Top 5 Michael Jackson Songs of All Time

The fact that I can even assemble a list like this is testament to the prolific figure that Michael Jackson was in pop music. I've never owned one of his albums. Of the 4,547 songs on my iPod, not one of them is a Michael Jackson song (but I did have parachute pants in 1985, and really wanted a glitter glove).

The point is, Michael Jackson was so big in pop culture that one didn't even have to be a fan to recognize and participate in the global phenomena that was the King of Pop.

So here's my minimal tribute to Michael Jackson... a Top 5 greatest songs list:

1. Billie Jean (1983): winner of two Grammy awards in 1984, this is the song that triggered MJ's success.
2. Thriller (1983): the horror-sci-fi narrative music video was the most expensive video of its time, costing nearly $800,000 (equivalent to $1.4 million today), and is the title track to the bast selling album of all time.
3. Beat It (1983): despite crass jokes about the meaning of the song, the lyrics are about defeat and courage.
4. Don't Stop Til You Get Enough (1979): MJ's first solo Grammy from the Off the Wall album.
5. Smooth Criminal (1987): the centerpiece of MJ's hour-long short film, Moonwalker (starring Joe Pesci), and inspiration for Sega Genesis arcade video game!

Thoughts on the Me Generation v. Generation Me

(extended thought from blog post on the McKenzies page entitled Online Catharsis)

The baby-boomers were at one time thought to be the most self-absorbed generation in American history, and carried the label of the Me Generation. In recent years this title has been appropriated, twisted and reassigned to the babies of those same boomers - born in the 80s and 90s - now called Generation Me or the Look @ Me Generation.

Author Jean Twenge, an Associate Professor of Psychology at San Diego State University and herself a member of Generation Me - spent 10 years doing research on this group's sense of entitlement and self-absorption. She attributed it to the radical individualism that was engendered by baby-boomer parents and educators focused on instilling self-esteem in children beginning in the 1970s. American and Canadian youth were raised on aphorisms such as "express yourself" and "just be yourself."

To further illustrate her point, Twenge also found a large increase in self-reference words like "I," "me," "mine," and "myself" in news stories published in the 80s and 90s. These words replaced collective words such as "we," "us," "humanity," "country," or "crowd" found in the stories of similar nature in the 50s and 60s. This generation may be the least thoughtful, community-oriented and conscientious one in North American history.

-Information gathered from Adbusters Magazine, Nov/Dec 2008 - #80 - Volume 16, Number 6

Twitter Spoof Video

Kinda' makes you think twice about your next status update, huh?

Trickster Capitalism

"In a rich man's house 

there is no place 

to spit but in his face."

                              - Diogenes

THE JIG IS UP!

Luxury spending in the United States is growing more than four times as rapidly as spending overall.  Luxury autos, mansions, and second mansions, vast lots, huge yachts, gaudy home appliances, cosmetic procedures, ultrapremium wines - all are being consumed at unprecedented rates.  

Worst of all, it's not just the super-rich accounting for such waste. For every mansion on a vast lot, there are hundreds of thousands of "McMansions" on large lots.  While the super-rich buy a $30 million yacht, the plain-old-rich buys the $130,000 "bionic dolphin" (a one-person watercraft).  For every million-dollar "Diamond Dream Bra," thousands of $100 bras are purchased.  These incredible figures have been well documented by Robert Frank (Luxery Fever: Why money fails to satisfy in an age of excess), who sensed a "growing social tolerance of acquisitiveness and greed."

Information gathered from Shoveling 

Fuel for a Runaway Train by Brian Czech 

Heath Ledger Found Dead in US Apartment

Hollywood actor Heath Ledger has been found dead at a residence in downtown Manhattan.

"He was found unconscious at the apartment and pronounced dead," the New York Police Department said, adding that pills were found near the body.

Police are reportedly investigating if the Australian actor, who earned an Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain, died of a drug overdose.

The 28-year-old was found dead in the flat at around 1530 (2030 GMT).

Police said they did not suspect foul play and that his body had been discovered surrounded by pills.

Buy Nothing Day

No Purchase Necessary: A 24 Hour Moratorium on Consumer Spending - Participate by Not Participating

In America, everyone knows that the biggest shopping day of the year is the Friday after Thanksgiving - the first day of the Christmas season. This is the day consumer capitalism shines brightest and the day retail stores across the country look forward to all year long. Today is Buy Nothing Day in North America (it's tomorrow internationally).

Everything we buy has an impact on our planet. Buy Nothing Day highlights the environmental and ethical consequences of consumerism. Developing countries - only 20% of the world's population - are consuming 80% of the earth's natural resources, causing a disproportionate level of environmental damage and unfair distribution of wealth.

This year Buy Nothing Day will be the largest 24-hour moratorium against consumerism ever as the annual event serves as a communal 'detox from consumerism,' which insists no purchase is necessary.

