How Many 'Muricans Will Respond To The Global Climate Strike Today? Or Will They Just Shop Til They Drop?

From topmost image panel: Climate protesters last month during global strike; most recent reading of CO2 concentration at Mauna Loa observatory; Middle: Climate -spawned wildfire in California. Bottom: Brain afflicted with parasitic (bladder) worms and another person suffering from a filiarisis worm infection. Both of these will become more frequent as global warming ramps up in temperate countries.


Even as I write this two things diametrically opposite are happening: 165 million Americans are set to shop until they drop for bargains on Black Friday - and millions are set to demonstrate in a global climate strike around the world.   The strikes in dozens of cities are part of a global movement started last year by Swedish school girl, Greta Thunberg.  She has taken heat, no pun intended, from the knuckle dragger low IQ segment of the populace (mainly Trump worshipping, white conservative males) but has continued her mission undaunted by the disparaging apes.

Meanwhile,  5 million citizens of Sydney, Australia are choking from toxic plumes spawned by 150 wildfires related to global warming induced drought.  This is not new. In January, 2013 wild fires spawned in the midst of the hottest summer on record engulfed Tasmania with searing images including that below:


See e.g.

A Vision of Humanity's Near Future?

With world leaders gathering in Madrid next week for their annual meet and greet  over how to avert a climate catastrophe, the latest assessment issued by the United Nations said Tuesday that greenhouse gas emissions are still rising dangerously and failure to control emissions will lead to "climate chaos".  But that's more or less a bland euphemism. In fact, we are more likely facing a climate catastrophe given how long the rising CO2 and ocean effects have been lowballed.  Last month, by way of example ocean temperatures broke a record.  Further, over the last half century 90 percent of warming has been in the oceans, leading to higher acidification, with loss of corals and mnow threatening the survival of plankton as well - the primary oxygen generators for the planet.

According to the latest UN report, known as "Emissions Gap Report":

“The summary findings are bleak."    

This given that countries have failed to halt the rise of greenhouse gas emissions despite repeated warnings from scientists, with China and the United States, the two biggest polluters, further increasing their emissions last year.  The result, the authors added, is that “deeper and faster cuts are now required.”

Pathetically, the international climate negotiations, scheduled to begin next week, are not even designed to ramp up pledges by world leaders to cut their own countries’ emissions. That deadline is still a year away - allowing another major spike in CO2 concentration. .  This year’s meetings are instead intended to hammer out the last remaining rules on how to implement the 2015 Paris climate accord, in which every country pledged to rein in greenhouse gases, with each setting its own targets and timetables.

Newsflash, that 'ship' has sailed into the sunset and no longer viable! We already know the limits and targets set in the Paris Accord are too weak by a factor  of at least two.  Meaning that even if they were universally adopted and enacted (and enforced ) immediately it would not be sufficient to stave off a climatic catastrophe (stage 1 of such) in 11  years.  See e.g.
:
Climate report understates threat

Excerpt:

So far, average temperatures have risen by one degree Celsius. Adding 50 percent more warming to reach 1.5 degrees won’t simply increase impacts by the same percentage—bad as that would be. Instead, it risks setting up feedbacks that could fall like dangerous dominos, fundamentally destabilizing the planet. This is analyzed in a recent study showing that the window to prevent runaway climate change and a “hot house” super-heated planet is closing much faster than previously understood.

Global greenhouse gas emissions have grown by 1.5 percent every year over the last decade, according to the latest  annual assessment. The opposite must happen if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change, including more intense droughts, stronger storms and widespread hunger by mid-century. To stay within relatively safe limits, emissions must decline sharply, by 7.6 percent every year, between 2020 and 2030, the UN report warned. (The media claim that  2015 "emissions adjustments" have avoided the 4C increase is belied by the feedback potential cited in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists' link above.)

The World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that emissions of three major greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide — have all swelled in the atmosphere since the mid-18th century.  According to Alden Meyer, director of policy and strategy at the Union of Concerned Scientists:

“We are sleepwalking toward a climate catastrophe and need to wake up and take urgent action,” 

The world’s 20 richest countries, responsible for more than three-fourths of worldwide emissions, must take the biggest, swiftest steps to move away from fossil fuels, the report emphasized. The richest country of all, the United States, however, has formally begun to pull out of the Paris accord.

