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Thursday, April 08, 2010

The brand that is Glenn

From a Forbes profile of Glenn Beck, emphasis mine:

With a deadpan, Beck insists that he is not political: "I could give a flying crap about the political process." Making money, on the other hand, is to be taken very seriously, and controversy is its own coinage. "We're an entertainment company," Beck says. He has managed to monetize virtually everything that comes out of his mouth.

Labels: Fox News, Glenn Beck, signs of the apocalypse

Thursday, August 13, 2009

For the narcissist in your life

This Samsung camera has two viewscreens: one on the back, so you can see what you're taking a picture of, and one on the front, so you can take a great picture of yourself.

Not that you would do something like that.

A Samsung press release is quoted saying "The growing popularity of social networking sites has given rise to the self-portrait, with many consumers turning their digital cameras on themselves." There's something very sad about someone who needs a picture for a "social networking" website, yet doesn't known anyone well enough even to ask them to take their picture.

technorati: camera, DualView

Labels: photography, signs of the apocalypse

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

'Katastroika'

You know, by now, about collapsitarianism (and its cousin, a so-called "Transition" movement that was written about in the NYT Magazine Sunday).

Now comes a new word to address the Russian version of apocalypse: katastroika. The following is from a World Affairs Journal article titled "Drunken Nation: Russia's Depopulation Bomb":

A specter is haunting Russia today. It is not the specter of Communism -- that ghost has been chained in the attic of the past -- but rather of depopulation -- a relentless, unremitting, and perhaps unstoppable depopulation. The mass deaths associated with the Communist era may be history, but another sort of mass death may have only just begun, as Russians practice what amounts to an ethnic self-cleansing. ...

According to the U.S. Census Bureau International Data Base for 2007, Russia ranked 164 out of 226 globally in overall life expectancy. Russia is below Bolivia, South America's poorest (and least healthy) country and lower than Iraq and India, but somewhat higher than Pakistan. For females, the Russian Federation life expectancy will not be as high as in Nicaragua, Morocco, or Egypt. For males, it will be in the same league as that of Cambodia, Ghana, and Eritrea. ...

Russia's patterns of death from injury and violence (by whatever provenance) are so extreme and brutal that they invite comparison only with the most tormented spots on the face of the planet today. The five places estimated to be roughly in the same league as Russia as of 2002 were Angola, Burundi, Congo, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. To go by its level of mortality injury alone, Russia looks not like an emerging middle-income market economy at peace, but rather like an impoverished sub-Saharan conflict or post-conflict society.

Clearly the 21st century is not going to turn out as a lot of people expected. But it will make for great material -- if there is still an entertainment industry and distribution network for the films, books and other media to be created.

technorati: Russia, zeitgeist, mortality

Labels: collapse, drinking, Russia, signs of the apocalypse, zeitgeist

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

'Emo jacket' should appear to makers of pr0n

German electronics company Philips Electronics has announced an "Emo jacket" that is "meant to let you more closely immerse yourself in the experiences" of characters in a DVD you're watching. The jacket is fitted with 64 thingies -- all right, "actuators" -- that are intended to give the wearer the sensation of being tapped in the spot on their body nearest the thingy. A radio receiver will receive signals encoded on the DVD and activate the thingies in whatever pattern the programmer has programmed.

For example, it is supposed to give you the sensation of having a "chill up your spine." I wonder what the German word is for that. On second thought, I don't want to know.

The story on C|Net suggests the obvious implications for porn, saying that at this point there are no plans to ship a matching pair of pants. But once the technoogy has been invented, it's only a matter of time, of course -- I'm guessing the Japanese will get right on it -- before you'll be able to watch porn with no hands.

technorati: technology, Phillips, jacket, entertainment, movies

Labels: fashion, gizmos, pornography, signs of the apocalypse, zeitgeist

Sunday, March 15, 2009

World to end sooner than expected

Slowing of the Atlantic Ocean current and other stuff will drown East Coast U.S. cities twice as fast as other places around the world.

Hey future -- sorry about that!

technorati: global warming, climate change, apocalypse

Labels: global warming, signs of the apocalypse, weather

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Focus on the Fundies: Obama not the Anti-Christ, authors decide

The authors of the "Left Behind" series of Christianist novels have announced they do not think Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.

The frightening thing is that some people might have been waiting for that word from them. And what if they had said the opposite?

technorati: Left Behind, fundamentalists, right wing Christians

Labels: closet cases, crypto-fascists, Focus on the Fundies, signs of the apocalypse

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Things I had to look up: Boethius

After I sent this article on Buddhist-Christian contacts during the 8th century to a friend, she replied, "like boethius, they were busy and a' thinkin' during them there dark ages!!"

Due to my lack of a comprehensive liberal arts education, however, I had no idea who Boethius was. In this case the Wikipedia article was helpful enough for the likes of me. Known to the Roman Catholic Church as St. Severinus Boethius, the 6th century scholar and administrator was dedicated to preserving concepts of classical philosophy; he is credited with developing a three-layered classification of music as well as the Wheel of Fortune. (Cue music from Carmina Burana.)

