Category Archives: Consumerism

Facebook & The Winter of Our Discontent

We’ve been betrayed. Zuckerberg and the rat bastards at Cambridge Analytica have done had their way with us.
Listen on Twitter and it sounds like everyone’s freaking out. Rightly so, in some regards. You’d think there was a mass exodus from the social network, but upon monitoring my followers and friends, it doesn’t seem like anyone has walked away from it just yet. The numbers are the same today as they were last weekend, before the bombshell detonated.
I know I’ve tightened my settings up, deleted all the apps that had access to me.
But, beyond that, not much.

Surprised? Really?

I’ve been hip to Cambridge Analytica for over a year. I’ve known that Facebook quizzes were datamining for at least two.
So, I’m not shocked. I’m disappointed that Facebook is so complicit in the situation. It disgusts me that Facebook has had such a hand in manipulating the election. My hint of betrayal began as far back as when Zuckerberg got lambasted by the GOP for what they felt was over-liberalizing the site, and he bent over backward to calm them down. It was around then that content got WEIRD on the social network and shit went sideways. Betrayal began then.
The out-of-control indignation shouted by some people, though, is beyond the pale.
Really? You had no clue you were the product? You didn’t know Big Brother was watching you to see how they could manipulate you? No clue? None?
Seems to me blaming others for such naivete is a bit rich.

The Forever of the Internets

Now, me, I walked out of the wastelands recently to resurrect this blog. The “why” on that is all over the place – so many reasons, so many motivations.
But part of why I stopped writing here was largely to do with some of what’s going on now – too much information about me out there. Too much history, too much background, too much access. I got a little “that’s not for you” about my life and pulled the curtains shut in at least one area.
It was futile though. Let’s not pretend. The stuff’s still out there. Even if I deleted the blog, took a flamethrower to the site, you could claw back through it all on the Wayback Machine, or the Internet Archive, as the normies call it.
Google is forever, man. Don’t kid yourself.
We like to think it’s all so impermanent on Facebook and Twitter. The marketing nerds will tell you the average tweet has a shelf-life of 12 minutes and the average Facebook update something like 23 hours. But, really?
It creeps me out sometimes that people will be combing through my content for days after the fact, and suddenly some follower makes a note about a six-day old tweet, where, for me, it was a throwaway comment in a moment in time.

Awesome illustration by Davide Bonazzi, from http://www.copyrightuser.org/understand/exceptions/text-data-mining/

It Just Seems Fleeting

And that’s how the social networks get us. We think it’s unimportant or temporary, a time-waster or distraction at best.
Oh, look, a quiz about what character you are on Downton Abbey. Great, do that. Really?
I used to routinely comment on these and say, “Well, you know that’s a datamining operation, right? They just want access to your profile?”
Invariably, I’d get “Yeah, I know, but it’s only Facebook.”
Well, “only Facebook” allowed information to become weaponized and then used against us in a way that has made society more divisive now than arguably any time since the Vietnam War, or even the American Civil War.

Storytime: The Blog Before This Blog

Part of why I brought this blog back from the dead was because I’ve had kind of a reckoning of identity here in Greece. It’s one of those times where I’m in the middle still, so I can’t really see around me yet, but… things are changing in me, in my mind, in who I am. And while that’s happening, I’m also taking ownership of who I’ve been and from whence I’ve come.
So, as part of that, about 8-10 days ago, I finally undertook the task of getting my first blog – it’s this shitty little Blogspot blog I called The Last Ditch – archived because I lost access to it years ago and Google, who own Blogspot, are completely useless. That’s how I came to pay some dude on Fiverr $20 to archive the whole site.
I’m thinking, “hey, in two or three days, I can finally stop sweating about this site crashing and me losing a few years of writing.”
But nerd writes me back. “Okay, wait. I will be done in a few minutes.”
Seriously? Six years of blog posts, scraped and archived in an Excel sheet in just a few minutes? But, yeah, that’s what happened.
Now, suddenly, I feel so naïve for all those times I thought, “Hey, I’ll just quickly take the quiz and delete access to my account immediately after I’m done.”
Because, well, obviously if some nerd on Fiverr can scrape my blog on in five minutes with the archive buttons broken on it, then clearly some high-end analytics and hacking company can do a whole lot more than that on Facebook.

We’ve Always Been the Product

There’s a whole world out there that lives and dies by information alone, because information spurs whole markets. We’re the commodity. We’re the meal ticket. They need to know about us, and the more they know, the more they profit.
This is the world model now, and it’s not just Facebook. Facebook’s just who got caught. Are you kidding me?
Our radio habits, TV habits, reading habits – they’ve been scrutinized for nearly a century. From the Nielsen Ratings to Facebook “likes,” it’s all the same. We’re just bigger participants than we’ve ever been, giving them more and more data sets by which to judge us, watch us, learn from us.

Opting Out A Little at a Time

I’ve gone nomad, so I live out of my duffle bag. I can’t buy stuff, ‘cause I got no place to put stuff. Do you have any idea how categorically life-changing it is to have nowhere to put stuff, to not be a stuff-buyer anymore?
Think about all the times you browse shops mindlessly with friends. The last time I did that, it was August 2015, and I realized how this wasn’t a thing I could do, or wanted to do, anymore. Why look at things I can’t buy? Why browse? I distinctly remember standing in that Chinatown shop with my friends J and B, and their two kids, as they all pored over the knickknacks, and I stood looking out at the street, realizing I was no longer someone who could browse and impulse-buy. My life was designed against that.
Now, when I visit towns, people invariably tell me about some cute shop or consumer district I have to browse. Why? Nothing’s coming with me when I pack up in a month. I might as well just throw my time in the garbage, because there’s nothing for me in those shops. To browse is actively opting into feeling a sense of loss and desire, neither of which I can quell, because buying shit ain’t my solution. It can’t be. I gotta weigh in at another airport soon, and there’s nothing else I can take with me.

