What of pandemics?
Scares help to sell the vaccine -
Sick society.

Apparently the fine balance between scarcity as a marketing tactic and surplus as a result of a poor distribution has left public health departments with an H1N1 vaccine surplus… so now the ads are suggesting a vaccination (or a re-up for those ever-sickly tykes) – makes one wonder how long it takes for a bureaucracy to produce a single propaganda banner and slap it up on Google’s ad service.

Feeling well right now?
That’s because you are not sick;
Get shots anyway.

You’re thinking PANIC (that’s what the media and the government keep saying) but any right-minded corporation has got to be thinking PAYDAY. [Pandemics are Good for Business]

I enjoy Don Peck’s attempt at capturing the zeitgeist of the American empire’s decline – the article over at The Atlantic Online includes more than a few choice observations and anecdotal truisms for a generation losing its grasp on the American Dream and its alternately apathetic and unprepared antecedents:

Some neighbors were at the Walmart a couple of weeks ago, he said, and he rang up their purchase. “Maybe they were used to seeing me in a different setting,” he said—in a suit as he left for work in the morning, or walking the dog in the neighborhood. Or “maybe they were daydreaming.” But they didn’t greet him, and he didn’t say anything. He looked down at his soup, pushing it around the bowl with his spoon for a few seconds before looking back up at me. “I know they knew me,” he said. “I’ve been in their home.”

- How a New Jobless Era Will Transform America
by Don Peck for The Atlantic Online
March 2010

Economic Recession as Vampiric Entity

How does one invite such malaise? The boom years, the lives unexamined, the wrong prescription, and complacency.

Will the ignorance and susceptibility to manipulation cultivated in the US population finish sucking the value out of the dollar and lead the country to the relative wasteland of a developing nation?

The critical question is: At what level will the American public be comfortable with Google sharing information with NSA?

- Google to enlist NSA to help it ward off cyberattacks

[via Bruce Schneier]

Wake me up when this nightmare is over… wait, that won’t work…

I’ve got an apartment on the beach and a decent job. But I honestly don’t think I’ve reached my full potential partially because after a long day of work, I just love dominating people in MW2 too much. I’d rather do that than come home from work only to continue working towards my other ambitions.

- What Parents Think Their Kids Learn From Video Games
by Stephen Totilo for Kotaku
2010-01-06

It is no coincidence that funding for anti-graffiti campaigns often outweighs funding for the arts.

While not being a conscious decision on the part of the ruling class, the declared “war on graffiti” plays an important role in the furthering of the art form.

The unconscious artistic desires of even the most conservative members of the ruling system leak out amidst subconscious conspiracy to find and promote creative endeavours.

- The Subconscious Art of Graffiti Removal

A truck emblazoned with the words “Graffiti Busters” ambles along, slowly filling each alley with the city’s idea of a message – “Everything is the same shit-brown. Everything is the same raincloud-grey.” – over “This is my name!”, “This is what I have to say!”, and “This is what I can do!” scrawl. Not one voice is spared the over-speak whitewash.

- four hours into a day

A large number of Americans who are underwater on their mortgages would be better off financially if they walked away from their homes. They don’t because we have a double standard…individuals are told they have a moral obligation to pay their mortgages and corporations understand that contracts are to be breached when it’s not economically efficient.

- Brent White, University of Arizona real estate expert
How To Walk Away From Your Mortgage
by Lawrence Delevingne
BusinessInsider.com
2010-01-11

A moral obligation? Unlike a corporation (i.e. a group of economically-motivated individuals whose situation more closely resembles the insulated world of a SCUBA or deep sea diver than a snorkeler), an individual stands to suffer credit-wise by defaulting on a mortgage.

A corporation can lawyer its way out of debts, change its name overnight, and effectively escape culpability for malfeasance (while most of the same well-paid individuals remain in charge); if a typical individual were to attempt the same it would equate to some serious criminal charges and bankruptcy – you can’t walk out of your identity as an individual.

The economic options available to a typical individual are nothing like those available to a corporate entity – if, for comparison, an individual were to rack up $69.8 billion in debt (or even $689.00), he or she couldn’t very well expect a bailout from the government…

Such is the plight of the snorkeler – and let us not forget about the sharks…

In a candle-lighted chapel, each climbs into one of the austere wooden caskets laid side by side on the floor. Lying face up, their arms crossed over their chests, they close their eyes. And there they rest, for 10 excruciating minutes.

“It’s a way to let go of certain things,” says Jung, a former insurance company lecturer. “Afterward, you feel refreshed. You’re ready to start your life all over again, this time with a clean slate.”

- South Koreans experience what it’s like to die – and live again
by John M. Glionna for the LA Times
2010-01-04

via Dangerous Minds

Perhaps this is what I was talking about… the radio hits a patch of silence and the chatter becomes appreciable; the gears grind to a halt and the stark beauty of chaos on the assembly line momentarily appears; time enough to catch a breath before the mad dash through the forest resumes.

I’ve yet to take a real break from the incessant blogging – whether here and at the new outlet dedicated to “case files” (hopefully there is a noticeable lack of organization there … the goal is to reserve coherent thoughts for this outlet) – there is simply too much new information to overlook.

“Listen to me, ma’am,” the operator told a panicked Melissa Doi during a 20-minute phone call. “You’re not dying. You’re in a bad situation, ma’am.”

. . .

“I’m going to die, aren’t I?” Doi asked the dispatcher. “Please God, it’s so hot. I’m burning up.”

The operator encouraged Doi to keep her composure: “Ma’am, just stay calm for me, OK?”

The conversation was one of more 1,613 previously undisclosed emergency calls from the morning of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. They include the voices of at least 19 firefighters and two emergency medical technicians killed when the twin towers collapsed, although most of the calls are from firefighters asking dispatchers where they should report for duty, the Fire Department said.

- More 9/11 tapes: “I’m going to die, aren’t I?”
by Amy Westfeldt for The Seattle Times
2006-08-16

Just stay calm.