Junk Mail Theater, a lesson in design

So when I get junk mail, I don’t like to throw it away.  Every pamphlet, letter, brochure, etc – I like to take apart and look at.  I couldn’t care less about the message, but some designer made this, and it bears even a small moment of my day to at least look and appreciate it.

I’m not alone in this.  My Uncle is an old-school graphic designer (can even make fonts by hand – how novel!) and he shares this quirk with me.  One thing we are always going on about is package design.  And I mean – we are going on about it.  I bought Wall-E, and when I was amazed at the ingenious design and assembly of it’s case, I brought it over and promptly showed him.  We both marvel over Apple’s product design team, and Adobe’s (the new stuff? fantastic).

Needless to say, when you aquire a….taste? of what ‘good’ can be, and you are in the profession of doing it yourself – well, it’s a rare treat when something comes along that is abysmal.  It’s like the sharpness of a good Scottish Whiskey, or the gentle bite of a great Jambalaya.  It’s the sting that makes everything else so much better.

So without further ado, I bring you the first in, what I sincerely hope is many, Junk Mail Theater!

 

This one comes from a local bank offering ‘Reality Checking’.  Here’s the front page:

And here’s the back:

 

So, first off, I love that the front page of this thing has all the subtly of a sledgehammer.  It reminds me of icanhascheezburger – where the internet is serious business.  And let’s examine the chroma-yellow.  I really wish the scanner nailed what will probably cause epilepsy in certain people, but alas, it managed to de-saturate that somewhat.  Yes, what you are seeing is it toned down.  It’s like hearing that Richard Simmons has been on downers all this time.

And the general concept?  I don’t get it.  Is it supposed to be a comic book?  And how does the product they are selling; ‘Reality Checking’ relate to animals?  And whoever wrote this copy is a genius, because they followed up ‘Stop chasing your tail’ with ‘Finally get tired of chasing your tail’?  Meanwhile, that cat is going to murder that dog.

Another thing, I would like every crap designer out there to realize something; just because you have a CD full of fonts, does not mean you need to use every single one.  You’d assume the guy thought each one he used would make his dick bigger.  I mean, we have Helvetica (the most overused of all fonts) – and not just one in the family, but I count 3 different weights, and the creme-de-la-creme of shit design; Comic Sans.  But it gets even better, he manages to switch font families mid-paragraph!  Mid-paragraph!  That is just dedication to avoiding the easy route; zeroxing a small pile of dog shit and mailing it out to me.

I want to explain something to you.  If there is a god, and I like to think there isn’t – but assuming there is, the only way I would define that god as a just god in this world of torment, hate, violence, natural disasters, and death is this: The only way for god to be a good and just one is to take out the eyes of every designer that uses Comic Sans with a rusty screwdriver.  They deserve it.  Using Comic Sans is design abortion.

And rock star, I would like to remind you with that brilliant choice of Blazing Suns Yellow, you don’t need a drop shadow to make it stand out against white.  If you need a drop shadow to make your font color stand out against white, you need to pick a different fucking color.

I love the stock bullet points, by the way.  There are a million ways to dress it up, and he goes with bullet points – that aren’t even really needed.  You have a bold compressed font marking each bullet, you could have indented that second extended light font and saved my eyes the visual rape that they were hit with.

But the thing that gets me the most – and I mean aside from the color, concept, font, layout, lack of creativity, and just general overall design – the one thing that I don’t get?  Second page, bottom right.  Why is there a mouse on it?  First, you’re talking about dogs, then you’ve connected them to checking with that great segway (Top dog. How clever.), but now you have a small mouse giving the legal.  I kinda see the purpose; small mouse, small voice, small type….but why is he in black and white?  10 seconds on istockphoto.com will give you a whole slew of mice.  In fantastic color!

So that’s today.  I honestly hope it isn’t the last.

I knew I should’ve bought a sailboat

14 inches of rain + 2 days of 60 degree weather + a night-long downpour =

 

New Gadget

So Em and I ran out and bought iPhones on Saturday.  I’ve had about 2 days of experience with it, and I have to say, I’m kinda thrown off.

