Friday, August 29, 2008

Comcast Meets Cornel West

Comcast has a monopoly on Internet bandwidth. Without any serious competition, the company can do much as it pleases. Cornel West? Well, I saved the best for last.

Comcast announced that Internet access will be capped at 250 GB/month starting October 1st.

"Customers who top 250 GB in a month twice in a six-month time-frame could have service terminated for a year."

Although the cap is relatively high by standards today, this move sets a precedent that other ISPs will follow. As streaming audio and video technology expands, Comcast sees a threat to its cable TV service.

Rather than build capacity to provide the Internet services people want, Comcast is moving toward ever-higher Internet access charges. This, fundamentally, is the problem when private corporations are given near-monopolies in a market segment. Comcast is a veritable monopoly telling customers what customers will not do. If cable TV and Internet were nationalized, access to information would be democratized with an emphasis not on the "bad" customers, but on how can TV and Internet service be improved to meet the desires of the American citizens.

The news today is exemplary of the continuing corruption of the American lifeways. Citizens are repeatedly reminded by monopolistic corporations that everything the corporation does is a gift to the citizens for which we pay dearly. We should be grateful we have any Internet access. We should be grateful to pay $50/month. We should think about those "bad" people using up too much of the Internet.

Our culture is turned upside down by the corporate worldview. Money and power concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of the super-rich push concepts of self-loathing and fear upon the citizenry. What we get is an effective propaganda campaign to dissipate the self-respect of the people. We're all consumers, only. We are condemned to a tiny box of passive consumption: told what to want, what to buy, what is good social behavior and what is not.



I ascribe to the shocking notion that what you, or I want, matters, and by corollary, what Comcast or any other corporation wants, doesn't matter. I don't give a damn what Comcast wants, or asserts. I want to know what I think and what I want. When I get around to it, I want to know what you, the individual, thinks also. When I know myself well enough to know what I want, then you and I can have a meaningful, productive dialogue. You and I can make decisions regarding our shared wants, and shared priorities. To know what you want, you must first give yourself the respect, and the time, to think your own quiet thoughts. This is a radical, revolutionary concept in American culture.

I don't know how to do this, without turning off the TV, the radio, the telephone, the iPod, and yes--the computer.

If democracy has any meaning, I suggest that this is a fair definition. Democracy was a wildly radical idea in the late 1700's, and it remains a wild, radical idea today. What is called democracy today is a dog and pony show held by the people who own this country. You get to pick the president---after they have sorted the short list. Much like asking a slave, Do you want to work in the cotton field, or the kitchen? Your choice.

When Comcast tells us we can limit our downloads, or else have our Internet access terminated, they are exercising illegitimate authority--but you would not know this from reading any "news." The background assumptions of the media includes an expectation that we have been so deeply indoctrinated in the modern cultural belief system that we function at an autonomic level as if corporations rule the world, and naturally, they tell us all what we can, and cannot do. If you don't accept that premise, then you're un-American. That's a scam. That's propaganda. That's culture.

It is my assertion that human culture itself is propaganda. No more; no less. Every cultural system is loaded with assertions inculcated at a deep, unconscious level, which are a mix of the transmission of the historical patterns of behavior (status quo, "we've always done it this way," and "honor the founding fathers," effectively, memes), and more recent intentional machinations of the elite. Each of us is confronted--as adults, as individuals--with sorting out what we like of the cultural heritage package, and and what we want to throw out. Likewise, we are confronted with sorting out the real messages emanating from the rich and powerful. Maybe, just maybe, you and I don't want to do, what they tell us to do. What posses a challenge in the modern world is that every cultural conveyance of information---is owned by the rich, and operated (not surprisingly) to promote the rich getting richer.

Understanding that TV--all of it--every silly sitcom as well as every commercial--is corporate propaganda is an empowering revelation. To discover the self, in the modern technological world, is a radical and shocking undertaking.

Every era of human cultural existence, at least since the agricultural revolution, poses an identical dilemma within differing historical contexts: what is the role of power, who has it, who does not, and is centralized power legitimate?



What passes for news is pure corporate propaganda. The U.S. could have free high-speed Internet access to all, which it should have. No, we will be told in the corporate media to stay in our little corporate cubicles, in our corporate towers, and wonder if the guy in the next cubicle is using too much of Comcast's Internet.

Access to the Internet in the richest nation on the planet should be provided free to everyone. EVERYONE---FREE....what a concept.

The right to access to information has always been tightly controlled by the cultural elites. Want to go to UC Berkeley or Stanford just because you want to learn? Want access to the Internet? Pay up, buddy! Crack open that wallet. Let's see some greenbacks. Effectively, the poor get screwed and the middle class is put in it's proper place as passive paying consumers. The principle reason the rich tolerate the middle class is because the middle class pays the bills to make the rich, rich. The poor do not exist, or worse, they are demonized as failures or indolent. If you can't find a job, and if you are not working 60 hours each week, then you don't deserve to have access to Comcast's Internet. The world according to Comcast is divided between Dial-up Dummies, and those respectable citizens--the Comcast Cognoscenti.

In a society that claims democracy as a guiding principle, controlling access to information is tryannical. A BIG corporation, owned and controlled by a SMALL group of very rich people, own access to the Internet. Today, they told us that some of us are BAD people, and we should be indignant about our BAD neighbors. Don't ask any questions. Don't ask why is Comcast determining who is bad, and who is not bad.

This worldview promulgated by the elite is an internalized belief system presenting corporations as acceptable, valuable, honorable institutions in a democracy. They aren't. Corporations are the new slavery. Someday, in some distant future, corporations will not exist. Consciousness always grows, always expands inexorably. People will come to experience "the corporation" as we have experienced other forms of slavery. That moment in distant history will witness the people ending the tyranny of the workplace, and the tyranny of the marketplace, and the tyranny of the home.

Today, Comcast came into our homes to tell us that some of us are bad. The corporate news media regurgitated this worldview. Do you believe it? Are some of us bad for using too much of Comcast's Internet?

Who owns information, and who controls access to information is a crucial matter for any aspiring democracy to determine. I can't think of a more important question, unless, perhaps, defining free speech, but what matter is free speech if we have nothing substantive to discuss? We have all the free speech one could possibly imagine--as long as it's not a question related to substantively questioning who owns this country, and why do we allow them to own it? CNN is on 24 hours a day, 7 days each week, but you will never hear anyone on CNN asking this quesion. Why not? Because the people who own CNN don't want you to ask this question.



The people who own access to the Internet, and own the news media, don't want you to think much about anything. The very question of who controls access to information is not allowed. We are not permitted to think outside the narrow range of "approved" thoughts. How many times were you asked what you want today? How many times are we told that something is not "politically feasible" like free health care for all, or free Internet access for all? First, you are not permitted to think it, and if you do, it's not "politically feasible" therefore, forget it.

This is the cynical strategy embraced by the Democrats. They have abandoned the fight for the people. Be reasonable, they say. Don't think "politically infeasible" thoughts. Don't fight for anything. Don't hold any principles. Everything is morally relative to what Comcast, or any other corporation, tells us is "acceptable" thinking. In fact, it's un-American to think. That sums it up. Why is anyone surprised that the college SAT scores continue to plummet, as recently reported in the mainstream media? Come on! Be a team player! Get with the times! Dumb it down! Smile! Be happy! Go shopping!

I am terrified by the Obama campaign. Absolutely terrified. He's presented to us as progress in American politics. Is he? Was Margaret Thatcher a resounding cultural achievement in the United Kingdom? Obama is a right-wing candidate who just happens to be black. Some black people, such as Cornel West we will never see as the Democratic nominee for president. Why not? Go read up on Cornel West, for whom I have enormous respect. Everyone should know Cornel West. Obama? We can readily dismiss as a product of corporate advertising: all show and no go. West for President. Where do I sign up?