You’re Becoming Fuller, Not Fulfilled

Through all this when I started to realize how much of life is designed to make us unhappy with what we have, so we spend more. Because, face it, life on Planet Earth is about spending money we don’t need to spend, so we can buy things we don’t need, all so that industries that don’t care about our happiness can stay flush with our cash.
The advertisements, the commercials, the product reviews, the featured technology – it’s everywhere, all around us, and all of it designed to do one thing: To distract us from the fact that modern life is not fulfilling.
We don’t make stuff, most of us don’t see anything created from our day-to-day jobs – we see code. We see numbers. We see saved files. But we don’t make anything, we have no sense of creative pride. It’s just cogs turning on a wheel.

“Happiness” For Sale!

So, our Facebook trackers track us as we mindlessly browse the web, looking for some momentary sense of fulfilment or spectacle. Soon, a pop-up advertisement says, “Hey. Remember those Fluevog shoes you were browsing? We have those. Buy those! Come to our site! You’ll feel better with new shoes in your life. Because Fluevog!”
But do you? Do you feel better? Or is it just another hour or a day of distraction that you’ve rented to keep from being aware of how little you’re really satisfied with in your life?
Unfortunately, we’ve created a world where nearly all of us are cogs in this machine. We’re all involved in the conspiracy to make people buy stuff, acquire stuff, need stuff. Without them getting stuff, we’re out of a job. Quite the cycle.
And industry, it wants more ways to make money off us, and that’s where Facebook and social media come in. Never has marketing been able to watch us squirm under a microscope, but now they can.
But we’ve also never had a megaphone for our discontent like we do now, either. So, now people like me can speak up and say, “Whoa… whatcha doing? You don’t NEED that. Stop buying things. Stop being a part of the big machine.”
For every voice like mine, there’s another machination going to work to make sure you don’t listen to me. Algorithms. The matrix. It’s a thing. Of course you need a new phone. Pfft, no you don’t have enough shoes. How could you ever be happy without that sunflower jacket? Come on, spend a little, live a little. Buy joy!
Put your money where your happy is, little proletariat. Do it. Do it!
And God forbid you actually feel happy. Happy people are the worst possible outcome for business and politics.
If you’re happy, you’re content, and if you’re content, you don’t need anything, and if you don’t need anything, you’re not spending money, and if you’re not spending money, then industry can’t profit off you, and if industry can’t profit off you, the local politician can’t woo them to open a factory so they can employ locals to make more shit to sell to more people.
Am I oversimplifying? Pfft, of course I am. But I’m not far off the mark. The unhappier you are, the better it is for society, and when Facebook or Twitter or Pinterest can stoke the fires of discontent, it’s better for the bottom dollar on everything but you.

Saying No, That’s Also a Thing

Being content? It’s nice. Not buying shit? It’s good for the morale. Not having clutter? Great for the soul. Not racking up debt? Good for the sanity.
Unfortunately, we’re in the age of outrage. That’s a whole ‘nother post for another time. We’re far more likely to feel rage than joy, sadness than happiness. I’d like to say that’s all a choice, but it’s more complicated than choosing life, choosing joy.
Especially when social media is basically the harbinger of the winter of our discontent.
John Steinbeck wrote, in The Winter of Our Discontent, “Money does not change the sickness, only the symptoms.” Maybe the same can be said of Facebook and other forms of social media.
Social media didn’t change my sickness, just my symptoms. I spoke up, shouted, said my piece, and things never got better, things didn’t change. I wrote and raged and roared, but still I was unhappy. I was locked into a lifestyle. Like Billy Corgan sang, despite all my rage I was just a rat in a cage.
In a lot of ways, going nomadic probably saved my life. I wasn’t suicidal or anything, but I’d fallen into such a state of apathy and discontent that my life felt meaningless and soulless. It wasn’t until I walked away from the status quo and told myself “I am not my stuff” and sold everything that I began to plug into the matrix a little less.
I still had my plug in the wall. Just not as many of them.

Choose Better (At Least Some of the Time)

As time goes on, I realize this nomad life I’m living – a simple life where I collect snapshots of times, moments in different lives, in different corners of the world – helps me find my contentment and my joy in different ways. It’s in a sandwich or a coffee, a glass of wine as I watch the sun sink over my latest city. It’s in picking up a bunch of papers knocked over by an old Greek lady who can’t pick ‘em up, but who flushes a string of Greek gratitude for my momentary act of kindness. My fulfilment comes in small, strange ways every day, and nearly none of them are breaking the bank or filling my bag.
And yet I’m on Facebook. I’m on Twitter. The Mueller investigation kicks sand in my face. My friends with nice cars and boats and new beds and comfy homes make me realize I have this but want that too. So, I’m not fully content. I’m not completely happy with the life I live. Will I ever be? Is anyone?
Meh. I don’t know.
But in the meantime, Facebook will know if I am. You probably will too. Twitter will. The datamining motherfuckers crawling beneath it all, they’ll know too.
At least I know they know, and I understand their motivations. Maybe, in this brave new world of the winter of our discontent, that’s the only kinda winning we’ll achieve. Take my victories, however small and fleeting, where I can, right?
And I can keep clicking on all the ads on Facebook and Twitter, choosing to “hide ad” and then say the reason is, “it’s offensive.” Because, hey, man. It is. My happy ain’t for sale. Not anymore.