Meanwhile, a vast swath of American consumers are oblivious to all this, more focused on getting their new HDTV on 'Black Friday'.  One might say, fiddling while the (new) Rome burns - or is about to.

Were the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica to melt, sea levels would rise by an estimated 225 feet worldwide. Few orthodox pundits expect that to happen anytime soon, but many of us believe at the current rate of CO2 increase it may well be by 2100.  . In any case, those ice sheets now look a lot more fragile than they did to the climate change panel in 1995, when it said that little change was expected over the next hundred years.

In the years since, data has shown that both Greenland and Antarctica have been shedding ice far more rapidly than anticipated. Ice shelves, which are floating extensions of land ice, hold back glaciers from sliding into the sea and eventually melting. In the early 2000s, ice shelves began disintegrating in several parts of Antarctica, and scientists realized that process could greatly accelerate the demise of the vastly larger ice sheets themselves. And some major glaciers are dumping ice directly into the ocean.

By 2014, a number of scientists had concluded that an irreversible collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet had already begun, and computer modeling in 2016 indicated that its disintegration in concert with other melting could raise sea levels up to six feet by 2100, about twice the increase described as a possible worst-case scenario just three years earlier. At that pace, some of the world’s great coastal cities, including New York, London and Hong Kong, would become inundated. 

This year, a review of 40 years of satellite images indicate that the East Antarctic ice sheet, which was thought to be relatively stable, may also be shedding vast amounts of ice.  As the seas rise, they are also warming at a pace unanticipated as recently as five years ago. A warmer ocean means more powerful storms, and die-offs of marine life, but it also suggests that the planet is more sensitive to increased carbon dioxide emissions than previously thought.

By the early 1990s, climate scientists completed more precise studies of ice cores extracted from the Greenland ice sheet. Dust and oxygen isotopes encased in the cores provided a detailed climate record going back eons. It revealed that there had been 25 rapid climate change events like the Younger Dryas in the last glacial period.  The evidence in those ice cores  - many of them originally studied by Univ. of Alaska climate researcher Prof. Gunther Weller (at the Geophysical Institute) -

Prof.  Gunther Weller (1987) at Geophysical Institute 

was articulated in several papers in the 1980s,  showing the most rapid warming in the Arctic.  His work and that of colleagues  has disclosed that over the past 800,000 years the CO2 concentration of  300 ppm was never crossed until after the advent of the Industrial Revolution and the burning of fossil fuels.  Prof. Weller's work was also critical in highlighting the phenomenon of "Arctic amplification".  In papers and seminars delivered at the GI over 1985-1990 he pointed out that a much warmer Arctic translated to a much more unstable polar region with more frequent intrusions ("waves")  of polar air.  This would  lead to frigid temperatures in parts of the U.S. such as we've seen the past few years.  In one seminar he described it "almost like moving the Arctic to the continental U.S."

Such ice core measurements have since proven pivotal in overturning the conventional wisdom. As the science historian Spencer Weart put it:

“How abrupt was the discovery of abrupt climate change? Many climate experts would put their finger on one moment: the day they read the 1993 report of the analysis of Greenland ice cores. Before that, almost nobody confidently believed that the climate could change massively within a decade or two; after the report, almost nobody felt sure that it could not.”

In 2002, the National Academies acknowledged the reality of rapid climate change in a report, “Abrupt Climate Change: Inevitable Surprises,” which described the new consensus as a “paradigm shift.” This marked  a reversal of its 1975 report.

The melting of permafrost has also defied expectations.   See e.g.

More Rapid Permafrost Melting Triggers Emergency C...

This is ground that has remained frozen for at least two consecutive years and covers around a quarter of the exposed land mass of the Northern Hemisphere. As recently as 1995, it was thought to be stable. But by 2005, the National Center for Atmospheric Research estimated that up to 90 percent of the Northern Hemisphere’s topmost layer of permafrost could thaw by 2100, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere.  Janice and I experienced melting permafrost's effect first hand while visiting Fairbanks, Alaska in March, 2005. There, we witnessed the collapse of a 150' high ice tower  (part of an ice design exhibition) which was traced to melting permafrost below.  We also noted the displacement of the Trans-Alaska oil pipeline - again from melting permafrost- while on a snowmobile expedition, e.g.

