Expostulatory blogging is kind of a dead thing. The overreaching narrative of the times is outrage and discord, with a healthy mix of disinterest and distraction thrown in. For good measure, sometimes there is added a aggrandized sense of injury or unopposed wrongs. In this environment blogging to do anything but maybe get a good line in is a waste of time – engaging the stories and constructively analyzing them is best left to 'the adults': paid journalists, high profile bloggers, and the generally execrable morons with weekly columns.
For anyone wanting to blog for anything but niche topics or absurdly obtuse generality (or 'comedy' options such as the way stale top 10/12/15/25 lists, or 'jokes') the field is intensely competitive. Aggregators have created a system in which maybe 10% of all internet users bother to go beyond the internet's collective front pages. Even linking seems quaint and mildly outdated. The only real blogging left is niche blogging about the outrages and abuses of modern society, or being political, or getting paid to blog to sell something.
It helps explain the rise of people who have absolutely zero self-awareness: people who never think past the snappy one-liners and one-dimensional politics of the internet. These kinds of people, even when well-intentioned, only serve to hurt their own causes. 'Misogyny' becomes a sort of mantra that progressive dudes bray mindlessly whenever simple OR complex issues regarding women emerge from the amoral fracas of the modern media environment. People on the fence see nothing but a faceless horde of shmucks wanting to prove their progressivism and decide, Hell, why not start trolling these point-seekers en masse? You can't blame them. Aggrieving the crowd is as righteous a battle for some as fighting for the oppressed is for others.
Showing posts with label condominium jails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label condominium jails. Show all posts
8/21/12
Rental Breakdown
Trying to find a good apartment in a bad city in a bad time is like intentionally running into a nest of bees. Then running into another, and another, until you give up and die from the venom. If you're anything like me you hate most places available for rent because it's always a game of compromising your idea of a 'decent' place until you're in an 'okay' place that's tolerable.
By far the funniest (or scariest, if you really need a place) part of the search is the bachelor 'suites' with a microwave and hotplate meant for students who want to be as close to technically homeless as possible. The sheer number of terrible apartments for inflated prices is an argument for rent control. A landlord, if he is unscrupulous and greedy enough, will charge 200 dollars a month for a jail cell – and most likely charge above and beyond that figure once the market comes to accept it as 'the way things are'.
My own search is pretty desperate, and hopeless, and I suffer for it every day, but now and then I see something funny, funny if only because the alternative (accepting it as real, not raging at it) is not as healthy as having a good laugh. Like this new building in my city that just came up awhile ago, and seems to have been constructed to house either the elderly, the insane, artists, or the chronically out of touch. Here's what $755 a month, before bills, will get you these days:
Mind you this is a six or seven story building. It seems like it was built by architecture interns on a bender. It has no elevator, there is no chance of having internet or cable, and fuck you if you have a car. Now, it may be part of some kind of ecological-minded living arrangement for hardcore vegans, hippies, and activists. It may be that but on the other hand, why does a new building, which has gotten in my way in its construction phase, have no option for high speed (aka - 'normal') internet? This isn't the 1970s. No elevator is healthy. Nonsmoking is healthy. Everything else, it seems, is a mess. This is the kind of shit that creates squatters and the homeless. This is the kind of wasteful and stupid market, nourished on helplessness and apathy, that creates the landowners you've known your whole life.
Ask yourself: why does it have to be like this? Why is nobody looking out for rental tenants? How many bastard landlords must a man suffer, until he becomes one himself?
By far the funniest (or scariest, if you really need a place) part of the search is the bachelor 'suites' with a microwave and hotplate meant for students who want to be as close to technically homeless as possible. The sheer number of terrible apartments for inflated prices is an argument for rent control. A landlord, if he is unscrupulous and greedy enough, will charge 200 dollars a month for a jail cell – and most likely charge above and beyond that figure once the market comes to accept it as 'the way things are'.
My own search is pretty desperate, and hopeless, and I suffer for it every day, but now and then I see something funny, funny if only because the alternative (accepting it as real, not raging at it) is not as healthy as having a good laugh. Like this new building in my city that just came up awhile ago, and seems to have been constructed to house either the elderly, the insane, artists, or the chronically out of touch. Here's what $755 a month, before bills, will get you these days:
Mind you this is a six or seven story building. It seems like it was built by architecture interns on a bender. It has no elevator, there is no chance of having internet or cable, and fuck you if you have a car. Now, it may be part of some kind of ecological-minded living arrangement for hardcore vegans, hippies, and activists. It may be that but on the other hand, why does a new building, which has gotten in my way in its construction phase, have no option for high speed (aka - 'normal') internet? This isn't the 1970s. No elevator is healthy. Nonsmoking is healthy. Everything else, it seems, is a mess. This is the kind of shit that creates squatters and the homeless. This is the kind of wasteful and stupid market, nourished on helplessness and apathy, that creates the landowners you've known your whole life.
