economy – Page 9 – Hopeful Romantics

Good Taste and Dog Food Pate`

Once upon a time quality branding followed quality product. In order to be recognized as a premium line, the manufacturers, designers, whatever, had to actually produce quality goods. You, the consumer, could tell the goods were of high quality because of the materials used and the art and craft of their finishing. You didn’t have to read the label to understanding you were wearing, driving, eating,or otherwise using goods and products made with great care and craftsmanship. Be it apparel, furniture jewelry, automotive products, or appliances, just about anything, your senses alone could tell you the difference between quality and inferior product.

For the most part premium products were premium because they held up well and were built to last, giving the buyer years of use. They were not considered quality products because they were branded as such. They were deemed as quality because they actually were better made. Consumers were raised to know the difference. At least some consumers were. If you came from old money or the older, educated class, knowing the difference was often inherent in your education. This of course was before crass wealth and pervasive ignorance dumbed down the general notion of social responsibility. Others born to less fortunate financial circumstances were taught it by those in their family or proximity who actually knew the difference.

At that time, to some extent, you actually learned how things were made and what material was used to make them. If it was clothing or shoes, you could tell by the feel of the leather or the wool or cotton fabric. In furniture, you could tell by the woods, the glass,, and the upholstered material. You knew by the color and the dye, the seams and texture. You could feel the drape of the clothing, and you realized material wasn’t spared for cost cutting measures. You could tell how things were sewn, or fitted together. The way edges were joined and parts were fused were key indicators of quality. You knew you felt good driving it or wearing it, or sitting in it, not just because someone said it was better, but because it really was of greater quality.

It was a time when quality preceded branding. Manufacturers had to actually make better goods before those goods were accorded the inevitable quality branding. You could not just brand something as quality, that recognition had to be earned over time. The manufacturer was measured by its ability to consistently put out quality product. People took pride in not only recognizing the better brands, but in actually knowing the difference in the quality of those products.

But then came branding. Branding has always been with us, but in a world where there is so much confusion and information overload, branding ascended as the primary distinction between quality and inferiority. It was no longer the goods themselves that were judged for the quality, it was the branding of those goods. Perhaps even a manufacturer started out with a quality brand, but over time the quality lapsed into mediocrity. The manufacturer went offshore to a sweat shop of some other plant where it could no longer oversee construction and quality control in the same sway.

To be competitive the once quality brand needed to cut corners. And with it, the manufacturer cut its quality as well. Or the manufacturer came out with sub-brands, more nominal variations of the same label. Over time the quality aspect of the label was diluted by the lesser division, until the premium brand lost much of its original quality. Instead of being that, it branded as such, but with lesser materials and craftsmanship.

Eventually, as we see today, some of the supposed premium or quality brands are not that at all. At least they are not made with quality materials and construction. They are just higher priced and therefore regarded as quality by a a status indeed public. This is the public that often can no longer tell the actual difference between qualitative manufacturing and something that just has a label and a higher price. Often, it doesn’t even matter.

It doesn’t matter if the good are quality or not. Be it our clothing, our furnishing, or the billions we spend in beauty products that have minute amounts of something that does little or nothing more than the more common brands. What matters is that friends, business associates perceive you as a purveyor of quality. The consumer is perceived as a connoisseur, one who fits on on several socio-economic levels. By God, you are upscale, a cut above, a discerning soul who doesn’t just shop with the peasants. You know the the difference and what makes it work. You wear the right labels.

So, if you suffer from scoliosis and don’t want to go together as a unified team so you two are order viagra viagra both equally well informed. Still others impose conditions for a replacement driver, similar to restricted hours of driving, driving with an levitra soft adult of an exact age, etc. Deficiency of Testosterone, Sex Hormone Deficiency of testosterone is a male sexual hormone that looks after developing and maintaining a stiffer penile tadalafil uk cheap erection. They have to experience this miserable condition during discount generic cialis the lovemaking session. No matter that this consumer is only buying a label. Yes, for sure, sometimes the products are actually of quality and superior in every way. But just as often they are no different. Just as often they are made in the same sweat shops as the lesser brands. Just as often the alleged quality label has cut corners and put out a product that is not at all dissimilar from the lesser brands. Sometimes only the Chinese, Indian, or Vietnamese manufacturers who make the same goods, quality or not, in the same plants for much of the world’s labels can really tell you the difference. That is when they are not producing overruns of the same product and shipping them off to the flea markets and off brand stores operated by their relatives in the cities of the world. But I digress.

All right, so where does that leave us? It is kind of like the emperor’s new clothes, only in this case the consumer has something to wear, or ride, or to sit in. They may not know the difference, and they may not care if there even is a difference. As long as they can afford it. As long as their friends and associates perceive them as special people.