Most appalling, if  the Trump administration has its way, even the revised worst-case scenarios may turn out to be too rosy. In late August, the administration announced a plan to roll back regulations intended to limit methane emissions resulting from oil and gas exploration, despite opposition from some of the largest companies subject to those regulations. More recently, its actions approached the surreal as the Justice Department opened an antitrust investigation into those auto companies that have agreed in principle to abide by higher gas mileage standards required by California. The administration also formally revoked a waiver allowing California to set stricter limits on tailpipe emissions than the federal government.

One wonders how many Americans will pause to think of all this as they go on their merry buying sprees today. Also, how many will be mindful that the products they purchase will have direct further impacts on the rapidly destabilzing climate.  I mean, who gives a damn about parasitic worms invading one's brain when there are deals at Best Buy to be had?

See also:

The California Wildfires - A Preview Of The Runaw...

And:

Environmental Policy

The New Normal

And:

Environmental Policy | Sustainability

Eating Well Without Destroying the Climate

Be Part of the 'Black Friday' Herds? Hell NO!

I watched with mouth agape on the CBS News this morning as Thanksgiving Day shoppers bashed each other in Florida to get some limited desired product. Their antics reminded me of the words of Erik Larsen in his book The Naked Consumer  , p. 167.   that "consumers" crowded into small spaces for limited buys emulated a herd of panicked cattle. Or "mindless sheep". 

Well, that means some 33 million Americans mutated into herds and "mindless sheep" yesterday - Thanksgiving Day - as they stormed big box stores and fought over TVs, Xboxes, Notebooks and what not.  Hmmmm......what does it show? That too many are prepared to destroy a day for family conviviality (so long as politics is avoided) to grab some more "stuff" they probably can't fit into their abodes anyway.

This morning I saw similar mobs massing toward the local Kohl's as I went on my usual morning brisk walk. They were likely among the played idiots that believe getting a 30% markdown is a "bargain" despite the fact that stores typically rig prices to process 30 percent as a net win. As Rebecca Jarvis reported on her news segment two days ago, shoppers would need to get at least 40-50% off to make any real gain. But illusions reign in the American consumer's head.

In another take, the scenes of shoppers run amuck this morning reminded me of  teens in the midst of a rock frenzy (like the infamous Stones' appearance at Altamonte, CA decades ago.)  Out of control, without any semblance of reason, proportion or judgment. This is backed up by Benjamin Barber author of : 'CONSUMED: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole'- which ought to be required reading for everyone.  Barber documented how consumption infantilizes Americans.

Rather than being wary citizens, attending to how our gov't is cutting our rights by surveillance, etc. we have been infantilized to just consume.....and it has to be the right brand. Let's get that new Ipad! Let's get that new  smart phone, HDTV or X-box video game!  We've descended into virtual babies with nappies as we've gotten toy after toy and embraced the "Gimme!" idiom. Barber demonstrated how this rampant consumerism degrades a whole society to limit its civic role and attention, and ultimately lose participatory democracy .....to the corporatocracy. (The Neoliberal imperative, of course, applauds this.)

An even more trenchant take on the devolution of the American citizen to "consumer' is provided by Neil Postman in his book,  ‘The Disappearance of Childhood’ . In his Chapter Seven ‘The Adult Child’, Postman lays out a summary of his thesis on the disappearance of childhood (and adulthood)  in tandem with what it has evolved (devolved?) into after the emergence of video culture. Basically his premise is video culture puts children and adults on the same mental footing, with the net effect of regressing the adult to the child level.  In the 50s adults read books like Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"  and children watched "Mickey Mouse Club" and Davy Crockett.  Today both play Xbox games, work Ipads and tweet. Where's the distinction? The adult had become melded with the child.