Obama is the Democratic candidate because Obama's policies appeal to the people who own this country, people like those who run Comcast. Obama is a Comcast kinda guy--a Comcast Cognoscenti.

Is that it? We are told to choose between the neo-fascist McCain and the right-wing Obama. That's it? Is that all there is to American politics? That's all the owners of this country allow.

I'd catch the next plane to Norway, except I don't want to freeze my ass off every winter. Come to think of it, maybe global warming isn't such a bad idea after all...

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Letter to a Scientist in the Third World

Dear Professor,

Fear of science is one of the frontiers of human understanding.

Not just in the third-world, but here in the "West" as well. Colleges and universities want physics and chemistry, but they don't want scientists to connect physics and chemistry with human existence.

Science is about speaking truth to irrational and illegitimate power. Science is democracy of information. Science is antithetical to every social force that concentrates knowledge and power.

To teach science, in contrast to teaching technology, is to teach critical thinking. This is the core of the Enlightenment and the core of freedom.

To teach science is to teach students that it is okay to talk back to power. Colleges and universities exist as a tense battlefield between the forces of those seeking truth and beauty, and those seeking power and domination.

I don't think I will be teaching science at Bicol University. Science is not wanted. They want you to teach physics and keep your mouth shut about the chemistry of human physiology--about the evolution of human chemistry.

Every institution of learning struggles between the path of culturally-safe job training, and culturally dangerous intellectual exploration of reality. The battle for science is the battle for reality as we know it, versus the illusions of cultural power.

Science is democracy realized. Science is teaching critical thinking. is freedom.

Teaching science honors the intellect of the poorest student and shines light on the dark corners of illegitimate power.

I won't be teaching any science at Bicol University. I suspect they fear it.

The greatest challenge in the third world is not jobs, but superstition, fear, and the infantilization of colonial religion.

To teach science is to empower the poor. To teach technology is in service to the subjugation of the poor to those who know the difference between science and technology. To know the difference is to know the difference between self-respect and oppression.

Science is liberating; technology is oppression.

Regards,
Mark Mason

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Whither Democracy? Bangkok, Not Denver

While the Democrats offer TV illusions of change in Denver, democracy is breaking out in Bangkok.

People fed up with the corruption in Thailand have taken over the prime minister's compound, Government House, in Bangkok, Thailand.

The future of democracy lies in Asia and South America, not the United States. This is where inspiring progressive movement creeps forward under the pressure of the enlightened and courageous. The U.S. is heading toward a slick neo-fascist state as "Our Leaders" offer alternative visions of fear, and comforting smooth talk. TV offers glowing illusions of expanding opportunity. Obama is just another product of corporate advertising: The telemarketing, infomercial, sound-bite candidate. Mass-produced; pre-packaged, pre-approved, and pre-programmed live-action figure.

As Seen on TV!!! Available soon at an election booth near you!!! Order Obama or McCain now for your free tax-rebate gift!!!

Should politicians be required to wear blazers emblazoned with the logos of the corporations which bankroll their campaigns? NASCAR drivers have no problem with acknowledging that they are bought and sold. Truth in advertising is lacking in American politics.

Bright is the light in Thailand tonight. What the protesters in Bangkok don't know is that they have offered the gift of light to the world. Shame on Denver; shame on the Dems. The Denver sham is too deep and too cynical to survive even the pernicious reality distortion machine of American corporate TV.

Thank you, Bangkok.
Thank you, for your expression of courage.
Thank you, for this gift to we-the-lost in the US. Can we see beyond the Denver dog and pony show? Would it be possible to hear your message through the din of deception in Denver?

While citizens in Bangkok wave flags of freedom...
Democrats in Denver wave flags of AT&T and Lockheed Martin.



(Photos of Bangkok protesters by Gerry Popplestone.)

Naomi Klein: Corruption of the Anti-War Movement

Naomi Kkein hits the proverbial nail on the head with an honest look at the moral corruption of the "establishment" American progressive organizations:


Thursday, August 21, 2008

Wardriving: Home Office Hackers


Wardriving: What you don't know about WiFi networks could ruin your whole day.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The New News

Calling them alternative news is a misnomer. Better that we label TV "news" as infotainment than as news.

A recent report from the Pew Research Center identified several trends in American news access.

Ranging from time-wasters such as Paris Hilton, to blatant corporate propaganda, TV "news" is still the major source of "news" for Americans, with trends in certain demographic groups as they move toward Internet news sources. The most interesting shift, to my way of thinking, is the decrease in news access of any kind by those under 25 years of age. This group is bowing out of news entirely.

Recognizing that CNN, NBC, and the other corporate news offerings are junk food for the mind is easy enough. Finding meaningful alternatives is not easy. I've listed the news sources I frequently find enlightening:

One note: We get what we pay for when it comes to news. "Free" TV news is worth exactly what we pay for it: Nothing. Consider making a donation to an online news source when you discover one of value to you. I completely stopped watching TV news years ago. Never regretted it. (no, I don't think much of PBS News Hour or of NPR, either).

My News Sources

News does matter. As Bill Moyers has said, "What you don't know can kill you." What takes a lifetime to discover is that what is offered up on TV as news--isn't.

Saturday, August 16, 2008

Mixing Cold Capitalism with Hot Politics

It is the responsibility of intellectuals to speak the truth and expose lies. ~Noam Chomsky

I have been known to fix computers (and more explicitly networks), but I'm not a "computer repairman." Much of my adult life has been devoted to the search for truth--beginning with the painfully familial extending naturally outward to the local, the national, and beyond to the international, and I would even say, the cosmic.

What is humankind's place in the grand scheme of things? What is my place in the family, the community, the state, and the cross-cultural? What is the nature of the self? What is human nature? What is the nature of human society? What is natural (fixed in the human genome) as contrasted by what is artificial or historical (the combination of culturally-inherited behavior, attitudes, and beliefs, as well also the institutions)--distinguishing biochemical genes from cultural DNA.

Understanding the use and abuse of power, spanning the nuclear family to the nuclear nation, constitutes the core curriculum of the social sciences. The first lesson is that truth is subversive: in the family, in the workplace, in the school, and in the state. What Galileo saw was trivial. He observed moons circling Jupiter. Power seeks the maintenance of power, not truth. When power controls mass communication, as it does so in the context of corporate ownership of the mass media, precipitates a clash of intentions. The overt stated intention of journalism as an enterprise speaking the truth collides with the maintenance of power. Within the context of the abusive family, the truth is hidden by mental violence in the form of threats, and by direct physical violence. Within the context of the modern nation-state, the suppression of truth is maintained less so by violence than by sharp constraints on what is thinkable. Propaganda is culturally plausible substitutes for truth--in service to centralized power. Education in the family and education in the state-sponsored schools is ineluctably propaganda. Wherever power is arbitrary propaganda is present.

The presence of variable systems of social behavior is an expression of the human genetic system, and of a biological adaptive strategy.

Whether or not humans possess a free will is curiously debatable. We are profoundly constrained by DNA, and yet possess choices constrained also by what is culturally permissible to imagine. The principle battle within large, modern human cultures is the battle over "The Thinkable." What constitutes conscious thought; and what is inculcated unconscious dogma." In a functional sense, the maintenance of a functional social system takes biological precedence over ideas of truth and justice. Truth is subordinate to functionality.

Biologically, the degree to which humans can found social systems on concepts of truth and justice is unknown, but the moral imperative is to act as if this is possible. A cogent argument can be made that concomitant with the radical expansion of the human population following the technological invention of agriculture, the general human condition deteriorated. With the advent of the Enlightenment (the end of feudalism and monarchy) the general human conditions in Europe improved. Perhaps two factors are central: understanding sanitation, and expanding the realm of "The Thinkable" among the masses.

Power and wealth work hard to constrain the thinkable. The powerful are content with what is. The status quo defines a cultural snapshot. The educational system (run by the state, in service to the status quo) constricts and contracts what is thinkable.

