Category: universe

politics, sports, pop, fashion, science with a sprinkling of thinkings

Inconceivable! [or not]

One of the famous and favorite moments in The Princess Bride is when Inigo Montoya tells Vizzini:

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Watching the Yelling Shows this morning, I kept replaying Inigo’s line in my head.

“You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”

I guess Inigo was wondering: Is it a misuse of language? A misunderstanding of what’s actually happening? Or, simply, wishful thinking? But ultimately the why doesn’t matter. If you don’t recognize the reality, you’re in trouble.

I was thinking about this as the guest on the show, in an ominously warning voice, said that people need to understand that Donald Trump is not a Republican, and he does not represent what the Party stands for (he said lots of other stuff, too, but that’s not germane here).

I think that this is the wrong argument.

What if people don’t care that he’s not a Republican? What if THEY are not Republicans, too? [There is a parallel argument on the Democratic side that Senator Sanders is NOT a Democrat, and my thinkings here apply to both parties.]

Earlier this week, Clay Shirky who, by the way, is a much better thinker than DocThink, wrote a tweetstorm outlining a theory of the redundancy of political parties in a networked world. He offers that parties used to be required to access media, to access donors and to access voters through organizing. He traces the arc of a scythe cutting down this syndicate starting with Ross Perot through Howard Dean and Obama for America. He posits that both parties are seeing an internal insurgency where “the people,” or at least a passionate sector of “the people,” are hijacking the party regulars.

I’m not sure that’s exactly right.* I think that we are seeing the hijacking of the parties’ infrastructure for people who may or may not be party members. It could be that the outsiders are not growing the party as much as using the party. They are disruptors.

Conventional wisdom sided against any 3rd or 4th party in the U.S. because of the infrastructure requirements to gain public office. It’s the party apparatus in each state that organizes and hosts primaries. The parties own the statewide infrastructure, the hosting of caucuses and elections, the rules, the timelines and the costs. They own donor lists and vendors who do polling and pipe and drape.

Smart outsider candidates are able to use this structure to launch their own campaigns with enough hat-tipping to the “party,” as long as they have followers. They can build their own followers

  • by addressing them DIRECTLY on social media and use this to pressure and gain earned media,
  • by raising money from them DIRECTLY online, and
  • by getting their names and emails and Facebook likes and Twitter follows to call on them DIRECTLY as well as ask them to call on each other when it’s time to GOTV.

We might be seeing a disruption on the scale of Amazon for commerce, Uber for transportation, Airbnb for lodging or Facebook for communications.

It makes me think, too, about another Clay. Clay Christensen wrote the Innovator’s Dilemma. I’m still working my brain through this but I think I’ll throw it out to see if it’s a useful model to apply. Christensen says*

  • Companies innovate faster than their customers’ needs evolve and eventually produce products that are actually too sophisticated, too expensive, and too complicated for many customers.
  • Companies pursue these “sustaining innovations” at the higher tiers of their markets because that’s what made them successful– charging the highest prices to their most demanding and sophisticated customers at the top of the market.
  • This leaves a gap at the bottom of the market for competitors to emerge and go after smaller markets with simpler products that might not be attractive to the “establishment” organization.
  • See a full and smarter version here.

So the people who were in the market, but couldn’t afford the goods are happy with a cheaper, less feature-rich version that they can have. Or maybe they don’t see themselves as customers of the Party as it is, and are open to an offering that better meets their beliefs.

But what about the Brand value of the Parties. Parties still offer a shorthand to understand where a candidate stands. I did voter studies in the 80’s. I know about party affiliation. But I also know about brands. So I’ll offer one thought. How does that brand–of establishment political parties–make people who are angry and left out feel?

The first Clay put out a stat that floored me. There are 150 million registered voters in the U.S. That would be considered a MEDIUM-sized group on Facebook. Shirky said, “All voters’ used to be a big number. Now it’s less than 10 percent of Facebook’s audience.”

Whoa.

in·con·ceiv·a·bleˌ inkənˈsēvəb(ə)l/adjective
     1. not capable of being imagined or grasped mentally; unbelievable.

* Apologies for my reductionist parsing of both Clays’ arguments. I’m just trying this out, Loyal Reader. I suggest you read them both and help me hone my Thinkings.

