Your elected official at work....

Assignment 4-Satire.

In August of this year it was discovered that all constituent inquiries are to be routed through the political staff of the ruling party. The Government maintains that this is nothing new and that it is simply a matter to expedite the process. If, for instance, a constituent were to ask a question of their elected member, and the elected member then were to reach out to the government department responsible on behalf of the constituent, the department contacted would then further the details of the inquiry to the government for the edification of the cabinet minister involved. Thus insuring that the constituent, who was thus far anonymous is now adequately identified and their problem laid bare for the cabinet minister in charge to either agree or disagree as they see fit and therefore resolve the issue without doubt.

It’s all really simple you see, and to cut the amount of red tape involved the elected official should bring the constituents complaint directly to the cabinet minister in charge or rather to the bureaucratic aide to the cabinet minister in charge, who would then pass it along to the bureaucratic aide of the Premier Minister and a decision can then be rendered. What could be better for seeking a top down decision? In order to further expedite the process the constituent can contact their elected member who would then run at full speed to the nearest bureaucratic aide to the cabinet minister and forcefully encourage the aide to further this along to the Premier Ministers aide so a decision can be rendered.

This should in no way affect the democratic process however when voting one might consider electing the fastest candidate rather then one simply there for the good of the people. The voting electorate may also look at a candidate’s ability to “wheedle” and “finagle” to insure their inquiries receive the utmost attention from the bureaucratic aides. Should privacy be a concern you need only rest assured that the elected official, members of the ruling party and several dozen aides de camp would be the only ones to hear of the issue. Besides said the Premier Minister of the ruling party “this is only a policy not a law, a simple policy to insure that if a constituent has an issue with government the government will hear about it.” (Note: The policy, if broken, is punishable by fines or imprisonment). In an effort to assuage all fear the Premier Minister then stated, “Your democratic rights are perfectly safe, I just felt it would work better with one person to administer them.” 

Assignment 3-The Devils Advocate.

     I chose to change my research topic mid stream and left American Politics for the somewhat innocuous idea of what killed the video store. What comes to mind immediately is that the digital age killed the video store but some areas that were not fully understood was primarily what video store? It is true to say that there are far fewer neighbourhood video stores but the most noticeable absence in the video store market is the lack of blue. Blockbusters blue signage that adorned almost every mini mall and big box shopping centre has disappeared entirely and not all because of the so called direct to viewer revolution. They lost to Netflix. They could not change fast enough to compete with the Netflix model. Netflix themselves could not even compete with their own model as they have tried to reinvent themselves and lost the mail order movie rental market and their streaming video is mostly unpalatable oldies you can see on Turner Classics 8 days a week.
     That Blockbuster lost to Netflix is a given, but the collateral damage in that war of rentals saw the loss of the neighbourhood video store, the convenience store that had a room on the side for movies, the ability to view, on one wall, a thousand titles and to rent a new release for the low, low price of 5 bucks. Sure the digital age provided a lot of competition, but it was the model itself that could not hold. Now the movie studios and distributors have a new model, they just sell you the movie at Walmart or Amazon at 30.00 dollars a crack, no license fees, no fee's per views ratios just direct to consumer. No muss, no fuss, you buy it you own it and the studio get a good slice of the revenue. It will be tough to move them off this position and with streaming video still a quagmire of who should pay who for what I do not think we will ever see a resurgence of the mom and pop video rental store or have the ease of legal access to a new release when Blockbuster had a hundred copies on the wall.

Blog Assignment 2

Review "Terra Nova"

          Usually when I hear the words television drama I run screaming to the book case for something to read. This particular evening last week I was bored with the selection of books I would have had read a second or third time and decided to fire up the ole television and watch a movie. Awkwardly manhandling the ham fisted Wii controller I started to navigate through Netflix and to see if I could see something to well...see. I settled on Episode 1 of Terra Nova. I am unconcerned about a spoiler as it was a television drama and all the questions and answers are usually given out in the promotional ads prior to the show and the other reason was that it was Terra Nova and I am really not concerned about ruining it for you. Synopsis: Man destroys world, man finds hole in space that allows for time travel and decides destroying the world once was not enough so they set out to do it again. The pictures of this television drama were really quite amazing, from the bleak apocalyptic world of the future filled with pollution, guns and vehicles to the pre apocalyptic past filled with clean air, guns and vehicles? The whole premise of this tripe was to continually hammer home to the audience that humans have destroyed the world through their greed and destructive behaviour only to show the utopia of the past being set up for the same destruction. This was not irony, it was not intentional, it was purely because they could not make television with out guns and trucks and so now instead of guns, trucks, pollution and dark grey skies, now it is guns, trucks, clean air, sunshine and of course, dinosaurs. Perhaps it was intentional, perhaps if I watch episode 2 I will note that the whole premise is to show that humans are simply incapable of learning, but I have my doubts. Stay tuned next week when we talk about "Criminal Minds" and their obvious use of parent/child separation anxiety to lure more viewers to this formulaic crime drama. 

