The Bullshit Observer

Caligula for President: Better Living Through Tyranny

I am reading a post-Bush era tome called "Caligula for President" by Salon.com contributor Cindra Wilson. Some very sharp-witted political writing masquerading as a modern day speech (of sorts) by Caligula, an entirely amoral figure from Rome's imperial Julio-Claudian dynasty. If you're looking for a little catharsis, a little free flowing rant, I highly recommend it. Here's a little tasty nugget from the book:

As former Indiana basketball coach Bob Knight once said, " If rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it."

Let the corporations have their way with you and your country for a while and, in the end, everything will normalize to how it was before they got there! Eventually, everything will be so trashed and pillaged, it will need to be regulated by the government again!

Regulations eventually seep back in as governors on the unchecked corruption and unaccountable greed that flourishes when the free market is left to nakedly pursue its own appetites with no grown-ups or babysitters in the house. It's sort of like letting go of the steering wheel and flooring it at the same time. It's really fun for a minute. 

OK. Back to the rape at hand, everyone. We're still in Capitalism's long minute of fun. Sorta. 

Hey Barack, Don't Look Down!

Since he ws elected, and even before then, Barack Obama has come to represent a lot of things to a lot of people. He has become a living icon of the restoration of the United States we once admired. An icon representing the rejection of the cynacism, rampant profiteering, and lawlessness that has leaked out of DC and infected the whole world. He is being revered as a savior before he even steps into office. A Jesus-Buddah-MLK.

No doubt some people are hoping he can reverse global warming, feed the hungry, cure the sick, bring about world peace and invent a tomato plant that thrives in winter.

Today, I saw a several childrens books honoring his name and story.

World, you've gone way way too far. Not only is he just a man, he is a politician. He hasn't even begun the freakin' job. He will soon show you what he is made of and I'm afraid he's not the Midas you were expecting. He's no messiah. He's not even an Oprah.

That said, he's no G.W. Bush, which I think is where the original spark of enthusiasm came from. He does appear to be a moral man and I do think we will repsresent a significant, positive change in the way this country operates.

Furthermore, I do not want to diminish the significance of having, at last, a black/mixed race/different looking president. It is a historic time and I'm glad he's in the White House and not John McCain and the Alaskan hussy.

But I do worry about how high the world has built him up. There are very smart political hitmen that work for the conservative wing of our government who have taken character assasination to high art. Barak Obama will be an easy target sitting on that shakey pedastal and there is a long long long way to fall.

World, I urge you to temper your enthusaism with a heaping helping of realism. It'l ll be better for you in the long run and it'll be safer for Barak Obama.

Yes, Sarah Palin, Apparently You Can Too

You can be uneducated, inexperienced and downright corrupt, but as long as you have the charisma, looks and gumption, you can do anything in America.

You can attend four different colleges in six years (one of which you basically failed out of), and no one questions your intelligence or commitment to achievement.

You can claim that being mayor of a town smaller than some high-schools, and then Governor of a state with about the same number of people as some cities, makes you ready to potentially be President, and people don’t piss themselves with laughter.


You can say you support the words “under God” in the pledge of allegiance because “if it was good enough for the founding fathers, it’s good enough for me,” even though the “under God” part wasn’t added until the 1950s and nobody calls you a fucking moron.

You can make fun of community organizers and the work they do, but accept without question the experience of a small town mayor and 18-month governor with no foreign policy expertise beyond a class she took in college and a distant view of Russia.

You can convince white women who don’t even agree with you on a single issue to vote for you and your running mate because you too have ovaries.


You can fire people who didn’t support your political campaigns or your personal agenda and not be held accountable for abusing your power.


You can take nearly twenty-four hours to get to a hospital after beginning to leak amniotic fluid, and still be viewed as a great mom whose commitment to her children is unquestionable, and whose "next door neighbor" qualities make her ready to be VP.

You can give a 36-minute speech making fun of your opponents, while failing to present a substantive policy position on any issue AT ALL, and still manage to be considered a breath of fresh air for your party and a viable second in command of the biggest world power on earth.

You can attend churches whose pastors say that people who vote Democrat or criticize George W. Bush are going to hell, and that the job of Christians is to bring Christian theological principles into government, and who bring in speakers who say the conflict in the Middle East is God’s punishment on Jews for rejecting Jesus, and everyone can still think you’re just a good 'ol church-going Christian and not a religious extremist wacko.

Yes Sarah, even though you really SHOULD NOT be able to do any of those things, apparently YOU CAN.

(this post adapted from an article written by Tim Wise entitled "This is your nation on White Privilege." Thanks to Christi for sending.)

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From the creator of The Bullshit Observer...a new blog

Together with some friends, I have a new blog creation called The Conceptualist. The topic will be completely fresh ideas and it will feature the same whimsical analysis that you've come to expect from The Bullshit Observer. The idea of The Conceptualist is not just to notice new things, but to celebrate brave thinkers and to marvel at their creations.

How is this different, you ask?