Smells Like Sexism, Playtex

It’s been pointed out to me that the wipes discussed below are aimed at both sexes, which I already knew, but since I’m used to advertising telling me my vagina is foul, I’ll leave it up to boys to defend themselves.

***

What fresh, steamy hell is this?
I’ll give you a clue: It ain’t lavender-scented, bitches!
That stanky pile of shit you’re getting a whiff of is the latest advertising campaign by Playtex.
Like other beauty and hygiene companies, their cash-cow is in the form of hyping up our insecurities.
Wanna get laid? Make babies? Fulfill your dreams of love and destiny?
Better clean your snatch, baby. No man will have you if you smell normal. You’d better be smelling like roses and unicorns down there, girls, or you’ll die alone and wretched.
In short, Playtex wants you buying their wipes so you don’t offend the masses by smelling like a human being. You know, that smell that biologically is meant to attract men and signal our arousal? BAD. DON’T DO IT. EVER.
“A clean beaver always finds more wood”? No, a wet one does.
Their campaign has sent their misogynistic advertising company to the library on a quest for every dated, tired euphemism for “vagina,” because god knows the censors would never let any female bodyparts be uttered on daytime TV, and they’ve cranked out a series of offensive slogans, thinking women would find it cute, adorable, and true.
Because, hey, everyone knows women will respond positively if you use nice colours and pretty pictures. Lord knows we’d do anything to avoid taxing our pretty little heads with big thinky words or complicated concepts like empowerment, independence, or confidence.
Funny enough, there’s no proof these things do anything positive other than masking bodily odours with chemical ones. It doesn’t STOP the source, it just hides it for a while.
In fact, the odds of your getting yeast infections SKYROCKETS if you use these products.*
Then what happens? More shame over being human. More use of the product that actually causes the problem. Desperate use of yeast-infection products to solve the infection you’ve caused by using something unnatural to fight something natural. Either way, more money for the industry.
Whether it’s anal bleaching, vaginal wipes, or other cosmetic/chemical fixes for twats and penises, it’s all a sign of just how stupid we’re becoming.
Bleaching your ass  because it looks like ass? Pretty dumb, people. Getting surgery to make your snatch look like a porn star’s? Infinitely stupid.
And using wipes doused in chemicals and maxed out with scents so you can avoid smelling the way you’re supposed to smell? Yep. Stupid.
If you’re not pissed off by this advertising campaign, then you’re a part of the problem. Period.
*As opposed to wiping with, say, apple cider vinegar, under $5 a bottle, whose smell evaporates in 30 seconds and which actually fights, and kills, yeast, and is good for you. Want portable wipes without giving into this misogynistic bullshit? Papertowel dampened with apple cider vinegar, carried in a Ziploc bag, will fight any infection-induced odours & help CURE you rather than perpetuate the problem.
______________________
Don’t forget to check out my new Victoria Lifestyle Blog, about my new city and home of choice: http://VanIsleStyle.com.

Apartment Hunting Just Got Easy: Padmapper

Well, it’s all coming down. Another 10 days, and I can start looking in earnest for March 1st rentals in Victoria.
Holy choices-to-make, Batman!
Here’s what I know. I know roughly where I want to live. And while I’m working from home, I want to be less than 15 minutes’ walk to my local gym, which I’ve chosen downtown. A similar walk to great parks, shops, and the beach would also work. So, that narrows things down.
But finding apartments exactly where I want them, well, that’s the challenge. I’ve been researching the shit out of apartment management companies, neighbourhoods, different listing sources, and it really makes the head spin.
Dude, all the squinting to read neighbourhoods and trying to imagine where places are when I barely know the main street names, it’s killing me!
Now, with Google Street View, it makes plugging an apartment’s address in really worth your while, since you can do a 360-view look at the places around it.
That’s all a hell of a lot of work, though, even for a smart and determined cookie like myself.
So, enter Padmapper.com.
Sure, it’s not NEW, but it’s new to me and probably to anyone who hasn’t rented a new place in the last few years.
A reader turned me onto it yesterday, and, oh, lord, do I love this. You can set lots of parameters, and it’s in your interest to be more thorough. What kind of parameters?

  • Price
  • Location
  • Set radius for a walking distance to X-location (work / gym / school, etc)
  • Bedroom/bathroom count
  • Pet-friendliness
  • Terms of lease/rent

Blah, blah, blah.  Use it all! More means less crap to search through for your shiny new home.
There’s a few apartment-listing sources it combs through, and you select the maximum age of the listing, and it’ll search, say, rent.com, craigslist.org, and more.
You plug your deets in, and boom-shaka-laka, your Google map fills with markers for every single available apartment, and you can click each marker and a pop-up dialogue shows you a photo of the place, where the source listing is, and all the basic details. You can “save to favourites” and all the standard modes of sharing via email and such apply.
And think about the awesomeness that Google Street View offers you — the chance to take a look at what the neighbourhood looks like around your home. Well, Padmapper.com also has the ability to click the “Walkscore” button, and if you’ve never tried Walkscore,* it gives you an idea of what’s in walking distance of your home and how convenient it is.
The only shortfall in Padmapper is that it doesn’t currently integrate with the Bedbug Registry, and if you’ve had any close calls, you’ll appreciate how much you’d like to know who’s had problems and how often.
As I’ll be working from home, I’m really keen to find the best location and a good hardwood floor space with balconies, maybe even a second bedroom for my office, if I can find the right mix at the right budget.
Looking for a place to live has always been a real challenge. With a tool like this, it seems the playing field’s getting a little more level for the savvy home-renter looking for the ideal place to cool their heels.
With a few minutes’ digging, I can find more viable listings for rentals that fit the budget, space, and location needs I have than I could find in hours, before.
And, let’s face it, in a 30-days-notice kind of world, you really do need a more efficient means of finding great places. Padmapper might just be a rental agency’s worst nightmare, because finding a new apartment just got a whole lot less intimidating.
*WALKSCORE: My present home is dubiously high on there, and they’re wrong, since most of the so-called restaurants are sushi joints and I don’t eat it, and the shops kind of suck, so don’t get too invested in Walkscore without knowing the hood well, just use it because you can.
 

