Built-in Eyes in Times Square

I would like to point out that two street vendors were the first to see the smoking car in Times Square, not the mounted police officer.  This is a great example of built-in eyes in a city that help keep it safe.

Model City

Is Portland, OR the new model city?

Redundant

Chapter 4 in McKee seems to be a little redundant.  He shows the two sides of the fragmentation argument, however I feel that the over-arching theme from previous chapters, like public vs private, are still in effect here.  It comes back to this idea of uniformity in the public sphere.  With respect to fragmentation its whether or not the public sphere can be fragmented.  The side against fragmentation argues that there needs to be some kind of uniformity in the public sphere so people can discuss issues.  However, to me, this is just another type of restriction on the public sphere.  Whether one is arguing for what should be reserved for the public sphere (what is considered public information) or arguing for uniformity, it is still an argument for restriction of the public sphere – a means of controlling what can be discussed in the public sphere.

While there might be differences in the details, its just a general theme that jumped out to me.

Google Trends

I just discovered one of the many features of google – google trends –> http://google.com/trends.

Type whatever you want into the search bar and google will produce a ‘news reference chart’ for your respective search.  For example, you can see how Tiger Woods’ news coverage spiked –> http://google.com/trends?q=tiger+woods

Insurance

All the talk about healthcare has got me thinking about the concept of insurance.  What is insurance anyway?  According to the dictionary insurance is: the act, system, or business of insuring property, life, one’s person, etc., against loss or harm arising in specified contingencies, as fire, accident, death, disablement, or the like, in consideration of a payment proportionate to the risk involved.  To economists, insurance is another form of saving.  Individuals pay a certain payment to a company only to receive that money in the future if something goes wrong.  Insurance is similar to social security, a system that provides money to individuals when they retire because they are incapable of saving on their own.

But I do not think health insurance is viewed as insurance anymore.  Health insurance is treated more like a payment plan than insurance.  That is, individuals are looking to have their health insurance cover everything not just the major expenses.  This exploitation of the health insurance is one of the reasons insurance companies have to increases their premiums.  Nonetheless, it seems like we are moving to a trend where no one wants to pay for anything.  My grandfather reminded me of the days when he would go to the doctor and after his appointment the doctor would pull out the receipt book and say, “That’ll be 10 dollars.”  My grandfather would pay for his appointment and be on his way.  This doesn’t happen anymore.  Insurance cards are presented to receptionists, photocopies are made, policy numbers are check, and then there usually is some kind of co-payment.

I find this interesting because I don’t know of it happening in any other form of insurance.  Take care insurance for example.  If I want to buy some car insurance I can shop around for policies and I’ll find various levels of coverage and prices.  But nonetheless, I’ll have insurance for crashes, fire, theft, etc. – all incidents that have big price tags to fix if they happen.  However, I can’t find a car insurance policy that will pay for my gas, oil change, or brake job.  We all know that when we purchase a car there will be necessary maintained expenses.  So why don’t we assume these expenses for ourselves?  It is well known that the best form of health care is for individuals to bear the full cost of minor expenses, then have insurance cover the big things.

Sometimes it feels that we have moved too far away from the original model of insurance to fix it.  But I’ll guess we can all wait and see what happens.

Back from Trinidad and Tobago

I’m back from Trinidad and Tobago, and I must say it is very difficult to be without a computer or internet for an entire week.  I actually found it creating stress.  Not being able to say in touch with the public sphere was almost unbearable.  Nonetheless, I thought I would update some on a little known nation.  Climate change is running rampant in Trinidad.  The weather is Trinidad is not complicated either.  If it is not sunny, it is raining but the weather does alternate through a wet and dry season.  Currently, Trinidad is in its dry season (January-June) but dry doesn’t mean drought and drought is exactly what is happening.  It hasn’t rained in about 5 weeks.  While that might not seem like a long time to some it creates serious problems in Trinidad.  And by problems I mean brush fires.  The island is literally burning.  The air smells of burning forest.  However, this goes in hand with climate change – more extreme weather.  During the rainy season it rains more and during the dry season it doesn’t rain at all.

A Dong Tea Update

In search of relief for my splitting headache, I consulted my pile of tea that I bought from A Dong market.  What did I find?  A box conveniently labeled headache tea.  And it works!

Respect for the Tabloids

The National Enquirer is under consideration for a Pulitzer Prize.  What do you say to that modern thinkers?

The National Enquirer Earns Some Respect

The modern thinkers are the problem makers

After reading the first two chapters of McKee I have a feeling that these ‘modern’ thinkers will be consistently against whatever the chapter title is.  For example, modern thinkers hate trivialization and commercialization.  In a sense, I have the same feeling about the book now compared to when I was reading the introduction.  The modern thinkers tend to hate everything that has happened to the public sphere.  My problem with the modern thinkers is that there point of view is unrealistic.  They simply seem against change.  They want this unified body that is the public sphere, but in my opinion that is exactly what the public sphere is not.  The public sphere has to contain EVERYTHING, otherwise it wouldn’t be public.

The public sphere is  dictated by what the people want and if that means the people want to read tabloids and write about orgasms then that is what they will do.  Just because they public sphere is ever evolving doesn’t mean that they old ways of a ‘serious’ public sphere where people are challenged to ‘think hard’ is becoming extinct.  It just means that more people are interested in other things, so the interest in the old public sphere has been diluted, not eliminated.

Finally, a funnay FW:FW:FW email…

The Demographics of American Newspapers:

1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very  good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country but don’t really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn’t mind running the country if they could find the time and if they didn’t have to leave Southern California to do it.

6.The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren’t too sure who’s running the country and don’t really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don’t care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren’t sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country, or galaxy, provided of course, that they are not Republicans.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Minneapolis Star Tribune is read by people who have recently caught a fish and need something in which to wrap it.