Reason Gone Mad - Bill Shein's Blog

New stuff a-comin'

2010-03-10T14:21:36Z

Friends: Thanks to everyone for participating the last few months on my little Facebook experiment. Nice to have such diverse viewpoints, as well as a forum that’s both silly and serious. I’m planning an updated Web site and related things (social networking, blog, etc.) to promote my newspaper column and foster broad discussion/gags. What would you like to see? Post on FB, on this blog, or send me e-mail. More soon…

RIP, Doris "Granny D" Haddock

2010-03-10T14:11:20Z

Thanks, Granny D, for your inspiring dedication to an important cause. May we all have such passion and devotion to the public good in our later years — much less in our younger and middle-age years.

“N.H. activist ‘Granny D’ dies at 100”

The Debate over "The Hurt Locker"

2010-03-08T21:17:07Z

There’s been much discussion about “The Hurt Locker” and whether it is a “realistic” and “authentic” and “accurate” story about war and its impact on soldiers sent to fight it, or just a piece of fiction; whether it’s “pro-military” or “anti-military”; whether it’s pro-Iraq War or anti-Iraq War. To me, this debate misses the point: Of course it’s fiction, as is every other war movie, no matter how “authentic” it’s said to be.

Further, in my view it’s a bit grim to imagine that (a) we’re turning stories based on a current, ongoing war (or any war) into entertainment (as FX did in 2006 with its Iraq War TV series “Over There”), no matter the theme or message; and (b) there’s an argument, taken seriously, that these kinds of movies help us to understand war and its complexity.

Discussion question: Where are we as a society and culture when the actual, human reality of war doesn’t provide enough information — or isn’t emotionally compelling enough(!) — to demonstrate war’s absurdity and irredeemable evil? And in such an environment, do we have a prayer of *ever* moving away from the (mistaken) belief that war and violence is a permanent, inevitable element of human relations?

My Very Old J.D. Salinger Column

2010-01-29T20:00:08Z

Back in my early days as a columnist for the Berkshire Eagle (in 2004), I wrote a fairly “out there” humor piece about what J.D. Salinger might publish posthumously. It wasn’t a typical newspaper column, and I suspect it was met with a great deal of head-scratching by readers. It was called “Waiting for Salinger,” and it can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/yay3tfm

Latest Column - The Airline 'Fee-for-All'

2009-11-11T14:37:02Z

… is up here: http://tinyurl.com/y9supwn

Also, for those of you RSS-i-fying the Reason Gone Mad blog feed, you might want to check out the Facebook page. For the moment, at least, we’re having some fun over there instead of here on the blog. Check it: http://www.tinyurl.com/sheinonfacebook.

Nation's Morons March on Washington State

2009-10-27T23:28:10Z

Check it here.

Today's Bob Herbert Column

2009-10-27T17:55:45Z

Worth a read: “Changing the World”

Mostly demonstrates the exasperation many people feel, but also some thought-provoking points.

Most of you know my longstanding analysis of why so many of us feel helpless and unable to really change things, why we can’t seem to return sanity to where it’s been lost, etc. And my longstanding prescription for real, necessary, structural change to restore fairness, justice, and humanity to our democracy and our economic system.

Part of the answer is a massive overhaul of our broken structures of democracy. We simply don’t have meaningful levers to push against, what with noncompetitive elections, big money fueling campaigns and legislative lobbying, etc. Another part is doing away with corporate personhood, as our own fictional creation has gained life, like a Frankenstein monster or The Borg, and has far too much influence on our lives and nation.

Like in the E.M. Forster story, “The Machine Stops,” we live our lives within the constant hum of corporatist commerce. Often it’s the unnoticed water we swim in. As a character in that Forster story says, after breaking free of the all-providing machine for the first time, “The machine hums! Did you know that? It’s hum penetrates our blood, and may even guide our thoughts. Who knows!”

I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately. Even more than usual (as if that’s possible ;). What makes a difference? Which of our everday choices perpetuate the continued existence and power of “the machine”? In what ways are we all complicit? Are today’s televised and Internet-ized bread and circuses leading us permanently astray? Are we all bound up in the system we created, unable to break free of what corporate marketers have convinced us are “necessities”? I don’t know.

One book I’d recommend to all is Douglas Rushkoff’s “Life, Inc.”. Really interesting history and analysis of our current state, and touches on many of these issues.

Plastic in the Ecosystem

2009-10-26T19:51:14Z

The photographer Chris Jordan has a new series of photos up on his site from the Midway Atoll, which is near that giant plastic island I mentioned in a Facebook post today. He documents what has happened to albatross chicks that are fed plastic by their parents, who scoop the colorful bits of trash from the ocean, mistaking it for food.

It’s quite chilling and thought provoking. Check it here: http://www.chrisjordan.com

Krugman's Column on China

2009-10-26T19:33:33Z

Somewhat remarkable: Paul Krugman’s recent NYT column on China (and its currency practices) makes not a single mention of the human rights situation, ignoring all of what’s happening in Tibet and elsewhere in China. (http://tinyurl.com/yzt7x2v) It’s a very troubling omission, given the continuing disappearances, executions, and suppression of political dissent. In my view, it’s a sign of how much we’ve put money and commerce ahead of, well, pretty much everything else (at home and abroad).

For reference, here’s our very own State Department’s latest report on human rights abuses in China (http://tinyurl.com/autnyv). It’s grim reading, and there’s lots of it.

And here’s a column I wrote in 2006 about how U.S. business interests in China trump everything else. Little has changed. (http://tinyurl.com/yk66hc6)

Fool Me Twice...

2009-10-26T17:34:17Z

“Mr. Karzai got 48 percent of the vote and Abdullah got 27,” said Azizullah Ludin, the chairman of the Independent Election Commission. Despite its title, the commission is widely seen here as a tool of the president. “We will have another election, and we’ll have the same result.”

Mr. Ludin smiled broadly. “Karzai is going to win.”

[Full story]