So, Uh, About That Tree…

Yeah, okay, guilty.
I’m that asshole who put her tree up on November 29th and made you feel like a totally unorganized idiot, or like I’m part of the conspiracy to make Christmas encroach further into our lives.
But I say NAY. NAY, it is not encroaching!
I don’t know when it started, but for a couple decades at least I’ve associated the week FOLLOWING American Thanksgiving as the official start of “When it’s acceptable to talk about… Christmas.”

You'll shoot your eye out, kid!


Still, I typically do my Christmas one week later, on December 6th. This year, I see myself getting crazy busy over the next while, and I don’t want to overdo my December, and I also don’t want to get into the position I was in when I got it up on the 19th one year. Starting a week earlier gives me breathing space. (And makes it likely I’ll stick to my tradition of taking it down on New Year’s Day night.)
But there’s a deeper reason for me to start Christmas early this year.
It’s been a lousy fucking year at times. It’s ENDING well, but the first 8-9 months you coulda kept, thanks.
From January to June was pretty sucktastic especially. Between the Japan thing, blowing my back, dead people, and other things I’d rather be flippant about than think seriously on, well, it was an often-bleak period for me.
I’ve had low-grade depression for a long time now, well over a year, and but I’m really optimistic about where 2012 might go because I like how this year is ending.
There’s a mental game that comes with adversity and we don’t always win. I know I haven’t been, and I’ve been trying to flip the script.
Christmas is pretty much the biggest script one can flip, if one’s tired about the way things are looking in life.
Christmas, at its heart, is a time made of myth and imagination. Fun stories and hopefully good memories abound. Yummy foods and warm drinks are everywhere.
These are a few of my favourite things.
I don’t like the commercialization of Christmas, and never have. I don’t buy gimmicky things and I don’t give a lot.
So, last night, when I tweeted a picture of my tree last night, and @Unambig said “It looks like 1984,” it was one of the nicest things ever. (He expounded here.)
For me, that’s the gold standard of Christmas. The early ’80s. Christmas was certainly commercialized, but in a more romantic and fun kind of way. Today’s commercialization dresses it up that way but I don’t believe them. It’s disingenuine. Time to replace that iPhone that works perfectly fine with yet a snazzier iPhone, kids! Spend, spend, spend!
Not me.
I won’t do a lot for Christmas. I’ll get out and see some people but I’ll also take a lot of time for myself. I won’t spend a lot, either, compared to others. I’ll make most of the gifts I give. The few I buy will be ones I hope to really be liked, but they won’t be expensive. I’ll give pies, candy, and other yummy things, and it will take a long time to make it all. And that’s okay! Generous in spirit, I can be that.
In the past, I’ve spent, but I’ve avoided malls and the standard “easy way out” online gifts.
Like, one year, I took a weekend in early December to hunt for unusual gifts, back when I had the cash to do so. I drove out to the Valley, to the Fort Langley Antique Mall, and dropped my wad on collectibles. For one friend, a 1956 red rotary-dial telephone, like they used to have in all the old movies about nuclear scares in the ’50s and ’60s. NO, NOT THE RED PHONE! Commie fuckers!

Yeah, I gave one just like this set. I'm awesome. 🙂


Then, also bought that day, there’s the mint-condition set of 4 Empire Strikes Back special edition glasses issued by Burger King in 1980. That went over well. I don’t think they’ve ever been used, they’re in some shadow box somewhere, I suspect. A father-to-son legacy gift for the now-5-years-old son to have one decade down the line.
Last year, I was unemployed. There were no such generous gifts from me. Instead, I made people candy and other things.
Still… by just accepting that I didn’t have the cash for Christmas-as-usual, and embracing the older ideas — cooking from scratch, giving little well-planned made-by-me gifts, and things like that — I rediscovered the FUN of Christmas.
I enjoyed the bustle of picking up necessities because I wasn’t part of the shopping pandemonium last year. I found more time to slow down and see Christmassy things and take moments for myself. Somehow, it felt more like the Christmases I knew as a kid. It felt simpler, easier, and more enjoyable.
I ran into others who had found themselves in similarly-pinched positions after layoffs, fewer clients, and other ongoing-recession-related situations, and they all had to make the choice of bemoaning their situation and dismissing Christmas altogether, or giving in and trying to get creative about personalized gifts to give. Once they gave in and went with what they could afford, they too found that Christmas was more fun. They didn’t have the stress of how they’d pay it off in January or February because they couldn’t get themselves in that position, and, bam! The bonus to that was, they just didn’t have STRESS.
I’ve spoken with some of those folk since and all of them are looking forward to Christmas more this year. They’re planning ahead for what to do, how to cut pennies, how to enjoy the moment. Just like me. They’re not feeling pressure, they’re just planning well in advance for how to schedule their time for creativity, and balancing that with the fun life that comes in the holiday season.
I’m saving in other ways, too. Like last year, I’m ditching the expensive turkey and making a ground-pork tourtiere instead (this recipe, amazing). About a third the cost and every bit as traditional and wonderful to look forward to noshing. Best part is, I can make it up to two days ahead of time and really enjoy the entertainment of Christmas eve with friends again.
Does Christmas within a budget SORT OF suck? Sure. So does life on a budget, but that has to be the way we live now.
Hey, it’d be wonderful to be able to afford to give awesomeness-with-big-pricetags to friends and family I care about, but I can’t. I live in this recession. I’ve been affected by it for a long, long time, and that makes me pretty ordinary. The living-within-means thing is getting old, but that’s just life.
So, we do what we can and we have fun with what we’ve got.
If putting a tree up on November 29th makes it easier for me to make that all happen, then that’s how we’re playing it.
Christmas is about whatever you want it to be about. You’re a Christian? Great, celebrate Jesus. A heathen like me? Santa!
But, for all of us, it should always be about just remembering to find a little time for people, give a little more of yourself than you normally do, and being kind to others.
You would think having an extra week of that in our lives wouldn’t be such a pain in the ass for some of you.
Maybe it wouldn’t be, if you found a way to remember the simplicity of Christmas, and practiced its ideals rather than buying the “Give till it Hurts” mentality that spoils the modern commercial holiday for so many.

