What’s the bigger story: Iraq versus Anna Nicole Smith?
You guessed it. See here for Mother Jones' tabulations. On MSNBC it was Anna Nicole Smith by a 7 to 1 ratio.
Noam Chomsky on the reason the U.S. won’t relinquish control of Iraq
Chomsky wrote that it all has to do with corporate power and oil. Here is an excerpt from The Independent, an article entitled "The US says it is fighting for democracy - but is deaf to the cries of the Iraqis" Sovereignty in Iraq might well lead to a loose Shia alliance controlling most…
Holding the line on excessive materialistic displays in Pakistan?
You can read about it here, The Daily Times of Pakistan: ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court was moved on Tuesday against recent legislation allowing one-dish meals at weddings, with the contention that the law had reopened the door to wasteful expenses and weddings had become a financial burden for most people…
Schadenfreude, Part II
Heather Havrilesky of Salon is a gifted writer, indeed. She opens a recent article by discussing the delighted innocence of her baby girl, "my own happy tadpole, who just arrived on this overheated blue sphere four months ago, gazes at the branches of trees and feels the cold noses of…
It wasn’t really about Gerald Ford: the feeding habits of social vultures
After Gerald Ford died, we had non-stop ceremonies, processions, rituals and headlines. Except for his family and close friends, though, most of us didn’t really know him.
What did Gerald Ford’s death mean? A few days before the funeral, a state worker told me that a former president died and that “everybody gets the day off.” I suspect that there was very little mourning done by state workers on this day off.
The social vultures smelled the national spotlight, though, and they descended to partake. After all, did you ever hear of anyone overdosing on notoriety?
Almost nobody discussed Gerald Ford in the months and years before he died. He was ignored until he died. There is no logical reason why Ford’s death should make his life interesting. If his accomplishments were worthy of discussion at all, they would have been compelling topics while he was alive. My suggestion: The nonstop public rituals following Ford’s death were not really about Ford. They were opportunities to gather together in Machiavellian fashion to pursue our own needs and wants.
I know that this sounds counter-intuitive, but please hear me out. Almost every time you see tremendous energy being put into rituals or festivities, it’s not about the thing that people claim that it is about. Whenever you see such great social energy being poured into anything, it’s about relationships among the living. It’s not the thing on the stage. We feed off of corpses, especially famous corpses, whether they be Gerald Ford, …