Mike McCracken

Several friends have jumped on the 8:36pm bandwagon. Every night (or most nights, or whichever nights they feel like it) at 8:36 in the evening they tweet what they are doing at that very moment. According to bugeats who started the trend, one should do it every day, in order to shame yourself if you tweet “watching tv” day after day, but better yet, to motivate yourself to be doing interesting things with your evening (my paraphrase of his sentiments - accuracy not guaranteed).

I like that it’s a reversal of impetus on the whole twitter phenomenon. Rather than deciding you have something you want to share, you are prompted to share this snapshot in time, however mundane, at this precise moment in the evening when the possibilities of what you could be doing are probably about as varying as they could be at any point in the day. Or, in his words:

Why 8:36pm? For it’s lack of significance / proximity to evening “leisure time.” An impartial sampling of daily life.

Anyway, I like the trend and I hope to see more and more

From this freakonomics blog post, I discovered a story where, in a speech of Al Gore’s that was closed to the press (but a member of the press came in as a civilian, and reported on it), he describes the behavior corporations exhibit, in which they pursue short term profits at the expense of keeping our world livable with a healthy population as “functionally insane, but that is the dominant reality in the world today”.

This is not a new concept. In Grunch of Giants, Buckminster Fuller speaks of an army of invisible giants girding the planet earth. More recently, the movie “The Corporation” does a psychological analysis on the corporations (which is legally a person), determining it (/ them) to be psychopathic. (Obviously it’s a blanket statement toward a type of entity, but the point is well made.)

But Bucky and the makers of The Corporation are intelligent people at liberty to call out a horrendous (and steadily growing over recent decades) flaw in our system. Politicians don’t have this liberty. There are too many organizations that are too powerful that provide too much support (or crippling blows) to any politician that stands a chance.

I’ve been a long time Edwards supporter because I see him as the most viable candidate who has actually brought up issues that subvert the standard corporate-placation that is typical of most candidates. Remember in 2004 (before he was on the Kerry ticket, of course) when he said in a debate that we need to break down the wall of money around Washington? Beautiful. But with this, and especially if Gore stands by this (which he might almost have enough credibility to do… maybe?) he is my new hero.

Freakonomics points out that his statement does not sound like something that a presidential candidate (or someone thinking of becoming one) would say, but the sentiment may be describing the biggest thing wrong with America today (beyond just environmentally: socially, culturally and in other ways as well). Capitalism (which helped this country become as great as it is, and certainly has plenty more value to offer) has run amok at the expense of democracy and many other ideals that are also responsible for the greatness our country has achieved.

“I know what side of the line in the sand I drew I’m on; what side are you on?”

You can gamble with your friends about whether or not it will load. Fun stuff - I’ll give you two to one that the page loads, but none of the CSS!

Wait, no, not any more. That is to say, server difficulties seem to be sorted out for the time being.
Now, if only I could think of something interesting to write…

First off, let me just say that I am not a blogger. I only blog occasionally, and when I do, I do it recreationally. No, no, that came out wrong, I mean, when I do blog (which isn’t often - its well under control) I do it socially. Yeah, that or for self-discovery.

That said, welcome to the inaugural post, which I am dedicating to discouraging people from reading this. As a techno- (logist | phile | rati | geek | phobe | monkey), there is some level of compulsion or even obligation to do this… you know, all the cool kids are doing it.

But while I may be more extraverted when I’m blogging, there is no reason to think that my thoughts are any more valid or worthwhile. When I get this way, I am prone to inconsistently spewing various ramblings that, if they seem interesting at all, are only interesting on a very surface level. Also, expect it to be unfocused and full of opinion and conjecture.