Age of Stupid

Fifty years from now they'll look back and call this the Age of Stupid. Looking at all us consumers and followers. We don't know where our food comes from. We don't know the impacts of our actions on the world. And most importantly we don't realize we can make a difference. Even in the Age of Stupid we are the Architects of the Future, how will we build the future? Hopefully in a way that our descendants won't label us stupid.

Movies: Age of Stupid, Food Inc. Check them out.

Movement Musician of the Week: Johnny Clegg & Savuka "One (Hu)' Man One Vote"
PS its Reconciliation Day in South Africa

The Broadcast

I'm not sure what this blog is going to be about. It's a broadband broadcast of a yet undecided message. Its been a while since I wrote anything worth, anything, literally, I haven't written in over a month. There are things that I've had on my mind, but not had the motivation or time to write about. Corporatism, globalization and neo-liberalism. Whatever that means, I'll pretend I know. All concepts that are an inevitable part of our everyday lives and yet concepts I'm growing to become more and more skeptical about. My reasons are complex, or maybe I'm just brainwashed and therefore can't explain them, but I'd like to call on my moral system. My inspiration and educational materials are as follows, The Corporation, Food Inc., Age of Stupid, The Flobots, FightWithTools.org. I wish I had less corporate means of discovering the evils of corporatism but alas any message must be spread through the corporate controlled mass-media if it is to be heard anywhere. What is corporatism? Our world is filled with it, where corporations (legal persons) are given preferential treatment to REAL persons. What is the justification for this? A buck? Because corporations supposedly work for the benefit of the majority, giving us what we want and raising our standards of living. But without environmental, economic and social justice corporations work worldwide to exploit every resource and every last ounce of manual labour in an effort to turn over a profit. It cannot be denied, the corporation is a psychopath and its goals are ultimately destructive to those around it (roughly 6.6 billion human beings). After watching the three movies listed above, and being socially indoctrinated by the Flobots heavy beats and movement lyrics I find myself thinking long and hard about the food I eat, the things I buy and the media I consume. Branding. Corporate Buyouts. Bankrupcy. Monsanto. DDT. Agent Orange. Abuse of Power. Corporate Lawsuits. Child-labour. Starvation Wages. Exploitation. Extortion. Oil Extraction. Disaster Capitalism. Shock Doctrine. Corporatism. Neo-Liberalism. Globalization. Climate Change. CO2. PPM. How can we free ourselves of brands? In everything we do we are attached to a brand, even in writing this blog I'm attached to the brand of the internet giant Google Inc. In watching TV I'm forced to watch and thinking about advertisements for commercial products, and brands are inadvertantly built in my head, the greatest and most expensive product for corporations, and yet the easiest to sell. I'm a Walkman, you're an iPod and he's a Zune. Again, how can we conquer this? Remove brands from our daily conversation. We can try hard as we might to avoid brands but even those "farm fresh" bovine products have their history in corporations not unlike Monsanto. But even if we are forced to by into a brand we are not forced to talk about it and fuel it. Eleanor Roosevelt said, "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people." Well the same applies for brands as people (considering the corporation is a legal person anyway). To talk about brands is to narrow your mind and the world you live in. We need to talk about ideas, learn ALL sides of the story, recognize the bias from all sources. As an online friend said, we need to develop strong roots for support and stability, not flashy flowers and foliage. A tree survives through the winter because of its roots, the foliage dies out, its fleeting. While foliage is necessary for a time and to a certain extent a tree without roots would dry up and die, fall down and rot.

Movement Musician of the Week: The Flobots "Rise" (Forgive the corporate propaganda pre-video)
Rebel of the Day (so cliché): Ban Ki-moon UN chief urges leaders to 'seal deal' on climate change
For saying a climate deal is in sight when leaders such as Canada's Prime Minister Stephen Harper are saying there is no deal on the horizon and therefore are taking a can't do won't do strategy, Ban Ki-moon is the rebel of the day.

Carving a Jack-O'-Lantern

This is another addition to my Halloween Guide for Dummies (and foreigners).

Its come to that time of year again. The jolliest time of all. When children run door to door singing in a cornucopia of pitches, the merry Carol, "TRICK OR TREAT!" Its Halloween again. The only holiday worth celebrating. It has no religious undertone in fact some argue it goes against religion, and before I get all political its the only holiday that embodies the spirit of FREE CANDY! Now of course with candy comes many other aspects of Halloween. I already covered the Halloween costume and now I'll cover the Jack-o'-lantern.

The Jack-o'-lantern has a long history. In Ireland and Britain lanterns have been carved from vegetables and gourds for centuries. The lanterns were given their current name in 1837 in the United States and first associated with Halloween in 1866. Since the original menacing face was carved on a gourd centuries ago many more have been carved in the spirit of Halloween with the soul goal of making the scariest pumpkin.