Occupy This, Wall Street

In 2008, my friend bought me an Obama shirt as a New Orleans souvenir. I was definitely an Obama fan but I’ve never been one for political worship.
You show me a politician, I’ll show you someone who makes compromise a lifestyle — Obama or otherwise.
Not that all compromise is bad, but sometimes you gotta fucking stand your ground, only that doesn’t happen in American politics anymore, not in a way that benefits the average person.
I’ve been unhappy with the Obama administration because I’d hoped for more. I’d hoped for someone who would inspire while he led, who’d bring the passion of those campaign-trail speeches to daily life.
And I’d hoped for an American people who demanded more, who got involved, who wanted changed, and who’d be there to make the change.
Then nothing changed.
For 2.5 years, I’ve worn that Obama shirt inside-out, and only while housecleaning. I think that’s my own private way of making a statement. I don’t hate him, I just didn’t get the leader I’d hoped he’d be. Still, ain’t Bush.
For three years I’ve been frustrated at the lack of passion in America, how everything’s been one glib joke after another, but somehow there’s a wall between the reality of people’s homes and jobs evaporating, and the pompous otherworldly life of the 1% that sucks up so much of the airwaves’ time.

Photo by Nancy Edlin, shared publicly on Facebook.


Fuck Kim Kardashian’s wedding, Mr. News Anchor.
For years now, I’ve been angry, frustrated, and felt like I’d been ripped off and oversold. First eight years of Bush, then three years of this tip-toeing through ethical landmines that Washington has become.
In the early days of Occupy Wall Street, I thought “Yeah, nice gesture, but let’s see how long that lasts.”
I’m flabbergasted at the rate at which it’s starting to catch on. Stunned that the Billionaires’ Club is now defending its earnings and politicians are saying “Let’s not acknowledge them.”
The tide is turning. It’s an immovable force. It seems like the anger I wanted people to feel is finally there, that they’ve finally attained a sense of entitlement to a good life and a slice of the vaunted American Dream Pie.
There are so many sayings going around behind the #OSW protests. Like, “I believe in the separation of corporation and state,” and “I’m not opposed to capitalism; I’m opposed to corporate greed.” Yet so many seem to just not get it.
But they will.
The media has begun to realize #OccupyWallStreet might be the verge of a bold new era of an involved electorate, an angry populace, and the beginning of the end to this neo-feudal society that has arisen.
There’s one area in which the 1% are our equals: They only get one vote.
So, then. Who gets that vote?
Not a clue. Give it time. Hello, Darkness– do ya got a voice crying out in there? Who?
Remember, the French Revolution only took three years for the peasantry to overthrow the monarchy and the bourgeois. It took three years to plant the seeds for a way of life we’ve enjoyed for 220 years.
220 years? Democracy needs a facelift. She’s looking a little punchy. And now we have social media. Think of soc-med, like Twitter and Facebook, as the microwave-cooking of revolutions: Gets cooked faster than you ever hoped!
And business? Time for an overhaul, but mostly in the financial sector. I don’t give a fuck about Coca-Cola, I care about Goldman-Sachs.
Last week, when Steve Jobs died, even people I’ve long respected made ignorant comments like “If the the Occupy Wall Street protestors had their way, there’d be no Steve Jobs.”
What the fuck you talkin’ ’bout, Willis? I choose to own an iPhone, I don’t choose to have the economic world collapse due to speculators. I’m fine with Apple being Apple, Jobs having been Jobs. That’s business, not personal.
What I’m not fine with is executives like John Paulson taking a half-billion-dollar bonus because he THINKS he speculated well on finances (but then loses 40% value the next year). Steve Jobs took ONE DOLLAR A YEAR in pay, so don’t tell me he’s in the same class as the Wall Street Fat Cat Assholes who seem to think $500,000,000 is a good year-end bonus.
Their mistakes crash the world. Their successes have been few and far between for years. A little objectivity might help.
I’m lucky if I get a $500 Christmas Bonus, because I live in the real world and work for a small company, like most average joes/janes.
Between the stupidity of the finance industry in the United States — which is a world different than Canada’s, where we’ve never softened legislation, banking is healthy, and people still get loans — and the broken electoral system, it’s gonna take a big, long, noisy protest to wake the entire country up to just how stupid things have become down south.
There are massive issues in countries all around the world, because we’ve watched the relaxing of ethics in power in America and it spreads like a fungus, because America’s influence on the world is unparalleled.
Within their own borders, I find Americans don’t understand why it’s so important to the rest of us what happens there, and why we get so invested in their inability to demand true change from their leaders.
But it’s really, really simple. America is the house of cards we’re all built upon. They come tumbling down and the whole world’s financial network goes boom. Even Canada, where it’s sort of a healthy economy due to our regulations, has felt the pain from America’s missteps in recent years.
These are dark, difficult days. Change is needed urgently, globally: fairness in finance, representation in politics, equality in legislation, and people’s voices being truly heard.
What we need is a government with balls, a government who realizes there’s opportunity in saying, “Hey, you, hedge fund — go fuck yourself. The public want what we got.”
As for Obama, I’d seen a speech he did on the early days in the Iraq war, and he was so prescient that I thought “A man with this kind of future vision, he needs to be leader.”
And every day since his administration began, I’ve had one West Wing/Aaron Sorkin-inspired wish: “Let Obama be Obama.” I’ve wished he’d raise the level of debate in America.
Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. After all the partisan bickering, the forgetting that there are real people who depend daily on issues politicians are supposed to resolve, after all the water under the economical/political bridge, Obama’s a guy that’s a faint shade of who he promised he’d be.
Well, that oversold dream and those glossed-over half-truths, they’re old, and we need something new, Obama & Co.