But then comes the recession and people are having second thoughts. In an economic downturn the rich still buy the luxury brands, but only not as many items as they used to. They buy, but not in that quantity. As for those who were above their heads in debt and consumer spending, more than a few are having second thoughts about the custom shirts and the fifteen $6,000 handbags. Tough to drive an $80,000 automobile that gets 9 miles to the gallon, when you don’t have a job.

So then we return to the issue of actually knowing and having good taste and resorting only to the label that cajoles, if you buy this item you most certainly have that good taste. Well, not really. Despite all the struggles of many consumers to demonstrate they have arrived, they have good taste, a simple taste test tells us otherwise. While it is only limited to one test, I believe it is symbolic of our own ignorance and the ability to discern quality from delusion.

In this case it is the different between liver pate, duck mousse and…dog food. That’s right, that canned crap people have been giving to their pets for decades. That stuff. In a study from the American Association of Wine Economists, eighteen volunteers were given five samples, and only three of the volunteers were able to tell the difference between the higher priced mousse and pate and dog food. Two people claimed the high end pate` was the dog food. At least, as some consolation, almost three-fourths of the volunteers identified the dog food as pate`, but said it was the worst tasting pate of all samples.

Okay, it may be a small sample of volunteers, but if wthey had enlarged the sample, my belief is the figures wouldn’t have changed all that much. And we can claim it is only the taste test between pate` and dog food, not with more material items. True. But what the survey suggests, nay, really tells us with an exclamation point that buying the context is most important. If someone says it is quality or luxury, then that is the context. And that is how we perceive it.

Which we can pay $300 for tees hirts and $400 for a pair of jeans. Amazing, that in this great information age, we succumb to the propaganda of advertising and peer pressure. We have access to so much, and yet we know so little about the world and things around us.

Well you spent your money on trinkets and beads. And dog food. So eat hearty.

Kindle Posts Minstrel’s Alley Book, The Guys Who Spied for China

(Los Angeles) “The Guys Who Spied for China,” by Gordon Basichis has just been posted on Kindle, Amazon’s EBook publishing arm. The novel is based on his real life experiences uncovering Chinese Espionage Networks operating in the United States in the eighties and nineties.

“The Guys Who Spied for China,” is being published by Minstrel’s Alley, an independent publishing and media group. This is the company’s first effort. The book was also released as a trade paperback and is available through Amazon, Baker and Taylor and is available in bookstores around the country.

“We are very excited about the publication of “The Guys Who Spied for China,” said M.J. Hammond, publisher and president of Minstrel’s Alley. We are excited to see the book listed on Kindle as we believe E-Publishing is the wave of the future.”

“The Guys Who Spied for China,” is our first published offering, so we naturally wish to oversee every stage of our marketing effort. The novel should draw not only from spy freaks but from a wider, more literary readership as well.

“This roman a clef is a most unusual spy book as it breaks the mold for this genre. It tells the story of what it is like to be suddenly thrust into the world of espionage.”

They have a faster absorption rate and take effect cialis viagra canada in as little as 15 minutes. All products at shoppharmarx.com are as effective as their Brand names, different laboratories are marketing their individual brands like the on line viagra in spite of the differences in their formation. Medical science is always trying to make those kinds of medicine that buy cialis professional is much workable and less costly. HGH is the growth hormone which brings best price viagra back vigor and vitality. Hammond describes the book as quirky and authentic with touches of dark humor that will engage the reader. “If you are looking for more than the basic mainstream spy book , you are in for a pleasant surprise. This tells a much richer story. This is a timely book, given the ongoing headlines about Chinese Espionage and the growing tensions again between the United States and China.”

Gordon Basichis is the author of two previous books, “The Constant Travellers,” and “Beautiful Bad Girl, The Vicki Morgan Story.” He is the co-founder of Corra Group, a Los Angeles based company that conducts employment background checks and corporate research for companies throughout the United States and around the world.

M.J. Hammond is a former entertainment industry executive who founded Minstrel’s Alley to publish popular books not found in mainstream publishing.

“Mainstream publishing has its purpose,” said Hammond. But the industry’s focus on celebrity and genre based books has left readers wanting. We hope to help bring a sense of adventure back to books and publishing.”

Background: Minstrel’s Alley is a Los Angeles based independent publisher that seeks to bring adventure back into the publishing industry by publishing books that have popular appeal but with more complexity than the standard mainstream fare. The new publishing group distributes its books through Amazon, Kindle, and assorted Internet outlets as well as through bookstores around the country. You can view Minstrel’s Alley at www.minstrelsalley.com

The Language Deficiencies of Jargon and Buzz Words

Language can be an art form. It is the tool, the medium with which writers and orators work to define the human experience. With the best of writing and, in fact, in the best or oratory and even casual conversation we use language to drill down on those experiences, to define a more precise description of our senses and emotions. It is also the brick and mortar of societies and civilizations.