Posted on by docthink 3

Dyscussion

You know that email you wrote? Telling someone how absolutely and completely wronged you are by their cruel, thoughtless and idiotic deeds? You know that one? Don’t send it.

When I’m writing a howler, I very deliberately leave the “TO:” line blank.  That way, I can’t even mistakenly send it.

I’m definitely composing that ferocious email. I’m carefully going back and editing that email to hone all the barbs until they are quite sharp. I am ensuring that it is fully TO THE POINT and that no one could mistake my intention. Then I’m walking away. I might delete it right then. Or I might see it in my drafts folder later. I have never sent it when I saw it again later.

I, like you, need to get that righteous anger out of my system. I can’t imagine a scenario in which I need to put it directly into someone else’s system, just for one simple reason.

Nothing good will come of it.

I’m not motivated by making something bad happen. I personally get nothing out of exacting revenge. Ugliness I lavish will likely

  • escalate
  • screw me over
  • not make a whiff of difference in the other’s behavior
  • damage a relationship that I want (or need) to maintain
  • All of the Above

Hence, no good will come of it.

I’ve been contemplating rage-quitting Medium over the cycle of hurt and outrage that is brewing on that platform. But rage quitting feeds that shit cycle. So, if I’m leaving the platform behind, I will just pick up my keyboard and leave. Without a public fuss.

I was watching a clip from a TV show where grown men in suits and ties were calling each other names, being mean and dismissive, yelling over each other and, I dunno. It definitely was not civil. It was remarkably angry. It included glowering.  It was dysfunction dyscussion.

Is your goal to make some afraid? To force an error? To slam the door in someone’s face? To punish? To hurt? To win at any cost?

Let me be clear. I used to be much meaner. It just doesn’t work. Not for what I want, anyway.

Posted on by docthink 0

Setting Sail on the S.S. Crapper

shipwreck in Australia

Dammit people! Have you not yet figured out how the internet works?

Let me break it down for you. You tell your “woe is me” story publicly–like for example on Medium or on Facebook where you post to 1,327 “friends” and friends of their friends so it’s pretty public–and people crap on you. That’s what happens.

Also some people will reach out to you as if you are a beautiful and fragile flower. Those people then crap on the people crapping on you. And then the initial crappers pay back.

Yes, your personal misery become a crapfest all because you see yourself as a writer speaking truth to power or speaking your own truth. You’re patient zero on a crapfest of your own making.

I have pathos for you. Really, on a personal level, I do. I know you are going through something and you want to get it off your chest.

Getting it off your chest in a most public forum, however, is NOT a solution. It might be a step in getting to a solution. It may–and I say may in the most improbable sense of the word–be a work of art.

What it IS though, and this is true whether or not you explicitly invite it, is an opportunity for people to engage with you. And call you mean names. And ask why you are lazy, stupid, + all the variants of stupid, playing the victim, selfish, self-entitled, self-absorbed, self-centered, self-everything, unambitious, and/or petty. Some will oddly attack your looks and say you’re fat, ugly, lumpy, disgusting…oh, I could go on, but you’ve already read those attacks. Sorry. And even though it’s about them trolling for reaction and not about you, it still feels mean and painful.

Then there’s the relativist responses. You know, that you don’t have it so bad. That others have it way worse. You are having first world problems. I walked eight miles to school uphill both ways in the snow wearing tires for shoes and with a piece of moldy bread for lunch. And of course, think of the CHILDREN??

So, I do feel for you personally because your dreams aren’t coming true in the way you imagined, that your parents won’t pay for your dream wedding, that your job sucks, that it’s really really hard to be bombarded with messages about having it all when you have baby poop on your suit.

But when you publish it for all to see, expect that not everyone will see it from your point of view. They see it through their own crap-covered glasses.

Godspeed!

Posted on by docthink 1

Mockingbirds

a sample of a format for a handwritten paper

Dear Miss Harper Lee,

I know you’re dead, and therefore unlikely to read this, but I write it nonetheless, because it’s a letter not just to you. You are welcome to read it, though, if that is such a thing given your current state.

