Friday, August 30, 2013

Whose Fooling Who, "the Branding"

Doc Martens (photo is of 90s originals) a brand changeling - as image is co-opted in era of distract and divide.

This post is fashion icing on the  Gilded Capital,   as portrayed in a recent PBS Moyers and Company Journal interview.

While the elite party are "getting rich in DC"- using tax dollars to host the dog and pony shows;  while  banks remain under regulated and Wall Street and the White House align to rape the planet, I think of the  Fall of Rome and how history repeats until we learn and APPLY the knowledge.

North America is forcing its culture on others, as it feeds off the world's resources promoting consumer economics all the while while maintaining constant war to keep the power edge of the executive branch of its government. In this state of advanced ego ( a form of cultural dementia?)  as surely we have forgotten who we ever pretended to be. Power and role definition, the facde of human matters, have  become  "more rational" than honesty and integrity.  Thus probability squeezes choice until few are possible. Choosing outside the "obvious" is dangerous.

This toxic fallout affects everyone and everything. Despite the shield of false beliefs and info edits -it'll get ya.

This is unacceptable.

"Mark Leibovich on Glitz and Greed in Washington, August 23, 2013 is an "insiders" account of what N. American citizens are supporting with our lossy dollars. Citizens need to hear this stuff, consumers not so much.

MARK LEIBOVICH ....."Because, of course, you know, a single banquet is no longer sufficient to celebrate the accomplishments of the Washington media. Tom Brokaw who has become a real activist against the White House Correspondent's Dinner said that it sends the message that it's all about the people on the screen. It's all about the media. Which I think to some degree is true. I mean, the media is feeling great about itself. The media is as rich as any other part of the economy. And I think the Correspondent's Dinner is a classic example of this.

BILL MOYERS: Have you attended one?

MARK LEIBOVICH: I have, although not since 1996, because the New York Times stopped letting us go.
BILL MOYERS: Why?

MARK LEIBOVICH: They thought it was too-- Dean Baquet, who's now the managing editor of The Times, he was the Washington bureau chief of The Times. I think it was in 2007, actually, declared that this is too cozy. He didn't like the message it sent. He would prefer that we stop going. I thought it was a great decision.

BILL MOYERS: Describe the dinner to me.

MARK LEIBOVICH: It's just this room full of tuxedoed people. A lot of Hollywood celebrities come in. A lot of people talk about, you know, the good that the press does. But again, it's an extravaganza that continues, that it becomes the ultimate bubble world, the ultimate example of decadence in Washington that people know intuitively is wrong, but have no either will or ability to stop it.

REPORTER 1 at the WHCD: This is a big night in Washington. Anyone whose anybody is here. And the key question for everyone in Washington is “What are you wearing? (
The transcripts are available on the Moyers Journal site as is the video. )

NEXT STOP:

Fashion Superbrands is a video trip into the world of  creating material desire. Companies build their images applying psychology and alchemy to lure consumers into their 'dens" pushing them to succumb to the seduction of the illusions all the while saying it's about you- not them at all.

Creating desire from abstract reality has had us in it's clutches a long time, way before media, celebrity, fashion and elitist branding hooked up.

Now it just looks silly. 
I suggest we move along, fast.

Like a leap, as in creative leaps, the leap of faith, quantum and evolutionary leaps. We have the power to do this. This is the effort we need to save our species from its own nightmare of systems in control.

Business as so usual is changing, but as long as profit remains king we are chained to an abstract - a "golden calf"-something made up. (Tee Hee the Bull on Wall Street just has to be mocked now , no?)

Anyway, I think we make up ideas to justify and explain the world we accept as real. The more we accept our stories,  the more real they appear. As they are repeatable and logical in the context of which they are made, we call this a rational approach to life.

This is interesting, for somewhere along the way, the delusion becomes so rationalized that the creative imaginative spark that manifested such thinking in the first place, becomes a so what app.

The irony is sweet but the consequences are not.