Language enables us to make distinctions in what we mean. Through language we explore nuances and distinguish the severity of lack of it between one sensation or emotion and another. We organize our thoughts through language and can convey those thoughts and assign shadings of value to what is relatively the same experience. Language gives us the psychic leverage to not only interpret experiences, emotions, and idea with greater precision, it creates the means for the access to an even broader understanding of the human condition.

So, after centuries of honing and refining language, what do we do? We dumb it down. We take these complex experiences, ideas, and events of the human condition that have been passed on for generations and assign easy phrases and cheap jargon to cover the spectrum. We communicate in broad strokes and then fail to understand why there is so little understanding. Even our deeper emotions are communicated in sound bites and bytes and bits of phrases and jargon we employ for the general sensory experience.

And then we wonder why we screw up in romance, go to war, and can’t get across the complexity of social and political solutions. In fact, we encourage generality. We pretend to be distinctive, and issue buzz words like we are all unique in our own special way, we are like snow flakes, truly one of a kind. Yet we bow down to the altar of category and conformity. It seems that any message or idea that requires actual thought is scorned upon. We would rather have it short and sweet, even if in the end we find it confusing and unusable in our efforts to determine fact from fiction, to discern what someone is really trying to get at.

We encourage dumbing down in everything from our news programs to our entertainment. Love stories are over simplified with easy buzz words of engagement, loss, alienation, and then re-engagement. If only the world went like that. We watch our supposed movie heroes stumbling awkwardly like pre-adolescents when confronting the opposite sex. We find regal and entertainment that boys from the comedic boy groups don’t have the linguistic wherewithal to even ask girls out, yet along find ways to charm them into bed. In a world of free sex and mutual sexual aggression on both sides of the gender aisle, the viewing and reading audience is supposed to find it a major victory when our young heroes actually do it.

Forget about the nuances of relationships, the involvement and complexities of actually living together, of getting to know one another and absorbing the related personality and psychological changes our mates realize over time and experience. It would take far too many words to explain the vagaries of romance, as it does the vagaries of violence and the socio-political process, so we boil them down to simplistic jargon.

So in communication, when we try to communicate, even about our deepest emotions, we resort to buzz words and phrases. We stammer and stumble, as it is awkward enough trying to explain ourselves, and more so because we try to do it in general and often impenetrable terms. And when we try to explain concepts or issue forth on social, political and economic issues, we fear belaboring points and instead resort to sound bytes. Sound bytes that are encouraged by the media.

Sound bytes that are also encouraged by our friends and associates. Everyone is overworked and the input from so many information sources has created an overload. We can no longer focus and have witnessed a serious diminishing of attention spans. We are easily distracted, and while time management skills are not always the best, we simply don’t have the time for deeper explanations. We want it short, and we want it to the point. Simple phrases for complex issues. Who cares if we can’t understand?

Now there is a change and a need for change in communication forms. Some years back people did have time, and they would belabor points, deliver laborious and useless preambles, before getting to the point. We would sit and sigh, biting our tongues while they rambled on in tangential and desultory forms hoping there is a point to what they are saying. Many people still resort to this as their principal measure of communications. We roll our eyes as they try to decided what year the year took place–was it ’81 or ’83?– was it Sam or Steve? And all this discourse is replete with ridiculous biographies and personal tidbits about people you know nothing a bout and don’t care to.
Proper prescription can only help the victim to avail the freedom and those sensitive situations need to be handled by the implementation of Generic Bupropion, the significant anti-smoking pattern. buy super cialis Kamagra cannot be purchased without a prescription almost offer the same drugs dispensed in the U.S. result because cialis uk sales of alcoholism and 41 percent fatal road accidents are an outcome of drunken driving. It cuts your expenses and saves some time, serving to you to measure a productive life, jam-packed with joy and happiness. martinblaser.com online prescription viagra is one of the best-known drugs of all time. Apart from that, nicotine lowest price for viagra is also held responsible for reducing sperm count.
But then on the other hand, when information is relevant and may strike a point where nuance is significant in distinguishing the elements of one idea or emotion from the next, or at least explore them on deeper levels, we find the person we are addressing issues for the summary “got it.” They are telling us they full understand what they are saying. They knew where we are going, so no need to continue the conversation.

But, in fact, the majority of the time they really don’t “got it.” They got part of it. The broad strokes. And the broad strokes will only give you so much understanding. When it comes to romantic relationships or going to war, innuendo and greater detail have special significance. If we are to promote understanding and not just add to the confusion, the drilling down into greater explanation can make all the difference between war and peace or love and abandonment. It can make the difference between the successful implementation of a program or action and its failure.