I wanted to thank you for my favorite teacher, Mr. Davidson. He loved your book so so so so very much. He made me love it, too. I bet he made other students feel about it, as well.

He taught us the word empathy via your story. I remember that day. I was at Carter Jr. High School.

He was a beloved teacher who tragically lost his young wife who I think also taught at the school. I knew that his wife died because there was a memorial to her in a glass enclosed garden at the school. I don’t know when it happened. It was before my time there, and as a 12-year-old anything 3-4 years prior was the equivalent of olden days. Also this was just something we “knew” and didn’t ask questions about at that time. Like Scout knew some things she just knew.

This is just background, though, because this thing we “knew” was just, you know, background. I don’t have any inkling if he was a different teacher before, since I didn’t know him before.

He didn’t bring his personal loss into the classroom. But, as you wrote, we all bring all of us into every interaction. I’m sure it impacted him, and therefore us, but that’s something I didn’t realize until many years later.

Yes, I still think about this English teacher who taught me to walk around in someone else’s skin before passing judgement (or was that you?). Trying to understand someone doesn’t make what they do “right,” but it acknowledges the other’s humanity, and that makes us more human, too.

I was a bratty smarty pants–not as smart as Hermione Granger but equally annoying. I would read ahead and do my assignments ahead because I was engaged. The class slowed me down. I bet my class participation included spoilers. Mr. Davidson let me write my final paper early. Then he had to do something with me as the class plodded through your novel.

He gave me my first book of poetry to read and sent me off on independent study in the library. I was to write a paper about Edna St. Vincent Millay. I didn’t realize at the time that he was encouraging me to keep my own independence and follow my dreams. Something else I realized many years later when I reread her and about her.

When he handed me back my paper, he looked at me very seriously. Me, Hermione Granger-esque, figured that I was in for it. I really didn’t understand poetry, and maybe I misinterpreted like everything.

He apologized to me.

He said that he was sorry that he was unable to challenge me enough. I heard this at the same time I saw the A+ on the top of the page.

I learned right in that moment that it wasn’t enough to do well or even excellently. Although that remains an ambition. In that exchange, I learned that it was important to stretch yourself as much as you can and to seek out people who will make you reach.

A few years later, I was in the high school gym watching a basketball game. Mr. D. was there and I hadn’t seen him for a long time (3 years which had become less like “olden days” but still a long time). I don’t recall the specifics of the dialogue, but I do remember what he said at the end.

He admonished my high school cynicism–translated to 2016 that would be the unending teen irony. He also told me that a cynic is simply an idealist. In that sentence, he created a space for me to be both.

I finally met up with Mr. D. in his office at the school three or four years ago (which in today’s time frame seems like just yesterday) after decades apart. I thanked him in person for his encouragement that I still draw down from. It wasn’t enough, but I brought him a coffee and a donut.

Thank you, Miss Harper Lee, for being a connector. And for your wonderful book.

Your loyal reader,
Doc Think

 

Posted on by docthink 1

Beauty By Nature

neon orange polka dots

The yogurt was a bit past its due date, so I knew it was a risk when I popped the lid open. I steeled myself in case it was gross.

It wouldn’t be the first time that I witnessed nature at work. Sometimes there is that gray fuzzy green growth. The fuzzy gets my attention. It makes me squirm, a little.

It was the organic full fat yogurt and about six or seven days past the end of its prime. I guess I could just toss it out and save myself the gross-out. I feel compelled, though, to recycle the plastic container. And you’re supposed to rinse containers before you put them in the recycling bin.

We’re really good about recycling at our house, so percentage-wise I’d be within the margin of error if I tossed the plastic yogurt container in the trash. I just don’t.

I braced myself for the surprise that waited inside and opened the lid. And, surprised I was. There were small neon orange polka dots spattered in a striped pattern down the side of the container and swirling in the remaining yogurt on the bottom. It actually was beautiful. Not edible, but beautiful.

The dots–the less pleasant name for the dots is “mold”–floated on the wall of the container so it very easily was rinsed off and washed down the drain.

I’m glad I opened the tub. So beautiful. So gross.

Posted on by docthink 0

Friends Like That

Night at the opera, Ginsberg and Scalia

I  was shocked to hear that Justice Scalia passed away. I think we were all shocked.