 

Apple (and fanboys everywhere) makes it seem like it’ll change your life.  Honestly, it won’t.  It’s a great little device, honestly, and it does some things very well, but it ultimately won’t revolutionize your life.  Granted, most of that is marketing hype that gets you to buy the thing, so it can be forgiven.  But Apple’s ads are close; it does change the way you look at a phone.

 

It’s not really a phone anymore.  It’s more like a digital swiss army knife.  I have GPS, a media player, a phone, an internet browser, a calendar, stopwatch, and thanks to the app store, a run-tracker, diet watcher (funny story about that later), and a few other things.  Ultimately, it’s handy, nothing really more than that.  I don’t have a 3G signal, well, I do if I set it on the dishwasher, so I’m stuck with Edge – thus slowing down my browsing.

 

But I find that having the entire internet – at whatever speed – in my pocket is incredibly useful.  I’m not hamstrung by the ‘kid’s table’ internet of the ‘mobile.url.com’ websites, so I have unfiltered access to recipes, wikipedia, reason.com, reuters.com, etc.  So having the entire world’s bin of information at my fingertips – at any time – well, that’s worth the price of admission right there.

 

The iPod player on it is just fantastic.  I didn’t have an ipod before this (Emily has an 80g classic), so to have some music and tv shows available for me when I’m waiting in line, cooking, or just doing something that I want some entertainment for, it’s great for that.

 

But it’s not changing my life.  Even though the email function on it is handy, the combination of keyboard and having to manually check my mail just make me not use it as often as I’d like.  Also, I have AIM on it, but that suffers from the same issue – i have to manually check to see if I have any new messages.  They don’t ‘push through’.

 

Now, I’m saying that breaks the experience for me, and I’ve read on a few places that they’re going to update those features, so it may not be an issue for long.  Also, I don’t have wifi set up here at home yet, so that may alleviate a few of these issues.  But I can tell you that it’s the best phone I’ve ever owned.  I like not having to carry around 5 things (I know some that do) to accomplish 5 tasks.  I like having this little jack-of-all-trades in my pocket.

 

The only issue I have that would keep me from recommending it would be Google.  I keep seeing updates filtering out from them on their list of things – as I’m sure you have as well.  I tell you, those boys are up to something, and we’re just seeing the smoke coming out of the chimney.  They’re in the dungeon, beakers bubbling and Bunsens burning; we are seeing the first coughs and sputters of something great, but I have the feeling we haven’t seen them ‘throw the switch’.  So when the storm starts to build, and the lightning strikes, then we may something interesting.

First Snow Storm of the Year

A thought experiment

I don’t really have heroes, or idols that I worship.  For some reason, I feel that putting someone in a glass box then setting them on a high shelf has zero appeal to me.  I do, however, vastly admire someone based on their work.  And this work can be very different from my own.  For instance, I greatly admire Rush Limbaugh.  I also disagree with him about 80% of the time.  But, you have to admire a man who is able to do his craft and stay relevant amid massive competition and pressure to stop.  Despite what he says, he operates in a world where he competes to live, and he succeeds.

 

That being said, one person I greatly admire is Dr. Norman Borlaug.  If you weren’t aware, Dr. Borlaug is credited with feeding about a billion people.  With a B.  On a sheet of paper write down the names of 6 people you know.  They can be family, friends, celebrities, yourself, whatever.  One of them is alive because of him (probably not, but it drives home the point).  He developed hardier and healthier wheat and corn strains that could exist in areas that couldn’t be farmed prior, driving down prices and allowing more people to afford the food they need to live.

 

Sure, it sounds kinda weird and geeky, but think of the fact that he allowed people to eat.  That’s it.  It’s so simple and innocent, the idea that we can put food in our mouths to sustain our lives; but to many it’s a real fight.  And sure, it’s a fight that’s probably not going to be over anytime soon, but it’s people like Dr. Borlaug that are able to show that we can make real progress towards that goal.  That we can really achieve things that many find impossible.

 

And unfortunately, he’s going to die.

 

Probably not tomorrow, or thursday, or even next week.  Hopefully not for a long time.  But he will eventually.  Assuming an accident doesn’t kill him, his body will eventually just give out.  Thinking of that, of someone with such a magnificent gift towards helping humanity, having to expire through no fault of their own…. it just makes me….. sad, really.

