Pribek

This is from a new book called “Blogosphere: The New Political Arena” by Michael Keren.

“Bloggers think of themselves as rebels against mainstream society, but that rebellion is mostly confined to cyberspace, which makes blogging as melancholic and illusionary as Don Quixote tilting at windmills,”

Do you think you are rebelling against mainstream society? Do you see yourself as a malcontent?

I find the blogging community refreshing. I like people who say what’s on their mind, even if I don’t agree. A lot of folks seem to find more freedom of expression in a blog that they would if you ran into them at the gas station. I think that’s healthy.

Mr. Keren is a professor at the University of Calgary.

I was in the studio the last two nights. Sunday I was doing rough mixes, which I hate, last night cutting a new song with the band, which I love. A rough mix is when you take an unfinished song and slap together a version so someone can play it for others. To me it’s like eating half-cooked meatloaf or, tilting at windmills.

The Eagles are recording their first record of new material since “The Long Run”. 2007 is the new 1979.

Nine degrees for the low in the Ozarks tonight. Pitchers and catchers report to spring training in 16 days.

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The Super Bowl is on Sunday. It will be the big event of the year for many fans. Tickets are hard to come by. I just looked at stubhub.com and they are running $2,400-$12,000. That’s a lot of dough not including your hotel, meals, transportation etc. Surely out of range for your average, loyal fan.

The Chicago Park District, owner of Soldier Field the Bears home stadium, thought of a nice solution. Why not open up the stadium and let the fans watch the game on the JumboTron. You could charge admission, sell beer and hot dogs, give the fans a stadium experience and give all the money to charity. It’s a great idea.

The N.F.L. says no dice. They say that a stadium full of fans would not be measured by the T.V. ratings system. Charity be damned.

At the same time the N.F.L. has leveed a $5,000 dollar fine to Saints running back Reggie Bush for pointing his finger at Bears players and somersaulting into the end zone. The implication is, I guess, that taunting is somehow undignified and puts the league in a bad light. Greed, hypocricy, scalping, no problem. Taunting will not be tolerated.

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“Two Americas”, that’s the phrase that the Drudge Report used to describe the link to this article about the house that Presidential candidate John Edwards is building. The house is 28,000 plus square feet. Right below that link was this one, describing a house in Montana that a guy is trying to sell for $155,000,000.

Drudge is not opposed to promoting a little class envy to stir the pot. It is conducive to web traffic to promote an “us against them” attitude. It isn’t a new tactic.

Be that as it may, I do not doubt the factuality of either article.

It goes along with what I have witnessed locally. I know a lot of building contractors, framers, painters, plumbers, roofers, electricians, etc. Salt of the earth guys. Each time I run into one I ask what they are working on. For the last couple of years I don’t recall any of these guys having down time. Also, they invariably tell me that they are building some enormous house. More often than not, these homes are second homes or vacation getaways. We are talking about 8-12,000 square foot places. Every year when the leaves fall you can see these big houses all over that weren’t there the year before.

The main industry in this area is tourism. It has been a growth area for quite a while. Off and on there has been a shortage of available housing especially for families that are moving to the area for work. This happens in a lot of tourist areas.

One thing that I have noticed around here is that it’s hard to find a good contractor to do a small job. All the good ones are busy building castles.

It isn’t my intention to promote class envy. I don’t begrudge a person for building or selling a huge house. Although, I can not fathom $155,000,000 or 28,000 square feet. I don’t know why either would ever be necessary.

I think there has always been “two Americas”. There will always be the haves and have nots. The “haves” seem to be growing in numbers, around here at least. I don’t know these folks but the trees are bare and I see their castles.

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