Some shining examples of the utter cluelessness and total contempt for humanity that propel the engines of capitalism:
The 2009 baseball season has entered its last phase, and by now we have all heard about the exorbitant luxury section at the new Yankee Stadium, but this feature piece on ESPN.com really drives the point home: it’s not that the rich can’t AFFORD $2500 seats, they don’t want to be SEEN sitting in them. (thanks to MetaFilter for this link)
Similarly, Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi has a hell of a paragraph about the new Cowboys Stadium, as quoted by Professor E. Wayne Ross on his blog (because the RS piece itself is not online yet):
Dallas’ opening home game against the Giants, in which their hideously commercialized mall palace known as the new Cowboys Stadium was unveiled to the world, was a genuinely terrifying broadcast event of a kind not seen since the premiere of Triumph of the Will. This was like a debutante ball for America’s new idiot fascism. Still, there was something weirdly compelling about seeing 100,000 Texans cheering historical footnote George W. Bush as they christened what promises to be about 490 years of municipal sales-tax payments, all so that Jerry Jones can see a 160-foot wide image of his own surgery-tightened face on the world’s biggest HDTV. At the home opener, ticket-holders got to see Tony Romo throw three interceptions against the backdrop of multiple corporate billboards lining the field. Then there was the specter of 100,000 people watching a giant taxpayer-funded TV while sitting at the live event. If this is the future, could America be any more fucked?
This morning’s New York Times lays out the latest brainstorm from Disney now that their management has been completely assimilated by the Borg…revitalized by Apple: they bought back their dying mall retail stores and are going to spend $1 million per store to turn them into “interactive theme parks”. Killer pull-quote:
“The world does not need another place to sell Disney merchandise — this only works if it’s an experience.” — Jim Fielding, president of Disney Stores Worldwide.
Meanwhile, in Louisville KY, 10,000 unemployed workers recently showed up to apply for 90 job openings at a General Electric factory, and in Detroit over 65,000 people have applied for a federal aid program that will only be able to give the aid to 3,500 (again, thanks to various posters at MetaFilter for the links).
It’s too bad Barack Obama isn’t an actual Socialist, because then maybe he’d be doing something about this instead of looking the other way while he collects his Nobel Peace Prize.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
We’ve been living it up too…just yesterday we bought a $12 bottle of zinfandel!
Shameless!
It’s not nice to brag, Karan.
I’m almost embarrassed to mention the MBA, Masters degrees and various assorted well educated folks who applied for the dishwasher ad I placed on Craigslist. Currently I have a lovely gentleman working for me, as a dishwasher, who holds two degrees and teaches Mandarin Chinese. He’s one of the hardest worker I have ever met AND greets every person who comes to the class, remembers their name and engages them through the class. It’s an odd world out there right now.