Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 by Ann Logue
John Maynard Keynes, the eminent economist who is back in style, described the stock market as a beauty contest. He asked the readers of his General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money to imagine a newspaper contest featuring six photos, with everyone who picked the most beautiful being eligible for a prize. The prize winners would be rewarded not for picking the person they thought was the best looking, but rather the person that everyone else thought was best-looking. When it comes to stocks, therefore, the key is to pick the companies that you think everyone else will want to buy, because when they buy the shares, they will bid up the price. It doesn’t matter what you think will be the best investment. Instead, you have to guess what everyone else will choose.
Keynes was trying to simplify his explanation of how the market works, but his example turned out to be strangely convoluted. What kind of contest would this be?
But this week, we have a great example of what kind of contest it is: an American Idol pool. Wherever people gather in this great land of ours, they’ll be betting on which person ridiculed by Simon tonight will end up going all the way. (more…)
Tags: American Idol, Carly Smithson, Carrie Underwood, Fantasia Barrino, Jennifer Hudson, John Maynard Keynes, Kelly Clarkson, Simon Cowell
Posted in Current Events, Numberscruncher, Television | View Comments
Thursday, January 7th, 2010 by Jon Cummings
I tried. I tried so hard. You’ve gotta believe me when I tell you how I tried and tried to finish Ayn Rand’s oversize chronicle of obsessive-compulsive capitalism, Atlas Shrugged, over the holidays so that I could wrap up this series today. Alas, somewhere in the early-late-middle of John Galt’s 32,000-word disquisition on “Men of the Mind,” “Mystics of Muscle,” and other assorted (and alliterative) figments of Rand’s imagination, I fell into a long yet fitful sleep. And after numerous horrifying dreams about Welfare Queens with entitlement complexes … not to mention one very lovely vision of a nude Dagny Taggart presenting me with a pristine copy of the novel’s Cliff’s Notes … I awoke to discover I had slept six days, it was 2010, and somehow our republican (though hardly Republican) form of government had survived into the New Year.
Relieved at the knowledge that the teabaggers had it all wrong, and that President Obama’s first calendar year in office hadn’t concluded with the declaration of a “People’s State,” I decided to throttle back my attempt to finish Atlas Shrugged in time for this column. Instead, my wife and I spent the long weekend dreaming up ridiculous reasons to call each other “moocher” and “looter,” and even that most powerful of Rand-ian insults, “loocher.” That last one, in fact, may yet come to replace “Socialist Schmoopy” as our go-to term of mutual endearment.
I’m sure some of you are quite pained to learn that my heretofore sincere quest to devour Rand’s magnum opus has, temporarily at least, devolved into openly mocking pillow talk with the missus. But don’t despair! Thanks to that magical Internet phenomenon known as the “pingback,” I learned this week that one of our nation’s most respected investigative reporters, the extravagantly mustachioed John Stossel, has picked up this hot potato and run with it — preparing an hourlong program on Atlas Shrugged and Rand’s Objectivist philosophy, to be broadcast this very evening at 8 p.m. EST on the Fox Business Network! (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Enron, Fox Business Network, George Clooney, Give me a break!, Jeffrey Skilling, John Galt, John Stossel, Jon Cummings, Political Culture, Up in the Air, Vera Farmiga
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Tuesday, January 5th, 2010 by Ann LogueWhen I was a kid, I had to listen to whatever the DJ picked.
One of the odder decade-end lists was Nielsen’s list of the most-played singles on radio between 2000 and 2009. It’s a head scratcher – “Drops of Jupiter” got more play than “American Idiot” or anything by Coldplay? Usher was bigger than Beyonce or Justin Timberlake? In what universe?
It’s a list that reflects radio programmers who are out of touch with what real people are listening to. In the first decade of the 21st century, the radio broadcasters consolidated to make more money. Led by Clear Channel, which owns 894 radio stations in the United States, the goal was to offer standardized programming everywhere. Clear Channel also promoted concerts and bands, so it offered a seamless package for advertisers.
The problem is that the listeners revolted. No matter how many times they had to listen to it, a line like “the best soy latte you ever had” never inspired drivers to sing along at the top of their lungs. Besides, Clear Channel stations were so packed with commercials that one was lucky to hear a song at all.
So what happened? People at home turned to the Internet. Why listen to yet another ad for herbal impotence preparations when one could hear good music from Santa Monica or the U.K.? It’s ironic, because in the early days of the Internet, the thought was that radio was the perfect complementary medium because you could have it on in the background while you were online. Of course, that’s when we were all using dial-up.