If you need gas, get it Sunday. Groceries? Make do with what you have... and if you don't have much, consider fasting. After all, one-third of the world's population is technically starving to death.

Buy Nothing Day is an opportunity for consumers to take a break from shopping, either as an experiment or a public statement, and enjoy life outside of the shopping mall.

PAUSE LIFE - SPEND A DAY WITHOUT SPENDING - SPEND LESS LIVE MORE

BUY NOTHING DAY

A Unique and Intrapersonal Encounter with Bono

activism

How's this for irony? Even though you spend your whole life combating the forces of capitalism, you still might wind up on a t-shirt sold in a store owned by the GAP.

The Assault on Reason

Al Gore on Celebrity Culture

In his best-selling book, The Assault on Reason, Al Gore takes a harsh look at the media's fascination with flash over substance and celebrity culture. He discusses how rational, informed decisions on critical issues have become impossible in America, where "the 30-second television spot is the most powerful force shaping the electorate's thinking." Here are a few excerpts from the book that talk about how celebrity culture has mesmerized the entire nation.

American democracy is now in danger - not from any one set of ideas, but from unprecedented changes in the environment within which ideas either live and spread, or wither and die. I do not mean the physical environment; I mean what is called the public sphere, or the marketplace of ideas.

It is simply no longer possible to ignore the strangeness of our public discourse. I know that I am not alone in thinking that something has gone fundamentally wrong. In 2001, I had hoped that it was an aberration when polls showed that three-quarters of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was responsible for attacking us on September 11. More than five years later, however, nearly half of the American public believe that Saddam was connected to the attack.

At first I thought the exhaustive, nonstop coverage of the O.J. Simpson trial was just an unfortunate excess - an unwelcome departure from the normal good sense and judgment of our television news media. Now we know that it was merely an early example of a new pattern of serial obsessions that periodically take over the airwaves for weeks at a time: the Michael Jackson trial and the Robert Blake trial, the Lacy Peterson tragedy and the Chandra Levy tragedy, Britney and K-Fed, Lindsay and Paris and Nicole.
While American television watchers were collectively devoting 100 million hours of their lives each week to these and other similar stories, our nation was in the process of more quietly making what future historians will certainly describe as a series of catastrophically mistaken decisions on issues of war and peace, the global climate and human survival, freedom and barbarity, justice and fairness. For example, hardly anyone now disagrees that he choice to invade Iraq was a grievous mistake. Yet, incredibly, all of the arguments and evidence necessary to have made the right decision were available at the time and in hindsight are glaringly obvious.
It is too easy - and too partisan - to simply place the blame in President George W. Bush. We are all responsible for the decisions our country makes. We have a Congress. We have an independent judiciary. We have checks and balances. We are a nation of laws. We have free speech. We have free press. Have they failed us?


Today, reason is under assault by forces using more sophisticated techniques: propaganda, psychology, electronic mass media. Yet democracy's advocates are beginning to use their own sophisticated techniques: the internet, online organizing, blogs and wikis. I feel more confident than ever before that democracy will prevail and that the American people are rising to the challenge of reinvigorating self-government.

Who Cares???

This is not a profound post. This is not going to provoke much thought and will probably communicate that I care more about this than I actually do, but as my wife was in hospital this past week after giving birth to our second child, I showed up with a new women's magazine almost every time I visited - Elle, Vogue, Marie Claire, etc.
As I glanced through the magazines during my visits, almost every feature I came across prompted two words: WHO CARES?

For the life of me I can't figure out why anyone still cares about:

• Paris Hilton
• Lindsay Lohan
• My Super Sweet 16
• Nicole Ritchie
• Britney & K-Fed
• Britney's Shaved Dome
• Britney's Addictions
• Posh in LA
• Tom Cruise/Scientology
  

Why does society care so much about people who contribute so little to it? In the arenas of talent, benevolence, character and intelligence, these celebrities/personalities are completely absent.

I'm not about to soapbox about what society should be caring about (Iran, poverty, the environment, the Final Four). I'm simply saying that I can't figure out why people care so much about young Hollywood's casualties.

Did you know that Burma has unveiled its new capital? Did you know that research shows that aspirin aids women's hearts? Did you know that scientists have discovered ways of tracking the rise and fall of ancient civilizations (such as the Incas) by studying fossilized mites that thrive in the dung of their livestock?

Aren't those things so much more interesting that watching a couple of self-indulgent miscreants humiliate and insult middle-class families? Aren't they more interesting than a deranged pop princess shaving her head in a tattoo parlor and checking in to a detox clinic? Aren't they more interesting than watching a 16-year-old plan for her birthday spectacular while assuming adulation and privileged treatment are a right, while reacting to criticism or inconvenience with petulance and acrimony?
Heck! Kobe Bryant has scored 263 points over his last five games, demonstrating unbelievable skill, talent and entertainment. That deserves infinitely more press than all of this other crap, right?

Think about it.

The End