summer olympics 2008, 100% chance of thick dark clouds

with the echoed concerns from athletes and other stakeholders in the upcoming summer olympic games in bejing, there poses a great opportunity to change the global perspective on the effects of mass production without suitable sanctions.

up until this point, i have only heard of the world's athletes being concerned about the air quality in china and how it will effect them and their performance. while they are addressing the air pollution of the region, it seems to me that we are merely looking at a symptom of the thick smog and not at the root cause as to why it is there.

namely, it is the world's dependence on inexpensive chinese labor and production costs, paired with the country's lack of environmental-protective legislation, that is the actual cause of their looming, noxious airborne particulate blanket. are we, the greedy middlemen countries not to blame in a large degree? it is by our hunger for cheap plastic widgets made via outsourced contracts to a developing nation from which we are to blame. do we so daftly not recall that the byproduct of industrialization is similar to the problems that we found when we took pride in producing goods? choked airways, acid rain, and rivers filled with so much toxic debris that they spontaneously combust?

we, the demand for these consumer goods, need to take responsibility for the glaring problem at hand. we have all read about it in the news, yet situations always change when you've got a front row seat. this can be no longer a nimby (not in my back yard) situation. we realize that our behaviors collectively create an environmental reaction--positive or negative.

i strongly believe that the '08 summer olympics pose a ripe opportunity for our world leaders who import from china to take a step up and assume responsibility for the destruction that we have second-handedly caused. this is an opportunity to take stand toward unilateral environmental awareness and action--not to simply turn our backs to an epidemic that we have influenced through marketplace demand by thinking that we have the right to up turn our noses. we have the opportunity to organize the world around this issue and create solutions for lasting change. who will lead the way?

taste or tasteless?

the bolo tie is an accessory that is intriguing, yet concerning. i question whether it is in poor taste or completely fantastic.

itunes sucks

i have grown tired of itunes limited and inane functionality. i am seeking a shareware alternative to this overprotective and handicapped program. i dig yamipod for its grassroots birth and you can transfer files to and from your hard drive with ease. however, there is no hard drive library conduit and one needs to find an itunes-alternative, such as songbird.

i'm not totally down with this set up, as the two products from separate developers seems to have some communication issues in transference of files. ugh.

dear citizens of the internets... i am seeking an all-in-one shareware music library and ipod manager that picks up the slack where itunes leaves you with a furrowed and frustrated brow.

bk moving free range

as many of you know, one of my most esteemed achievements has been the award of burger king employee of the month, june 1989. somewhere in america, i have a wall placard with my name etched under a plastic bk emblem mounted on veneer-covered particle board. needless to say, my pride jumped a 2% notch forward after learning that the king of burgers was moving ever so slightly into the free range realm.

now, i personally have philosophical and ethical questions about any benefits from free range vs. conventional animal farming--nevertheless, this decision is a progressive move into a greener, more sustainable way of thinking that i hope will continue to grow amongst corporate america. the macro-vision of this, in my opinion, will move more into waste-reduction, clean energy technologies, recycling, less dependence on rbgh/etc, moving into organics, etc. it is a long-term vision, but it has to start somewhere. although negligible, i applaud bk for moving in this direction--i'd like to think that my tenure at the location in the midwest back in the late 1980s played a role in their decision. ha!

murmur

is the applause "roar" that an american crowd makes different than one of comparable size and purpose from another country? let's take an example, say a group of 20,000 people at a paul simon concert in three different locations: prague, cleveland, and new delhi. paul simon plays the exact same songs, in the same order in all three locations on independent wednesday nights, all with a mild and comfortable temperature.

my question then is this: at the end of the concert, when the crowd shows appreciation by vocalizing (hooting and hollering), whistling, and clapping-- standing from afar, are you able to ascertain any noticable differences between the three different crowds' respective applause and murmurs?

now, i am aware of certain events or sports teams that have special claps or chants both domestically and the world over--but i am curious just about the general crowd uproar.

in the natural world, it may be a comperable situation to say three trees, each full with three different types of birds. one solitary bird can be compared with solitary birds from the other two groups, and subtleties and qualities can be weighted. but taken as an amass of birds perched on every square inch of a tree's real estate, each of the three trees sounds just like a lot of squawking. it is my hunch that human crowds, likewise from afar, sound like a general murmur of human noise regardless of language and culture.

art?

sometimes i struggle with what art is and is not.

i find it interesting that you seldom contemplate artistic creation until it is framed and hanging on a wall. and, personally, i have seen some fantastic sketches in friends' drawing pads that far surpass those which i have seen in some galleries.

is it a matter of personal taste? is it understanding the artist's vision? is it seeing a glimpse of yourself and your life in the work? or is it hype--societal convention tells us that artist _x_ is the bomb and therefore we can't form our own opinion about it.

i also find fascinating the dichotomous aspect of society generally valuing art as a high form of expression, but paradoxically snubbing artists (generally) as lazy half-wits. again, until society states that "ah-ha, this is art! and what a remarkable artist!" it makes me sad.

beyond human artists, i have been captivated a time or two with certain ape artists. part of the appeal to me is the concept of our cousin finger painting, and the other part of intrigue is the question of the definition of art as i noted above.

the agrifolk art movement brings in further questions of what is art and what is poppycock. i first dismissed this tree art as crap, but have backed off to again consider if there is expression within it.