 

Sure, you can say, ‘well, it’s just natural, it’s the order of things’.  Which I feel to be an empty argument.  Nature, in many creative and devious ways, wants you dead.  If you want to anthropomorphize nature, it’s not a beautiful, loving mother and provider of things.  Nature is a maniacal killer and destroyer of all things great in this world.  Nature wants to kill puppies at birth and burn iguanas with volcanoes.  Nature.  Wants.  Us.  Dead.

 

And we’ve been fighting the battle against that since our species rose up and grabbed a stick to use as a tool.  And to top it off, we’ve even helped other species on this planet to live longer, better, healthier lives as well.  Now, I’m not discounting the good parts of nature; sex, sunlight, water, sex – but you have to remember that what we define as ‘natural’ isn’t the case.  We’ve changed it, pushed back the boundaries of nature, in order to allow us to live better lives.

 

I’m 25, about to turn 26.  Without modern medicine, I’d probably already be dead from the chicken pox I had when I was a kid.  Without modern nutrition, I’d probably be considered ‘past my prime’.  Without modern orthodontics, my teeth would be misaligned to the point I may not be able to eat as efficiently.  And without modern computers, I would have to relegate myself to looking at cave-drawing porn.  The point is, we have redefined nature and changed it to suit the ultimate goal for our species; to live.

 

So I have to ask you, and I honestly hope you take the time to do so, what if – and believe it, it’s not even that much of an if – you could live forever?

 

What if you aged to about 40ish, and then stopped.  You stayed that way forever, your body humming right along, keeping up with whatever you could do.  Barring an accident or some other calamity, you would perceivably never die of ‘old age’.  Your body would never wind down, never just up and quit on you.

 

I’ve been thinking about this alot lately.  Mostly out of my desire – I call it the ‘Doc Brown’ desire (from Back to the Future) – to see the future of the human race.  We have come so far as a species in just the past 100 years; it’d be amazing to see what happens in the next 100, 200, 500, 1000 years.  Do we travel the stars?  Do we cure the common cold?  What kind of politics will we have?  What will the economy be like?  Will we still have many nations?  Will we have found other intelligent life?  What will entertainment be like?

 

Now, imagine if you could.  Imagine if you would live forever.  First thing I see changing is that you will no longer be defined by your job.  Our entire labor force is dictated by the idea that you are trained to do one job, then do that job, only to then retire.  But if there was no need to retire, if you could work indefinitely, imagine the kind of life you’d lead!

 

You could go to school, head to college, and get a job as a lawyer.  After 20-30 years of that, you can tire with that profession and become a plumber.  After that, learn to become an astrophysicist.  Then a teacher.  Or a janitor.  What does it matter?  Your life isn’t defined by the fact that your going to die – it’s just defined by what you want to do while you do it.  There’s no reason to have the need to stick with a career until you retire; you could just move onto a different job – hell, just for the kicks of it if you want.

 

For instance, I always wondered about a career in politics; just local stuff, really.  But as an artist, I could never find a way to transition into that and then back out.  My entire school of learning for my chosen profession doesn’t even overlap with that in the slightest.  So I’m left to following it and discussing it on here.  But what if I wasn’t defined by my target of retirement.  If I didn’t have to worry about ‘running out of time’?  I could do this job until I earn enough of a savings to allow me to go back to college, learn political science and theory, then see what happens.  And if it doesn’t work out, I could transition back to this, or try something else.  I’m not defined by ‘the rest of my life’, I’m defined by ‘my life right now’.

 

Also imagine people like Dr. Borlaug, who are able to continue their research indefinitely.  They’re able to train their predecessors personally and build a coalition of minds around them that have the same drive and purpose as they do.  They could develop theories and actually be around to see the results.

 

Our lives wouldn’t be defined by ‘generations’.  Our entire society would have to deal with the results of our actions.  Global Warming, Economics, Politics; these things would all have very real impact on us, like they were going to happen next week.  The small stuff that seems to impede progress would just melt away.

 

So I can’t help but wonder at the future of humanity if the people who made the decisions were there to see all the results.  What about you?  How would you things differently?