For in a super real look at an interrelated planet, this thinking is quite irrational and as it conspires to control imagination and creative impulses as a way to continue its own manifestation.  This is a key to why controlling markets and consumer expectations appears relevant, necessary and a "good thing." As we are educated in the beliefs of the fields or disciplines we wish to align wit, we repeat the mantra and the species loses a little more possibility

 As we humans lose our raison d'etre, we lose who we are, who we might be in a broader context. As reality shrinks to fulfill the desires/needs/choices that our manmade systems create, true creative diversity is crunched. Imagination is narrowed by the range of possibilities.

This is a big deal!

Imagination connects us to consciousness and the living planet. it is how we experience our senses and reflect on our thoughts. This is Gaia Rhythm. 

Gaia rhythm is that sensual, joyful, beauty appreciating, abundant loving essence of who we are. It is the connection we have to all of life and  that place wherre we interact and manifest our reality and give it back into consciousness to expand the whole of the uni-verse. It is an awakening into a fuller potential.

Waking up is an ultimate rebellion that leaves the tug of war behind.These are rebels embracing evolution.

For without the illusions, the noise, the showy distractions, the curtain falls apart and we are confronted with global warming, land mass shrinking, soils depleted, aquifers polluted and species dying at unprecedented rates...what the hell are we doing?

Really, this is not a mere speculation, this is the reality we have been accepting and for what?

A grand show of material wealth to parade around and feel like a somebody.

We have so much potential, let's use it and manifest new, positive, whole thinking systems and spaces for meaningful, curious, creative life on this still most beautiful planet.

Doc Martens FYI:


Doc Martens: The Iconic Brand Celebrates 50 Years Of Rebel Style
Posted by Kristen, on March 31, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Co-opted in this celebrity pushin article is pure irony   ….then maybe you had to have been there!


Friday, August 23, 2013

Punk Designer's Grande Dame Takes on Fracking

Photo borrowed from Dazed Digital a spiffy e zine of UK pop culture, fashion , more.  

Vivienne Westwood  stands up. I am thinking this woman is my newest hero. Thank you Ms Westwood for speaking up. I wish more people would wake to the dangers of business as usual. We are not on a planet that can endure the dis-ease t represents. Our economic system is narrowly focused and powerful, like a cancer it grows to dominate and control the host until the host is dead.

This is as unhealthy as we have ever been, the pattern is clear, the trajectory bleak. It is time to change the course. 

Back in the day, Vivienne Westwood helped punk attire and the whole of the movement rise to the top of the charts. What started in England immigrated here and helped pave the way for Seattle's music renaissance. 

This street up enterprising entrepreneurial force was colorful, political and wildly creative. It was also one of the last big global street uprisings as corporations took ever bigger bites out of the talent pools and forced the generic safe manipulated markets agenda down our collective throats..

Grunge  (Seattle sound) was perhaps the last big movement, as small independent radio stations helped promote local talent before the FCC (USA taking out diversity)  changed the rules and corporations got the little indy's out of their way. Check out Corporate FM 

The No Fracking collage of signs photo from the Independent.


Saturday, August 17, 2013

Big Liars and House Fires


 Photo i took a few weeks ago because of  suspicious "clouds"  the photo enforced surveillance sign is a "happy" coincidence.....good for connecting dots.   

 FYI: Coincidence is serendipity for the sleepyheads.

Please share this video on Smart Meters   Take Back Your Power (teaser)

They are not smart they are health risks.

These meters emit radioactive particles many times during the day. Chances are we will all be "in range" far too often  and this is just unwise on so many levels. Fukashima update is not pretty why continue the game plan?

The meters also collect data because they can.

Silly humans like their data, makes them feel in control. However knowing the past is no way to predict the future. It actually consigns the future with more of the same. This effectively lessens possibilities .

The lossy possibilities realm is a quantum probability and choices  rule, hone up on it.

The control freak technocrats are out of tune with quantum physic, the uni-verse, life, evolution, spirit, heart, nature. This is sad; too sad to allow it to destroy the very thing we actually want/need the most But that is a story for another time (Fire on Ice)

Remember Papa Bush's New World Order ? This was an agenda framed for Peace  but looked, smelled and felt like "control."  Control and domination is a time tested pattern for massive unrest for it escalates the shadows of the world we "fear" and slows down real progress. (Baboon troupe has similar results, synchro timing as just found this!)

