Quote of the Day

“Any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

-- Orwell

I got that from Maureen Dowd's column this morning, which is about the new sexting scandal in Washington conercing Congressman Weiner, as she wraps it up in the general issue of the hopeless dogginess of men. Although it is not really a keeper for me, it is kind of fun and funny and worth a read.

Quote of the Day

“Any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.”

-- Orwell

I got that from Maureen Dowd's column this morning, which is about the new sexting scandal in Washington conercing Congressman Weiner, as she wraps it up in the general issue of the hopeless dogginess of men. Although it is not really a keeper for me, it is kind of fun and funny and worth a read.

The End of Shopping?

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, who described this moment in a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.” “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Tiimes

It's been a long time since Friedman has whipped up a winner for me. This Gilding is actually confident that we will make the change , “We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we’re not stupid.”

We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less. “How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’ To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”

Okay! Getting on a new track of life for a whole global culture sounds like a hell of a bumpy ride, but it's what a lot of lefties have been dreaming about for a while. I have a hard time seeing it myself, but I've long been too negative.

The End of Shopping?

You really do have to wonder whether a few years from now we’ll look back at the first decade of the 21st century — when food prices spiked, energy prices soared, world population surged, tornados plowed through cities, floods and droughts set records, populations were displaced and governments were threatened by the confluence of it all — and ask ourselves: What were we thinking? How did we not panic when the evidence was so obvious that we’d crossed some growth/climate/natural resource/population redlines all at once?

“The only answer can be denial,” argues Paul Gilding, the veteran Australian environmentalist-entrepreneur, who described this moment in a new book called “The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.” “When you are surrounded by something so big that requires you to change everything about the way you think and see the world, then denial is the natural response. But the longer we wait, the bigger the response required.”

-- Thomas L. Friedman for The New York Tiimes

It's been a long time since Friedman has whipped up a winner for me. This Gilding is actually confident that we will make the change , “We either allow collapse to overtake us or develop a new sustainable economic model. We will choose the latter. We may be slow, but we’re not stupid.”

We will realize, he predicts, that the consumer-driven growth model is broken and we have to move to a more happiness-driven growth model, based on people working less and owning less. “How many people,” Gilding asks, “lie on their death bed and say, ‘I wish I had worked harder or built more shareholder value,’ and how many say, ‘I wish I had gone to more ballgames, read more books to my kids, taken more walks?’ To do that, you need a growth model based on giving people more time to enjoy life, but with less stuff.”

Okay! Getting on a new track of life for a whole global culture sounds like a hell of a bumpy ride, but it's what a lot of lefties have been dreaming about for a while. I have a hard time seeing it myself, but I've long been too negative.

Not So Gaga Over Lady Gaga

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Not So Gaga Over Lady Gaga

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Laugh of the Day

Austin gets some more play on the national stage. A theater-goer didn't appreciate being bounced for texting during a movie and let's it all hang out in one of those angry blow-off-some-steam phone calls. The theater uses the call for an ad. Priceless:

Laugh of the Day

Austin gets some more play on the national stage. A theater-goer didn't appreciate being bounced for texting during a movie and let's it all hang out in one of those angry blow-off-some-steam phone calls. The theater uses the call for an ad. Priceless: