If you leave, they will come
Yesterday I was home all morning dealing with the sump pump and cleaning the building (while waiting for the pump guy). Then I went out a couple hours in the early afternoon for lunch before returning home. The United States Post Office figured early afternoon would be the best time to find me at home, to sign for my new Vegetarian Shoes.Since they "missed" me, I had to walk to the PO on the other side of North Beach (so, past two closer POs) to collect the shoes that I'm now wearing. I'm still at the cafe across from the PO -- a place I used to frequent back when the Trader Joe's a block away was still the closest one to my house.
Making sense of the senseless
Someone shared on Facebook yet another interesting political take on what the Trump Presidency really means. This one is by Andrew Bacevich in The Nation (here). What is particularly frustrating is that I agree with everything he says to here:STARTING OVER
I am by temperament a conservative and a traditionalist, wary of revolutionary movements that more often than not end up being hijacked by nefarious plotters more interested in satisfying their own ambitions than in pursuing high ideals...Right after this he tosses Burke, and any notion that "the people" have consciously made the decisions they have made, out the window and comes up with an action plan for a commonwealth in the best of all possible worlds.
Previously, he points out something I hadn't thought of, that American Presidents have been increasingly "Imperial" since FDR, and that it's just the insane casting of Trump in this role that has shocked us into noticing this. So, rather than looking at an American version of the fall of the Roman Republic, we're looking at the American version of the end of the Pax Romana and the reign of the Good Emperors. Interesting.
But then he comes up with a Liberal view of what America stands for (something America has never stood for) and expects the people who voted for George W. and Trump to suddenly reveal themselves to be a -- momentarily confused -- philosopher electorate, and right our ship of state. What no one seems willing to acknowledge is that it is our form of democracy that is in question. Just as the Founding Fathers never imagined semi-automatic firearms, they never imagined such an irresponsible and ignorant electorate. (I wouldn't like the electorate they were familiar with either. If you admit that the Enlightenment was naive, then where do you go from there in establishing good government? I have no clue.)
The New Yorker
Someone dropped off a bag of New Yorker magazines the other day that ended up in my care. I've been working through the cartoons. But this evening I noticed a Qualcomm ad on the back page of one issue and thought it might be interesting to note the advertisers today, as compared to back in the 1970s when I was a regular reader. Only there aren't any. Or very few. Here's the list of ads for this issue:1. A full page for Citi -- but American Airlines and Master Card are also visible so it may be co-advertising.
2. A vertical column for The Metropolitan Opera
3. A full page for Accura
4. A full page for ehrmantapestry.com
5. Two vertical columns for The New Yorker Festival sponsored by mastercard and Land Rover
6. A vertical column for healthyish ("a new site from Bon Appetit")
7. A full page for New York Presbyterian Hospital
8. A full page for Qualcomm
9. Two vertical columns split between five advertisers (plus one small ad for the New Yorker. I haven't included self-advertising)
So all together seven full pages of ads out of eighty printed pages. How do they manage to stay in business? Though, with my original thought in mind, the only ads that would have puzzled me in the '70s would be the website and Qualcomm and I guess the Japanese luxury car instead of Lincoln -- who has the first two pages in the next issue I picked up. Maybe the first week of July is not prime time?
No comments:
Post a Comment