Peter Krupa

Budget and trade deficits got you down? Tired of hearing the words “military quagmire” and “Hurricane Katrina”? Need a way to shrug off those mid-term election blues? Here’s an idea - why not go shopping!

For a multi-billion-dollar spaceship that can land on the moon!

It won’t solve any problems, but goddamn it feels good! Sort of like eating a whole fried-chicken-and-molasses pie when you’re already morbidly obese. What’s a few more calories tossed on the pile? Or a few more billion dollars on the ol’ charge card?

And you know, the therapeutic part of shopping isn’t actually having something nice when you’re done - oh no. The thereputic part is the act of spending money impulsively, recklessly, even (and especially!) when you can’t afford it.

So go ahead, buy that spaceship from Lockheed Martin, the same company that dicked you over for a cool billion the last time you tried to buy a spaceship. It doesn’t matter, because really, does anyone believe we’re seriously trying to go to the Moon again? There’s no Islamic extremists on the Moon!

On the other hand, there weren’t any in Iraq either. Maybe it’s all a part of an elaborate Rumsfeldian plan to lure al-Qaeda to the Moon, where, finding themselves in a vacuum, they would quickly swell up and explode. Problem solved!

But all cloak-and-daggery aside, there’s probably a much more mundane explanation. As aerospace analyst Paul Nisbet inadvertently puts it, “NASA decided to do something different and go with a company that has not been in manned space before, sort of spreading the wealth….”

He can say that again.

Maybe I’m too young so I’ll just never understand, but who the fuck would pay $2,000 to see Barbara Streisand? I wouldn’t pay that much to see Jesus himself. What do you get for this $2,000? An experience? A memory? A blowjob? Seriously, you could buy like 2,000 junior bacon cheeseburgers with that cash. Or a used Japanese car.

Even when I’m old enough and rich enough that people call me “eccentric” instead of “crazy,” I still won’t pay $2,000 to see a damn concert, I don’t care how much of a fun-loving, come-back, gala extravaganza it is. Screw that, I’m buying a hover car, because I figure we’ll have those by the time I’m old.

Interesting story in the New York Times this morning about a Chechen woman who was beaten and humiliated by authorities for sleeping with a Christian, disgracing Islam, etc. But one detail of the story really caught my attention:

The episode, which took place five months ago, was not investigated, even though videos showing the torture were passed along on cellphones throughout Argun and other Chechen towns. The videos circulated widely enough that accurate details of her abuse were known by roughly half of the Chechens interviewed by The New York Times.

Wait, half of Chechens have cell phones that can play and send video? Even if it’s only a quarter, that still seems like a lot, and it illustrates something: certain tech services in the US cost way more than they do in other parts of the world. Having a phone with data capabilities is a luxury in the US, while half of all people in a war-torn part of the former Soviet Union seem to be able to afford it. Likewise, in most of Latin America text messaging is free, and in Europe, broadband internet is generally cheaper and more available than here (which explains why Skype is a European, not American, company).

And this isn’t even counting what the Asians got on us.

The experts try to explain the American broadband dearth as lack of competition, but I bet it’s more something like this:

The masses aren’t offered cheap broadband (or data streaming, or whatever) and so it never takes root in their consciousness. It’s fiscally impossible, so it’s mentally absent, and they don’t buy. This encourages the service providers to keep pricing it as a luxury item because demand is so low. Which continues to put it out of the reach of the masses, etc., in a cycle that is hard to break.

One of two things has to happen: One (and as happened with cell phones) the masses have to decide the product is so good and necessary that price is no object, which in the end brings the price down due to economies of scale, increased competition as more companies start manufacturing it, etc.

The other thing that could break the cycle is companies deciding that the product is so good, that if they lower the price and give people access, enough will buy to make offering the product profitable at that lower price (as happened with home PCs).

There’s a fancy economist term for this interesting problem, but it slips my mind. Anyway, the point is that we still haven’t reached the tipping point for certain cool-ass technologies, and I wish we would hurry up.

I want to blog from my phone for the low, low price of $29.95 a month.

In a previous post, I mentioned that the North Korean leaders were geniuses, because by completely cutting off North Korea from the rest of the world they make empathy nearly impossible.

But it turns out that if the Dear Leaders want to completely cut off North Korea they’ll have to cover it with a tarp. The LA Times today tells about how Google Earth nerds are putting their fingers on the regime from high in the heavens:

An intrepid German poster named “wonders” has flagged more than 332 sites of interest. Most are military — the vast air defenses ringing Pyongyang, the artillery along the demilitarized zone, the Yongbyon nuclear facilities, tunnels, caves and weird earthworks. He’s labeled a gigantic buried half-cylinder as “Underground parking garage — not!” and an ominous-looking lump as a “Not too friendly looking thing.”

OK, so maybe it’s more interesting for war wonks and urban explorers than potential humanitarians, but at least it’s a start. More likely to induce empathy is the great difference between North and South Korea, even from space: “… the barren, deforested mountaintops give way to lush forests, the dusty valleys to emerald rice fields, the surface-to-air missiles to factories, houses and cars.”

Like I said: It’s a start.

Caracas Mayor Juan Barreto just seized two golf courses. He says they are a poor use of city space, and can be better used for middle class housing.