PS: Let’s remember, too, that a Vancouver, Canada company kickstarted the whole Occupy Wall Street Movement — Adbusters announced the Occupy Wall Street event back in July and tried to drum up support. I wonder what their editorial office is like these days, as the movement takes hold globally.

The Media Is Dead To Me

For three weeks, protests have been gaining steam in New York City, and spreading across America.
People are realizing they’re angry, and hey, so’s the next guy. They’re seeing their way of life evaporate.
Gone is the way I grew up, the life I knew, and I’m Canadian. Americans have it worse. Middle class? Buh-bye, we don’t have that no more.
The media? Where have they been? Not covering the protests, that’s for sure. Why would they? When they’re so advertising-dependent on all the companies that the voices are shouting against, why would the media cover it? Don’t slap the hand that feeds you… even if it means you’ll lose the trust of the masses you need. Fucking idiots.
There was a time when one would turn to NBC or CBS, because, if Cronkite, Murrow, or some other most-trusted-man-in-America told you, then you’d believe it. Now? Jon Stewart repeatedly wins polls as the most trusted man in America, and he’s literally a joke[r].
In the first few days of the protest, there were active disinformation campaigns. People with blog posts showing garbage left by the “nowhere to be seen” protesters. I searched many of these sites and believed it was over.
But the protest went nowhere. They stood their ground, took over the park, and have been there ever since. Gradually, the word’s gotten out.
If it wasn’t for the stupidity of police brutality, they may never have gotten the coverage they’ve needed for growth.
Even now, the cable news shows aren’t focusing on the protest.
Then there’s the talk of what’s the message? What are the protests really ABOUT? What’s the unified theme?
Long story short, money, and how so many of us work so fucking hard, following all that we were told to do, and yet we’re still barely keeping our heads above water. And how much harder that is in the United States, where banks have a stranglehold on the entire economy.
There’s barely a middle class anymore. Thrift stores are doing desperate pleas for donations, because more people can’t afford full-price new items in stores. Food is going through the roof. My bread flour’s up 30% this year. Peanut butter is to follow. Never mind everything else.
Soon, restaurants will be priced out of existence, and the last 50 years of our culture based on dining out and that blissful life will be a memory of the past.
Once upon a time, eating out was a rare treat. For some of my friends and I, we’re back to that era, where dining means we’re stepping into another world for a meal. Most of the time, it’s eating at home. But at least we’re eating. I get takeout, sure, but restaurants? Maybe twice a month. Maybe.
Instead, the media’s talking about the iPhone, new movies, crimes with Americans abroad, and other shit that has no actual relevance on MY life, or most people’s.

From the #OccupyWallStreet Facebook group. Uploaded by PHOTON FREQUENCY.


The real stories don’t get play. Why talk about something that doesn’t have a lot of hope attached — or can’t be spun into advertising revenue?
NOTHING HAS CHANGED since the 2008 bail-outs! Money was handed out with no restraint for the banks, with no rules about how to spend it, and look where we are. The lack of regulations remained, and now we’re hearing from Robert Zoellick and other international players that we’re on the edge of a crisis — world-wide, because America’s fucking up at the wheel.
Apparently the politicians are the last to find out, because those of us who’ve been stressing about bills, rent, and life in general don’t think the recession ever “ended.”
We’re still in the fucking fray, man. We’re still barely breathing here.
Since the economic collapse of 2008, I’ve been dealing with never-ending back problems, job woes, and other stresses. I’m not the happy Steff I once was, and my life is hard, week in and week out, but at least I have a very little breathing room, largely because I shop in thrift stores, eat at home, and keep a lid on my purchases. I feel like my life is lived in bondage because I really have very little room to move, and it makes me so empathetic for those who have far less than I do, or Americans living in an even worse market.
But where the FUCK are you, media?
Thank god for smartphones, YouTube, and social media.
If I’m boring you on Twitter or Facebook with #OccupyWallStreet content, then too fucking bad, because SOMEONE NEEDS TO GET THE MESSAGE OUT, and it looks like it’s on us to do so.
More than 150 cities are now doing protests. Where the FUCK is the corresponding media?
You can’t believe what you hear, read, or see, if it’s in the media. Not anymore.
If the press wanted a nail in its coffin, well, we’ve got the hammer.
We are the 99%.

