Buddhist Marketer

2009’s Most Poopular Posts

Fifth place actually went to a post in which I skewered a former roommate for ruining my curtains, but since he reached out, I have since password-protected the post.  So the new fifth place goes to:

#5. Free Universal Healthcare. Doctor’s Orders.

my commie pinko friend Cameron on Fox Biz as he drops some knowledge regarding why we need universal healthcare at no cash cost.

#4. Fresh Air Fund Taps Bloggers To Spread The Word

let’s pretend that the campaign’s goals were to drive donations (which it isn’t, but I’m being generous): the donation page has no clear “call to action”. Give us a form, people! Create a stand-alone splash page! Too! Many! Places! To! Click!

#3. Collaborative GRE Analytical Writing Scoring

Perhaps, then, the way to approach matters of happiness prerequisites is:  “Only once one stops looking for it can one feel true happiness.”

#2. Marketing Is Still Marketing

So, a year ago, The People wanted Hot Sex On A Platter, and that’s what American Apparel served up.  But now, The Moody People consider that untoward.  A recent cartoon in The New Yorker captured this mood swing nicely: “I’m trying not to flaunt my employment, so I’m not carrying a briefcase these days.”  What do The People want today? They want to feel like the companies with whom they transact aren’t a bunch of greedy douchebaggy corporate welfare recipients.

#1. (Situational) condescension is a moral obligation

the language I speak is often at odds with the language spoken by the dominant status quo — and by definition, the middle chunk of the Bell curve is the dominant status quo. And the dominant language is one that makes others feel good about themselves, gently persuades them to agree that 1+1=2, and blows sunshine up their grade-inflated, “Hooray For Everything”, if-it-weren’t-for-Spanx-it-would-occupy-four-zip-codes backsides.

Oh dear.  What goodies shall 2010 bring?  Will people even read blogs any more?  Or all we all too busy crafting clever replies to our friends’ status updates?

In Other URLs

Other stuff by yours truly:

• Music, memory, and British chicks
• How to organize your AdWords keywords
• Pretty notebooks; Neruda’s “Childhood and Poetry”

Let us wish 2009 a gentle good bye.

9/8/2007

Scribbled on the back of an earlier draft of my work-in-progress “The Grey Dress” (which is based on my first day in Moscow):

From my new home, head south and you hit the East River in a few short blocks.  The promenade is surprisingly empty and commerce-free for such a stunning view on a beautiful night (79 says a red sign in Brooklyn). And most of the people enjoying the stroll are Asian - FOBby.  I imagine the ones fishing are Fukianese. I feel at home as I walk amongst them.

Across the river, I see Empire Ferry State Park, where I did my ritual cleansing.

It seems so small now.

* * * * *

What I don’t talk about, and maybe I should, is that my non-whiteness grants me access to some places.

I feel safe in projects, invisible where my white friends might otherwise stand out.

* * * * *

What a furious constellation of light and sound, this town.  Already I love Manhattan!

Those kids in Waking Life totally had it wrong.  You become a new person, like, as frequently as you allow yourself to.

Dear Santa Claus

I have worked very hard this year and despite the fact that I don’t grow as rapidly as I used to, would still like some new toys for my non-denominational Christmas celebration.  I have conducted extensive research and a thorough needs assessment in order to whittle my list down to three items:

1. Redken Real Control Conditioner.  Because cranky, difficult-to-manage ethnic girls with cranky, difficult-to-manage hair need intensely nourish and moisturize our high-maintenance hair.
2. Redken Extreme Anti-Snap leave-in treatment.  Because, as you know, a dark-haired girl who gets highlights will have difficulty growing out her hair if it keeps breaking off and stuff.
3. Redken Dandruff Control Leave-In Treatment.  This way, if my scalp feels itchy in a spot but I just got my hair did, I don’t need to ruin my ‘do by washing it with Pureology’s DandruffScalpCure for color-treated hair.

By the way, you may want to get your mitts onto Redken for Men’s mint rush hair and body wash to detoxify your skin after flying around in the air all night long …

Love,

Anittah’s hair

Help Me Rebrand Socialism?

I enjoyed a talk by Chris Hedges, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and author of Empire of Illusion, yesterday evening.  During the Q&A, he explained Socrates’ concerns about the book (Socrates was worried about the written word’s negative impact on society versus the oral tradition):

Striving for a moral life is ambiguous.  It cannot be codified.  It becomes orthodoxy when these discussions are written down.

Yes.  Yes of the Stephen Carter “bumper sticker democracy is bad” variety.

His talk was so thought-provoking that I may have to noodle on a marketing campaign for socialism.

Why I Vote Democrat

From the Spring 2009 issue of Equality:

Newt Gingrich, former member of Congress, said in a TV interview, “I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment.”