Well, I think it's probably the only blog I've seen that lives entirely in the world of ideas. It's not just about highlighting bizarre new inventions like Geekology. It's not about displaying new products like bazillions of blogs out there. It's about taking the new ideas and turning them over in our minds and seeing how they got that way and what they could become. It's as much about the why as it is about the what. In short, it's about conceptualism - the act of seeing past what is there to what could be and talking about it.

Incidentally, the header image is my friend's daughter, Sophie swimming underwater.

This means, of course, that The Bullshit Observer will need to take a back seat for the time being. That means that my posts will be more sporatic. To any regular reader out there, I am sorry to interrupt your BSO experience.

Seven Years Of Bush. What Have You Learned?

It's tempting to try and put these seven years behind us. This debacle of a Presidency. To simply pretend it didn't happen or to focus instead on the new presidency and put our hopes into that administration. To hope, as Obama says, that things can be put right again. But to think this way, I think misses an important opportunity.

There are many things to be learned by looking back at the past seven years.

So I ask you, dear reader, what have you learned?

The Bullshit Observer

Bullshit Observer's 500th Post

I started this blog back in 2005 after slogging through five long years of Bush without a place to put my discontent. A sentient being can only withstand so much crap before they either crack, explode or begin to wither. This was, and still is, my way to rage against the machine and institute a small degree of sanity over in my own little tiny nook of the virtual universe.

In short, it's therapy.

As therapy, it has been a huge success. I feel good about these 500 posts. As legitimate opposition to the enormous and omnipresent bullshit producing machines in the world, I will say that it has probably had very little impact. I've only had something like 65,000 page views. But, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Slaughterhouse Five, "So it goes."

I am happy that it's out there and that's really all that matters. In fact, from what I've found, I would have had more media popularity if my name was something that media outlets could mention. But that's completely fine with me.

For this 500th post, I wanted to point out ten of my more meaningful (to me) posts.

The Movies Critics Are Raving About: Is about the Hollywood crap machine.

I want to be a little girl when I grow up: is about the female self-image.

God is killing us: is about religion.

Genders: Man-tradiction?: Is about the changing roles of men today.

I'll make you famous: Is about America's fascination with fame and the industries that it has spawned.

Parents Less Upwardly Mobile These Days: Is about the challenge of a modern workplace for people who put parenting first.

America Needs More Springfields: Is about suburban sprawl and the forces that spawn it.

Advertising Needs A New Agency: Is about how the traditional agency flops around in the digital world.

Meet Your Agency: Is a little insight for clients into how their agency really works.

Dear World, Sorry About That: Is my own personal apology to the world on behalf of America.

Enjoy.If you want to comment, feel free. It's nice to know there are people out there sometimes.  I'd be writing here either way though. As I said above, this blog is really more for my sanity than anything else.

Thanks for reading!

The Bullshit Observer

Does anybody care about the truth?

I'm teaching my five year old son about how lying is bad and I'm starting to wonder whether I should just let him do it. Society at large doesn't appear to care about that kind of thing anymore.

The Bush administration made apparently false and misleading statements in court about the White House e-mail controversy, according to the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics.

The US Army confirms that thousands of soldiers are cheating on online tests for promotions.

At an PR industry event in London, in a poll of the audience of over 260 PR executives, the majority (138) voted against the motion that "PR has a duty to tell the truth."

A new scanning program has identified 76 cases of outright plagiarism among professors (not students) of biomedicine.

Top PR firm, Edelman, was recently outted as having a media training course for execs that states, ""Sometimes, you just have to stand up there and lie.  Make the audience or the reporter believe that everything is ok."

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom noted that during the run up to the 2006 election, his blackberry buzzed almost daily with threat level notifications from the Department of Homeland Security. When the election was over, they stopped.

Maybe it's a result of having two equally passionate sides on both sides of the political spectrum for the past seven years. Or maybe it's because the educational system has broken down to such a degree that it's just too easy and tempting to manipulate the masses for our own gains. Whatever the reason, it seems that American culture has reached a worrying threshold where the constant whirring of our spin cycle completely drowns out the sober voices of truth.

If those voices are even speaking anymore. 

There used to be a time when truth mattered to people. It wasn't simply because of the sentimental notion that truth is honerable. No, it's because truth served a function. In fact, it was one of the lynchpins of our social structure. I would argue that if our society continues to see truth as quaint, or merely preferable to lies, then it will go into decline. Some might say that it's already happening.

It's as if our society has termites. The spin masters get into everything and, with every lie they tell, slowly eat away at the structure. It's gotten to the point where these pests are everywhere we turn. Every news outlet, every politician's speech, every commercial break, every single place you rest your eyeballs there is someone telling you something that ain't exactly true. I'd call an exterminator if I thought they could actually handle a problem of this magnitude.

Furthermore, it's really starting to get in the way of our ability to make decisions and navigate the world. For example, we needed truth in order to make the right decisions about Iraq. Instead we got lies and half-truths which led us to the incorrect decision. Let's invade! Whoops. Now America and Britain are stuck in a bog. Tons of people dead.

Truth iis also vital to our well-being as individuals.

