selling is a cultural norm

it is a given that the wall street journal has no clue about my personal history...and if they did they wouldn't much care how their forays into the commercial world would or would not impact my perceptions...business is business and damn the consumer's sensibilities..the n y times might, if they mined their archive have a bit better idea stemming from comments i have made concerning some howlers they have published regarding addictive behaviors...they probably won't...so it came as not much of a surprise when the envelope with "new york times' printed on it fell out of my copy of friday's paper containing this:

some printed matter extolling the qualities and economies wjs wines can provide the readers of the new york times...and:

a couple of vouchers that would allow me to take $240 off the top of the cost of my first two orders..it would be easy to go off on a rant about the elitist nature of wine and the true constituency both the ny times and the wall street journal aim at while insisting they are news sources for the everyman and not commercial enterprises with a distinct bias...that would be beside the point..there are some people who can snuggle up to a glass of wine, drink it, and then move on to something else...not me...i never understood the logic of an open bottle that wasn't empty...and i am still deeply prone to immoderate behaviors...that won't go away..but i learned a long time ago how much harm the darker side of alcohol does to me and those near me..the n y times and the wall street journal don;t care about that...neither does society at large...as a sub-culture we are pretty much on our own in this...even the "health care professionals" are comprehending only in a textbook manner...they lack experience...no fault of theirs and it is experience they should probably avoid..without it however they just don't get it...never will...end rant...hang tough...peace out people.

grabbo!

because of a intermittent supply chain i received my friday new york times this morning...perhaps there was a glitch somewhere in the "news" pipeline...or i live out at the end of the motor route and the delivery person wasn't feeling up to the drive...or didn't really care if i got my paper on the same day it was dated...whichever...the point is if i had gotten the paper on time we would have already been through this...as it stand the times has once again utilized precious canadian newsprint to send me high definition, full-page photos of ears ( different than wednesday's )...with startling detail that isn't all that aesthetically pleasing and a center-spread announcing that i am about to be heavily propagandized ( a trait the times has been displaying more openly in these trumpist times...with a heavy bias in favor of women..i have lived with women all my life..and i like them...have pursued them...seen multiple facets of them in sixty odd years...the times is distorting their humanness for political expedience ) over some unnamed but important ( in the editors' eyes ) issue that i should care about deeply and will be some tone-deaf trumpsist slug if i don't jump on the bandwagon and add my voice tot he groupthink chorus...i have already been through the evils of sanitizing history and pc debate framing and the fact that this tease is an attempt to put as much of the time's slick advertising into the hands of as many readers as possible...it will be of interest to calculate the advertising revenues from this weeks magazine ( provided i get the damned paper )...it will all go into the archives as another example of the times goebbels-like stabs at grooming opinion to suit their needs...if politicians are whores ( and they are ) the bulk of journalists ( one assumes there is some integrity left in the trade..one also assumes they are not especially well read writers ) are their swinish stenographers.

calling thorstein bunde veblen

"diamonds are a girl's best friend and dogs are a man's best friends. now you know which sex has more sense." zsa zsa gabor_______"we have your back because you have ours. and that's why it's me writing this letter instead of someone in marketing. because these times demand partnership with dedicated subscribers like you who value groundbreaking reporting and what it adds to their lives..." nick kristof. op-ed columnist in a charming "dear subscriber" leter that came with my sunday times last week_____except for the fact that the alleged "groundbreaking reporting" is the bait for the shills...the lure for the glib advertising that pervades the times...and don't try to tell me it isn't aimed at an elite group of buyers...section f of today's times is a paean to "holiday baubles"...eight pages of articles with titles like "i wear art" and advertisements ranging from "lagos" at bloomingdales to valentin magro on west 48th street in new york "by appointment only" and not a single price listed anywhere...no surprise that zsa zsa showed up...look up "mercenary" and doubtlessly her likeness would be the illustration..."the holidays" are upon us and scrooges "false and commercial festival" is about to lurch into full swing ( unless you have been in a big box store since october in which case you have already burned out on the whole thing )...so as we stagger from one dysfunctional seizure to another let us keep in mind the hegemonic dictum, "work, obey, consume, die" as a focus for the coming month...it's a consequentialist system and material wealth is the ultimate ethical good...it's not who you are, it's what you have...it's what the new york times tells me every time it is delivered to my door ( expecting about a four pound paper sunday )...they are the "paper of record" and have "all the news that's fit to print"...it must be true...one wonders why they hate don trump so though...he is nothing if not of the elite and they are stenographers to power...it is mystifying.