Let’s sign this boy up for Queer Eye.

Incoming

Took a moment to kick the tires of Google analytics just now; here are some amusing searches that have lead seekers to this blog:

• do buddhists sleep on the floor
• how would a buddhist fix health care
• how to solve social awkwardness
• little debbie donut sticks weight watcher points
• joe jaffe idiot
• oh you can’t get to heaven verses
• what does katherine newbegin shoot with?

Mmmm…  Little Debbie Donut Sticks ….

1. You do not have to sleep on the floor if you are Buddhist
2. But please take your shoes off at the door
3. And don’t point your feet at me

:)

More On Fringe/Justice

The progressive laws of culture are the brilliant work-around to the brutal law of the jungle. So sure, we’ll build access ramps, finance kneeling buses, design J blades and invent push-rim wheelchairs — not out of pity or political correctness but so that a wider range of human talent can enter the fray and win or lose.

From: Randy Cohen’s 2009.11.10 Are High-Tech Prostheses Fair?

What’s In That Needle?

My brother-in-law shares his memories of an ‘88 protest in St. Louis regarding the accessibility of publicly-funded and/or subsidized transportation:

The collectible item of ADAPT apparel for this action was a red and white headband that said: ADAPT met APTA in St. Louis. It was spring 1988, one of our last actions targeting the gatherings of the American Public Transit Association.

This action sticks in my memory because of the comic overreaction of the police. A television news report announcing our coming said police were conducting bomb sweeps in the rooms of APTA’s hotel. We later learned that the police did this at APTA’s behest.

Every time an ADAPT vehicle left the hotel, even to go to the drug store, it was followed by police. As we lined up to begin our marches, police helicopters hovered above.

I remember I was one of those arrested for refusing to disperse from a corridor near where APTA types were meeting. The blind man next to me was told by police that if he was arrested his dog would be sent to the pound and he probably wouldn’t get it back. So, very reluctantly, he dispersed.

They transported all us arrestees to a police lockup and during the processing they did something I’ve never seen police do before or since. They took blood samples. When one guy refused to submit to that he was held down and blood was drawn forcibly. I was among the many others who refused after that. They told us to line up so they could force us all one-by-one later. But so many refused that the police gave up on the drawing blood idea. Our lawyers later filed a lawsuit.

They kept us overnight. We slept in a roomful of cots. They gave us Ziploc bags full of toiletries. The toothpaste tube was white with no label. The watery toothpaste dripped through the bristles of the brush. As I brushed my teeth I spit out bristles. The brush handle was practically bald when I finished. They fed us the standard issue bologna sandwiches — a single slice of bologna smashed between to slices of cottony white bread.

On Tuesday we hit the Greyhound station. Somehow we slipped through the police dragnet and blocked off the St. Louis bus station. After a standoff, an irate, liquored up, stranded passenger stormed out of the terminal. “I’m sick of this shit!’ he barked and he began yanking on wheelchairs. E.T., an African American guy from Denver, resisted by holding tight to his wheels. So the furious drunken guy wrapped his hands around E.T.’s throat and shook him. The police pounced, ripped the guy away and arrested him.

The next day, as we prepared to leave town, there was a newspaper picture of E.T. parked in front of a Greyhound bus and being strangled. And the police commander dropped by our hotel to shake our hands and wish us well. He congratulated and thanked us for conducting a well-organized, nonviolent protest.

Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.

But I’m grateful for folks like Mike and my sister, who raise their fists for “fringe-justice” — injustices that keep our brothers and sisters “on the fringe” from living lives scripted by someone else.  Because it’s the eradication of fringe-justices that help everyone – not just those on the fringe:

• Because curb cut-outs help strollers and gramma carts alike
• Because elevators in the subway help when I have rolling luggage
• Because walking behind a wheelchair during rush hour is like following a firetruck ;)
• etc. etc.

ADAPT’s current work helps make sure your ass doesn’t get thrown into an old lady home if you fumble your swan dive in the hotel pool:

ADAPT is a national grass-roots community that organizes disability rights activists to engage in nonviolent direct action, including civil disobedience, to assure the civil and human rights of people with disabilities to live in freedom.

There’s no place like home; and we mean real homes, not nursing homes. We are fighting so people with disabilities can live in the community with real supports instead of being locked away in nursing homes and other institutions.

Click here to learn more about ADAPT.  Consider giving a donation while you’re at it.

Elsewhere: Gubmint, Career Nirvana, Slothy Content

Killing time while waiting for the cops to show up so that I can fill out a police report.  So, here you go!

• How should governments use web 2.0?  Add your ideas!
• Are you happy to be doing what you do, professionally?
• Content creators:  is your content lazy?  Click here to fix!

Just called them AGAIN and they haven’t even dispatched anyone yet.  I mean skeeriously.