Our Changing World

Our series about "our changing world" continues this evening with two looks at how our world is changing from the new york times.

the first article is here - apparently europe has adopted a "back door" policy, and their population is declining.

Secondly, we have a read here - which is about US air carriers having to cut down on the number of flights they make.

It's a scary thing to live in the world today. The 1990's a decade of relative peace and prosperity brought us a lot of things without really providing a decent enough infrastructure for it. The bubble as they say is bursting. But this may not be such a bad thing, as the first article reminds us (last two pages). Perhaps we've built something huge and unsustainable and now we're in a period (maybe years) of readjustment. Perhaps it's better to start scaling things back as a globe, start using less, starting having fewer people.

It wasn't until native americans had over hunted certain animal populations that they developed their sophisticated approach to using the land. Maybe we're at the start of a period where we begin to rethink how we treat the world and ourselves. Maybe we'll have fewer people, less pollution, less hunger, less unemployment, etc, because things will naturally balance themselves out. We'll see.

-cjfer-

great interview with glen phillips.

Listen here - (copy and paste it into your window)

http://blogtalk.vo.llnwd.net/o23/shows/show_190022.mp3

great thoughts about music and art in today's world from my favorite singer/songwriter.

-cjfer-

Maureen Dowd Telling it like it is?

read here

-cjfer-

Two differing versions of what it means to go "around the world"

The old high school Jam.



If it doesn't kill you, it might make you stronger. Or it might kill you slowly.

And...



I echo the same sentiment.

-cjfer-

Emerson essay on Nature

This is the first paragraph of the introduction to Ralph Waldo Emerson's essay on Nature. I looked back to it for an earlier blog post.

"Our age is retrospective. It builds the sepulchres of the fathers. It writes biographies, histories, and criticism. The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs? Embosomed for a season in nature, whose floods of life stream around and through us, and invite us by the powers they supply, to action proportioned to nature, why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines to-day also. There is more wool and flax in the fields. There are new lands, new men, new thoughts. Let us demand our own works and laws and worship." -RWE

To read the rest of the essay go HERE.

-cjfer-

Summer Jam?

Post your thoughts on what the summer Jam of 2008 is/will be. My vote?



-cjfer-

A wave is no guarantee of a wave-back

is this just sad?

-cjfer-

The not so secret life of the American Teenager

Soon, the ABC family channel will debut a new series called, "The secret life of the American Teenager."

You can read about it at this Website.

The show deals with a teenage girl, affluent and white, who becomes pregnant while in high school. While it is not stated, this girl is no doubt 16 years old. Why would I venture that guess? Well, this isn't a story that we haven't seen before, let alone see recently.

See
Gilmore Girls
Saved
Juno
(and who can forget Mr. and Mrs. Bo Jo Jones)

In fact, one can venture a guess that this new series is on the air because the success of Juno. I just wonder what it is about this same story that needs a constant retelling. Teenage pregnancy is a serious issue in our society and I in no way intend to make light of it. Two things. One, the teenager in these films are white and affluent. Two, they are often the smartest characters in the show. These same circumstances keep appearing because for whatever reason you can't deal with this issue with minority or poor characters. Would it then become too real? Too serious?

To that end, I also offer an addendum. Juno owes a lot to 90's female TV icons Buffy Summers, Joey Potter and Rory (and Lorelei) Gilmore. The idea that a teen girl in a tough situation could be witty and smart and quick is really nothing new. For some reason it's new to movies, but in fact, this character has been a staple of American television for years now. Yet there is no mention of the debt owed to these characters of the people who created them. Juno offers nothing particularly new, which is fine, what irks me is that it makes the appearance of being singular when it is not.

As serious as teen pregnancy is, we always see it occurring in a comedy. Why is that? Is it that it would seem like a lifetime movie (fifteen and pregnant) otherwise?

-cjfer-

and the man with a small guitar

cool.



-cjfer-