Now I ain't saying Clems a gold digger...

But....

Plugging into the Dream

Remember when Sarah Palin thought Africa was a country? That idiot. Well, a source at the McCain campaign--Martin Eisenstadt--stepped up recently and outed himself as the leak. What a guy.  Except, he doesn't exist. 

The New York Times reveals that Mr. Eisenstadt is an imaginary person invented by two guys somewhere in a basement. Sound familiar? After discovering a story they liked, they inserted themselves into it and created all the "internet" information--a personal blog, a fake institute where he is a resident--to convince the world, including MSNBC, the New Republic, and the LA Times, that their imagination is reality.  (And yes, the photo above is really one of them.)

These guys have a fascinating reason for doing so, one that could help us in developing Cecil.  Motivated by politics, vanity, fame, and whatever else, they exploited systemic vulnerabilities to take credit for an event beyond their world.  Perhaps Cecil's motivation is that he found a story he loved, and wanted to alter and manipulate it around so that he could profit from it.  To become the new victim, or hero.  If so, what is his relationship with Clive?  With Regina?  The Ducks?  Does he need them or does he compete with them?  Read the story.  This helps me quite a bit.

Green Bubble: Pop goes the Future

Thomas Friedman, the perhaps-genius op-ed writer for the NY Times comes on the Daily Show arguing for the necessity of a Green Bubble to fix our energy crisis.  It begs the question: are bubbles truly--despite all the destruction they leave in their wake--the best avenues of American ingenuity?  They feed off the often misguided American Dreams of our comrades, but can they also be used for good?

The whole clip is good, but the juicy stuff comes right at the end.

Turns out gold is just a shiny metal

Check it out: The Daily Show strikes gold again.  They actually make quite a brilliant link between internet wealth and "gold" wealth.  Both are kind of equal in their imaginary value.  

Obama-Biden Prospector

Looks like we have a land-shark on our hands, Levi-Strauss style.  A CNN article explains that someone bought up all the possible Obama-Biden domain names and is selling them each for $100,000 on eBay.  Presumably the price could go up if someone ELSE buys them and decides to jack up the price for a profit.  

Ahh, quite an American Dream we're living.

PS--Isn't this picture cute?  These guys are so cute.

Get your golden shower today!

...still trying to sell gold today. Watch the video. (it's not porn.)

The Bubble Prophet

Check out this article in the NYTimes Magazine, called Dr. Doom.

It tells the story of an economics professor at NYU who, in september 2006, gave a lecture to the IMF warning that the housing bubble was about to pop, taking down other financial institutions like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with it.  He was basically laughed off-stage.  The idea of a sort-of bubble popping prophet interests me a lot.  That person, to me, is Regina, the girl with a head on her shoulders but no one listens to anyway.  It seems to me an amazing use of dramatic irony for her to warn everyone (or the audience) of the bubble popping or of the imminent doom that all bubbles carry with them, and then get laughed off-stage by the other characters.  It works because we, in the present, know it was not to be forever, but the characters surely don't.  It also relates to McLuhan's theory that "If it works, it's obsolete"... that once it's a proven rule, it's too late to cash in on it.

There seem to be issues of Fate that we have yet to tap into, but lie strongly under the surface of the play.  Cecil, no matter how hard he tries to re-rout history, is unable to change the song.  Despite his intervention, the song finds a new way to reach the same end.  I find that so powerful.  In terms of this article, Cecil is the ultimate dummy for not realizing that the Dot Com Bubble would pop just as hard and ceremoniously as the Gold Bubble.

What do you guys think?