Clear Channel, meanwhile, is losing money, although that’s in part due to debt and restructuring charges from a 2007 merger with Bain Capital and Thomas Lee Partners, two private equity firms. Sirius XM had 18.5 million subscribers as of September 30 of 2009, all of whom were paying about $10 a month (or driving a new car) in order to avoid the dreck of some Morning Zoo DJ telling poo-poo and pee-pee jokes. Sirius is profitable, although not by much; its $500 million contract with Howard Stern cuts into results a bit.
Apple introduced the iPod in 2001 and has since sold more than 220 million of the devices. They are used with iTunes software, which makes it easy for people to listen to their own music when they are at their computer, running on the track, or in the car. Radio Shack sells cigarette-lighter adapters for people with old cars, and most new models have a USB port. Even boring corporate Blackberries have music capabilities so that a road warrior can hear her own music in a hotel room, not whatever the local Clear Channel affiliate wants her to hear.
The result is that all the decade-end music charts are screwed up. They don’t reflect what people listened to. School kids didn’t learn about Soulja Boy on the radio; their friends told them to go home and find the video of the Crank Dat dance on YouTube. Then they watched Dora the Explorer do it. Radio never entered into the equation this decade.
Back in the olden days, the Clash, the Kinks, Rush, and the Ramones wrote hit songs about the magic of radio. That sub-genre of songwriting is dead. Clear Channel is dying. Long live rock.
Tags: Annie Logue, Apple, BBC, Clear Channel, Dora the Explorer, Howard Stern, iPod, KCRW, Numberscruncher, radio, satellite, Sirius, Sirius XM, Soulja Boy
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Thursday, December 31st, 2009 by Robert Cass
Per Second, Per Second, Per Second … Every Second (Aware/Columbia), the 2003 album by Boston-area band Wheat, is the best album of the decade.
Now you know!
This is a totally subjective opinion, of course. I haven’t listened to every album that was released between January 1, 2000, and today. I’m not a professional music writer or critic. I’m not even one of those audio omnivores whose ears devour everything they come across, though in the past ten years — the vaguely named decade that some call “the aughts” — it’s become easy for anyone with access to the Internet to consume more music than ever before.
“File sharing” via programs like Napster was still in its infancy in January 2000. The record industry had no need to panic yet. But one year later Apple’s iTunes software had arrived, and soon the company’s iPods were changing listening habits completely, and then CD sales plummeted, and blogs featuring free music (entire albums — even entire discographies!) multiplied, and record stores disappeared at an alarming rate, and now, ten years later, the industry has many reasons to be worried.
Yet there’s still great music being made. And there always will be. Despite the fact that I’m not an obsessive listener, I am always on the lookout for the Next Great Song, because, like any other music fan, I want the sky to be split open — I want a melody and lyric to enter my brain and refuse to leave for the next several months. And then I want my brain to ask, “Is there more where this came from?”
(more…)
Tags: Andy Sturmer, Brendan Harney, Dave Fridmann, Glen Phillips, Joey Scarbury, John Fields, Miley Cyrus, Neko Case, Ricky Brennan, Scott Levesque, Todd Rundgren, Wheat, William Goldman
Posted in Music, Popdose Interviews, Sugar Water | View Comments
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 by Robert Cass
Now that I’ve got your attention, I’d like to remind you that in late September—
Wow. You’re already not paying attention. You really do think about sex every seven seconds. I thought I was bad, but—
Okay, seriously — stop.
Are you done? May I continue? Good.
As I was saying, in late September the UK website OnePoll.com, which bills itself as “the worlds fastest growing online market research company” (proper punctuation apparently just gets in the way of said growth), released the results of a survey about the world’s best and worst male lovers, which were then published in various newspapers like London’s Telegraph. The results may actually be posted on OnePoll, but it appears you have to log in to see them, which would then require logging out, and all that logging in and logging out, in and out, in and out, in, out, in, out, IN OUT IN OUT YES YES OH GOD YES OH GOD YES YES YEEEEEESSSSSSSS … well, quite frankly, it makes me sleepy.
(more…)
Tags: Arnold Palmer, Carrie Prejean, Congress, David Letterman, Disney, George Orwell, Greg Louganis, Heidi Montag, Jenny Sanford, Levi Johnston, Marge Simpson, Mark Sanford, obesity, Oreo Double Stuf, President Obama, Ryan O'Neal, sex, Tiger Woods, U.S. Congress
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Thursday, December 24th, 2009 by Jon Cummings
I have to admit, I’m a bit conflicted this holiday season. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been going through the motions — spending lots of time at home with my family, plotting how I’m going to shower them with more gifts than they’ll know what to do with. I’ve been doing my bit with Toys for Tots and Cookies for Kids with Cancer, and I’ve been worrying (to the point of clicking that “donate” button again and again) about those folks who have to show up at sports arenas to get health care from volunteers because they can’t afford insurance. I’ve even stuck a buck or two in the Salvation Army pot, even though the folks ringing the bells no longer even bother to dress like Santa.
But something feels wrong about all this holiday “giving” this year. I’ve found myself thinking, shouldn’t I withhold just a bit of that cash, and time, and effort, and spend a little bit more of it on … me? Isn’t that Salvation Army money, and aren’t all those toys and cookies just going to wind up in the hands of folks who ought to get up off their asses and start contributing to society? Looters! And those kids of mine – when are they finally going to start pulling their weight? They’ve been living off me for years, and have they brought one penny into the household coffers? Hardly. Why did I have these kids anyway? Moochers.
Why have I got such a bad feeling about the holidays lately — that they distract us from our natural self-absorption, and encourage altruistic behavior that doesn’t push society forward? I don’t know, but I’m determined to figure it out … eventually. For now, though, it’s back to my exploration of Ayn Rand and her philosophy of all-consuming self-interest, by way of her bottomless pit of polemics, the 1957 novel Atlas Shrugged.
If you’ve been reading along (with this series, if not the 700 pages I’ve conquered to date) you’ll recall that when we last left our protagonists, the industrialists/illicit lovers Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden, they were reeling in the face of a crumbling economy, disappearing peers, and a snooping Mrs. Rearden – or at least they were doing their best to reel, during those few moments when the novel didn’t grind to a halt so that Hank could listen to (or himself offer) yet another long-winded diatribe about how money makes the world go ’round. Well, all that speechifying takes a breather as Part 2 of Atlas Shrugged picks up momentum, becoming a veritable potboiler of creeping Communism, chance encounters in the middle of the night, resignations and re-appearances, and a tour de farce of buck-passing on the Taggart railroad that brings disastrous results. (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life, John Galt, labor relations, race relations, World War II
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Thursday, December 17th, 2009 by Jon Cummings
Here’s the thing about reading Ayn Rand: She forces you to think the way she does. Once you’ve immersed yourself in her black-and-white worldview — and once you’ve adjusted your expectations to accommodate her rhetorical method, in which every fictional event is created as a forum in which she can communicate her notions of good and evil, morality and immorality – it’s hard to avoid applying that same method to the real world around you. Not to reach the same conclusions, necessarily … but to judge every person and situation on her terms, and to use those judgments to create a tidy little moral cocoon around yourself.
It’s fun, really – and dangerous. It’s also becoming more and more common these days, as the news media, Hollywood, religious institutions, and government officials have mastered the skill of tailoring events (what we now call “spinning”) to fit their particular ideological viewpoints. Even as they do so, their audiences/parishioners/supporters increasingly use those institutions to reinforce their own beliefs, and become more attached to whichever news channel, films, churches and politicians provide the information and analysis that will confirm their worldview.
But enough of this sociological bullshit! I put the word “porn” in my headline, and that’s probably why most of you are here, so let’s get on with it. (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, health care reform, John Galt, Jon Cummings, Political Culture, President Obama
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Thursday, December 10th, 2009 by Jon Cummings
When I was a senior in college, instead of prepping for a career as a Rand-ian Master of the Universe with high-level courses in economics or engineering, I chose a pair of classes in Northwestern’s speech department: “Rhetoric of Popular Culture” and “Rhetoric of Popular Music.” The professor for both was a crotchety, hilarious guy named Irv Rein, and I learned so much from him that I can safely say that without those courses I wouldn’t be who I am today – a stay-at-home dad who writes about pop culture for no money. Thanks, Irv!
Professor Rein had wonderful lessons to impart, from the ways in which pop bands were marketed to the “rhetoric” behind shopping center names and layouts: “Check out any shopping mall,” he’d say, “and most likely it’s named after whatever was destroyed in order to build it.” Unfortunately, in order to get to those lessons you’d have to sit through a lot of bullshit. Torrents and torrents of bullshit, really – ramblings that seemed utterly tangential to the stated topic, interspersed with classmates’ idiotic questions and comments that sounded like they came off the message boards at American Idol’s website. At some point during every lecture I’d think to myself, “I can’t believe I’m sitting through this … I’ve got to drop this class” – but then good ol’ Irv would finally get to the point, and the skies would open, the sun would shine, and he’d once again snatch reason from the jaws of inanity.
Right now, two paragraphs into a column that’s supposed to be about Ayn Rand, you’re probably thinking to yourself, “Yeah, Jon, you’ve obviously learned a lot from Professor Rein.” But two paragraphs is nothing! I’ve read 336 pages of Rand’s monument to megalomania, Atlas Shrugged – just under a third of the book — and I’m still waiting for her to cut the shit and get to the point. However, I thought of Irv today because Rand did manage to slip a bit of wisdom onto page 331. Here it is: “By the essence and nature of existence, contradictions cannot exist. If you find [the connection between two facts] inconceivable … check your premises. You will find that one of them is wrong.”
It’s a great set-up for whatever’s to come during the remaining 832 pages. Unfortunately, at the moment I’m still struggling to climb down (temporarily) from Rand’s Tower of Babble. (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, bank bailouts, George W. Bush, Iraq War, Jon Cummings, Political Culture, Tea Party Movement, teabaggers
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Monday, December 7th, 2009 by Jon Cummings
A homework pass to the first commenter who can identify what inspired this column’s headline – without resorting to the Google (honor system!) – and can tell us why The Man is so unhip.
Class, today’s discussion concerns the first five chapters of Ayn Rand’s symphony of self-centeredness, Atlas Shrugged. I’m not the world’s fastest reader, so I’m sorry to disappoint anyone who’s managed to read ahead of me over the four days since I commenced this adventure in politically contrarian scholarship. But I gotta tell you … and here’s an obscure cultural reference … as I’ve worked my way through 125 pages of Rand’s polemic disguised as a novel, I’ve felt like I had mistakenly picked up the first couple of theme-notebook volumes of Henry Fool’s “Confessions.” (If you don’t get the reference, put the bizarre Hal Hartley film in your Netflix queue.) I’m already wondering if this thing is ever going to end.
That said, I must admit that Atlas Shrugged is far more gripping than I expected it to be – even if, half the time, it’s gripping in the way that a gruesome five-car collision commands the attention of passers-by on the freeway. I’m a sucker for stories full of workplace intrigue and political manipulations, so I’m having a surprisingly easy time tolerating Rand’s endless exposition and the most unfathomable attempts at dialogue I’ve ever read. As for the Objectivism … I suppose if I’m to read one work of delusional right-wing fiction this holiday season, I’m glad it’s this rather than, say, Going Rogue. (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Henry Fool, John Galt, Jon Cummings, Meg Ryan, Objectivism, Political Culture, Tom Hanks
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Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 by Jon Cummings
Objectivism is back, baby! Don’t take my word for it – just check out this cover of the libertarian monthly Reason, which offers up a freaky old Audrey Hepburn-meets-the-wicked-witch photo of the philosophy’s founding fussbudget, Ayn Rand. Sales of Rand’s polemical novels apparently are on the rise in recent months – a replay of the uptick her works enjoyed in 1993-94, the last time one of those awful Democrats ascended to the White House and inspired an anti-government panic. This time, Rand’s ideas have come to serve as a rallying cry among tea-party protesters (not to mention their less-rabid conservative brethren) who positively despise the bailouts, loathe the prospect of expanding entitlements, and generally obsess over the need to hold onto whatever small portion of their paychecks the government hasn’t already confiscated. As a result, her tomes The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have returned to the display tables at your local Big Box Boox, and a film version of the latter novel might finally emerge from its half-century of Development Hell, with names such as Brangelina and Charlize Theron currently attached.
It’s understandable, at a moment when the GOP is in such a shambles that citizens self-identify as “conservative” at twice the rate they identify as “Republican,” that increasing numbers of fiscal conservatives are searching frantically for something to say “yes” to even as they scream “no” at everything else. But what most of Rand’s new teabag followers probably fail to recognize, at least to this point, is that objectivism is about much more than taxes and government spending. It’s about each individual’s mandate to be the hero of his own life, to take nothing from anyone else – and, for the most part, to give nothing in return. Objectivists – and yes, I know a few, including some in-laws from whom I will no doubt catch hell just for embarking upon this endeavor – see themselves as the most clear-eyed and realistic of humans, and call their philosophy one of “self-reliance.” Many others, however — including conservatives who agree with Rand’s disdain for government but can’t abide her dismissal of religion, romantic love and other communitarian constructs — tend to view objectivism as little more than unabashed, trumped-up selfishness.
It will come as no surprise to regular readers that I’ve always counted myself among the latter group, even to the point of thinking up a pithy little insult that I’ve already tossed around once or twice in this space: “Selfishness isn’t a political philosophy, it’s a character flaw.” (more…)
Tags: A Liberal Reads Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, ayn rand, Jon Cummings, Libertarianism, Objectivism, Political Culture, Republican Party, Tea Party Movement, teabaggers
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