Martian Anthropologist Field Notes #1

A few months ago, my Martian supervisor sent me here to gather notes on human animals. I randomly chose the United States as my research base. I've had a good time for me here on Earth--human animals can be quite hospitable--but lately I've become too confused to tell any coherent story based on my field notes. Therefore, I'm publishing my field notes here at Dangerous Intersection with the hope that some of you Earthlings might help me out.   It seems that my disorientation with human animals intensified after I began watching television. I am aware that there is a big election coming up, but even though it's more than a year away, the people on your television can't stop speculating about who might win; they keep speculating but they won't discuss the issues, and it keeps happening. Apparently, the people who run the television stations don't like most of the Republicans, so they spent weeks running stories about how a man who doesn't want to run might run.  In the above news show, they showed that man looking like a soldier.  Apparently, in America, one needs to act like he or she likes wars in order to be elected.  But after Mr. Christie made it really clear that he didn't want to try to be president, the TV show needed to get people excited about another story, and that's what really has me confused. A "Christian" man who believes in invisible people and people who are alive even after they died called another man crazy for believing in the same sorts of things.   The TV show called it "Breaking News," and they talked about it all afternoon today.   They said it over and over and over and over.  The news apparently kept "breaking."  The "Christian" man kept smirking and saying that the Mormon man named Romney was part of a "cult," because he believed in strange things. Both these men sound crazy to me, because I haven't seen any evidence of any of the things these men claim to be true as part of their "religions."  You equipped me with the finest scientific monitoring equipment, and I'm never seen evidence for invisible people, or virgins having babies, or people suddenly able to speak new languages, or angels.   Yet most of the people here talk as though these things make sense. After they talked and talked, they took a "commercial," where the TV station allows people to try to sell things.   The commercial that most puzzled me was the one telling people to burn lots of a dirty fuel called "coal."  And get this:  The commercial called it "clean coal," even though there is no such thing. The TV stations also keep talking about "Michael Jackson," even though he has been dead for years.   Perhaps they think he is one of those invisible people.   I'll need to keep working hard to gather data, so that I can get to the bottom of this. I'll keep working at this, and I will try to write a coherent report someday, but for now, I'm finding human animals quite disorienting.

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Paul Krugman sums up the epicenter of the Wall Street Protests

Paul Krugman applauds the protesters who, in his words, are "angry at the right people." Here is the short story of the reason for the protests:

In the first act, bankers took advantage of deregulation to run wild (and pay themselves princely sums), inflating huge bubbles through reckless lending. In the second act, the bubbles burst — but bankers were bailed out by taxpayers, with remarkably few strings attached, even as ordinary workers continued to suffer the consequences of the bankers’ sins. And, in the third act, bankers showed their gratitude by turning on the people who had saved them, throwing their support — and the wealth they still possessed thanks to the bailouts — behind politicians who promised to keep their taxes low and dismantle the mild regulations erected in the aftermath of the crisis. Given this history, how can you not applaud the protesters for finally taking a stand?

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The Reverend Billy gives a rousing sermon on Wall Street

I've written about the Reverend Billy before. He is a former actor who figured out that he can effectively spread his word in the guise of a preacher. to many it seems like he's a bit crazy . . . but I think he's crazy like a fox. In this recent video, you'll see the Reverend telling the faithful about those guys in those corner offices up in the sky.

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I’m feeling bittersweet because people are stealing credit for my work

A couple months ago, I took the time to shoot, edit and publish a Youtube video on a protest of the Bank of America in St. Louis. I was surprised that the traffic was relatively modest (less than 1,000 views). I had designated the video to be Creative Commons - Attribution. Now I find out that my video has gone wild on the Internet--almost 100,000 views, but it's because at least two individuals have taken my video, chopped off the information where I identify it as my work, and failed to give me any credit for my work on their Youtube uploads (I'm not going to share their links because, frankly I'm not happy about this). Instead, here is my post, and here is my upload, the only one out there where you can see the entire video, including the credits. Yes, I'm honored that my video has taken off, and I'm glad that it has become part of the national dialogue. I wasn't trying to make any money off of this video (in fact, there is no advertising at Dangerous Intersection--I decided six month ago to fund all hosting fees--any ad you see on my site will be a donation by me to that cause). Yet I'm sorely disappointed that multiple people are willing to chop my name off of my video and present my work as their own.

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