We need to know what to eat, what to drink, where to live, how to dress for the weather, and how close they are to the nearest fault line. Without truth about these matters, we might be drinking water from contaminated springs, eating beef with mad cow disease, dressing for summer on a rainy day and living in a house that's about to slide down a mountain. Wherever there's a buck to be made, it seems, there's someone willing to lie their ass off in order to make it.

My point? Well, just that we, as a people, should care more about the truth. Really really care about it. Put it up on a pedestal and worship the truth. Celebrate the truth. Write songs about the truth.

We cannot survive without it.

With that in mind, we SIMPLY MUST hold the liars accountable for their transgressions. They are assaulting our sense of reality and hindering our ability to operate. Without this accountability, we will lose our bearings as a society and as individuals.

Maybe it's a result of having two equally passionate sides on both sides of the political spectrum for the past seven years. Or maybe it's because the educational system has broken down to such a degree that it's just too easy and tempting to manipulate the masses for our own gains. Whatever the reason, it seems that American culture has reached a worrying threshold where the constant whirring of our spin cycle completely drowns out the sober voices of truth.

If those voices are even speaking anymore. 

There used to be a time when truth mattered to people. It wasn't simply because of the sentimental notion that truth is honerable. No, it's because truth served a function. In fact, it was one of the lynchpins of our social structure. I would argue that if our society continues to see truth as quaint, or merely preferable to lies, then it will go into decline. Some might say that it's already happening.

It's as if our society has termites. The spin masters get into everything and, with every lie they tell, slowly eat away at the structure. It's gotten to the point where these pests are everywhere we turn. Every news outlet, every politician's speech, every commercial break, every single place you rest your eyeballs there is someone telling you something that ain't exactly true. I'd call an exterminator if I thought they could actually handle a problem of this magnitude.

Furthermore, it's really starting to get in the way of our ability to make decisions and navigate the world. For example, we needed truth in order to make the right decisions about Iraq. Instead we got lies and half-truths which led us to the incorrect decision. Let's invade! Whoops. Now America and Britain are stuck in a bog. Tons of people dead.

Truth iis also vital to our well-being as individuals.

We need to know what to eat, what to drink, where to live, how to dress for the weather, and how close they are to the nearest fault line. Without truth about these matters, we might be drinking water from contaminated springs, eating beef with mad cow disease, dressing for summer on a rainy day and living in a house that's about to slide down a mountain. Wherever there's a buck to be made, it seems, there's someone willing to lie their ass off in order to make it.

My point? Well, just that we, as a people, should care more about the truth. Really really care about it. Put it up on a pedestal and worship the truth. Celebrate the truth. Write songs about the truth.

We cannot survive without it.

With that in mind, we SIMPLY MUST hold the liars accountable for their transgressions. They are assaulting our sense of reality and hindering our ability to operate. Without this accountability, we will lose our bearings as a society and as individuals.

McCain's Green Credentials Are Seafoam

He's painted as the maverick GOP'er whose own party disavows him. Please don't buy that turd-pie of a story. That's just a ploy to make him more palatable to moderate Democrats who can't stand Hilary. Don't get me wrong, at least he's not hard charging religious nut or some blood thirsty neocon. But before you start giving him the benefit of the doubt and vote for him, please please double check where he is on the issues that you care about. For me, I care primarily about climate change and McCain's record is kinda mixed there:

1) YAY! He voted against oil drilling (or as some might call it "Oil Exploration" in the Alaskan wildlife preserve.
2) WHATEVER: He co-sponsored the Climate Stewardship Act, which would establish a carbon cap-and-trade system to reduce US emissions (voted down). Generally considered to be a far weaker act to the one the Demos were trying to push through.
3) BOOO! He's against the signing of the Kyoto Treaty, just as Bush was.
4) YAY! He, unlike GWB, had the sense to acknowledge that climate change was real and that humans need to address it.
5) BOOOO!: He's gone AWOL on FIFTEEN important environmental votes - perhaps knowing that voting either way is a strike against him with someone important. This plan seems to have backfired. He has earned a score of ZERO from The League of Conservative Voters on issues pertaining to "The Environment." In case you're wondering, Obama got a 67 and Clinton a 73. The average in Congress is a 53.

I wouldn't pay much attention to what he says about climate change and the environment now because he's at that pivotal stage where he'd agree to clean the ocean with a hand cranked water purification system once elected. "I'll perform mouth to mouth on polar bears if need be. Just say the word."

Consumerism Can't Last Forever

Here are the facts, and they are irrefutable:

Earth isn't expanding and neither are Earth's resources. The materials we use to make the things we buy are finite.  However, we do have an infinitely expanding pattern of population growth, of goods production, of human consumption, and of need generation.

Someday this will end. That's a fact, Jack.

Whether it ends because we wisely switch to a sustainable economy or just because we use everything up and die off is exactly what's at stake these days. Our species is at a crossroads. It's that simple.

As this video, entitled "The Story of Stuff: Consumerism" points out, 99% of all the things we buy are in the trash heap six months later. That level of materials throughput is simply not sustainable - given the inconvenient truth about the planet.

(Tip of the hat for The Story of Stuff to Jdub. Thanks Jdub.)