Two Thousand and Eight

• Married the greatest woman on the planet
• Lived in 3 houses in 2 towns
• Brought home a Chocolate Labrador named Hershey
• Got back in touch with some old friends
• Lost touch with others
• Started a new blog
• Bought a Nikon to document my trip on this rock
• Started a twitter account (ew)
• Bought a car; first one in 3 years
• Saw a few of my friends get married
• Saw a few of them have children
• Came out as an Atheist to my friends and family
• Started running again
• Continued to hone my cooking skills
• Held Emily when she needed it
• Was held when I needed it
• Finished my 25th lap, and getting ready for another

 

Plans for next year:

Buy a couple of kayaks, figure out where Em and I are going to live in a more permanent capacity, bring home a little brother for Hershey, get more involved with my company, win an Emmy (or at least a Telly), spend more time with my friends, get better at French Gourmet and Asian style cooking, gain about 10-20 lbs, enter (and hopefully win) a few photography competitions, and just in general be glad to be alive.

 

“It frightens me, the awful truth, of how sweet life can be” – Bob Dylan

Putting the X back in XMas

A while ago, Bill Donahue was on the O’Reilley Factor screaming about how the evil atheists were waging a war on Christmas.  He then wondered why the American Humanist Association bought ads on D.C. buses that said, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness sakes” during Christmas, and not during a Muslim holiday like Ramadan.  Personally, I don’t see a difference between Christianity and Islam; both are nothing more than outmoded cultural memes that really have no purpose in society; but I can narrow down 2 reasons why the AHA chose Christmas (I’m assuming, of course – I wasn’t in the room when this was decided).

 

Well, one reason is the last line ‘be good for goodness sakes’; it’s a lyric from ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’.  A timely choice of words, considering many people had probably heard that song in the store/on the radio prior to boarding the bus.

 

The other reason is what I think Mr. Donahue would be able to readily recognize – marketing.  After all, his strange obsession with the ’sanctity of Christmas’ is deeply rooted in his religion’s ability to market themselves when their particular sect was first starting out.

 

A first example, and probably the best is the choice of December 25 as the time of celebration.  If Christianity’s Jesus was to have been born on that day, why would his parents have fled the Roman census by going to Galilee – an event that happens in March?  It was chosen because it was the day of the Pagan Winter Solstice among many winter festivals that other religions in the area had been celebrating for generations.  It’s a fantastic example of early Catholic marketing – as are many Catholic and later Christian traditions and beliefs (Easter, anyone?).  After all, it’s easier to get someone to believe in your religion if you tell them they can keep the traditions they have and merely change the name and target.  Or just bludgeon them until they relent.  But the first way is less messy.

 

Even the use of the Christmas Tree – a tradition dating back to Germanic Paganism where an evergreen tree would be brought into the house and decorated with lights to celebrate ‘Lichtfest’ or Light-Fest, on the shortest day of the year (Dec 21).  Other pagan traditions brought in an evergreen tree to promote the idea of life in a season where so many trees look ‘dead’.

 

Mistletoe, and subsequently the tradition of kissing underneath it; is a Scandinavian tradition rooted in the Norse gods, and the death of a character in Norse mythology named Balder.  The meaning behind kissing underneath it is due to the fact that the plant is seen as a plant of peace starting with the tradition of, “If enemies met by chance beneath it in a forest, they laid down their arms and maintained a truce until the next day.”  Which evolved into kissing beneath it.

 

Caroling, is something that many people view as a traditional Christmas pastime; although few would know it’s original term known as Wassailing; an Anglo-Saxon tradition of singing to apple orchards to promote a better harvest the following year.  It eventually became a tradition of going from door-to-door to your neighbors wishing them a good year.  Even so far as to enter your neighbors house in New England and make demands trick-or-treat style (‘now bring us some figgy pudding’ and ‘we won’t leave until we get some’)

 

Even Santa Claus; a modern mythological figure that is a first (I think, anyway) because it’s based on a real person – has many features that are borrowed from the Norse god Odin (not the least of which is his looks).  During the festival of Yule, Odin would lead a great hunting party in the sky, being pulled by an 8-legged horse named Sleipnir (8 reindeer?), who could leap great distances.  Children would leave their boots filled with straw, carrots, or sugar for Sleipnir to eat, and Odin would reward the children by leaving gifts.  Much like hanging stocking above a fireplace, leaving cookies for Santa, and opening the gifts that he leaves.