Although I have not been a fan of his work from the bench of our highest court, my first reaction was a sense of loss.

I knew that he and the Notorious RBG were notoriously friends. In reading people’s memories of him, I learned that he and another ideological foe, Justice Elena Kagan, were hunting buddies. Scalia even recommended her to an Obama confidant–saying, “I hope he sends us someone smart,” before naming Kagan as one who met that criteria. I guess he wanted a worthy opponent.

Witty, gregarious, and fun are words that are most associated with him by colleagues and friends or various leanings–left and right, D and R.

I learned about Justice Scalia’s death on Twitter which almost immediately brought me the second shock. The Senate Majority Leader ran breathlessly to a mic within an hour to let the world know that our sitting President should not even THINK about nominating someone to fill that seat on the bench.

Oh, just stop.

Then there was the line of people disagreeing with McConnell from the Senate chambers bringing politics to the fore before anyone had a chance to pay their respects. Turning the Justice into a political football.

Please. Please just stop.

Others started piling on saying mean things–really mean. And I all could think about was that I could NOT agree with any of them. At all. Because no matter how much I disagreed with Scalia, no matter how wrong I believed his skewed intellectual gymnastics on more than one decision or dissent, he always seemed to me to be very much human.

They say he changed the Court, that he was the first to really take control of the arguments and ask challenging questions. He was a New Yorker. He was a first generation Italian-American. He was smart. He was confident. He was brash. He pushed his ideas but could obviously listen to others and agree to disagree. Without being disagreeable. I love this.

I’m not saying he’s a saint or that he should be revered. I’m just saying he might have been wrong, but he wasn’t bad. Just look close around him.

RIP, Justice Nino. Peace to your family and friends.

Posted on by docthink 1

Disco Inferno

Oh Kanye!

Dude, I so love your music but mostly your vulnerability. You have such passion and such angst, it makes your art. And you know that a good row makes for good sales. I remember when you and 50cent went at it. That day you both dropped your records in the background of a shitstorm bet. Likely you both sold way better because of the noise. Actually we know you both sold better.

So today there was a cacophony about your new joint. Looks like you’re dissing Taylor Swift–hate to say this, but–again. The lyric in question

“I feel like me and Taylor might still have sex. / Why? I made that bitch famous.”

Then you go through some B.S. rigamarole about calling a woman a bitch is okay, even “endearing” in hip hop.  It’s a term affection just like you call folks “Ns”.

Did you see what I just did there, Kanye? I didn’t call anyone an “N”, because I am white. So, you get to do that and I don’t. And I’m fine with that.

But one other thing, you don’t get to call me, or Taylor, a bitch, either. You can call 50 a bitch. And you can call Luda a bitch. I don’t care. But don’t you call a woman a bitch, because it’s not the same. At all.

Bad friggin’ blood.

Another thing I know. More folks are listening to this song. This is likely what you’re going for. And your art.

Oh Taylor!

Tay Tay has her people out on this.  You’ve been one of my guilty pleasures. You have that manufactured vulnerability, too. And I am a sucker for it. And your catchy pop tunes.

But where did your little bro come from? I didn’t know he spoke on your behalf until today. I didn’t know he existed until today. I guess he was so mad at Kanye that he threw out a pair of his Kanye West branded sneakers. We know this because he did this via a post on Instagram.

I hope someone did a dumpster dive and grabbed those $200 kicks and resold them on eBay. I hear they’re going for $800-900 on the resale market. Hmmmm. I wonder if Kanye gave them to the Swift family.

Speaking of resale, all this noise continues to make Taylor Swift famous. #justsayin

Curtis knew. So did I. So do I.
<

Posted on by docthink 1

Disproportionate Representation

4e842-potusplates

Today is the first presidential primary of the 2016 Presidential Election Cycle. (I know that’s not really a proper noun, but SOMETHING should be proper this cycle. Something.)

Also, the Iowa election thing doesn’t count as a primary, because it’s a caucus. Whatever that is.

People in early primary states have an undue influence on the outcomes of our elections. Like New Hampshire. They have 0.4% of the U.S. population. (Data from here.) And they have about 95% of our news interest right now for their 48 or so delegates to the party conventions. It takes 1,237 delegates to win on the R-side and 2.383 on the D-Side. So these are drop in the bucket numbers.

