international luxury conference

"Hosted and moderated by New York Times fashion director, Vanessa Friedman, and award-winning New York Times journalists, the International Luxury Conference addresses the most critical challenges — and unexpected opportunities — in today’s luxury battlefield. Rigorous analysis and lively cross-border debate among top C.E.O.s, prestigious economists, technology mavericks, entertainment and sports icons, and artists will provide crucial insights, fresh ideas and new strategies for winning the hearts and minds of luxury consumers. ​To participate in this unprecedented event — where you will join interactive sessions led by global experts, dine in the spectacular Chateau de Versailles and connect with luxury influencers from around the world — please request an invitation today."____ http://www.luxurybeyondproduct.com/ _______ i have been perusing the four pound behemoth sunday new york times at a leisurely pace...and a good thing too or i might have missed this howler...they are hosting the "international luxury conference" in france ( where the fuck else? ) at some pile called the"chateau de versailles" to discuss the" luxury battlefield"...sponsoring a conference aimed at strategizing ways to relieve the wealthy elite of as much lucre as possible is just another nail in the coffin of their non-elitist stance...and who is this group of "jet set" grifters? ceos from gucci, addidas, chanel..an"artist" a "film maker" a "professional polo player"(!) and style predator victoria beckham...and i had to laugh like hell at "prestigious economists"...still chuckling over that one...this is a long haul from peoria...in reality it is a lang haul form most of new york beyond that rarefied atmosphere in parts of manhattan where wealth scoffs at the rest of us and the kids call the nanny "mom"...the "winning [ of the ] hearts and minds of luxury consumers" is tops on the agenda and one wonders what "luxury beyond product" actually means...my best bet it that is a groveling sycophantic approach that repels the elite but drags them back with status goods with a hefty price tag to insure everyone knows how much luxury it really represents...shrewd as wealth may be in the game of speculation ( with other people's money whenever possible...QEII? ) they are suckers for ostentation..( just have a hard look at the whore moron trump as he makes an ass of himself all the way to trump dc ) and nothing says ostentation like price...so there is a grifters' conference in france in november ( 17-18 )and my firm contention is it isn't going to be cheap to attend either...you can go to the url above and "request an invitation" but you'd better be prepared to present your bona fides and fork over some filthy lucre...you have to spend money to make money...rip n y times credibility...this ices you as being whores in waiting.

elitism is a subjectivist position

a ways back the new york times ran an editorial titled "priced out readers" in which it denounced its reputation as an elitist newspaper...it was a fair shot at propagandizing the paper's alleged populist stance but their actions continue to belie their position...today's paper is over four pounds of elitist pretension including ( but not limited to ) a t magazine "men's style" issue that weighs in at over a pound...aside from the obscene amount of money this behemoth generated for the times through advertising the aim is in some doubt as far as the ass of citizens is concerned...most "men: in their right minds wouldn't wear ( or could afford to wear ) most of this stuff and besides...every feminist i knows insists men have no style...so why bother...for me though, the center piece of this utterly disconnected issue is the gigantic fold out of headshots of the main cast members of yet another film about fucking steve jobs and his apple swindle...a goad towards a "must see" film about the rightness and wholesome goodness of venture capitalism, technology, and the human need to further splinter its already shattered attention span with more novel gizmos that make other people wealthy...yep...the nyt is a "paper for the people"...as long as your people are those of wealth

the vilest of all traps

"my mind revolts, in many instances, against the constitution of the united states. indeed i am afraid it will turn out the vilest of all traps that ever was set to ensnare the freedom of an unsuspecting people" william maclay from his journal of the first congress 14 june 1789________________________________________________________________________"it is with difficulty that i refrain from giving the most severe language to some of our senators. king vapored this day at a most unaccountable rate. the opponents to the constitution were blind...the business was now complete. we need not care for opposition. henry of maryland joined with him; said the constitution of the united states implied everything; it was a most admirable system. thus did the heroes vapor and and boast of their address in having cheated the people in establishing a form of government over them which none expected." william maclay journal entry 14 february 1791_______________________bill was a veteran of pennsylvania politics as well as the french and indian wars and served in the continental army...this marks him out as both a radical ( pennsylvania = radical...unicameral legislature...no upper house in that state...then there's the pennsylvania line mutiny...find that in your history books ) and as a member of the cadre of political operatives who wrote and , ostensibly, believed in, the declaration of independence and its focus on the individuals right to political self-determination...that as opposed to the cadre of second tier political operatives who framed the constitution and had the living shit scared out of them by shay's rebellion and, more so, by what the voters of massachucetts did after the rebellion was quashed by, among others, elitist students from goddamned harvard...the authors of the federalist papers were not writing in support of the political will of the masses as a beacon for legislative action...no..they were all about a glib disenfranchisement with a veneer of democracy that, in the end, reflected the political will of the elite as the "will of the people"...the political system we celebrate today is still functioning in that way..." that damned ass" hamilton would be pleased..so would jay and "his littleness" madison...i will celebrate the declaration...i will continue to denounce the constitution and fereral politics as the ponzi scheme to feed the elite that it is...quantitative easing for whom? fuck these people.

irony, coincidence, or just the way things are?

i bought a used copy of "dragnet nation: a quest for , privacy, security, and freedom in a world of relentless surveillance" by julia angwin ( a pretty good read so far coming as it does from someone who was a staff writer for the yellow rag called the wall street journal )from better world books for about eight bucks...published in 2014, this particular copy was " withdrawn" form the boulder public library ( why? multiple copies? dead wight on the shelf? too hot a topic for a public library? ) after about a year there...it has the official "withdrawn" stamp in it and a heavy duty binding and an institutional dust jacket..a superior product...anyway i was skimming through the book and ran across the patch-like device in the back cover...i took it for some sort of magnetic device used to trip a sensor if someone was trying to swipe the book from the library...it's my book now so i figured i could remove it if i wanted and i was curious to see just what was under there...so i peeled it off and , being the curious great ape i am, i held it up to the light...something of a surprise...not exactly a magnetic device...more of a printed circuit...wonder what could energize it...wonder what it was for...surely not some sort of transponder...high tech overdue book tracking? or just some sort of device to tell the circulation desk what's on the shelf? don't know...but it's taped up to a window in my office at work..it isn't riding around with me anymore.....6-20-2015...okay...it's a radio frequency identification tag used to scan books in and out and prevent book theft...not readable at any great distance...just another organizational tool to see what's where and who has what..buy books at used book stores for cash would be one solution...it's still not going back into my book.

anticipatory

"union leadership" may not be an oxymoron but stuff like this makes me wonder...i received a ponderously worded letter of explanation about this "non-binding" straw poll ( mentioned at the bottom of this more succinct post card covering the same subject ) so possible candidates for the job of business agent that is opening up can "test the waters" and see if it might be worth the effort of actually running...someone has obviously jumped the gun as this sign appeared today planted outside the plant...not bad placement really since we are a union shop and all but the ( now ) "red twelve" would be eligible to vote...but there are a few issues here...first i am told by someone more knowledgeable in these things that the placement of this sign on an interstate highway's right of way is illegal and that the highway department will...eventually, this is a bureaucratic institution...remove it and, possibly, fine the offender...secondly what's gorski's first name? if indeed this is legitimate and not some practical joke ( albeit an involved and reasonably expensive one...but that sort of thing doesn't matter to the scum sucking lame useless and self-absorbed fucks who perpetrate them ) it should turn up at the "straw poll" but why anticipate the eleventh? name recognition? well...attention whores are all about being first...and nothing says "whore" like running for office..one last thing...i'd say i hate to harp on a point be we all know that would be a lie so let's drop any pretense and cut to the chase...when i was in an industrial union we had shop stewards and grievers...in the thirty-five years or so that i have been in the craft union i find myself mired in we have had "business agents" what's that say? the union is run like a business and local leadership had more in common with management than with rank and file...been said before...that there is precious little advocacy for workers has been pointed out as well...so my last question is who does gorski have a "backbone" to stand up to? management or rank and file...i believe i know the answer...success in the craft union world is all in how it's answered.