 

And even my favorite tradition; Christmas Ham.  Which started in Germany as a tribute to Freyr, the god of boars.  Although, many historians think that it started in England.  Regardless, it’s delicious.

 

So when I hear about the ‘War on Christmas’, I can’t help but shake my head and sigh.  Can you really get so upset over people redefining your traditions after you started your ‘traditions’ by doing the same?

Now I’ve seen everything

In an amazingly bold move, a noted Actor/Director/General Entertainer and (probably) nice guy Robert “Steely Guns” Redford, lent his star power (down 5% according to IMDB) to a lawsuit in Utah to stop the government from selling public lands to oil and gas companies.  Watching the news report on television, I can tell you I was moved compassionately as he sat before an image of a blue sky and clouds that was digitally inserted behind him while he sat in a climate-controlled room before the cameras.

 

Now, I know the liberal media is going to pander to this and mention it over and over on the outlets they have their slimy mitts on leaving the average Conservative only daytime cable news television, evening cable news television, blogs, websites, newspapers, magazines, and nearly all of the AM radio airwaves (those that aren’t being used to discuss sports or the weather; both using a very liberal slant; and not in the way I just slanted it).  So I’m going to form an opinion using the same process I always use:

1. Reading a headline, then causally skimming the article (too many words, nothing is that complicated)
2. Forming an immediate opinion based on the information given; no need to look into it further; that’s what the newsy-guy/girl (either or, not both.  Although that would be awesome!) is for
3. My gut. (hasn’t let me down yet)

 

So I fire up my blog-o-matic and am absolutely content and ready to scream at the problem until it goes away – or until something else happens that I form an even bigger and far more pressing opinion about.  After all, this is an anonymous blasting of how I feel.  And since that’s important to me, it obviously means it’s important to you.  I’d ask if I’m wrong, but the sheer power of the rhetorical nature of that would break your eyes. (Boom, bitches)

 

I have to say (so I’m going to) – I’m absolutely torn about this.  On the one hand, the liberals are once again telling me how I should feel (Fox & Friends isn’t on for another 15 hours!).  But on the other hand, the land is really pretty.  And a brownish-red.  But still pretty.  And I like pretty things.  Do you see this font?  It’s a nice one.  I chose it because it’s pretty, and because I care about the well being of my readers.  I think it’s either Verdana or Lucida Sans; hard to tell at that size (on my editor it’s a much-too-fancy san-serif font).  Anyway – sure, I could start a fund to purchase the land from the government for slightly more than they’re planning to lease to the companies, thereby preventing this purchase now and from ever happening again, but you have to remember, this is a Free Market Society.  And do you know what’s free?  Opinions.  And you have to respect the fact that I am capable of making them, no matter how ill-informed and ridiculous they may be (it’s also my opinion that my opinions are better than yours.  Let that sit and stew for a while).

 

Now with liberals and Conservatives on both sides making their cases (with photos being slowly panned across the screen), I have to filter out the junk and tell you what you should think.  Because I’ve already figured out what I thought (re: 3 point plan earlier), and therefore if you haven’t formed an opinion yet, you are in need of one.  Which I will provide.  And hopefully you will then put on your blog (like an embarrassing ex, everyone has one) with the title “HE WAS/IS RIGHT” (obviously you’ll choose one verb, and not post both with the slash inbetween.  I’m not calling you stupid, I’m just making myself clear).  Then I will get more and more famous, then make appearances on Leno and Fox & Friends (fingers crossed!), where I can talk about how I form opinions (re: 3 point plan mentioned above), and why my opinions are just great.  And I mean great.  In fact, I’m going to throw a capital letter on that.  My opinions are Great.  There we go.

 

I’d bold it as well, but then I may be infringing on Tony the Tiger’s intellectual property.  Then I’d have a liberal lawyer calling me wanting to sue me for copyright infringement which drives up healthcare costs and that’s why we can’t have socialize medicine.  So we’ll just stick with the capital G.  (Hopefully Warren G doesn’t read this.  You’re welcome all 3 of you that got that reference).