In New Hampshire, they are so done with the attention. Some posted signs to keep away the “personal” attention.

“No solicitation! Political or otherwise. Please respect our privacy. We promise not to knock on your door. Thanks.” —via NYTimes

Other facts about the little granitey state of New Hampshire? They have two Senators and two members of the House of Representatives.

So I live in a place where we have ZERO Senators and ZERO members of the House. That doesn’t stop people who we don’t get to vote for from telling us what to do. Nope. It’s worse to be left out.

Oh, and one last thing. Our Presidential primary date? Used to be in April. Got moved to June. You know, when everything has already been decided.

And then we have to physically LIVE with the winner. Insult to injury. #notaxationwithoutrepresentation

Posted on by docthink 0

Head to Head

helmet to helmet hit

Watching the AFC and NFC championship games and wondering, how much longer will we watch football?

Will a future civilized society look back at today’s Sundays (and Mondays and Thursdays) of watching super humans in pads and helmets running into each other, bones cracking, brains shaking inside skulls and shake their own heads at our barbarism?

Today I watched a receiver grab the football and bring it close to his body, tucking in and cradling it by bringing his head closer to his chest. As he contracted himself, a defender running at full speed–which is very fast in the NFL–hit him. The defender was trying to get to him before the ball, or even better, to hit him just as the ball came in and cause a drop.

As the receiver lowered his head, the defender crashed into him, helmet meeting helmet. Flags flew. The defender somehow had to be able to stop himself to avoid hitting on the defenseless receiver.

That is an important rule. A rule pushing even the most agile and aware athletes at the top of their ability. Then there’s the conflict between pulling up and doing your job. Can it be enforced? When it’s enforced it’s 15 yards and a first down.

The rules to protect the gladiators are important. They likely are making a difference. But as we watch this crazy game, I wonder how long until it just isn’t the same game. More pads, more rules, more whistles.

Moms and dads don’t want their kids to play anymore. Young, promising players are walking away. And the issue is increasingly, and finally, becoming an issue. I’ve known people who loved playing football. I’ve loved watching it. But as the athletes become bigger and faster and stronger, maybe the game has run it’s course.

But don’t worry more civilized people of the future. Football is nothing compared to brutality as entertainment of the UFC. Maybe that’s football with the pads off.

Posted on by docthink 0

Not Again

Tap Alarm to snooze

Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I hate the Internet.

Seriously.

I get up this morning and do what I have avowed to do. I am NOT looking at my phone first thing.

Okay. Well I always technically blow that vow since my phone is my wakeup device. In truth, first thing, I “tap to snooze.” That’s looking at nothing so I’m not breaking my rule.

After ten minutes when the clarion revives, I swipe right. But I’m not looking–other than to verify that it is indeed time to get up. I grumble. The numbers are big, so I’m not engaged. Therefore, I maintain that I’m not looking at my phone first thing.

I used to immediately look at email, glance through Facebook and hit up the @Twitters. That translated into significantly wasting much of the activity part of my morning. Time when I should be walking the dog, prepping breakfast and making beauty. So, I stopped the morning Internet.

Except since summer has passed, I look at the weather.

Oh, come on! Don’t be so exacting on my pledge. You know that the weather has been crazy. Shorts on Christmas Eve? Followed by sixteen degrees for the dog walk just one week later? Who would know what to do absent a quick glance. I maintain that doesn’t count as looking at my phone first thing, either.

So I get up and check the weather and pad downstairs. I bundle up against this morning’s sub-freezing temps and take the dog for a working walk. It wasn’t so bad and there was coffee.

I check my phone and I see an email headline about David Bowie. Not a surprise given all the noise about his new LP and freaky video released last week. Except it actually was a surprise. He moved on to the next world after an 18 month bout with cancer.

And I hate the Internet for all the RIPing posts. And I hate the Internet for interrupting my just fine morning with news that another part of the soundtrack to my youth is gone.

And then I love the Internet because I found this.

“I,
I wish you could swim
Like the dolphins,
like dolphins can swim”

Posted on by docthink 0