Capitalism - Feudalism without the Kings

Tax the Rich

 

Website Wednesday

 

I started this blog in October of 2008 because I feared a McCain victory and thought: Can I really do anything to help Obama? (I should have said: Can I really do anything to help capitalism as we know it? But that's a story for another day.) I knew the internet and I had been writing since I could first form letters so I combined the two and, as they say, here I am almost four years later.

 

All my blog posting pretty faithfully three times a week for all this time was predicated on the fact that I had watched both Gore and Kerry refuse to effectively deflate negative ads and bold lies throughout the 2000 and 2004 campaigns. Especially nasty was the swift boating of Kerry and his inability to deflect the lies. I watched lies become memes and memes become truth. Never did I think that my blog postings changed anyone's mind but it was/is cathartic for me.

 

I mentioned on Monday that I would get back to W. Joseph Campell who wrote Getting It Wrong where he discusses 10 major journalistic myths (Walter Cronkite's anti-Vietnam broadcast turned the country against that war, etc.) and how they became memes and finally false, still-believed truths. During both those campaigns I mentioned above, I saw this happen and just the other day someone commented sarcastically on a blog how Gore invented the internet, so the lies do live on.

 

W. Joseph Campbell (I'm hoping most of you realize the irony of this man's name and the myth-busting field he has chosen, but if you don't, google Joseph Campbell you'll see what I'm talking about.) teaches journalism at American University, has written the book mentioned above, and maintains a blog which is my first website pick for today:

 

 http://mediamythalert.wordpress.com/

 

Media Myth Alert says about itself: Media Myth Alert is a Web log that periodically calls attention to the appearance and publication of media-driven myths — stories about and/or by the news media that are widely believed and often retold but which, under scrutiny, prove to be apocryphal or wildly exaggerated.

 

This type of blog is important for all of us to check, especially with what promises to be a vile, fear-driven, fact-deprived US presidential campaign looming.

 

Also in my reading travels, I learned that if we, humans, do nothing to correct global warming by 2025 we'll hit the tipping point. Now, "tipping point" is a pithy phrase and I'm sure a lot of people think: Well, we can fix it then. Like we won't tip over the cliff but back to the safe ground. Unfortunately, we can't. Think of it like climbing a tall, very thin tree. If you get too high, your weight is taking you and the tree down - and the fall will not be into new-mowed hay.

 

Definitions of tipping point often contain the word "irreversible" so I thought: Maybe I should just be happy for the the next 13 years? Maybe Alfred E. Neuman was right with his "What Me Worry?"

So, in keeping with my new devil-may-care attitude, here's a neat website:

http://www.instructables.com/

Instructables says of itself: Instructables is a web-based documentation platform where passionate people share what they do and how they do it, and learn from and collaborate with others. The seeds of Instructables germinated at the MIT Media Lab as the future founders of Squid Labs built places to share their projects and help others
 
Just clink Explore in the top bar and you'll be taken to pages and pages (How many? you ask. Well, over 4000!) of instructions for making just about anything. On its current first page, among other things, are a recipe for a delicious-looking crunchy caramel cake and directions for making an Arduino Solar Tracking Robot.

Now, I have no idea what a solar tracking robot is but the directions are so clear that I know I could make one. A click on page 4 gets you directions for a rain water filter and interior solar lighting. 

 

I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the directions but I love the whole concept of this site. There’s nothing phony about the sincerity of the participants for their projects. Click on Living in the side bar and you get a long clickable list with even a separate category of Yarn! Not only am I impressed with the inclusion of yarn as a category but a quick look at some of the directions shows me that people worked very hard to make their project instructions obvious to all.

So, whether doom looms with the approaching climate tipping point or we all do get to make a soft landing, visit Instructables often. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.