Ask yourself: why does it have to be like this? Why is nobody looking out for rental tenants? How many bastard landlords must a man suffer, until he becomes one himself?
7/29/11
The Jon Stewart / Juan Williams Interview
Apparently on the 27th of June at some point there was a discussion between two individuals about certain things regarding, vis a vis, et cetera... partisanship in the media. Jon Stewart being a media person, and Juan Williams as well, it was kind of interesting. I'd recommend it for anyone looking for hope, really. Were that discussion to be multiplied a millionfold, or at least the questions involved, things might look a bit better for everyone.
And that's kind of why America is still a sort of beacon, though distorted and melted, because at various times and places certain important questions still manage to bubble to the surface. This happens everywhere and has always been happening alongside its counterpoints. Because, who knows, maybe there's some evolutionary advantage to willful ignorance. The Darwin Awards beg to differ, but how trustworthy are those who would mock serious clusterfucks?
It was simply interesting to hear the issue addressed, because perhaps the time for mocking dysfunction is actually past and we are in more serious times. Or most likely of anything, dysfunction needs to be analyzed and only then mocked, once it has been brought out of the dim caverns where it assembles its myopic empire.
The interview asked one question that so imposed itself on my imagination that I couldn't shake it, and consequently missed part of the interview. I'll paraphrase for the gentle reader's convenience, but the bit deserves to be watched by a wide audience and some of it filed away. "What would a non-partisan news agency look like?" Would it be CNN, with its gaping loss of viewership in the last decade? According to Stewart/Williams the liberal paragon is NPR and the conservative paragon is Fox News.
I admit, their delineation does not shake my weak conception of US politics. It's kind of a no-brainer and since they are de-facto Kings of North America... all I know is Canadian Prime Minister Harper is planning to built condominium jails in Toronto. Back on topic: what would such a network look like? Are there global examples? Does Canada have that sort of reportage? Yes Canada is also a theme.
Well we have recent Fox News rat finks Sun Media, aka Part One of the Royal Plan to Put Conrad Black in 22 Sussex. Furthermore, the CBC is kind of our NPR. And of course I jest frivolously, but I learned something important from the Stewart/Williams interview – inflate and deform everything to hideous dimensions. That's how demons were made in the olden days and that's how honesty can be beaten. And the whole partisanship media shenanigan is proven by the past, and that is why it can be correctly attributed as a strategy of both progressive and regressive social elements anywhere. Like any currently known tool it is ultimately directed by some person, and like any old trick it is a pedigreed thing.
And is there any uncolored information? Along with the general increase in raw volume of information, our ignorance and pettiness seem to increase as well. Our famed high-density areas are largely full of indifference and spite, and that microcosm is played out on the screen and even in governance, apparently. Which begs the question: which is the true show and which is the farce? Or is it simply that they're both fucked?
The Moment of Zen was an uncanny failure, perhaps only because July 26 2011's episode had one of, if not the best Moment of Zens I've ever seen.
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| American Heroes in Action, or 'Everyday Joes'? |
It was simply interesting to hear the issue addressed, because perhaps the time for mocking dysfunction is actually past and we are in more serious times. Or most likely of anything, dysfunction needs to be analyzed and only then mocked, once it has been brought out of the dim caverns where it assembles its myopic empire.
The interview asked one question that so imposed itself on my imagination that I couldn't shake it, and consequently missed part of the interview. I'll paraphrase for the gentle reader's convenience, but the bit deserves to be watched by a wide audience and some of it filed away. "What would a non-partisan news agency look like?" Would it be CNN, with its gaping loss of viewership in the last decade? According to Stewart/Williams the liberal paragon is NPR and the conservative paragon is Fox News.
I admit, their delineation does not shake my weak conception of US politics. It's kind of a no-brainer and since they are de-facto Kings of North America... all I know is Canadian Prime Minister Harper is planning to built condominium jails in Toronto. Back on topic: what would such a network look like? Are there global examples? Does Canada have that sort of reportage? Yes Canada is also a theme.
Well we have recent Fox News rat finks Sun Media, aka Part One of the Royal Plan to Put Conrad Black in 22 Sussex. Furthermore, the CBC is kind of our NPR. And of course I jest frivolously, but I learned something important from the Stewart/Williams interview – inflate and deform everything to hideous dimensions. That's how demons were made in the olden days and that's how honesty can be beaten. And the whole partisanship media shenanigan is proven by the past, and that is why it can be correctly attributed as a strategy of both progressive and regressive social elements anywhere. Like any currently known tool it is ultimately directed by some person, and like any old trick it is a pedigreed thing.
And is there any uncolored information? Along with the general increase in raw volume of information, our ignorance and pettiness seem to increase as well. Our famed high-density areas are largely full of indifference and spite, and that microcosm is played out on the screen and even in governance, apparently. Which begs the question: which is the true show and which is the farce? Or is it simply that they're both fucked?
The Moment of Zen was an uncanny failure, perhaps only because July 26 2011's episode had one of, if not the best Moment of Zens I've ever seen.
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