The great achievements of the intellectual class have been realized by those who have constructively and insightfully disconnected from education-as-propaganda. The intellectual has gained freedom from"the ignorance of the educated class."

Whether one studies the dynamics of evolutionary biology or the dynamics of international affairs (at a historical juncture where the nation-state is dogma), the two intersect in the study of power: the dynamics of chemical energy at one end, and the dynamics of cultural energy at the other.

The only thing that interferes with my learning is my education. ~ Albert Einstein

Friday, August 15, 2008

Cool Mac Tool: Today


Today makes today easier to manage.

This tiny tool does one thing and one thing well: it's a pop-up window on your Mac displaying your iCal schedule for today. Appointments, tasks, phone calls to make, lunch engagment? Today has today's meetings, greetings, and deadlines, with times, sitting on your Mac desktop.

Cool Tool.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Cat Litter and Mandarin Oranges


Running low on Mandarin oranges was bad enough, but the absence of cat litter made a trip to CostCo imperative.

Blithely stocking up on these essentials and a couple of non-essentials, I thought surely, this is where I can kick back and disengage from the larger world. Perhaps I've done too much for one day; too much for this week. What does it matter that I agonize over American foreign and domestic policies? Shouldn't I just be like everyone else and just shut up? CostCo was surely the place to cocoon from it all while I pick over the oranges and fondle a new home theater DVD player that didn't make it into my shopping cart.

The checkout lines were blissfully short. Walking up to the conveyor belt, a store employee pulls the few items in my cart onto the black belt.

"Hi, how are you today? CostCo card?, invites the young female checkout clerk. I hand her the black and red card, as she scans the items from the black belt.

"Do you know which Latin American country is the most dangerous?, the clerk asks me as she scans the oranges and cat litter with the grace and ease of an Olympic gymnast.

I don't know quite how to take this, but venture a bite. Why aren't we talking about the weather or the the juicy oranges?, I wonder to myself. "Oh, I don't know... Argentina?" I ventured.

"No," she replied.

"Uruguay?" I offered.

"No." Again she says, this time with greater confidence.

"Ummmm..."

"El Salvador!" she declared with the countenance of a college professor.

"Ahhhh, interesting......interesting"........and after a pause I notice the customer behind me less than thrilled with my dialog with the checker, but we had the attention of the checker's assistant.

"Do you know why?" I asked.

Blank stare............................

I posed the question again; this time more formally. "Do you know why El Salvador is the most dangerous country in Latin America?"

Blank stare........................... accompanied by much discomfort.

"Because your tax dollars spent by the CIA to arm and train the death squads makes El Salvador the most dangerous country in Latin America."

I swiped a bank debit card through the electronic reader to pay for my purchase.

Pausing over the checkout register, the bright, young checkout woman reflected,........."Really?"

"Yes, really."

L took the receipt for my purchase and walked out the door, melding insight with sunlight.

This is what it's all about. The crux of the problem with corporate news media and state-sponsored education lies with the disconnection between facts and meaning.

I know no other life experience that demonstrates the failure, or the intentional design, of our educational system and television "news" -- indeed, the entire cultural context of understanding our place in the world.

History and "civics" is not about names, dates, and events. It is no wonder that so few Americans know anything about American history. The way it's taught is enough to put anyone immediately to sleep.

The fact that El Salvador is "the most dangerous country in Latin America" is meaningless and vacuous without context, and that crucial context is frequently missing from corporate news, or that context is fabricated by the powerful and passed off on Americans as truth.

The only thing of any importance that can be taught in schools is critical thinking. Nothing else matters, and I do mean nothing. Loaded up with facts, students and Americans are pushed into a a desert of facts, unknowingly starved for meaning. Glazed over, the eyes--like LED indicators--indicate the deadening of the brain behind.

It is as if corporate media and state schools live by the rules of Supersize Me. More is better. More facts, More news, news now, 24/7 CNN news; Internet news. instant news, RSS news, News on your cellphone. News at 6, News at 11; news news, news. Have you heard the news?