 

So that leaves us with the purpose of this entire section of your computer screen; my opinion.  And I’m going to go with Robert Redford.  The land has to stay pretty.  And here’s why:

1. Rush Limbaugh doesn’t have a key wall to put a blue sky on while he talks about this (then again, he may be high enough on vicodin that he sees a pretty blue sky while he talks about it)
2. Fox & Friends isn’t on for another 14.6 hours (I have a widget-countdown thingy)
3. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was awesome (shove that up your ass, Clint Eastwood)
4. My mom likes Robert Redford, and if you don’t like him, that means you don’t like my mom.  So then I’ll have to kick your ass.  (Over the internet.  I’m assuming I’ll use mocking images from 4chan.  Try your luck, my search skillz are sick, yo)
5. Fox & Friends isn’t on for another 14.58 hours.  (my math skillz, however, aren’t)

 

So there you have it.  Save the land in Utah.  I know I’m probably never going to go there.  And most likely neither are you.  Robert Redford may have gone once (How’d he get the photo put behind him?  Well?  Yeah, I thought so.).  But regardless, those dozens of people who venture into the wilderness only to be bitten by snakes (no Sam Jackson reference here, sucka), become lost in the endless brownish-red expanse, or die in one of the frequent flash floods that hit the area – they’ll thank you.  And what’s more important than that?

 

That’s right, my opinion (it’s Great).  I’m glad you were paying attention.  (Tell your friends!)

Federal Bailout for Detroit

Oh, I think you know how this is going to go.

 

I’m not going to sit here and weep for a set of companies that can’t adjust to market demands.  I’m not going to pine for an organize workforce that made unreasonable demands on their employers, forcing them to fall behind in the market and sell inferior products at higher prices.  I’m not going to feel a modicum of sadness if they end up going bankrupt.

 

Because shit happens.

 

Everyone from the Wall-street journal to the New York Times, to Fox News, to CNN, to egotistical bloggers (like me!), all go on and on about how the bailout is needed.  How, without details, throwing cash at a set of companies from a pool of money that was taken involuntarily will solve the problems they have.

 

GM, Chrysler, and Ford all occupy about 47% of the US auto market.  That means if you count every car purchased in this country, about half are ‘made’ in America (sans the pieces and parts that are made in Mexico, Japan, China, Taiwan, Australia, and many other countries).  If those 3 companies go bankrupt, it doesn’t mean that the obvious demand goes away.  Nor does it mean the supply.  Those machines, buildings, supplies, workforce, etc, can all be bought up by other companies, retaining the same badges, equipment, employees, and factories.  Essentially what happened (a few times) to the auto industry in England.  You’ll notice that the auto industry was bailed out there as well – and even nationalized, all to no avail.

 

Berkeley Business College even did a report titled “Vehicle Choice Behavior and the Declining Market Share of U.S. Automakers” by Kenneth E. Train and  Clifford Winston, which was published in the International Economic Review.  In it, they did a very concise and well-reasoned approach to examine why the US auto market was facing a steady and inexorable decline in their market over the past few decades.  And their report’s findings were very surprising:

 

We find that the U.S. industry’s loss in share during the past decade can be explained almost entirely by relative changes in the most basic attributes of new vehicles, namely price, size, power, operating cost, transmission type, reliability, and body type. [ ... ] Arguments based on subtle attributes such as the design of interior features, unobserved responses by consumers to vehicle offerings, or even measurable attributes beyond those listed above do not play a measurable role in the industry’s competitive problems. Similarly, changes in loyalty patterns, whether an automaker’s product line is broad or narrow or includes a hot car, and changes in dealership networks do not contribute much to the industry’s decline.

 

Basically, they made crap.  Their cars were proving to be inferior both in tangible (horsepower, fuel mileage, space) and intangible (looks, feel, sound) when compared to similarly-priced foreign competition.  It’s basic business; you and your competitor make the same product, he makes it better for less, he’s going to get more business.

The report even went on to say,

Our finding suggests that U.S. automobile executives should focus more attention on understanding why their companies seem unable to improve the basic attributes of their vehicles as rapidly as their foreign competitors are able to improve their vehicles’ basic attributes, and try to remedy the situation.

What a novel approach.  Adjust to customer demands.

So when I read about some people who feel like the automakers are somehow entitled to a bailout, I have yet to understand why.  They are a business.  The market they operate in has changed.  They should either change or die out.  It’s so very, very simple.