 I happen to think we are due for an evolutionary leap -real progress, no?  (see Amit Goswami) 

However, the New World Order is NOT that Path!

A leap is less probable under duress of domination. Domination cuts down diversity. (as controversial ideas don't have a chance, which means new or too genius!) Diversity sparks imagination and creativity which sparks newer ideas. New ideas lead to new knowledge which expands consciousness and promotes even more creative leaps. catch the drift?  AKA this is so not the positive direction!!

 Please watch the trailer, discuss it with friends, neighbors , strangers too.

Help us help ourselves, help us leave the past and leap forward to manifest the world we want.  The world of fear is so tawdry, dull and flat. We deserve better we are MORE.

Advanced Metering

Notice the new label here, as Smart is "uncovered"... feels like blatant disrespect, shame on the "whoever(s) " that thought this was acceptable.
PUBLIC MEETINGS
Seattle City Light is hosting three community forums to listen to our customers about our Advanced Metering Infrastructure project, which is in the early planning phase. To learn more about this project and to share your comments and provide feedback, please attend a forum near you or visit our website at  www.seattle.gov/light/ami.

 Wednesday, August 21st, 5 - 7:30 p.m.
Northgate Community Center
10510 5th Ave NE

Tuesday, September 10th, 5 - 7:30 p.m.
Seattle Center - Shaw Room

Thursday, September 26th, 5 - 7:30 p.m.
NewHolly Gathering Hall
7054 32nd Ave S

Monday, August 12, 2013

Todd Snider Traveling Folk Show

 
( Photo  courtesy of NUVO Indy's Alternative Voice)

I went to the Zootunes last night and was charmed by Todd Snider's near the opening, remarks.

Loosely paraphrased:

"I'm a folk singer and i share my opinions not because I think I'm so smart and that they are so great and I am not trying to change yours, I share them because they rhyme. "

What a great way to settle the house before problems arise!! Thanx Todd for this helpful hint.

The night before. I  had a similar lesson from the PBS "Extraordinary Women" series.

 "Martha Gellhorn became a war correspondent almost by accident when her lover, Ernest Hemingway, urged her to file a report from Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. It was the beginning of a remarkable career spanning some sixty years. She carried on reporting well into her eighties. Martha was committed to reporting the truth and she worked hard for her reputation as one of the greatest war correspondents of the twentieth century. The remarkable life of the war correspondent, novelist, travel writer and journalist is chronicled."

Wow, I am apalled that this is the first time i ever even heard of her. She had more integrity, moxie and style than Hemingway so what's up with that?
(rhetorical)

Aside from my being so happy to have finally "met" her, my personal take away comment was about  why people loved her articles. The answer-  because she was not SHRILL  She said things calmly, hiding her anger under the script. The reader could feel it bubbling down below but it never exploded onto the page.

This is important, as i have been told my anger and frustration, my ranting and scope turns people away. That is a problem for a story teller, especially if that story is intent on a total paradigm change.

Is this a case of show not tell? Is my job to open the door just enough to let a small bit of light spill into the room?  Create the seductive invitation and then step back and let the "audience" do the rest.

If i can stoke the curiosity, design the safe place, inspire.and back off - what might unfold? Interactive spaces are more compelling then diatribes, I am thinking this is my lesson.

Defense: But diatribes let the heat escape, allow the passion to blow. Somehow i have to deal with this as a whole, I am sure there is a solution and it will look different than i can visualize now. On it.

So,  back to Todd Snider with a huge "thank YOU, for driving home a much needed point that i have been dodging.

& do catch Mr Snider if you can. He has a great voice, style and presence.. It is so refreshing to hear songs that set off for deeper waters, we are all feeling the energy of the stuff under the surface despite our denial, cognitive dissonance or whatever.It is best to rip open the flimsy veils and give the issues some air time.