Wisdoma

Is “terrible” too strong a word?

I thought this was a current book, created now in 2010 with ‘Megatrends’ projections for the next decade. I read the original Megatrends, thought it was really good, so was anxious to read the 2010 version.

Wrong was I.

Megatrends 2010 was published in 2005. Meaning it was written in 2004.

That’s OK. Perhaps better as one should now be able to see clearer some of the effects and truthfulness of the new Megatrends.

Unfortunately, all that has been proven is that this book is a bunch of liberal, Ivy-league, idealistic clap with little mooring to reality.

The premise of the book is that the Age of Information is dead. Gone. No longer exists.

Now, we have the age of “Conscious Capitalism” by which companies seek to maximize the common good for all people on the planet – and not profits.

Yeah, right.

Imagine if you will, a college student writing an essay. And then (trying to appear smart) going through and changing every other word so it is at least three syllables. The more syllables the better. The more amorphous and ‘enlightened sounding’ the better. No sentence is less then three lines long. Each paragraph includes references to transformation, consciousness, spirituality, etc. (Not just one of these terms – all of them.)

In other words: unreadable.

After slogging through much of this mess, it becomes quickly apparent (before page 1) that this is a morass of utopian ideas – such as the need to save capitalism (which is dying) by corporations becoming more socially conscious of their empirical and not theoretical need to transform the spirituality of consumers for the ethical advancement of humankind. [Hee, hee - just had to throw in the type of writing this book uses for the fun of it ]

Needless to say, I was a little surprised – having remembered that I enjoyed Megatrends so many years ago. Turns out, the author of Megatrends 2010, Patricial Aburdene, is the ex-wife of the author of Megatrends (John Naisbitt). Or, as she put it, a co-collaborator.

That’s fine. But this book is not about future trends. It is not about trends proven true that few years. OK, I’ll give the book a bone. Everyone is calling themselves “green” – but not due to increased spirituality and increased participation in yoga. (For some reason, the author refers to yoga a lot. Apparently, everyone is doing it.)

Hey, this blog is green. I’ll call it that to get you to read it. Or to sell a product. That doesn’t mean “conscious capitalism” exists.

FYI: The Age of Information is not dead. Capitalism is not dying. Rather, just the opposite is true. I will not be buying any more books from Ms. Aburdene.

May 20th is apparently draw Mohammad Day.

Draw Mohammad Day

That is a good idea. About time people turned on the Muslim extremists and made fun of them.

There is a story that sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amorth.

Father Amorth apparently became an exorcist in 1986, and has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession.

That’s a lot of demons.

Since the Times Online in London, where the story came from, was too lazy to consider what was being claimed, let us help them out.

70,000 cases over 25 years is 2800 per year. Working 365 days a year, that is 7.7 cases per day, every day, for 25 years.

Of course, ‘dealt with’ does not necessarily mean a full-bore investigation and exorcism – although Father Amorth is an exorcist and not an investigator.

Either the math is wildly wrong, as in 70,000 is too high a figure – or maybe the Vatican needs more exorcists as it appears to be a losing battle.

According to the article, anything bad that happens is the work of the Devil.

But more importantly – WHERE ARE THE EXORCISMS OF THE PEDOPHILE CATHOLIC PRIESTS? Surely if this is the work of the Devil, a top priority would have been exorcising the Devil out of priests.

Sooo, right smack in the middle of a huge public discussion about health care, insurance costs, bills in Congress to regulate costs and providing health care, and demands by the President, the tone-deaf idiots at Wellpoint, owners of Anthem Blue Cross, decide to raise insurance rates in California by up to 39 percent. Let’s call it honestly – 40 percent.

Does the company have a death wish?

Now, it has no rate increase. My prediction – it never will get anything more than a token increase.

Publicity is now trained on this company and its billions in profits. It had a 50+ increase percent in profits during the last year – a year when supposedly the country was in the great recession.

In February 2009 Anthem Blue Cross in California had to reinstate a couple thousand members and pay a one million dollar fine. Why? Because it was dropping subscribers once they got sick and had expensive care.

And of course the California Insurance Commissioner is publicizing 700 recent legal violations by Blue Cross, and that fines of up to $10,000 per violation will be sought. That is $7 million in potential fines. Here’s hoping Wellpoint gets whacked. Another prediction: lots of lawyers are looking for potential angles to sue.

But that is nothing comparing to the whacking the company is about to take in Congress. If a bill is passed regulating health insurance at the national level, Wellpoint Anthem has only itself to blame. Instead of laying low they have pointed a huge bullseye on their back.

One of the best shows on television used to be Big Love, a quirky show on HBO about a fundamentalist Mormon family (read polygamy) trying to navigate the breach between compound life and the real world.

The characters were real. Interesting. Likable.

This year, it’s a different show. Just a few of the mashed together story-lines and themes after only three episodes:

* Gay sex everywhere. The leader of the compound is gay. So is a receiver. Anal sex in the family.
* Incestuous desires in the family.
* Gambling and running a casino.
* Drinking alcohol.
* LDS Church bashing.
* Guns.
* Digging up dead bodies to cover-up a murder.
* Intentional lies to the real Mormon Church.
* A polygamist running for public office so he can expose his family’s criminal lifestyle.
* The family creating their own church.
* Extortion … and crazies everywhere.

An out of control mass of ridiculous story-lines that is beyond silly. Just plain stupid.

Why the change in tone?

Last year the Mormon Church had an issue with one of the episodes. A complaint I felt was premature and ultimately wrong. There is also the current highly publicized political debate in California and warfare between the Church and the gay community.

Big Love is created by two openly gay guys from Hollywood. Looks to me like they’re now trying to hurt the Church. Ultimately, they’re just hurting the show.