Fuck You, Hollywood.

We’re witnessing the end of an empire at the box office.
Sex and the City 2 is lying there like a dead fish, with all the appeal of a used-up 45-year-old prostitute after a night of chasing 8-balls with gin after running the line for a sex-train at a frat party.
Naturally, Hollywood is CONVINCED it’s because the chicks in it are all old.
“Well, of COURSE Sam needs a vibrator — she’s 54!”
Let’s for a moment forget the ages of the women acting in the show. Let’s forget that they’re all around 50+ now.
Let’s do something wacky and think about the movie itself. And, hey, let’s think about the writing.
First: Have I seen it? No.
Here’s why not.
If I’m watching a show where some lead actor/actress from a flick is out whoring their movie, putting on the charm, and they play a clip — just ONE 30-second clip from a 90-minute movie — and the clip sucks shit? I mean, they’re supposed to be showing the one most appealing, funniest, engaging, COME-WATCH-US clip they have from the ENTIRE movie. And it’s shit? Well, I know the other 89:30 probably isn’t gonna be an improvement.
But if that 30-second clip is from a 2-hour-and-25-minutes-long movie and it still sucks shit?
I’m in favour of euthanizing everyone who views it in the theatres.
The shame!
Everything I’ve seen of Sex & the City 2 looks like has-been writers puked up every failed cliché they’ve ever heard, slapped some pretty weird dresses and shoes I’ll NEVER afford onto fancy-pretty chicks, and spliced that shit together.
Let’s see what some of the critics on Rotten Tomatoes are saying about it:

  • There’s only one thing worse than faking an orgasm: faking laughter. Shame on you, Sex and the City 2, for being a 2.5-hour laughless fake-a-thon that never finds the right spot.
  • Shoes, money, outfits, shoes, vagina, money, shoes, jewelry, outfits, money, shoes.
  • It goes from being what we know and love to… what were they thinking?
  • A flagrant insult to the audience that made the first film a phenomenon. Shame on the writers of this soulless drivel for trying to pass this Canal Street bootleg sow’s ear off as a genuine Alexander McQueen silk purse.
  • Early in Sex and the City 2, I started a list of things that could easily be cut because they go nowhere. It’s a long list.
  • It has no plot to speak of, little in the way of wit or intelligence, and is about 50% longer than can reasonably be justified.
  • A degrading portrait of women through an unfunny story about four Ugly Americans abroad.
  • It’s supposed to be Sex and the City. This is Sects and the Souk.

And that’s what pisses me off.
This movie isn’t failing because of the actresses. It’s failing because a director with shitty judgment had his hands on a shitty script that some fucko chose in a Hollywood office, and Decider Dude’s probably been sleeping with vapid starlets and hasn’t had his finger on the real-life pulse of America for three decades.
YET he thinks he knows what’ll appeal to broad-spectrum women around the world. Yeah. Right.
This movie is failing because it’s nothing of what the original series contained — cynical-but-true jabs at being single, sexy, smart women trying to get by in a big-city life at a changing time in American city culture.
So, it’s got nothing that made it great, except for actresses that play characters who aren’t the characters they were when America fell in love with them. Brilliant. Sure, that’ll be a raging success.
And the problem with these failing movies that have “older” actresses is, they’re usually shit from the get-go. They were shit on paper, they’re shit being shot, and they’re shit when they’re edited together for the screening room.
What’s the deal? Actresses don’t get great money-making projects past 45, so they get all scared about their future, then jump when Hollywood says they’ll slap a couple million payroll for ’em onto this lame-ass “but it’s sure to be a hit, look at all the OLD actresses we’ve lined up to appease the suburban-mom contingent!” movie.
The even bigger problem is with fans who’ll take anything shovelled at them under the guise that it’s even REMOTELY connected to the original story enterprise. Yeah, you know who you are.
This has NOTHING to do with the original series. It’s a bunch of chicks doing stupid, contrived things that only a BAD Hollywood writer would come up with.
We need great indie filmmakers to make awesome movies about women in their 40s and 50s that are edgy, ironic, bitingly funny, and not apologetic about crashing a few stereotypes. (I remember one called The Graduate.)
The movies we’re making for women have NOT improved. This is the same stupid-ass writing that’s brought us horrible, horrible, horrible chick flicks like The First Wives’ Clubs and The Women and The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants and all those cliché my-time-of-the-month films.
Apparently all women have to do in their 40s and 50s is to be unhappy about love, confused about life, and needy about having friends.
The problem here isn’t the age of the actresses.
It’s that Hollywood doesn’t know what real life for women actually entails. It doesn’t know that life’s more complicated than soccer-practice “taxi” trips and bill-payments.
Hollywood doesn’t understand that not every woman gets manicures or pedicures.
It doesn’t get that not every woman is sitting around deviously hatching a plan to manipulate a man.
It doesn’t get that some of us actually love ourselves and our lives.
It doesn’t get that my quality of life isn’t determined by the ratio of man-delivered-orgasms versus personally-given ones.
Hollywood doesn’t understand women. At all. It didn’t 20 years ago, it doesn’t now.
I’ll confess: I’ve never been a real fan of Sex & The City.
That’s more because I’m not a girlie-girl and don’t really get into “girl” shows. I enjoyed some of it sometimes, but I’ve always been annoyed at how much validation its characters received from the male sex, or how much they all had to rally together and prop each other up against the un-validation given to them by male characters.
It always was a cliché — but a really well-written cliché with great laughs and realistic characters, and more true to some of the struggles of women in their 30s/40s than it is about them aging.
Now, though, it’s just another money-grubbing cliché-spewing pathetic example of why the mainstream movie machine is still broken.
And you smart, sexy, intelligent, successful women who are giving your money over to the box office to watch this piece-of-shit movie that stereotypes, demeans, and mocks the modern woman:
You’re part of the problem.
Shame on you.

