Archive for the 'Lifelines' Category
Thursday, May 9th, 2013
Huxley’s Near Misses
Doug Pressman (pardon the pun) dug up this old interview. The transcript is here. Seems to me this raises lots of juicy TCT questions, not the least of which is why Huxley saw where the body was buried, but never really got his shovel out to dig…
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013
History of Product Placement
Dig the mumbo jumbo about the “special processing” of the tobacco.
Tuesday, March 26th, 2013
No Somos Chavez
Pardon the TCT editor’s possibly shaky Spanish — I made the horrendous error of learning German instead in school — but we are not Chavez here in the USA, and it’s a crying shame. Dig the way they are running the presidential election in Venezuela, per Advertising Age:
Americans weary of seemingly endless presidential campaigns might envy Venezuela’s decision to limit the process of electing a successor to Hugo Chavez to a mere 10 days.
From April 2 until April 11, candidates can buy five minutes a day of ad time on each TV and radio channel, and a daily ad in every newspaper.
Ad Age, of course, can’t side with the people, being what it is. Hence their piece on this lovely rule carps about Venezuela’s “state-controlled media.” There are, of course, private media in Venezuela, so it isn’t exactly the USSR.
The carping about media control is straight out of Animal House. “They can’t do that to our pledges. Only we can do that to our pledges.”
Any actual observer knows that the mass media here are far more effectively controlled by the “private” overclass than any state system ever was or could be.
Thursday, March 7th, 2013
Chavez No Se Va!
We have a left just like this here, don’t we? ROFL.
Friday, February 8th, 2013
Great Souls
TCT interrupts its usual fare to announce the arrival of this marvelous new book by our friend Niranjan Ramakrishnan:
The price is steep, but I can assure you the author is as substantial and original on this topic as anybody could be. His parents were involved in the Quit India movement, and actually met Gandhi. He himself is a Gandhi scholar, and a penetrating social critic.
FWIW, TCT considers the topic of whether nonviolence works better than violence to be right exactly at the center of Socialism 2.0. This book is certainly not limited to that question, but has much to say on it.
Friday, December 21st, 2012
Instagram and Exploitation
A small bit of good news: There has apparently been an “explosion of Instagram bashing” since Monday’s announcement by that Facebook subsidiary that it was changing its membership terms. The change, now retracted (no doubt temporarily), read as follows:
“You agree that a business or other entity may pay us to display your user name, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata) and/or actions you take, in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”
In Marxian (and also human) terms, this is quite interesting and important, as it would represent the expansion of exploitation — the seizure of the proceeds of unpaid labor-time — into the realm of social media usage. When and if Facebook accomplishes this trick — and history strongly suggests it will, eventually, if it hasn’t already, people who use its “services” will be doing unpaid work for it as users.