Earlier days......

The next assignment is an analysis of a song. I should have used this one. I have heard it many, many times.

Why did we kill off the video store?

          Stuck between the terrible selection from the on demand service and the acres of "nothing I want to see" on Netflix I decided to take a trip to my old neighbourhood video store. I was looking for Winnie the Pooh, and while I am sure I could have stole it from the internet something about spending Saturday night with my two young boys watching a hot copy of WTP didn't appeal to me so I made the journey. 

         The video store has definitely seen better days, dilapidated, walls full of VHS, all of them for sale for a buck or two. Some DVD, Some. Winnie wasn't there yet and maybe wouldn't be, as it really is a matter of nickel and dimes. I spoke to the owner who I have had a video store owner/video renter relationship for decades and while he is a passionate movie fan the hard reality is that there is just no living left in it anymore and the getting out would be too expensive, so on reduced hours to accommodate his pay-check job, he soldiers on.

          The biggest of the big in video rental has fallen, the days of a video store on the corner of every neighbourhood are gone.  Are our movie choices really better? For me the answer is a resounding no.  I am not a well versed downloader and have better things to do then build vast movie libraries I may or may never watch. This is what a video store was for? On an order of 30.00 dollars or more I get free shipping on the movies I purchase, and thats just great. I don't want to buy movies for 30.00 dollars or more and wait 10 days to watch Winnie the Pooh with my boys on a Saturday night. That was what movie stores did. We have not killed the video store simply by watching movies elsewhere, it was a big part, but it was not all.

        Time is finite and we may spend what free time we have in any way we choose. Once we watched movies, we still do to some degree but again, there is only so much time. If you spend 108 minutes playing on Facebook and watching you tube videos, then you have just used any time you might have had to watch a movie. The internet killed off the movie store but it didn't do it by offering us more movies or an alternate way to get movies, It did it by changing what we want to watch and how we spend our time. I miss the selection from old to new in a movie store, the walls were catalogs, you did not have to refresh or try another site, just look at the walls . The genres, pictures, list of actors, description were al in one spot, right there on the back of the jacket. Will anybody ever see a jacket for "The last Starfighter", "Mambo Kings" "Walking tall", "The Swashbuckler", Superman" "The Day of the Jackal" and 1000's and 1000's of others good and bad and decide to pick it up for a Saturday night at home?

Collectivism vs. Individualism.

A lot of hay is being made of the word socialists in this years American Presidential Elections, the current president, Barack Obama is often called a socialist, communist, marxists, all as though those names were interchangeable and mean the same thing. Obviously they do not but president Obama's opponents use it as a slur and use it to mean collectivism. They accuse the president of "wanting to share the wealth". Their wealth. They refer to the individual businessperson as an island, creating all they have with no outside help? There is a middle ground, individualism is at the root of western society however without the creation of that society no one can reach their personal goals. Many countries such as Canada accept that we are a social democracy, a blending of socialism and capitalism. Many on the American right believe the US to be completely capitalistic? This is not true, there are safety nets and social welfare programs in abundance. These programs born out of collectivism allow for an orderly and just society in which to work towards your goals.
The constitution of the United States of America starts with "We the people..." Not with "I'm a gonna.." after all.

New Blog for English class 1110

I always make the joke that I am a paid professional blogger because I spend all day commenting on other peoples blogs. Paid? Yes but not to spend all day commenting on other peoples blogs. This is my first blog. I have titled it Smashers and Grape as it was the Carronades, the smashers, when packed with grape shot would be used to clear the decks of an enemy ship. So "beat to quarters" load the carronades and lets begin.