Here is my how-to guide to carving pumpkins:
Step 1: Pick or buy a suitable pumpkin (shape depends on what you want to carve, but round is a good standard).
Step 2: Stand the pumpkin so the stem points up.
Step 3: Take a pumpkin carving knife or another suitable knife and cut a circle through the pumpkin exterior, with the stem at it's center. Make sure you cut at a slight angle pointing inwards (this will be your lanterns lid).
Step 4: Take a spoon or scoop and remove all the seeds and flesh from the inside of the pumpkin scraping it clean (these can be saved to make delicious snacks like baked pumpkin seeds).
Step 5: After removing all the pumpkin guts you can begin the fun part, carving the SCARY face. If you have a chosen design take a marker and draw said design on if not I have supplied the best design.
Step 6: First carve out two triangular eyes (point up).
Step 7: Carve another triangle for a nose in the center of the pumpkin (again point up)
Step 8: Now carve a large crescent with the points both pointing up (add as many teeth as you want but usually teeth are sparse).
Step 9: Carve a triangular hole in the lid as a chimney to let smoke escape and air in.
Step 10: Place a tea-light or candle in the bottom of the lantern and light it.
Step 11: Place your Jack-o'-lantern on the front porch to scare the neighbours.

There you have it, a scary Jack-o'-lantern to be proud of for more information or inspiration go to these websites:
Cool Jack-o'-lanterns
Gusick's Jack-o'-lanterns
15 Incredible Jack-o'-lanterns

Comic #1: Social Studies in America

Hurray! I'm too lazy to make a blog today so read the Comic I made in Adobe Illustrator. Yeah I know, I'm hilarious, and a talented artist. NOT!

Something Foamy Brewing in North Korea

Hailed as the Pride of Pyongyang the Taedonggang beer produced in a North Korean brewery is getting publicity in North Korea today. In a strikingly capitalist move thoroughly communist North Korea has launched a television ad campaign. To be fair it is not your typical Western media advertisement. It looks to have a significantly lower budget than it's western cousins with a style reminiscent of a 1960s Slinky® commercial.

Now I don't speak or read Korean, but it looks to me like the commercial advertises that the beer is locally made and appeals to the worker in North Korea. The advertisement says, "It represents the new look of Pyongyang," and, "It will become a familiar part of our lives." Foreign critics say the beer is of high quality. It is hailed for being produced with fresh and pure ingredients. The beer has also been sold in South Korea.

In recent weeks we have seen nuclear tests, missile test launches and threats from North Korea and retaliation from American and Western nations. As tension builds on both sides, is the DPRK government advertising this beer to keep dissent from brewing in the population? Or is it just a cash-grab for the Dear Leader Kim Jong-il?

EU Fights For Ugly Fruit Rights

Is he REALLY ugly? Or is he just misunderstood? That is the question the top European Commission for Agriculture had to ask themselves. Starting this July 1st, 20 year old food laws will be lifted in the EU meaning that irregular fruit and vegetables like Mr. Cuddly the tomato (above) will begin being sold again.

The change in laws is welcomed by market operators all over Europe as they get more freedom to sell fruits and vegetables with a little more, character and pizazz. I'm sure market vendors and market shoppers alike will be glad to see more curvy cucumbers, gnarly carrots and lumpy tomatoes for sale in weeks to come.

It was getting to a point where people would walk down the aisle and see the same vegetable over and over again. They never even had to squeeze their fruits to check for freshness, shopping was no longer a challenge or even remotely interesting. With the laws in place for 20 years variety was falling off the shelves it would not long before certain vegetables such as bell-peppers were deemed to wild to be sold by European Agricultural Standards.

Aside from the inherent cost benefit to selling these foods and not letting them go to waste and the benefit of seeing more variety in the stores there is also a clear environmental benefit to selling deformed fruits and vegetables. In a time of economic and environmental struggle this is the only choice, allowing farmers to produce more cash-crop and allowing consumers to purchase "ugly" veggies for less. If you ask me, there's nothing ugly about these fruits. Okay, maybe Mr. Cuddly but come now, we all have limits.

Rhubarb Pie and Climate Change

I was reading a friend's blog little sour apple and an article he had written about New Orleans. He was repeating some projections predicted by scientists saying that New Orleans and large parts of Louisiana would be underwater by 2010. One comment on the post suggested that the facts are questionable and therefore should not be taken seriously but my friend suggested something that reminded me of this video that I once saw along much the same topic. Its the old worse case scenario climate change idea. We act, and we're wrong we suffer economically, we don't act and we're wrong, we suffer far worse fates. Anyway the guy in the video, who has now written a book about the topic, describes the theory much better than me, so just sit down, eat some rhubarb pie and watch the video. You'll be enlightened. And don't forget, spread the word about Column A. Its time we stopped debating the truth or severity of climate change and started acting to prevent disaster by default.