels, there is this imagineering that sees heads of business and religion meeting in secret havens to plot their rule of the world
Two cautions....! One, we can too easily get caught up in the fear-mongering about "the dangerous other." Two, we can too easily dismiss these fears as just that, fears.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
OK, SO WHAT'S REALLY UNDER THERE??!!
Minnesota -- currently wrangling bitterly over budgets -- is also waxing eloquently over bras. Along with panties, corsets, boxers and briefs. Yes, it's the new HISTORY OF UNDERWEAR in the St Paul History Center.
Serious students of social history are making serious mention of America's unmentionables. As they say: "We've got you covered whether you're interested in the metamorphosis from corsets to bras, or simply what was really under-there decades ago." Among the highlights are Munsingerwear's "wildly patterned bra & panty sets from the 60s" back to the "wonder bras from the 30's sporting cups dense enough to stop a bullet."
As you muse over the exhibit literature, it's hard not to wonder about what other unmentionables are out there.
One that rushes to mind during their days of bank failures is how so many bank CEOs keep failing upward. Colin Barr of Fortune Magazine writes: "You've got to hand it our inept but too-big-to-fail bank execs who raked in $1.15 billion in cash and stock this year -- an average annual paycheck of $19 million -- in a decade when the biggest banks ripped off everyone in sight. Including their own stockholders."
Another unmentionable is the 90,000 checks in government subsidies that went out last year to farm landowners who live in cities but own farms raising corn. The New York Time reports: "Nationwide, 10% of the subsidized farms get 76% of all the handouts or $447,873 per recipient over the last 16 years."
It would be far too easy -- and disingenuous -- to scorch these particular incomes. However, it may be far too easy to guess why today's media spotlight has suddenly picked up three of the bit players on the stage of American life: cops, firelighters and teachers. This glaring, blaring light certainly helps keep the public's attention off other and pricier unmentionables. And while municipal pension plans do reveal some shockingly inappropriate money-grabs, the current headline exposes are dealing with only 3% of these pensioners.
I know. Because I'm one of the unmentionable 97%...
Serious students of social history are making serious mention of America's unmentionables. As they say: "We've got you covered whether you're interested in the metamorphosis from corsets to bras, or simply what was really under-there decades ago." Among the highlights are Munsingerwear's "wildly patterned bra & panty sets from the 60s" back to the "wonder bras from the 30's sporting cups dense enough to stop a bullet."
As you muse over the exhibit literature, it's hard not to wonder about what other unmentionables are out there.
One that rushes to mind during their days of bank failures is how so many bank CEOs keep failing upward. Colin Barr of Fortune Magazine writes: "You've got to hand it our inept but too-big-to-fail bank execs who raked in $1.15 billion in cash and stock this year -- an average annual paycheck of $19 million -- in a decade when the biggest banks ripped off everyone in sight. Including their own stockholders."
Another unmentionable is the 90,000 checks in government subsidies that went out last year to farm landowners who live in cities but own farms raising corn. The New York Time reports: "Nationwide, 10% of the subsidized farms get 76% of all the handouts or $447,873 per recipient over the last 16 years."
It would be far too easy -- and disingenuous -- to scorch these particular incomes. However, it may be far too easy to guess why today's media spotlight has suddenly picked up three of the bit players on the stage of American life: cops, firelighters and teachers. This glaring, blaring light certainly helps keep the public's attention off other and pricier unmentionables. And while municipal pension plans do reveal some shockingly inappropriate money-grabs, the current headline exposes are dealing with only 3% of these pensioners.
I know. Because I'm one of the unmentionable 97%...
Saturday, July 2, 2011
NO ONE HAS BEEN THERE YET
Why do we hang on to the hand behind us in the dark when we're really trying to move ahead...?
For the same reason we use "horsepower" when we no longer use horses for most of our power, and "opening curtain" when most theatres no longer use curtains. Intuitively we need some touch with our past, some reference to where we've come from. Hence the study of history, and the dinner table tales from grandma and grandpa.
But we've got a problem here, Huston!
When astronauts find themselves in uncharted space, and you and I in an uncharted age, maybe the Futurists are right. Maybe humanity has finally reached our final frontiers where nothing from the past works anymore. H. G. Wells was already writing in 1895: "The past is but the beginning of the beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. A day will come when beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars."
Today, this day an astonishing century later, even our strongest leaders and wisest scholars are fumbling with old maps. Armies of tanks still confronting terrorist in the hills...international bankers still reading Adam Smith and J.M. Keynes....children still using multiplication tables and library card catalogs. Frankly, generals, bankers and teachers know as little about the future as anyone else. No one has been there yet!
Surely our Futurists do not recommend we forget our past (even while today's young often do)...surely our society can move ahead only as far as the hands behind it will allow...but just as surely those hands (our hands) must allow for the fact little kids playing with their computers hold in their hands powers and purposes not one of their elders can completely imagine.
Imagine that....!
For the same reason we use "horsepower" when we no longer use horses for most of our power, and "opening curtain" when most theatres no longer use curtains. Intuitively we need some touch with our past, some reference to where we've come from. Hence the study of history, and the dinner table tales from grandma and grandpa.
