Flat Earth Society
I’m reading The World is Flat by globalization’s greatest cheerleader, Thomas Friedman. As the author skips across the globe speaking with leaders of commerce and culture, he visits Harvard political theorist Michael J. Sandel. The noted academic startled Friedman by suggesting that his “flattening” ideas have some parallels with what Marx and Engels were saying over 150 years ago. And he’s right. Two paragraphs fromThe Communist Manifesto are eerily prescient:
The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature.
PostSecrets
My eight postsecrets for the day:
- I don’t know how to play Texas Hold ‘Em or any card game for that matter. I don’t do any computer or console gaming and probably never will.
- I sometimes worry that my drinking a beer or two a day is too much alcohol consumption.
- Several times I day I fingerskate my keyboard skatepark. I always land Smith Grinds on the space bar.
- I recycle at home more than ever. But at work, I pitch cans, bottles, and print-outs into the trash can.
- I almost got croc tears the other day when a young girl was praised by the American Idol judges for her stellar performance.
- I get annoyed when people make assumptions about my beliefs and general worldview. But I do the same thing all the time.
- I’m so sick of getting sparechanged on Franklin Street. It’s way more aggressive than anything I experienced in Austin. I don’t feel guilty at all for looking down at my feet. Soon I’ll have to put white ear buds in my ears to act like I can’t hear them asking for my hard-earned money (which I will then use for a $9 sandwich at Sandwhich.)
- Sarah and I have started “Project Friend” where we occasionally put ourselves in situations so that we might make some friends here in Chapel Hill.
Facing Forward
It’s one of the most visited web sites on the internet and yet most of us over thirty have never heard of it. If fact, back in October, it ranked 10th most visted site in the United States. But if you’re an undergraduate student at just about any college in America, The Facebook is as important to you as a Nalgene bottle. I was recently reminded about a fascinating study centered around the politics of UNC Facebook users done by Fred Stutzman, a member of UNC’s ibiblio. He discovered that:
- 85% of Carolina’s Freshman class are on the Facebook.
- Freshmen make an average of 65 new friends in their first semester.
- Freshman political orientation does not change significantly in the first semester.
- Conservative students make more friends.
- Conservative and Liberal students in Chapel Hill like many of the same books, such as Catcher in the Rye, Harry Potter, To Kill a Mockingbird, Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, and The Great Gatsby.
- Similarly, they like some of the same bands, including Coldplay and The Killers. Carolina conservatives are really into a band called Rascal Flatts.
Of course, there are a few caveats and a legitimate social scientist would probably want to study his methodology closely. Be sure to check out the comments at the end of the post. Some interesting stuff there too. For example, a student at the University of Alabama claims that liberal and conservative students at both Carolina and UNC like the same movies. Liberals choose Garden State and conservatives pick The Notebook and Anchorman. Also, there was a similar study done at Salisbury University.
5 Reasons
Five reasons I’m missing Austin right now…
- With all the great city footage in the first two episodes of A&E’s Rollergirls, I don’t have Venis Envy, just Austin Envy.
- Our first experience with Mexican food in Chapel Hill was disappointing. We tried again with Monterrey, a restaurant that came highly recommended. Yeah… not so much. I’d seriously pay $30 for an order of cochinitas pibil at Curra’s.
- Our December gas bill was $258.33. Seriously.
- SXSW is now just two months away.
- Witnessed one of the best football games ever and feeling like an honorary Longhorn.
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