Growing mushrooms

How I ordered and started a mushroom colony

Kill Santa

Burn Christmas Burn!

Between the middle 1800s and the early 1900s, the desire to sell magazines merged with two historical tales, one from the pagan Germanic past and the other from Christan lore, to form the Santa Claus memeplex. The memeplex quickly morphed into a capitalist dream that, once saddled upon the working class, turned a nation into insatiable consumers and gave reason to the production of frivolous goods. A new religion was born and children everywhere began to pray to Santa - a super-hero-like being, an über-elf, the Führer of naughty and nice.

Soft-drink companies, retail store chains, and chambers of commerce everywhere embraced the über-elf meme. Not a town center anywhere within the United States could be found without tributes to Santa, for the über-elf and his power to compel shopping became the lifeblood of the consumerist economy, where hyper-exploited workers compulsively turned over what little they had to feed the market.

The Santa meme was first foisted upon the Christians, celebrated as it was at Christmas, but in true capitalist form, it remained secular in content in the hope that it could ensnare the good people of all religious persuasions. Belief in Santa was made compulsory and if one did not believe in Santa, silence was demanded. The tale of the über-elf had Santa showering gifts or coal not only upon Christian children, but upon all children, leaving bereft all non-Christian children, the parents of whom were left to explain, the true reason for Santa's absence, to children who were convinced that they were left out because Jews, or Muslims, or Buddhists were simply not as good as Christians. In time it became easier to just follow the tradition, and Santa began to “appear” in the homes of other religions, a kind of uninvited guest to soften the disparity.

This was no comfort to the children of the poor. The poor were left with the choice of explaining the truth to their children, the truth that Santa the über-elf does not exist, or the choice of putting a few inferior gifts beneath the tree, leaving their children to feel that they were not as good as the children of the upper classes. After all, once the story is believed, it must be the case that the children of street cleaners receive poor gifts because they are not as good as the children of bankers who receive nice gifts. The über-elf, rather than a symbol of benevolence and love, is a symbol of fascist vindication for the bratty children of the elite.

And here we stand, Christmas of 2008, on the ledge before the abyss of another great depression. Before you stretches an ever increasing gap between the rich and the poor. Do yourself and your children a favor. Tell them the truth about the über-elf. The presents, if any, they receive are from their loved ones and not from an evil über-elf who believes the rich are better than the poor or that Christians are more deserving than Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists.

Do us all a favor and kill the Santa meme. It will make for a merrier holiday season and this time Grandma won't get run over by a reindeer.

http://www.anarkhos.org/randomarticles/santaclaus.html

This blog has moved...

This blog has moved:

Utopia Or Bust, is the new location.

Voices of Madmen in Authority Distilling Their Frenzy

“When policy-makers have already witnessed a significant move in asset values, and are confident in what that move means for the outlook, it should be prepared to adjust policy accordingly. The central bank must be responding to its assessment of what an already observed movement in asset prices will mean for output and inflation.”

- Timothy Geithner, at the NY Association for Business and Economics.

“Monetary policy itself cannot sensibly be directed at reducing imbalances.”

- Timothy Geithner, at the Global Financial Imbalances Conference in London.

“To do otherwise would run the risk that monetary policy would be too accommodative, pulling resources from the future in a way that would alter the trajectory for the growth of the capital stock, perhaps amplifying the imbalances, and compromising the price stability.”

- Timothy Geithner, at the Japan Society Corporate Luncheon in New York City.

"...in the field of economic and political philosophy there are not many who are influenced by new theories after they are twenty-five or thirty years of age, so that the ideas which civil servants and politicians and even agitators apply to current events are not likely to be the newest. But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil."

- John Maynard Keynes, General Theory

Images of the Recession

Thousands of people at job fairs, construction cranes, closed factories, cul de sacs with no houses, foreclosed home-buying tours, unused freight containers, etc. What does this all mean? - that we are in a recession. Take a look at the photographs.

What kind of capitalism is this that images from times of down and out look identical to images from times of up and coming? These photographs look like they could have been taken at any point in the business cycle. Creative destruction? Accelerating change? The law of uneven development?

Understanding Media...

"Obama sets new standard for managing the news". - McClatchy Newspaper.

In the past week, Obama has done the following.

1. Spoke with Iranians through video conferencing.
   
2. Spoke to viewers of a Latin American music awards ceremony through video conferencing.
3. Appeared on Jay Leno's "Tonight Show".
4. Appeared on "60 Minutes".
5. Wrote an opinion column that appeared in newspapers around the world.
6. Held a prime-time news conference aired on television.
7. Held an online town hall meeting.

A former Google manager is Obama's new director of "citizen participation". Obama has directors of new media, directors of online programs, broadcast media, regional media,
African-American media, Hispanic media, research, and "message events". All of this has created - in the words of McClatchy - a "symbiotic government-media relationship".