The Annual Anti-Valentine's Posting: 2009 Edition

Ahh, Valentine’s Day. Sigh. Swoon. Won’t you be mine? Won’t you be my lover?
[RECORD SCRATCHES]
Let’s back that shit up.
Every year, without fail, I’m forced to write yet another posting saying pretty much all the same things. Like, if you can’t be romantic all year, you don’t deserve a lover. If you can’t remember to live with passion daily, then you’re wasting oxygen.
Sure, you can say, “Yeah, well, Valentine’s Day is good for young couples who are too busy — ”
[RECORD SCRATCHES]
Too busy? What, for each other? For knocking each other’s socks of with a quaking orgasm or two here and there? Too busy for head? Too busy for a stolen kiss in the corner of the kitchen? Too busy for a random, well-timed grope? Too busy for a lusty note snuck into a work lunch? Continue reading

My Clitoris & I Wrote My Toilet Paper Manufacturer

Dear Toilet Paper Manufacturer:
You lied.
You said your paper was soft and pure. It is, you claim, a “premium” paper.
Sadly, my clitoris disagrees.
I don’t know if you realize, but girl parts are sensitive. Nice soft fleshy bits, hypersensitive to touch and even sensation? Very?
My clitoris feels your product isn’t premium. That it, in fact, is cheap-ass. And scratchy. And turning Clitty into a very cranky, and raw, little thing. Poor Clitty.
At this point I would deem your product falls under FAIL. And I, too, fail for buying 36 rolls. And my clit fails for being an innocent bystander.
All I can now say is, Toughen up, Clitty. It’s gonna be a long, rough ride.
Thanks for nuthin’, not-so-premium paper company.
Regards,
A Girl and Her Clit

The Business of Unhappiness

Body image. Stand any one of us in front of a mirror, ask us to reveal what we dislike about ourselves, and an unhesitating list would be quickly forthcoming.
Industry knows this. They count on it. All the way to the bank.
If you’re happy about yourself, why would you ever spend all that disposable income on beauty products, clothes, and other distractions that keep you from looking inside, where true self-image resides?
I read a fascinating Huffington Post article on the economy of waif-thin models. It spoke of how having models thin is benefiting someone, somewhere, and until the public starts demanding differently, designers will kowtow to those in the industry who have everything to gain from keeping women thinking they need to be a size zero to four for any real chance at happiness in life. (I’ve written about anorexic models before and, as an overweight feminist, it’s always been an issue for me.)
You ask me, I think that fashion will never show real women for the same reason that science will probably never really “cure” cancer. There’s too much to gain from the downside — illness and our discontent. The upside means people become healthy and well. If they’re healthy and well, they’ll be happy. If they’re happy, they won’t want or need as much. If they don’t want or need as much, then how in god’s name will industry get their hands on all that tasty money in people’s pockets?
Your insecurities, people, are keeping industry going strong. Your insecurities are helping you contribute to the overall good of society. Productivity, consumer confidence, retail bottom lines — they’re all fed by your insecurities.
Why in god’s name would you want to feel better about yourself? Is that really the Modern Way? C’mon! Don’t smile on one another, don’t love your brother, don’t even love yourself! Piss, moan, whine, and feel shitty in the morning. That way, you’ll feel like you need to “treat” yourself and swing by Starbucks for a Venti Caramel Macchiato, and why the hell not one of those tasty apple fritters? Then, you’ll feel like shit for being so bad, you’ll beat yourself up at work, and say you need to go to the gym. That’ll cut into your day more than you’d planned, you won’t have the time to cook properly, so now you got to go blow your wad on take-out. But the take-out’s all cooked with oils and fats you can’t even imagine, so what would be 450 calories if you made it at home’s actually closer to 1,000 in take-out, and now the workout you just did’s completely pointless. But that’s okay, you’re planning to buy a new pair of jeans and shirt on the weekend anyhow.
See? It’s a cycle. It seems to work for you, it sure as hell works for industry, so why would we ever want to start feeling like it’s all right to be a few pounds overweight with a grabbable ass?
Personally, I’m losing weight. Most of the time, anyhow. Lately I’ve gone off the hook and have eaten badly and not exercised, but I’m back on track.
I’m doing it because I don’t like feeling fat. I don’t like having little to no energy. Or not feeling strong. And not meeting goals. I didn’t like movie theatre seats cutting into me. I didn’t like my doctor looking at me with grave concern as he told me I was toying with the odds on diabetes. I don’t want to be THAT way.
But I sure as hell don’t want to be skinny.
All I want is to be happy. It may have taken a lifetime to realize it, but it occurs to me that Happy doesn’t come off a shelf in a store.
Too bad there’s a few billion consumers who’ve missed out on that epiphany so far. Which keeps industry wringing its hands with glee.
This brilliant image is by a San Francisco photographer named Cheryl McLaughlin and you can find her here. This image is for sale.