This Weird Electronic World

Posted on June 6, 2013 by McPhedran

It’s weird how willingly we descend into this electronic world. There is nothing to touch, no expression to read, nothing; it is virtual, nothing more. Our letters are electronic, our messages and pictures, everything “press send”. It seems to make sense, efficient and direct, good for the environment. However the thing that is lost appears to be the thing that got us out of the muck to start with: our self-awareness, our knowledge of the world in which we live.

I saw someone yesterday who has been most hostile toward me over the years and expressed that same hostility yet again…but then, suddenly, smiling, said, “I like your blog.” I was confounded by that. I could think of nothing to say but “Thanks” and have been left scratching my head ever since. And so I blog about that.

Guns: The Violence in the Argument

Posted on June 3, 2013 by McPhedran

The problem with the debate on guns is that one side has a lot of guns and will never surrender them. Republicans and the god-fearing anti-abortionists lead the vacuous parade.Poison-laced letters sent years ago to President Obama and Mayor Bloomberg are another example in the on-going assault: “If you take my guns, you…will get shot in the face.” The truth is there is no debate. A debate involves structure and logic, not threats and yelling, “It is my god-given right!” (It isn’t.) The irony of their argument – do I even need to point this out? – is that it’s the gun owners themselves who are getting killed.

Chris Kyle was gunned down by Eddie Routh.

Their children too.

5-year-old shoots 2-year-old sister with toy rifle.

4,362 gun-related deaths since the massacre in Newtown. 4,362 people. Dead. How many hundreds of thousands to come? The lobbyists and legislators have to realize that for a society to survive, the violence must be taken out of the argument. Don’t they?

Lost Little Christmas Trees

Posted on May 11, 2013 by McPhedran

Hey, I don’t know if you’ve been looking…but I think I might have found your Christmas tree.

Randall’s Island, NYC

I mean, I realize that it might not be your actual Christmas tree, but I know you threw that one in the garbage. Anyway, this is where they all seem to go. Maybe you feel bad about that? I don’t know. And even if you can’t nurse the little jasper back to health, you could give it a proper burial.Or are you sticking with the plan of forgetting about your old one and just getting another fresh green thing next Christmas?And then throwing that one out too? Oh, okay. It’s still Fuck you, Christmas Tree.

Why Sports Journalism Isn’t Really Journalism

Posted on April 16, 2013 by McPhedran

ESPN Interviewer, Steve Levy: “In your wildest imagination, could you imagine anything like this happening?”Boston Marathoner, Bill Iffrig: “No. Well, I came last year, and the weather was so bad last year, it was so hot, I had a really bad day. But this year, I had a good day. I had a good time, but this incident did kind of spoil it.”

Pussy Riot Spring

Posted on March 28, 2013 by McPhedran

Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is pretty awful, little more than a terrible rap video with loops of meaningless dialogue, sensational imagery and an off-key – even insulting – reference to the imprisoned Russian group Pussy Riot. Not that any of this surprises – excepting the purple unicorn balaclavas. What’s remarkable is the critical response. Spring Breakers has been called “the year’s loopiest bit of fun” (Time Out), “positively raging with affect” (New Yorker), and an “outrageously funny party that takes a while to appreciate.” (The New York Times) With no characters, dialogue, nor even a narrative, it’s none of the above, but rather a bland statement about the simmering violence in pretty little things, all of it trite and overly done. The only entertaining thing was the drama in the theater – teenagers sneaking in, chased out by ushers – which seemed to approximate the politics of the affair.

What’s Happened to Anderson Cooper?

Posted on March 21, 2013 by McPhedran

I’ve liked Anderson Cooper ever since he stood outside in the hurricane winds in New Orleans; it wasn’t so much that he looked good as he was earnest. Anderson Cooper has always been one for the more empathetic side of news, human interest, and he was good at that, good at sounding authoritative and in such a friendly way. But it seems that he’s fallen off a terrible daytime cliff these days, showing youtube clips of babies eating pickles and chatting with his co-host Snooki (of Jersey Shore infamy) about the dumbest of dumbness, including the possibility of drinking her breast milk. Is this some kind of ethical meltdown? Or does he just need to find a good disaster to get back on track?

President Obama’s Inauguration: Good Words on a Good Day

Posted on January 21, 2013 by McPhedran

Richard Blanco (from Inaugural Poem One Today): All of us, as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day, equations to solve, history to question or atoms imagine, the “I have a dream” we all keep dreaming or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today and forever.

President Obama (from Inaugural Day Speech): Progress requires us to act in our time. For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford a delay. We cannot mistake absolutism for principle. Or substitute spectacle for politics. Or treat name-calling as reasoned debate. We must act.

Martin Luther King: (from final speech given on April 3, 1968): And another reason that I’m happy to live in this period is that we’ve been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence or nonviolence in this world; it’s nonviolence or non-existent. That is where we are today.

Maiden Lane, Manhattan: 10 Weeks after Hurricane Sandy

Posted on January 11, 2013 by McPhedran

The television cameras recently returned to the pier at the foot of Maiden Lane in Manhattan. This wasn’t for news on Hurricane Sandy, but a ferry accident in which 90 people were injured. It has now been over ten weeks since Hurricane Sandy, and this part of Manhattan, around Maiden Lane, remains much the same. The external generators and boilers are still in the streets. Many of the businesses remain closed. Yes, the Toyota Prius was removed, but it was just replaced by another external generator.

December 8, 2012

January 10, 2013

Now I am keeping watch on a pair of delivery bicycles which have been chained to the same spot since the storm.

November 15, 2012

January 10, 2013

It will be odd when all of these things are finally removed…by thieves or the city.

‘Tis the Season: Fuck You, Christmas Tree

Posted on January 3, 2013 by McPhedran

Christmas Tree, you are such a loser. You come into our homes every year, and you think we care because we decorate you with lights and kneel beneath your boughs. You actually think you’re the centre of everything, the glowing hearth of the holidays. And then we drag you into the street and dump you there. We don’t even notice you anymore. You’re like all the other garbage.You’ll be sawdust by the time we get that warm feeling again. And we’ll go after your saplings. Yeah, that’s right, Christmas tree. Fuck you.

New Year’s Synthesis

Posted on January 2, 2013 by McPhedran

Resolution is an over-used word not only on New Year’s Eve, but also in times of conflict and television watching. Resolutions on New Year’s Eve are harmless enough: I’m going to quit smoking. I’m going to stop eating junk food. I’m going to be a better person. They’re said late at night, under the influence (of drink or good intentions) and are rarely remembered. The problem with resolutions is that, when they are maintained, they result in conflict. Be it the NRA’s resolution to keep all of their guns, the Republicans’ resolution to not raise taxes, or the Syrian government’s resolution to win at all costs, nothing good ever comes out of this determination.

Republican House Speaker Jim Boehner is reported to have told Democratic Senator Harry Reid, “Go fuck yourself.”

Resolutions need to be compromised so that a, um, another resolution can be created. Rather than resolutions, I propose that we follow the simple philosophical theory of Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis. A good example of this is found in French history: Monarchy + Revolution = Republic.

French President Sarkozy with wife Carla Bruni

My New Year’s Synthesis is a simple one: Talk + Listen = Think.

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