Archive for category Culture & Stuff
Here Comes Another God-damned Dictator
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on February 16, 2009
A dictator-in-waiting thanks his applauding farm animals.
Why do people willingly, downright eagerly, toss away their freedoms like nasty bits of garbage, cheering as we hand over our historically rare semi-democratic powers to megalomaniacal nut-jobs?
Actually, don’t worry about trying to answer that question, and neither will I. It’s too big and too sad of a question to address in my admittedly not-too-serious blog. I don’t thing there is any real answer anyway, although George Orwell does a pretty neat job at exploring the mechanics of such rapid digressions in freedom in his “Animal Farm.”
The reason this question of freedom-tossing comes to mind for me today is that — and I honestly can’t believe it, even thought I should — the a massive percentage of Venezuelan voters have whole-heatedly pushed through President Hugo Chávez‘s agenda to do away with term limits. This paves the way for him to easily extend his wackier-by-the-day presidency by years if not decades if not until his last, clinging-to-life days like good ole Fidel Castro. This, of course, seriously increases the chances of Chávez becoming yet another one of history’s unfortunate, how-did-we-let-this-happen dictators overseeing a totalitarian state in which the ability to even vote at all could quickly become a dream. Read the rest of this entry »
Only The Lucky Make Mistakes
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on February 4, 2009
Even presidents make mistakes putting on their pants one leg at a time.
As I forge ahead with my nascent blogging efforts — writing too much about bogging itself, I’m sure you’ll agree — I find myself realizing that the biggest challenge that I face is forcing myself to fail.
If that sounds cliche, that’s because it is.
If that sounds resoundingly true, that’s because it is.
(Fluffy sounding clichés tend to also be profound truths, but that’s another post.)
Today I had a great lunch with Kate Stanworth, a fellow photographer and writer here in Buenos Aires, and I gave her my standard pitch on the critical importance of blogging for the creative story-teller. As always, I insisted that she could only learn about blogging by actually doing, encouraging her that there was no one out there “judging,” that we all are given the space and time we need to comfortably find our own voice in the Blogosphere. Read the rest of this entry »
Let the SEO Games Begin!
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on February 2, 2009
I wonder if this post will receive more views if I caption this image, "Low-cost pot seeds shipped internationally!"
[Warning: Do not read. This is a dirty, search engine-oriented post not meant for humans.]
This blog is new, and I’m still playing around with the basics, trying to get a feel for “blogging,” it’s tools, the “Blogosphere” community, as well as what drives traffic to me and why.
With only 25 posts, and most relatively dull, I just can’t stop giggling about the fact that the post that has received the most views — a whopping 18! — is “How Does an Oil Rig Work?” I’m pretty sure I was “stoned on marijuana” when I wrote it, and it was nothing more than a blogging hiccup. So why all of the massive attention?
I guess it’s because I wrote “penis pump” in it, and even linked to a few related sites. Aint that a hoot! So much for the value of quality writing on relevant topics. “The Internet is for PORN!” Read the rest of this entry »
World’s Richest Man Buys Dead Tree
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on January 21, 2009
A lumber yard northeast of Encarnación, Paraguay.
Okay, so according to a BBC article Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim is actually only the world’s second richest man. And, um, actually he didn’t actually buy a dead tree. But he might as well have.
What Mr. Slim has done is to invest 250 million dollars into the New York Times—rounding out his stake in the financially struggling United States newspaper. What?! Is this guy a total fucking idiot?
I wonder this because from what I’m hearing, newspapers are totally, utterly on the way out, thanks in large part to people like you who are spending your time reading blogs for non-objective reporting instead of “dead tree” newspapers, which according to an article I recently read, nobody believes anymore anyway.
I know, I know. Slim’s beyond rich and he didn’t get that way making foolish investments. So he probably knows shitloads more about media and new media and phrases like the “developing paradigm of media” than I do. And so maybe he’s simply taking the New York Times so he can push it in the right direction.
But then, it’s hard to see how there can be a right direction when media is quickly, quickly being taken over by us regular old people.
I wonder if Slim has tried blogging? Has he felt the power of instant, polished, global-wide publishing with the social media interactivity that was only a science fiction concept a few years ago? If he has, I wonder how it plays into his investment decision? But I won’t go further with that thought, or ask you — Web 2.0, social media-style — to try to answer any of these questions. Read the rest of this entry »
Well That Worked for Me!
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on December 31, 2008
QuickPress rocks. Besides the obvious, I think it will be most useful in helping to get my ass to start posts fast and dirty. Then I can neaten them up after the fact. Nice work QuickPress.
What’s This QuickPress?
Posted by Ethan G. Salwen in Culture & Stuff on December 31, 2008
Haven’t been playing with WordPress in a while (oops), and the new Dashboard is looking hot, including this QuickPress goodie. Will it do what I think?