connections

Connections are what hold us all to each other, but they can be very difficult to maintain.

I’ve not been able to post to my blog in several days due to difficulties connecting to the internet and the the server that help maintain my connections.

This does not mean I’ve given up on the connections, the internet, or the servers. It simply means my attention is needed elsewhere right now.

Some connections are not so easily interfered with, those that are closest to our hearts and minds keep us going. Those are the connections we’ve worked over time to build, and we must continue to try to maintain those.

And the connections must be “rooted” somewhere. Roots need care too, just as do the plants and their leaves.

green is green

In poor imitation of Shakespeare, a tree by any other name would still have branches.

Seeking brief shelter this afternoon from the blaze of the afternoon sun, I thought about foliage and all the different “shades” of green upon which one might reflect. But green is green–unless one is color-blind, of course.

Planting a tree is a very good way to help clean the air, given all the trees we have felled to build and box.

Modern products seem to require a great deal of packaging, these days. Or do they?

So many carbon-based products–plastics–are used in modern packaging to make the product more “attractive” on the shelf, as if we could not choose between products without such packaging.

Of course, it’s what’s inside the package that is most important. “Branding” does not work if the content of the brand continues to change. I’ve noticed that happening with some of my formerly-favorite brands.

Do marketeers really think we cannot tell the difference between a package and what is inside?

Fortunately, most packaging can be recycled. However, plastics require more processing than those derived from paper and cardboard. Metals are more difficult to recycle as well.

A number of products currently packaged in “tin cans” can be packaged in wax-coated papers that require much less recycling as well.

Of course, companies must have access to the manufacturing equipment that can fashion such products.

Whatever we can do to reduce our dependence on “big oil” the better for all of us.

Now is as good a time as any to be green. It is our “free choice” to recycle, regardless of what the marketeers do with the “outside” packaging.

the potential of the ‘$100 laptop’

When I saw the first story about $100 laptops, I thought, “Yeah, right…” Since they’ve actually gone into production and I’ve read the specs, I understand the price tag.

At first glance, the idea seems wonderful, especially for education and especially in “developing” countries with the “get one, give one” idea. But as I read on about the built-in, default, automatic p2p network, a little n2n

BBC NEWS | Technology | Uruguay buys first ‘$100 laptops’
“The Give 1 Get 1 (G1G1) programme will initially distribute laptops to Cambodia, Afghanistan, Rwanda and Haiti.”

(neuron to neuron) networking began in my head. In most countries, there are no IP laws that can zap an individual downloader (not the file server) for offering copyrighted works as there is in the U.S.A., so that’s no problem.

But think of the possibilities for viral marketing and malware distribution. I’m sure there are some default protections against malware (that would have to be constantly updated). But, adware and other viral marketing progs could spread instantaneously.

Since the target market for these computers is school-age children, some companies must be drooling at the thought of this new medium for exposing impressionable, young minds to their product pitches. In places where even television has never reached.

It’s a situation that begs for ethical consideration.

Boomer super-majority

While the AARP and Harvard reports mentioned previously divide the middle socioeconomic strata of the Boomer population into two groups, Self-Reliants (at 30% of the total population) and Today’s Traditionalists (at 25% percent of the total population), these two groups also share much in common. Together, the two groups make-up around 55% of the total, comprising a “super-majority” of the Boomer population.

Indeed, the reports state that Today’s Traditionalists come closest to matching overall boomer demographic profile in terms of education, income, employment, health status, and gender. These Boomers are more ethnically diverse than other groups and have generally shown the most confidence in the current governmental provisions for aging populations. However, the study notes, these Boomers also expect to work in retirement for either financial or personal reasons.

entertaining Boomers

The names in use by the two dominant political parties in the U.S.A. today are remnants leftover from the rhetoric of past political campaigns. If we look closely at the history of our country’s political parties, we find these remnants have been pieced together to compose two allegedly opposing views of polity that bear the labels of Republican and Democrat.

For all the apparent thrashing about during campaigns, actual policies are still decided in back rooms by those holding the largesse cards.

The spirit of liberty is neither Democrat nor Republican. It predates the founding of this country by thousands of years, arising from the depths of the innermost Being of the many who are belittled and demoralized by the few.

If polity is pursued in this spirit of liberty, we can move beyond the politics of the “haves” and “have nots” toward inclusive processes designed for broad input to policy decisions.

Campaigning often seems to be little more than a form of entertainment. Less bloody, but still as grisly as gladiator matches in ancient Rome. The more money spent, the more entertaining the campaign.

That U.S. American households spend far more out of their budgets every year for entertainment than for education is telling about the value our culture places on being entertained (U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey for CY 2005, PDF).

Included in the clicks “A” list reading, links to resource sites that demonstrate how political images and cartoons have entertained the U.S. American masses since 1770.

entrance to policy-making marketplace

A number of the pitfalls of “free market” ideologies have already been covered, so “liberating processes that distribute resources” among peoples is not a statement equivalent to an absolute “libertarian” stance on economic activities. Market economies have always operated under cultural norms, mores, and laws—rules, as it were.

So the question is not about whether or not economies should operate under rules. There are always rules, either explicit or implicit. Even pirates have a “code of honor”. The question is more about how to change the conditions under which rules are formed.

The current conditions under which governmental rules are formed are the same conditions under which our market economy, in general, operates. To talk about economies and politics is the same conversation. Political processes are economic processes. In our current consumerist economy, policies have become another ‘”consumer item” driven by mass marketing media.

conservatives, liberals, and polity

In an earlier post, I touched on the continuum of ideological stances that shape political platforms. Here, keep in mind that “politeia”, the root term of politic, has to do with peoples of a bounded geographic area.

In U.S.A. history alone—not to mention world history— politics as a means for “intervention” in the processes that distribute resources amongst of a group of peoples has undergone a wide variety of transformations.

As mentioned previously, the necessity of intervention in these processes is a topic of heated debate. The debate centers on questions about who should control rights of access to the resources of groups of peoples. The very idea of “democracy” itself stems from these questions.

majority Boomers

Previous posts examine the “tails” of the socioeconomic distribution of the Boomer cohort (the Enthusiasts at 13% and the Strugglers at 9%), which together total around 22% of the population. What about the other 78%, the “middle of the curve” Boomers?

The AARP and Harvard reports mentioned previously divvy the remaining Boomer population into three groups: The Self-Reliants (30%), just below the Enthusiasts in socioeconomic status; Today’sTraditionalists (25%), at the next lower level; and the Anxious (23%), just above the Strugglers.

While more evenly matched in proportions of the population than the two “tails” of the distribution, the groups are not more evenly matched in terms of socioeconomic resources.

green Boomers

In keeping with the Blog Action Day initiative, today’s post regards the environment. Around 14k Bloggers will have this as their topic today, so what I write will likely be repetitive of themes elsewhere.

I’ll risk another bit of personal nostalgia here to recall that, as a teenager in the 60s, I had a favorite pair of jeans to which I had sewn-on an emblem of the U.S.A. flag on one back pocket and another flag on the other back pocket, looking something like:

entrance to the policy-making marketplace

A number of the pitfalls of “free market” ideologies have already been covered, so “liberating processes that distribute resources” among peoples is not a statement equivalent to an absolute “libertarian” stance on economic activities. Market economies have always operated under cultural norms, mores, and laws—rules, as it were.

So the question is not about whether or not economies should operate under rules. There are always rules, either explicit or implicit. Even pirates have a “code of honor”. The question is more about how to change the conditions under which rules are formed.