Labels: signs of the apocalypse, things I had to look up

Monday, December 08, 2008

Satire is dead, no 892134892: Praying with SUVs

A black church in Detroit blessed members who work in the nearly kaput auto industry as "three gleaming sport utility vehicles" shared the stage. In a nod to ecumenism, each car was from one of the Big 3 automakers.

Reinforcing the impression that these people are really stupid was a quotation from a church leader that "We have never seen as midnight an hour as we face this coming week," a sentence I had to read five times before I understood it. (In fairness, it was intended to be heard, not read. But I'm not sure the speaker knows, or cares, that "midnight" is not an adjective.)

technorati: bailout, auto industry, churchesa>, Pentacostals

Labels: disasters, economy, Focus on the Fundies, Satire is dead, signs of the apocalypse, zeitgeist

Monday, September 29, 2008

Sign of the apocalypse: Dentist chair TV's programming is Disney, ads

This definitely falls into the Kill Me First category: a new device you wear like eyeglasses allows you to watch television in the dentist's chair while being worked on. Sounds good, you say? The only programming is:
ð Disney programs
ð Dental health messages
ð Advertising.

It's paid, of course, by the latter.

Personally I'd rather listen to the drill.

technorati: advertising, television, technology

Labels: advertising, signs of the apocalypse, television

Monday, July 21, 2008

Definitely not me

Added to the list of the Mark Pritchards I'm not is this father of triplets, one of which was carried by his wife's sister. Since I was born in St. Louis, I suppose it's remotely possible that this Pritchard family is somehow related to me, but not that I know of.

Funny, though, I've always loved the name Darla -- it's just so down-home. I've tried to use it in several different stories, none published. The triplets' mother is not the only Darla Pritchard, though, it seems.

Labels: heterosexuality, signs of the apocalypse

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Focus on the Fundies: Creepy story of the month

Some fundies in Colorado Springs (where else?) stage a bizarre "Father-Daughter Purity Ball" annually -- this was the tenth annual such rite -- which judging from the photo seems to involve using a cross like a maypole. And is that a crown of thorns they're doing ring-toss with?

A twirling mass of white lace surrounded a rough wooden cross as a troupe of young women danced in a circle looking like porcelain dolls come to life.

Then Randy Wilson and Kevin Moore hoisted swords in the air and a ballroom full of 149 fathers and daughters walked beneath them toward the cross and laid white roses at its base. The swords symbolized the fathers' commitment to battle for their daughters and the roses symbolized the daughters' commitment to God to remain pure.

Then Wilson announced, "Let the ball begin."

Good Christ, what are these people on? Of course, they has a website, which contains this strange passage:

The Father Daughter Purity Ball is a memorable ceremony for fathers to sign commitments to be responsible men of integrity in all areas of purity. The commitment also includes their vow to protect their daughters in their choices for purity. The daughters silently commit to live pure lives before God through the symbol of laying down a white rose at the cross.

Yes... They live in a fantasy world where women are still chattel and cannot legally sign anything, so the men sign the documents and the girls "silently commit" to the deal.

There is something else mentioned in the story, an organization called the Abstinence Clearinghouse. I'll let you Google that for yourself, but the mind boggles. "What do they clear??" Cris asked. "A clearinghouse is a place where accounting takes place... Do they have a database of all the virgins or something?"

But the best quote from the news story is:

(The family who started the event) say most in the mainstream media see their family as a fundamentalist freak show.

You think?!

technorati: fundamentalists, Colorado Springs, celibacy

Labels: abstinence, Colorado Springs, dating, family, Focus on the Fundies, religious right, signs of the apocalypse

Monday, May 05, 2008

If being on hold weren't bad enough

A company is marketing the "wasted time" you spend on hold, delivering advertisements to you instead of hold music. It's bad enough to hear happy-voice promotions for the company you're calling while you wait on hold; I pity the customer service people who wind up on the receiving end of callers' wrath after listening to some unrelated advertisement.

This goes on the list of signs of the apocalypse, along with advertisements on the floors of supermarkets, on little TV screens in hotel elevators, and in the corner of TV screens while you're trying to watch the ballgame.

technorati: advertising

Labels: advertising, commercials, marketing, signs of the apocalypse

Thursday, December 20, 2007

'Highly directional sound' = the end of solitude?

This is one of the more depressing things I've read lately: Advertising through "highly directional sound." Advertisers will be able to focus advertising pitches to very small areas -- so, for example, when you walk past the Preparation H, you'll hear a spiel for that, and when you walk past the cold medicine, you'll hear a pitch for that. Supposedly "it doesn't contribute to ambient noise pollution," but how are you going to avoid it in, say, a subway car? How far away is the day when there's a tiny speaker over your airline seat, where you're a captive audience for hours on end, broadcasting advertisements that are picked for you personally, based on your gender, age, and everything else the airline and the credit card company knows about you?

Fucking AAACK.

technorati: marketing, advertising

Labels: signs of the apocalypse

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