Class project: Make a list of three things you would seize if you were the lawless ruler of an urban area, and say what you would turn those things into. Me, I would seize a park, a skyscraper, and a bank, and then turn them into a skyscraper, a park, and an empty bank respectively, all named after me, except for the bank, which would be allowed to refill itself until I got a chance to empty it again.

Tomorrow, we’ll be making a much, much longer list of our political enemies and deciding what to do with them and their families.

UPDATE: The LA Times has the whole story on Chavez land redistribution.

I’ve always thought it funny how, when a story breaks about obesity, news organizations like to illustrate it with the obligatory “annonymous at-risk fat person.”

Anyway. It’s a slow night. Enjoy the collage.

Today, when I applied for my New York State driver’s license, I also registered to vote as a Democrat. I figured, hey, I believe in democracy, who doesn’t? Plus, primary elections are way more interesting when you’re one of those swing voters.

In the event of a revolution, real art is usually the first thing to go. Why? Because real art is subversive, and a popular revolution - which is supposed to be supported by everyone - cannot abide dissenting voices. Of course popular revolutions always pay lip service to art, by painting murals and sponsoring ballet. But anyone who cares to look will note censorship raising its ugly head, usually for some good cause like protecting the integrity of the revolution, or punishing disrespect toward the supreme leader.

A normal person wouldn’t put Secuestro Express in either of the above two categories. A Venezuelan movie about the unsettling criminal tradition of kidnapping rich caraqueños to extort money out of their relatives (literally, “express kidnapping”), it has been wildly popular, and become the highest-grossing movie in Venezuelan history. It’s a tough movie, but these are tough times for Venezuela, whose soaring crime rate recently brought people out to the streets in protest.

But rather than laud this cinematic milestone and use the film to generate discussion on what should be done about Venezuela’s real crime problem, the Bolivarian Revolution has decided to attack the messenger:

Vice President José Vicente Rangel has denounced the movie, loosely based on the real-life kidnapping of the director, as “a falsification of the truth with no artistic value.” The director is being sued for “vilifying” President Hugo Chávez, though the president never appears in the film, nor is he mentioned.

But wait, it gets even better:

In January, the hosts of a government television program accused the Jewish filmmaker of being part of a “Zionist conspiracy against Chávez.” The next morning, the president angrily called for laws to block the production of films that “denigrate our revolution.”

Director Jonathan Jakubowicz, 28, fled the country, and now resides in LA.

I try to get worked up about this kind of harassment, but really it’s an old, old story - like a residual hangover from the 20th century. Venezuela, led by Hugo Chávez, is making its way down a well traveled path towards a very basic form of fascism.

Not that he hasn’t gotten plenty of help. Obviously the years and years of mismanagement by the country’s wealthy elite have constructed the perfect podium and the perfect audience for a man who would be king. Still, that doesn’t make it any easier to watch him get up in front of a crowd on independence day and brag about the nation’s military strength.

I’m afraid this will all end badly.

“Choosing one’s advice from sycophants is an ancient road to disaster.”

- Mort Weiss, physicist (Imaginary Weapons, p. 205)

In the next season of Survivor, teams will be divided by race.

I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard that correctly, could you repeat it?

I said, in the next season of Survivor, teams will be divided by race.

Suffice it to say, this is a ridiculous idea. I mean, let me clarify: It’s a great idea for raising the ratings and making money, and it’s also a great idea for causing controversy and the subsequent free publicity that comes with it.

But I despise anything that exploits and encourages the kind of idiotic group identity constructs that we have in the United States. I mean, shit, if you’re going to have races competing against each other, at least get it right. Let’s look at the four groups:

Blacks: Now, does that include recent immigrants, like Nigerians, Kenyans, and Ivory Cost … um … -ians? How about Haitians, Dominicans, Cubans, etc.? Are they “black”? Or do they fit into our next “race”?

Latinos: You might as well just call “American” a race. Presumably “Latinos” includes the indigenous of Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, and Bolivia, as well as the Italian- and Spanish- and Portuguese-descended immigrants from Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, and Columbia. Not to mention all the Caribbeans of African descent. But this isn’t even half as mixed up as the next “race.”

Asians: I won’t even go there. Suffice it to say that the Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Laotians, Vietnamese, Indians, Pakistanis, Uzbekis, Bangladeshis, and Iranians are all actually Asians, so God knows what Survivor thinks “Asian” means, or why one should put all those races and cultures together into one group.

Whites: We all know there’s only one kind of white. Unless you’re Jewish. Or what if you’re Persian? And are they going to do blood tests to make sure they’re not tainted with “black?” Inquiring minds want to know.

I would never propose that the government somehow ban CBS from this ridiculous venture. And I imagine none of the “races” will propose that either until their team loses (who here thinks the whites have a chance in hell?). I’m a firm believer that idiotic ideas should be out in the open where we can all see them for what they are.

But this particular idiotic idea scares me. I’m imagining a whole bunch of black people sitting around a television screaming “kill whitey,” a bunch of white people sitting around screaming kill you-know-what, and a bunch of Dominicans screaming “Coño! Dale un tiro!” or whatever.

Folks. This is not healthy. British culture has succumbed profoundly to this kind of fractured, “multicultural” mentality, and we all saw where that led.

Call me naive. But I think it’s much better if we can all just be Americans.