Postman defined a number of truly adult attributes which include:


- A capacity for self-restraint

- A tolerance for delayed gratification

- A sophisticated ability to think sequentially and conceptually

- A preoccupation with both historical continuity and the future

- A high valuation of reason and hierarchical order


He then goes on to warn that as electronic (visual) media have assumed center stage “different attitudes and character traits come to be valued and a new, diminished definition of adulthood begins to emerge”. This new stunted version of the adult which reaches its apotheosis (nadir?) in the adult child has arrived with the television-video- computer- Twitter age which flattens out all differences between all ages.

What I beheld this morning with store mobs pushing and shoving and running over each other to grab an Xbox or Ipad showed me 6' tall, 190 lb. "children" who lacked every one of the attributes above. As I envisaged the future I can see not only that Thanksgiving will be sacrificed to consumer culture but probably Halloween in the next round.

Real Patriots Don't DO 'Black Fridays'!

"Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves therefore are its only safe depositories. AND TO RENDER THEM SAFE, THEIR MINDS MUST BE IMPROVED."

 - Thomas Jefferson, 'Notes on Virginia'.


I am certain that in the last two days  I've tossed (into the recycle dumpster) at least two -thirds of all the newspapers received. Why? ALL 'Black Friday' (i.e. Shopaholic) adverts! Kohl's announces 100 items on special! Walmart has special opening day Thanksgiving!  and so on and so forth! How about the workers? Don't they count?

Case in point was one of the Walmart "associates" planning to strike today, Mr. Greg Fletcher (featured on the ending segment of 'UP With Chris Hayes' on MSNBC last Sunday) who aknowledged to Chris Hayes and his panel that he along with his wife (also an associate) would be unable to spend Thanksgiving together with their kids. He was confirmed to work the 5 p.m. to 5 a.m. shift and she had to work from 3 p.m. to midnight. This is not right, and no one ....no worker... should be hostage to the capitalist-driven consumerist frenzy so well documented by Benjamin Barber, author of : 'CONSUMED: How Markets Corrupt Children, Infantilize Adults and Swallow Citizens Whole'- which ought to be required reading for everyone.

Of course, another book that needs to be read by all those citizens who wish to remain citizens (as opposed to mere grubby "consumers" ....i.e. out to "consume") is Douglas Rushkoff's COERCION, that details the psycho-dynamic basis for how most of us become puppets at the end of the strings manipulated by the Overclass marketeers and their associated Puppeteers. The latter are often ensconced in Washington think tanks and their pundit blabber often fills the air waves - or newspaper columns- warning Americans that they have an obligation to hold up their end of the economy by spending! (Since 70% of GDP is claimed to be traced to consumer activity- purchasing).  Never mind "consumers" are emulating herds of cattle, running each other down in the aisles of most big box stores today! )

But to me, real patriots will not allow themselves to be driven into such frenetic consumption, like zombies or brainless puppets. If they are real patriots , and citizens, they will sit home today - and pick up a good book from their library shelves - OR, look for one of the thousands of available FREE online and immerse their brain cells in something enlightening and constructive, improving their minds as Thomas Jefferson once beckoned us in his  “Notes on Virginia”  .

Jefferson's basis for making his comment was a recurring worry that at some future time citizens might become lax, and sluggish of mind, thereby losing the mental acuity and awareness that assures REAL freedom of their nation, as opposed to that embraced by the red, white and blue paper patriots who espouse endless war and a gargantuan military. If he could have peered 200 or so years into the future, however, he'd have seen that this sluggishness of mind has become an attribute of most of us. Our thinking, our judgments, or capacity for intense thoughts have become diluted by too much mental 'candy' and eye candy, as well as the endless desire to consume (which is why the Overclass now dismisses us as "consumers").

And what, pray tell,  is the "consumer"? He or she is basically a sheep, a mindless sheep. Erik Larson ("The Naked Consumer”  , p. 167) first highlighted the mutation, noting how consumer monitors in stores regularly referred to consumers as "grazing like cattle"(ibid.). Meanwhile, a September, 2011 article about brand names in The Wall Street Journal casually ruminated about "branding" consumers from the earliest ages. That is, insinuating deep product preferences into their brains, preferably from age two or earlier.(Why does little 3-year old Johnny Joe prefer a Big Mac to your own burgers? Easy! He's been branded! Especially if 'toys' are part of the eating deal!)