So no, I’m not going to feel bad if they go bankrupt.  In fact, I honestly hope they do.  I hope that Vauxhall comes in an buys Pontiac, that an Indian company (Tata Motors) purchases Saturn, that Volkswagen buys Chrystler, and on and on; I hope that the new management steps in, quality is increased, and the same group of guys that built my Ford Escape will build next year’s as well.  I hope they get a new boss, and with increased quality control, and the knowledge that the cars are built here by Americans, those same guys will be able to know that they’ll have a job over the next 20 years.  That the company they work for is competitive and stable.  That it’s not run by the same people who ran it into the ground in the first place.

 

Incidentally, my Ford Escape is a 2005 built on the Ford CD2 Platform that was developed by a joint venture between Mazda and Ford.  The CD2 Platform that was used on all Ford Escapes was made in the Mazda Hofu Plant in Yamaguchi, Japan.

 

The Nissan Xterra that I am planning to buy next, besides being a superior vehicle, has the added benefit of being built in Smyrna, Tennessee.

 

Gotta love buyin’ American.  Yee-haw.

The Free Market, Part 1

Watching the Daily Show, I managed to see Mike Huckabee go on and on about the Republican stance of ’smaller government’ without actually acknowledging what that really means.  It’s typical of that party, ‘make the government small enough to fit in a person’s life’; without actually acknowledging the power of the Free Market.

 

The problem is, many people have an incorrect idea of what the Free Market is.  They think that it is essentially Wall Street; which isn’t true.  I think this problem mostly stems from Republican talking points saying they ‘believe in the Free Market’ which is why they need to ‘get rid of needless regulation’.  Case in point; W. Bush is (was?) the most heavy-handed regulator of market forces since Nixon.  Granted, he had to undo all that nasty de-regulation that….Clinton….did…..  weird.

 

Anyway, the Free Market is not Wall Street.  Well, it is, but it’s so much more.  It’s like trying to explain the Internet and saying it’s essentially a library.  It’s true, but it’s limiting.  The Free Market is best explained by Jefferson when he would use the term ‘Marketplace of Ideas’.  It’s a method of dealing with concepts by allowing each and every idea the same audience, and allowing the audience to decide which is important.

 

A great example is Wikipedia.  Wikipedia has no formal ‘watchdog’ group; it’s regulated entirely by the users that inhabit it.  It even has the same, if not better, percentage of factual errors as the big boys of the encyclopedia game.  Think about it – Wikipedia is culmination of the most important thing we have (all of human knowledge), and I don’t know a single person that doesn’t use it regularly.  It’s fast, easy to browse, and as up-to-date as the most breaking of breaking news.  And yet, it exists entirely without a centralized group dictating the right and wrong.

 

That is the Free Market.  It’s the idea that all of us, in concert, when given the freedom to make our own decisions will make the correct ones.  Both Democrats and Republicans believe in this to an extent, but won’t take the plunge to realize the perfection of it.  The Free Market isn’t Wall Street, or Main Street, or any Street; it’s just us.  It’s all of us working together to build a society that allows the most freedom and happiness available.

 

The reason it’s such a cornerstone of my worldview is not because I distrust those in power, or I have some deep abiding hatred of the gub’ment; it’s because I don’t trust in my judgement to be 100% correct all the time, for everyone in existence.  I really only know what’s best for myself, and feel I am in the best position to make decisions to that effect.  I know I have trouble digesting mushrooms, so I avoid those.  Cancer runs in my family (like everyone’s, really), so I don’t smoke.  I don’t drink beer regularly because of the family history on my father’s side.  I drive an SUV, because I have trouble fitting into smaller cars, and we need something that can haul stuff around – besides, it’s only driven on the weekends anyway, so gas isn’t a problem.  And on it goes.

 

These are all decisions I’ve made, because I know that they’re best for me.  So I just have this strange disconnect when I think about putting a mandatory charge on myself or anyone else so my decisions can become your decisions.  I don’t see the point in taxing cigarettes because ‘they’re bad for me’; I know they’re bad for me, I don’t really need anyone forcing me to know that.  I’m pretty sure everyone knows they’re bad for them, so why have this redundant system that costs money?  And if people still want to do it, I don’t see why not; it’s their health, not mine.  They can do whatever they want to it.

 

But people really should have the freedom to make that decision.  Good or bad.