Corporate news, and state-sponsored primary and secondary education push people down a path of fact overload, with a dearth of meaningful context. USA TODAY.

As in the movie Supersize Me, the lack of meaning and context can kill you. Fast food; Fast facts. Empty calories of facts do not a meaningful meal make.

I will never again enter CostCo with the same mind. Every moment matters. People need to know the truth, and are starved for meaning and context. Never doubt it.

The Mandarin oranges are sweet; the cats revel in flicking sand upon the floors of intentional irony.

Serious People Have Serious Enemies

Serious People Have Serious Enemies ~ Maude Barlow

If I'm not pissing off some corporate hack every day, I'm not living right.

Power, money, and vast feel-good public relations campaigns does not a moral institution make.

Each of us must decide whether to serve the interests of power, and the abuse of power, or to serve humankind. Biting the hand that feeds me is not easy. Nothing worthwhile is easy.

The most important lesson I learned from having a doctorate from U.C. Berkeley is to talk back to power. Nothing is more difficult. Nothing is more forcefully resisted, spanning from the tacit coercion of the educational system itself that pushes for conformity and complicity with power.

Finding a source of inner reward, and outer reward, for resisting the abuse of power, corporatte and stae power, is a great challenge. State-sponsored schools, and the corporate workplace are shaped to punish critical thinking and expression.

I piss off people every day. Every day I lose clients, and potential clients, because I reject service to corporate power.

The home office, and the nonprofit, can be relatively free of corporate coercion.

It's not enough to make money, but making money must fit within a context of moral action.

Every human action is a moral action.

To perform my consulting services by hiding my belief system would be opportunistic and dishonest, although that is the standard model of "professional consulting." I reject the standard model.

Making the right enemies is the right thing to do. Making no enemies is the path of complicity with the abuse of state and corporate power. Few acts are more difficult that "talking back to power." Some of us are punished from infancy onward to avoid "talking back." One of the most important lessons to impart to a child is that it's okay to "talk back."

The truth is subversive and dangerous, but authenticity has it's own deep psychic rewards.

Are you making the right enemies today?

External Hard Drives for Macs

I do not recommend Western Digital hard drives for Macs. The WD My Book drives are sold at CostCo, Fry's, and many other outlets. AVOID THEM. These drives have certain incompatibilities with Macintosh computer systems.

Maxtor One Touch drives are acceptable but you would be paying a premium for the useless One Touch gimmick. Seagates and some other hard drives are okay, but I recommend OWC (Other World Computing) external hard drives for use as Time Machine backup drives. OWC has provided drives with full Mac compatibility, reasonable prices, and excellent service, in my experience.

FireWire is faster than USB. Many OWC drives offer combined FireWire and USB connectivity.

Unless otherwise stated, hard drives are not formatted for most efficient Mac usage. If you are not sure, check with me. I find many clients using external hard drives that are not fully compatible with the Macintosh operating system. PC-formatted drives will mount on the desktop and files can be copied to such drives, but I do not recommend using such drives for long-term backup service.

Check the warranty period and the return policy on any drive purchase.

I do not work for, or otherwise receive any compensation from, OWC or any other computer hard drive outlet.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Gore Vidal: The National Security State


The American Aristocracy

Follow-up Notes on Near-term Availability:

1) I am challenging the management class that constitutes a significant segment of my consulting business. Education, particularly college education, is funded by the state with the principle goal of churning out a managerial class which buys into the maintenance of corporate power. The danger of post-secondary education is attenuated by exerting enormous pressure on students to focus on jobs. This is essentially job training, not education. Education, the promotion of critical thinking and analysis, is dangerous to the maintenance of corporate and state power. Indeed, it's dangerous to the institutions of education which are themselves authoritarian. While at U.C. Berkeley as a graduate student, the enormous social pressure to recognize and conform to the authoritarian hierarchy within the University was blatant.