Are most people aware they are being relentlessly tracked and studied like prey- or better- "grazing cattle"? Hardly. Should we be aware? Probably. Why? Because by having awareness - and displaying it - we become more than the passive, stupid 'consuming cattle' they want us to be. Larson again (p. 181):

"No one ever notices. Ever. Consumers shop like in a trancelike state like 'idly grazing animals"


How can this happen? Central to Rushkoff's thesis is a process called "the Gruen Transfer". Without its initiation and consolidation within a fertile brain, arguably no American would become a marketer's zombie puppet. Alas, most of our citizenry, unread as they are (and with too short attention spans induced by over obsession with social ties on Facebook, etc.) aren't aware of how the Gruen Transfer takes over their mind in any situation. To read Rushkoff's book, therefore, is at once like reading the most horrific of Dennis Wheatley's "Devil" novels, while being brutally exposed to how our society really runs.


I never believed in the power of the Gruen Transfer until once having had occasion to ask an acquaintance in marketing if it could be conceivable an American could be so market-tethered and brainwashed that he or she would need to consult an advert before even taking a dump. Her response? "Of course! Hell, they would definitely wish to know whether the cool thing is to use Charmin or remain a poor douche and putz using some generic 2-ply brand of rough toilet paper! If you have to do your business at least you need to end it special!"


Incredible!

 Still, I had a difficult time swallowing this until coming across an article in The Economist ('Hidden Persauders II', Sept. 24, 2011, p.80), which of course cops its title based on the much earlier work 'The Hidden Persuaders', by Vance Packard. A book I believe every member of Generation X, Y and Z ought to read very carefully, if you can get it on your Kindles! That book, from over fifty years ago, showed the power of the marketing empire even then.

The Economist also references how assorted "market guerillas" prowl the social networks, in order to generate "buzz" that ropes in the needy eyes, and claims gullible brains. One company referenced (ibid.) is "the Girls Intelligence Agency" which employs some 40,000 girls to act as 'guerilla marketers', sowing buzz for assorted products - in return for which services they get free products and "everything they need to organize a slumber party". Of course, the slumber party then delivers the perfect captive audience which features an assortment of all the buzzed products which each guest is invited to try out. Refuse to buy after getting such an invite? That would be uncool!


Back to Rushkoff and the Gruen Transfer. As Rushkoff notes (p. 212):

"(The key) is the moment of confusion. In that moment of confusion- the buyer is subjected to a dissociative hypnotic trance (by the focus of the advert)- the consumer absorbs the image within the image."

Case in point, as cited by The Economist (ibid.).

 "In 1995, only 53% of American men admitted to shopping for themselves. That figure has now risen to 75% with many now buying traditional female products. The marketers created a $27 billion male grooming industry from nothing by bombarding men with images once meant for women .."

Thus, incredibly the new items on the new males' shelves evidently include depilatories, eye liner (!?), special moisturizers for body, face and hands, and "novel fragrances". Items they'd never have remotely purchased in the days the Gruen Transfer was still a primitive marketing ideation, but has since been developed to a state of the art mind-washing tactic so the males "absorb the image within the image", i.e. of them using female products! (Let's hope to hell the marketing monkeys never succeed in getting American males to do pedicures!) Rushkoff goes on:

"That's all coercion really is, after all: convincing a person to lie to himself by any means necessary. The stance of ironic detachment, while great for protecting ourselves for straightforward linear stories and associations, nonetheless makes us vulnerable to more sophisticated forms of influence.."

For sure, the incessant bombardment of ads via 'Black Friday' specials has played no small role in feeding this consumerist frenzy, that's now reached the point that even Thanksgiving is no longer sacred for families. Many millions must now conceive of having to work. (Btw, of course we know medical people, RNs, docs etc,. are on call...this stands to reason! But Walmart associates? Come on!)

Meanwhile, today's Black Friday walkout is being organized by the Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart (OUR Walmart), a group of Wal-Mart employees formed last year that works closely with the United Food and Commercial Workers union, or UFCW. OUR Walmart, which organized walkouts in October, is pushing for better working conditions, benefits, and an end to alleged retaliation by management.

