Last week, he was my temp. intern, helping out with the tea making, while I was editing the book, in the evenings. Now it’s hit the Amazon shelves, he’s given himself an upgrade, and let himself into a few of my social media accounts into the bargain. Still, there were some nice surprises, on launch day, including a recorded Q message. He may be a secret agent, but he’s coming out of his shell a lot. This book has done wonders for him, I tell ya!
If you’re on hols for Thanksgiving, or don’t do Thanksgiving, but free to go to the movies, I’d love to meet you there. Starts in five minutes, and I’ve saved you a seat. Hope you like Westerns, and I’ve left a ticket at the ticket office for you. (settles in with a bag of non-cattle-rustly sweets, and a soder pop.
A big shoutout to the kind reader who hooked me up with this Wikipedia page, which discusses Howard S. Becker’s social theory of “Moral Entrepreneurs”. I found it really interesting, particularly in relation to the idea of splitting this group into Rule Creators, and Rule Enforcers, and studying their role in society, along socio-economic lines, and I wanted to read more, after my interest had been stimulated by this always relevant topic. I came across this WordPress site, which expanded on the topic, and I thought my readers might find it interesting.
Ok, so Christmas is over, and the cheesy decorations are down. The extra pounds and broken resolutions are all that remain. But you can still loll about on the weekends in your pyjamas, and if it looks like it’s not going to stop raining ’till June, never fear, ‘cos the internet’s here.
When I was a kid ‘Now, Voyager’was one of my favourite ‘girl’ movies, the sort of movie I used to always miss the first few minutes of on Saturday afternoons, when my big brother used to try to switch the station on me, and I used to silently hope there wasn’t a cowboy movie on the other station. The heroine in this one had an even tougher time with her mum than I had with my brother, and I was delighted with the twists and turns of the story, which is shown in full below. Leave your brain in the off position and enjoy the afternoon matinee. As for you lads out there, leave that button alone. Click here to see movie
Image: reneelouise21.wordpress.com
Favourite moment: “Don’t ask for the moon – we have the stars.”
I think Scott Erb makes a good point here, that you don’t have to be Adolf Hitler to be a Fascist, you just have to believe that the state always knows best, and that what the state and its media vehicles tell you is always the truth, and you are well on the way to helping bring about a Fascist society. Erb discusses also how the advertising industry uses similar propaganda and manipulation devices to create new desires in people. He puts it so much better than me, so read on……
The term ‘fascism’ is one of those words that isn’t used in polite company. The images of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis mean that the term is rarely taken seriously, often used to just insult someone, like in a recent internet debate when one guy labeled for no apparent reason geologists concerned about peak oil as “fascists.” And, while Marxian theory and socialism remain acceptable despite the horrors done in their name, fascism is seen as the nefarious ideology, defeated and evil.
As someone who is most decidedly anti-fascist, I find that a dangerous state of mind. Fascism is not only real, but has many forms. It is not inherently anti-semitic, and in fact can appear quite benign. I won’t go into the academic debates about the meaning of the term, though wikipedia gives a good summary. They are concerned with political fascism, which is primarily a nationalist ideology which…