But we've got a problem here, Huston!
When astronauts find themselves in uncharted space, and you and I in an uncharted age, maybe the Futurists are right. Maybe humanity has finally reached our final frontiers where nothing from the past works anymore. H. G. Wells was already writing in 1895: "The past is but the beginning of the beginning, and all that is and has been is but the twilight of the dawn. A day will come when beings who are now latent in our thoughts and hidden in our loins shall laugh and reach out their hands amid the stars."
Today, this day an astonishing century later, even our strongest leaders and wisest scholars are fumbling with old maps. Armies of tanks still confronting terrorist in the hills...international bankers still reading Adam Smith and J.M. Keynes....children still using multiplication tables and library card catalogs. Frankly, generals, bankers and teachers know as little about the future as anyone else. No one has been there yet!
Surely our Futurists do not recommend we forget our past (even while today's young often do)...surely our society can move ahead only as far as the hands behind it will allow...but just as surely those hands (our hands) must allow for the fact little kids playing with their computers hold in their hands powers and purposes not one of their elders can completely imagine.
Imagine that....!
Friday, July 1, 2011
YOU WOULDN'T BELIEVE WHAT THEY'RE REPORTING NOW
Celebrated historian Stephen Ambrose wrote something most historians wouldn't: "God created man with a penis and a brain, but only gave him enough blood to run one at a time." Lets consider that statement. Especially in the light of several recent studies:
* As reported on BBC, a new Oxford University study shows that in pre-historic times, females moved away from the tribe and region of their birth after puberty while males stayed closer to home. Study author Matt Sponheimer said there is no definitive way of explaining why, but suggests: "Females sought foreign mates to prevent in-inbreeding, which was a smart thing to do."
* As reported in MarketWatch.com, a new study by Barclays Capital found: "Women were more likely to make money in the market mostly because they didn't take many risks; they bought and held." Financial investor David Wiedner added: "This is deflating news for us men, but there is hope. We still lead the field in self-destructing, because of our pride, overconfidence, and hubris."
Readers can make of these news reports what they will. One point of agreement, though -- today's 24 hour tide of news is so enormous, we need help in deciphering it all. Enter the mesmerizing modernity of today's flashy Headlines & Soundbites. Neither of which, by the way, is a simple study in summarizing. Hardly! God has created special kinds of people with special kinds of talents for saying a lot with a little.
In the old days such specialists were not to be found. Consider how Moses dragged out the Lord's voice into ten wordy commandments...how Jefferson refused to stop with just "all men are created equal"...how the Supreme Court decisions can run into hundreds of pages.
Not today. Not for today's busy people. We want it quick, we want it short, and we want it fully digested. After all there are ball games, sit-coms and reality shows waiting for us. Besides, we all know the code by now anyway. I mean we can fill in the blanks right on the spot:
* "New FDA Policy Announced" ~~ of course means there's new drug explanation of why the last explanation is no longer the explanation!
* "Republicans Tell It Like It Is" ~~ of course means they have found a new way of telling us why the White House hasn't got a clue!
* Democrats Vote As A Bloc" ~~ of course means their bloc is blocking the other bloc so that another paid-day in Congress earned nothing for the people!
See...? Simple...! Just like us...!
* As reported on BBC, a new Oxford University study shows that in pre-historic times, females moved away from the tribe and region of their birth after puberty while males stayed closer to home. Study author Matt Sponheimer said there is no definitive way of explaining why, but suggests: "Females sought foreign mates to prevent in-inbreeding, which was a smart thing to do."
* As reported in MarketWatch.com, a new study by Barclays Capital found: "Women were more likely to make money in the market mostly because they didn't take many risks; they bought and held." Financial investor David Wiedner added: "This is deflating news for us men, but there is hope. We still lead the field in self-destructing, because of our pride, overconfidence, and hubris."
Readers can make of these news reports what they will. One point of agreement, though -- today's 24 hour tide of news is so enormous, we need help in deciphering it all. Enter the mesmerizing modernity of today's flashy Headlines & Soundbites. Neither of which, by the way, is a simple study in summarizing. Hardly! God has created special kinds of people with special kinds of talents for saying a lot with a little.
In the old days such specialists were not to be found. Consider how Moses dragged out the Lord's voice into ten wordy commandments...how Jefferson refused to stop with just "all men are created equal"...how the Supreme Court decisions can run into hundreds of pages.
Not today. Not for today's busy people. We want it quick, we want it short, and we want it fully digested. After all there are ball games, sit-coms and reality shows waiting for us. Besides, we all know the code by now anyway. I mean we can fill in the blanks right on the spot:
* "New FDA Policy Announced" ~~ of course means there's new drug explanation of why the last explanation is no longer the explanation!
* "Republicans Tell It Like It Is" ~~ of course means they have found a new way of telling us why the White House hasn't got a clue!
* Democrats Vote As A Bloc" ~~ of course means their bloc is blocking the other bloc so that another paid-day in Congress earned nothing for the people!
See...? Simple...! Just like us...!
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