Today's strike would add yet another chapter to a wave of worker protests across Wal-Mart’s supply chain. It all began in June when a group of immigrant guest workers at a Wal-Mart seafood supplier in Louisiana walked off their jobs. In September, workers at company warehouses in California and Illinois went on strike. The workers in Illinois eventually won back pay. California workers weren’t so lucky—they started striking again last Wednesday. Shortly after those warehouse strikes began, retail workers backed by OUR Walmart started walking out of stores in 12 states.

Wal-Mart is painting the striking employees as a minority that’s unrepresentative of its workforce.  But don't believe it! Even those not directly participating (on account of a real fear of losing a low payscale job they still need) will be sympathizing with their fellows.

Yes, there will be those right wing goons who portray these striking workers as "communists" or even "terrorists" - but consider the sources! Most plausibly either the likes of Bill O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh or certain unnamed FLA "pastors" who also believe prostate cancer is a "spiritual disease" for millions and oh yeah, that Jonah really got gulped by a whale and lived in its belly 3 days.

Bottom line? REAL patriots and true citizens will not be doing a thing consumer-wise, today, other than perhaps to pick up a few needed groceries. But no 'toys', including for adults - such as HDTVs, DVDs, or other 'stuff'. Save your money! Besides - the "fiscal cliff" is approaching and you may need that $$$$ if tax rates go up across the board ....as they really should!

The Insanity of "Black Friday"

Watching the hordes of 'Black Friday' shoppers captured pummeling each other for x-boxes on one Saturday night news clip segment, I wondered what all the hoopla was about. Why had so many Americans been reduced to out of control cattle as if on cattle drives - instigated by cynical retailers who knew damned well they didn't have the merchandise in adequate quantity to deliver the goods.

Recall that it was Erik Larson (The Naked Consumer, Henry Holt & Co., 1992, p. 181) who first noted:

"No one ever notices. Ever. Consumers shop like in a trancelike state like 'idly grazing animals"

So that by extension, if "consumers" are packed into relatively small retail spaces with limited amounts of desirable merchandise, it is inevitable they will act not in "trance like states" but like wild herds careening into each other for the limited water in the water hole. This is why Larson and others regard consumption in itself as an inhuman activity, not fit for any whole person or citizen to do in any excess. It is also discomfiting that the term "consumer" has been applied indiscriminately, as much to a citizen who merely seeks to purchase to fulfill a need (e.g. buy a first home, a car for transport, or food to eat) as to someone who merely seeks to satiate material wants. (LCD TVs, HDTVs, X-boxes, ipads, etc).

This is germane to some of the over the top Black Friday phenomena, including: one woman pepper spraying 20 others in the eyes and faces to keep them away from a cache of x-boxes, another shopper tasering those close by so she had first dubs on a dvd-player, and in New York, wild crowds looting a clothing store in Soho.

One observer of all this, Theresa Williams - a marketing professor at Indiana University, has observed:

"These are people who should know better and have enough stuff already. What's going to happen next year? Everyone gets tasered?"

Well, maybe, or maybe stores will resort to the new "subsonic" weapons to inflict mass visceral discomfort on rampaging mobs --- inducing mass diarrhea and vomiting. Well, hopefully not that far?

But the question is: Why this unhealthy obsession over some choice material items? In a poor economy, one hovering on a new recession, one explanation is that with nothing much left many view any item of material desire to confer some form of value. No items, equals no value. If one then enters a store at midnight, and is already sleep -deprived but comes away with nothing, well then there is an overpowering need to compensate for the lack of power. Or perceived power.

The sad fact, however, is that in a capitalist culture that prizes money and material goods above all else, those items will come to be valued over all else. Thus, we have the multi-millionaires (such as featured on one CNBC special last week) bragging that although they already have 14 Lamborghinis, and 10 Lexuses, with 8 Bentleys, they still want more. They have over $125 million, but also want more because they are "scorekeeping to mark their success" and "money or goods is the way to do it".

This is pathetic. But it gets to the heart of the persistent American neurosis in obsessing over money and consumer goods, such as trotted out on Black Fridays. (And again, never in the quantities to deliver the goods to all who may want them).