hope? change? where?

eight points of light to the right in the second photo...a utility pole...another point of light and then a dark spot that used to be a working coke plant...it is shuttered now ( third photo ) and another 300 northwest indiana union jobs are flushed into the lake...more economic worries for working families...more debt ( which the elite who own the debt love...it creates money..debt is the norm here...but when it becomes the only form of exchange can debtors' prison be far behind? ) more belt tightening...well...this country has been living too high off the planetary hog anyway but i had imagined a more leveling sort of belt tightening...and how is our esteemed president reacting to this? well you can tell he's a damned lame duck because he has aligned against his won party to foster fast-track approval of some ponzi scheme called the trans pacific partnership...a partnership of wealth no doubt..meant to impoverish the many at the benefit of the few...standard capitalist stuff...but what did you expect form this bozo? change? if you did you were fooled weren't you? for the umpteenth time..where did this shyster get his advance degree? harvard law ( what he got it in is self explanatory )...what was he...no matter how briefly..before h was elected president? a senator ( from illinois no less )...he is of the hegemonic culture...he wasn't going to change a fucking thing...he was going to aggrandize himself and his handlers...like virtually every president before him and every one that will follow...who's next in line? clinton? old bubba clinton did so well at it they have decided to try to double dip at winning the presidential lottery ( wealth can stop river traffic on the hudson for their daughters wedding...could you? )...there is a large group of sods eager to have the ability to print money after they retire...wealth is the birthright of presidents...and you foot the bill..fuck these people...comparisons to rome are passe and probably grossly inaccurate ( despite the evangelical bullshit the snake handlers howl at the moon on hot summer nights )but you have to wonder how the guys who were detailed to clean up after one of caligula's orgies or the guys that cleaned the scum off the back scrapers at the baths really felt about the empire...what did they do during the collapse?

the intervention of money

“As everywhere, the elections, from being nominations of class representatives, have become the battle-ground of party candidates, an arena ready for the intervention of money, and…of even bigger and bigger money. The greater became the wealth which was capable of concentration in the hands of individuals, the more the fight for political power developed into a question of money.” Oswald Spengler. The Decline of the West.______________________________________________________________________it took ozzie to explain german romanticism to me in a way that fostered an understanding of how both nietzsche and hitler could both be the same brand of romantics...they are...even though they were in profound disagreement about militarism and the place of the jews in europe, they were both german romatics in their sense of the flow of history and the part individuals, cultures, and nations play in it...i have once again been perusing ozzie on a rainy april afternoon and he has seemingly hit the fucking nail on the head again...don't believe me...then you are living under a rock or a complete dimwit...money so permeates the electoral process in this country that it almost goes unnoticed...especially at the local level...we all know the koch brothers buy elections and propagate their political viewpoint because being elected to congress or to the presidency requires cash beyond most people's means so candidates have to suck donors' asses to be put in office and then the real toadying can begin...but the mechanism ( here's one for all you reagan fans out there...i will refrain from editorializing...you all know my views on the miserable dotard ) trickles down to the local level as well...there is an off-year mayoral election this year in my town and the primary is may fifth ( cinco de mayo!!! )...this small burg is literally plastered with political advertizing...on street corners...in people's yards..in my mailbox...in my door...every damn place you look there's a sign for somebody that wants my vote on the fifth and again in november..admittedly it is a hotly contested election in view of the sitting mayor's federal indictments ...but still...every election a cottage industry in signs and flyers crops up and it isn't free...someone has to pony up and it serves two purposes...it vets candidates and eliminates those that might actually consider acting on the needs and desires of the political mass and it insures a crop of indebted politicians...an effective disenfranchisement of the "will of the people" in favor of the "will of money" on whatever level of american politics you care to look at...you can call me cynical if you like...but you cannot prove me wrong.