Creative Procrastination

I demand to know why I was not informed about the existence of Andrew Orlowski before today.

OK, so he's a climate change denier, but who can resist the charms of a man who makes fun of Google, Wikipedia, techno-utopians, and wooly IT social media/management consultants (at least as long as he's not being paid speaking fees himself)?

And another reason I want to get the hell away from "design"-- the sulfurous stink of Cass Sunstein.

Back by popular (n=1) demand:

• I hate Ann Arbor {penguin channelers, urban planners, innovationists, entrepreneurialismistas, change agents, hip blogger types}
• I hate 98% of IT people
• And yet I am surrounded by them, earn my living through pretending to be one, and I'm not doing much of anything to get away from them.
• Wah.
• Ayn Rand is stupid
• I like the labor movement.
• The current instantiation of the labor movement and its leadership can sometimes do some dumb things.
• Leftism is cool.
• Activists can be stupid.
• Linguistics is cool.
• Prescriptivists are idiots.
• IT entrepreneur Randians who rant in team meetings about how words must never ever change their meaning from what the 2010 Merriam Webster dictionary says (Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum) must DIE NOW.
• Lookit my inteeligence: I can post things about Adorno and David Lynch.
• Even if I've offended you with everything above, please comment on posts about my vacations, dog, house, show-offy-attempts to appropriate the 1.5 Asian cultures I know about, etc.
• And no comments on anything else. Getcher own damn blog. See T. Herman Zweibel's editorial policy.
• Mostly unrequested shilling for projects/businesses/academic achievements of family and friends (see: status-garnering).

What a crappy decade.

But, for those of us who have been around the block for a while, not essentially different from the decade that preceded it. Andrew Bacevich, academic and former military man, despite being a Cold War hawk, wrote a whole book about the huge expansion of the use of the military in the 1990s under Clinton. Not to get back into the whole debate over "there's no difference between the two parties." Clearly the Democratic party has a different style of managing the U.S. empire from the Republican party, and sometimes throws bones-- at least rhetorical bones-- to other constituencies than business. But can anyone really say, after the Afghan escalation, after the way the bank bailouts were handled, and after the Copenhagen debacle, that the Democrats are a transformational party? Yes, I'll probably end up being dragged back to strategic voting for a Democrat in 2012 if the expected Palinpocalypse strikes and if no other viable electoral opportunities present themselves, but not very happily. To paraphrase Mr. Smartypants of Mel and Floyd (from WORT-FM in Madison) recently, "We have two parties now-- the party of business (Democrats) and the crazies (Republicans)."

On a personal note, the decade was pretty good to me. Sure, I had my periods of depression, periods of carlessness amongst the strip mall wastelands of Carpenter Road (note: you can carry groceries on your bike in a gym bag! canned goods = not so much, however), and my political "crisis of faith" lasted from about 2001 to 2007. But I finished a senior thesis, graduated from college to the smooth strains of Elmore Leonard, got through 2 years in SOS Americorps, got a ludicrous but financially profitable professional degree in "information", got a job (thanks Deepali, James, and Ron), moved in with my then-girlfriend, somehow managed to avoid pissing her off too much, started spewing forth my thoughts here and elsewhere, got married, bought a house, got repoliticized, and then got a dog. So, yay me.

Yes, I daily shred my beliefs by building brochureware for halfwits, as well as tools to help corpocratic administrators to a) sell off more public assets to private interests, b) use IT to Taylorize teaching, and c) basically shove even more business consciousness up the ass of everyone on the planet. But, they sure do have a nice retirement package (for now at least). And yes, my house is located in a low-tax sprawlburban township which sucks revenue away from the city of Ypsilanti, and even the act of owning a house-- especially one with a mortgage now way underwater-- ties you to at least 30 years of soul-destroying jobs. Boy, do I suck.

It could be much, much, much worse though. I know that. And I know that I'm very lucky in many ways.

To avoid having to write a conclusion, and to avoid burdening you with another top ten list (in short, Mulholland Drive and OK Computer-- yes, I know the latter was 1997, but I didn't start listening to it until 2000), I'll close with a video/quote from the anarcho-syndicalist poet and storyteller Utah Phillips.

"I always thought that anybody who told me I couldn't live in the past was trying to get me to forget something that if I remembered it, would get him in serious trouble. No, it's not that, ... that 50s 60s 70s 90s, that whole idea of decade packages, things don't happen that way. The Vietnam War heated up in 1965 and ended in 1975. What's that got to do with decades? No, that packaging of time is a journalistic convenience that they use to trivialize and dismiss important events and important ideas." (Bridges, by Utah Phillips, music by Ani Difranco)

To the anonymous Kenyan DBA who got to a website I work on using the search string "how automated administrative task reduces overheads for the database administrator" 36 separate times on February 13, 2008:

You are obviously quite overworked. Consider decreasing the amount of time you spend performing database administrative tasks. You will thank me for it.

Which of the The Absolute 50 Bottom Blogs does your blog resemble?

• PuttingMyLiberalArtsDegreeToSomeUse.com
• IAmBoringAndIfYouAreReadingThisSoAreYou.com
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• CantDo-CantTeach-CanBlog.org
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• RegurgitatingShitIJustHeardAlFrankenSay.us
• AnotherSendentaryHobbyThatKeepsMyGiganticAss-
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