An interesting take on this material shopaholism is provided by Buddhist Philosopher Alan Watts (Does It Matter?, Vintage Books, 1971. He writes:

"The commonly accepted notion that Americans are materialists is pure bunk. A materialist is one who loves material, a person devoted to the enjoyment of the physical and immediate present. By this definition, most Americans are abstractionists. They hate material and convert it as swiftly as possible to mountains of junk and clouds of poisonous gas."

Certainly he likely has a point if typical Black Friday shoppers do collect much more extra stuff than they need (and already have) and it merely ends up in a storage bin someplace. In this case, the shoppers are as neurotic as the multi-millionaires and merely collecting or buying stuff for the sake of score keeping.

"Well, uh, I got two x-boxes and a dvd-player and a 42" flat screen LCD TV last year, and I uh ...got three x-boxes and two 55" HDTVs this year!"

But with no extra space, the earlier purchased stuff ends up in a storage rental. Meanwhile the person maybe lost ten hours of sleep or more, and possibly received a black eye and pepper-sprayed nose for her trouble.

Another perspicacious quote by Watts (p. 35):

"In a civilization devoted to the strictly abstract and mathematical idea of making the most money in the least time, the only sure method of success is to cheat the customer, to sell various kinds of nothingness in pretentious packages"

This is noteworthy, because he's basically saying all that stuff being fought so intensely over, is basically crap when all is said and done. There are only so many games one can play on an x-box before getting bored, and only so many hours one can watch the flat screen TV. What about real life?

This morning while eating breakfast at a local restaurant, my wife noticed a father and his obviously visiting college daughter (she wore an 'LSU' sweatshirt, like most frosh do on their first trips home during 1st semester) sitting across from each other. The dad had his nose in a book, the daughter was totally detached and wired up: an ipod with headsets to her ears, and her face gazing at a laptop computer screen. They were in two different realities (my guess is that the dad brought his book because he knew in advance his offspring wished to be on Facebook.)

I thought to myself: This is the most pathetic sight I've ever seen. What if this is the last get together for these two, and this is how they spend it? What if something happens to the girl on her way back to college, an accident or something else? Will she regret not spending quality time with dad?

Whose fault is it? I don't know but have noticed many young (e.g. Gen. Y) people now when they return home "tune out" the old farts...errr...folks, and simply stay wired to their artificial contraptions and hooked up to Twitter, Facebook or whatever. Again, this is pathetic. When families are together they ought to BE together. Not merely physically, but communicating.

The problem with too many Americans is they've lost their outward communication skills and now are reduced to doing it within limited, artificial social circles online, as opposed to real life. The effect is to render millions socially retarded, and also in terms of their communications levels (e.g. lingo interspersed with lol's, 'how r u's' etc.) Young people, for whatever reason, are particularly prone to this but I don't know why. A new standard for 'cool'?

Several years ago, a niece - from Clarke University -came to visit my wife and me for a week. But it was as if she wasn't here, because every time we'd look for her to converse or take a walk outside, she'd be hooked up to her laptop (or rather our laptop) and in another (Facebook)world. She was with us, but she wasn't. I suppose she figured that being at least in our home was being with us, and that's all that counted. But if that's the standard for young people in communicating with their peers, or more likely elders, then they have a lousy standard.

In this regard, Watts' Buddhist point is that we are living in a culture that has been hypnotized by symbols- words, numbers, measures, quantities, and images – and that we mistake them for and prefer them, to physical reality. This, indeed, is the essence of false consciousness: to be so distracted by the ephemeral material trappings of being, one neglects to partake of the real, inner being....especially that which makes us human.

In the case of Gen-Y youngsters' virtual solipsism and closed circles of communication, they believe that the proof of the pudding is in their blinking monitor screens , cells or ipads and the truncated text messages left on them, and not in any real human voices converging beyond or the sunlit blue skies that may beckon them to rouse themselves from their virtual stupor.

In the case of the Black Friday shoppers, they believe the proof of the pudding is in their recent buys, never mind that they already have three of each at home, and not in actually communicating with the people they have found themselves with in instant social congregations.

But since those others are now competitors for the same toys - and it is 'he who has the most toys wins'- they cannot also be fellow beings with whom actual, meaningful communication is feasible, or desirable.

The Buddhist recipe for happiness, as delivered by Watts?

"Reduce all your material wants to nothing!"