The American corporate management class has an enormous psychological stake in being blind to tyranny. College is about buying into the illegitimacy of corporate power, and more deeply buying into corporatism. The great hope of the managerial class is to become a member of the hidden American corporate aristocracy. Job ads admonish applicants to be a "team player." Show me an ad extolling the virtues of "speaking truth to power" but that is the very nature of critical thinking and what I define as education. Everything else is "job training." The latter is antithetical to democracy. Show up, don't talk back, turn in assignments on time, respect the chain of authority. This is public education and corporate workplace defined, and it is the antipodes of democracy: Don't show up, talk back much, and reject authority, exercises critical thinking.

Talking back much is the core functional component of democracy. I saw precious little of it while teaching. Students learn early on (by the second grade?), that the educational system is rife with hypocrisy.

Paradoxically, the most ardent advocates of corporate tyranny (and state tyranny by analogy), as well as the most resistant to critical thinking, are the most highly-educated segments of society: the managerial class. The illusion, and arrogance, of the managerial class is that they possess independence and freedom, but in fact are the most rigidly constrained by stereotypical, automatic behavior. Drones. The self-perceived value of the managerial class is defined by the very existence of the underclass, which the former manage, as a corporate aristocracy.

The great internal challenge for the corporate aristocracy is to function as an apparatchik of the American feudal economic system while mouthing the words of democracy. No oxymoron is more evident in American society.

The goal of modern, state public schools is to produce conformity, while internalizing an illusion of independence and freedom. The least free people in society are the educated class because they have the greatest stake in maintaining the status quo.

2) ....to be continued.

iPhone YES, MobileMe NO

Avoid MobileMe

The new Apple syncing tool that replaced DotMac recently is to be presently avoided. I do not recommend the service due to the numerous bugs and outages since inception.

iPhone YES, MobileMe NO

The new iPhone is an excellent piece of hardware for the home office. No reservations here.

Near-term Availability of FixMacs Consulting

Please be advised: That you may have a task or two in your home office, in the near future---

I want to thank all of you for calling upon me to work on your home office computer systems. Your interest is greatly appreciated.

I do want to note that I may be leaving the country for six months or a year. Teaching in Southeast Asia is a possibility. I will know definitively in about a month if I will be departing.

I am so fed up with the neo-fascist political system in the U.S., and the fake parties and fake candidates that I would like a taste of reality. Precious little reality can be found here. Asia is where it is happening. The future lies west in the East. "Go West Not So Young Man" for going west is going East.

If I do go, I won't leave before late September.

As a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, I may be teaching and working for progressive social change in Southeast Asia. As one who deals in millions of years, one life is rather on the short side of things. There's no time for fakery within the context of my own tiny circles.

Keep in mind that the corporate media, owned by corporations, are operated for the benefit of---- you guessed it, corporations. Sadly, much the same can be now said about the schools, and increasingly so about the colleges, too. Teaching at Sacramento State recently was profoundly depressing, with students unable to read or write simple English,. Then there are the phony corporate politicians, and the fake elections. Tweedle Dee vs. Tweedle Dum. It's a scam. I thought I might find something constructive to do elsewhere on the planet for a while. I will go where everyone knows the government is corrupt., and knows that the U.S. is just another brutal empire. No illusions out there. The astonishing ignorance of the American populace is a tribute to the pervasive indoctrination systems of public education and TV.

"You can't be neutral on a moving train." Howard Zinn. If we are not part of the "fix," then we are part of the problem.

So, the upshot is that if you have home office computer system projects in mind. I will be around until the end of September with a degree of certainty.

Regards,
Mark Mason

Friday, August 01, 2008

What's Wrong With This Picture?


Oil giants Chevron Corp. and Total SA wrapped up a string of gargantuan, record-breaking earnings reports Friday, a stretch in which six of the major international oil companies topped $50 billion in combined profit for the first time.

AND...



Thousands of state workers were told to stay home Friday under an order by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger aimed at cutting expenses for California's cash-strapped government...

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