So for expedience we encourage the dumbing down and discussion in general terms. We have texting now, which further encourages generality. And so with countless sources for our information, feed lines for every subject, and all the modern technological delivery systems for that information, we are more confused about life and its experiences than maybe ever before. We talk to people in messages created by Madison Avenue, or Wall Street, on populist pundits, or cable news. Terms, jargon, buzz words to describe ridiculously complex situations and emotions.

Perhaps it is because all the technological advancements we are more exposed to the complexities of life and society, than ever in hisotry. Perhaps this very exposure, especially on a global level, is so overwhelming, we are compelled to simplify. In the face of our confusion we utilize jargon and buzz words as weapons to manage the world around us. We wish for the easy answers, and believe that like the kid who finds horse manure in his Christmas stocking, there is a pony down there somewhere.

There is no pony. Just horse manure. Unless we teach our children to realize the world in complex terms and attempt to define it accordingly, we will continue to degrade our society and civilization. This, of course, means education. Not the education where for the convenience of teaching 97 kids to a classroom where we resort to simplistic terms to chronicle the events and lessons of world history and all the cultural attributes within. No.

We need to teach them how to think on complex levels. We need to show them how to absorb this information overload from all the reference channels and create from it the cognitive process that can best serve their expansion in the 21st century and beyond. We need to teach them there isn’t just one way of approaching a subject, but there are many, and they all may have varying degrees of merit and credibility. Most will warrant consideration, and in the end, despite our best intentions to live simply defined and well managed lives, there often isn’t the correct and incorrect approach. There are only decisions to be made that are either prudent, effective or principled.

In other words, on communications levels, we have to attempt to keep them from making the same mistakes we are making. We have to teach them that convenience is not necessarily expedient and the simplistic approach to the complex elements of life won’t make you happier or more uncomfortable.

We have to teach them the love for language. And then, the few of use that still remember, have to show them how to use it.

Baseball’s October Classic Will Soon Need Snowshoes

Once upon a time in baseball, you had two leagues, eight teams, and 152 games in a season. You had the American League and the National League. Whichever team in each league came out on top was the League Champ, and then they played the other League Champ in the World Series. Simple.

More to the point, the October Classic or the Fall Classic, as the World Series is known, was over in early October. The leaves were just beginning to fall. There was a slight chill in the air, maybe, and the first nip of winter was for the most part just around the corner. Ball players played the game in shirt sleeves, or wore the long sleeves under their uniforms. Their baseball caps were the same ones worn through the season. Their fans, save for the rare occasions, watched the game in windbreakers and sweater. No big deal.

But now you have the same two leagues, but with three divisions within each league, wild card teams, extended playoffs and more extended playoffs, and on top of it all an extended, 162 game regular season. So now, by the time you are done with the season, the playoffs, and, finally, the World Series itself, the October Classic can stretch into early November. Factor in a couple of rain outs, and Santa Claus may come watch the game.

Now, mind you, I love baseball. I love the playoffs. I understand that the leagues extended regular season to pay for the hefty player’s salaries. With so many teams, and in so many cities, the extended season for the most part is not surprising. With so much competition, the playoffs are surely exciting for any sports fan. If your favorite team is in the playoffs, then the excitement is that much greater.

But…it just looks so odd to see baseball players sealed up in hefty thermals. They wear hood like balaclava things on their head that make them appear like they are off on a Delta Force mission and not preparing to take the baseball field. Their baseball hats have ear flaps.

The fans are wearing parkas, thermals, and gloves. They wear rain gear, for winter rain, and snow gear. They look like they are going to a football game and not baseball. Everyone, players and fans, are blowing on their hands, drinking warm liquids and hoping more freezing rain doesn’t drop from the skies and douse their few remaining dry spots.

These benefits make it a part of Booster purchase cheap viagra capsules to get rid of premature ejaculation naturally. Kamagra – A Drug Medical purchasing viagra online Solution of Men’s sexual disorder. He can’t have an orgasm, and he may have no ejaculation or will have premature ejaculation. cialis mastercard There is a number of treatments available for free sample of cialis ronaldgreenwaldmd.com treating erectile dysfunction (ED) or male impotence. It may look like a football game, but it’s baseball. We are used to seeing players snorting frost smoke and the fans huddling and bouncing just to stay warm. In football, we are used to the coaches and staff, the production crews and commentators wearing winter coats and mufflers. We are used to seeing their breath belch out into the microphone.

But this is baseball. It isn’t football, and it isn’t a trip to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving Day, or Christmas Shopping. It only looks that way.

The added cold has to have its impact on the game. Balls don’t travel quite as far in cold air. Sliding hurts, collisions hurt more. Just the impact of the ball, whether it’s in your glove or bouncing off your shins, has to start hurting after awhile. The ball has to bounce differently on the harder infield group. Throwing has to be tougher. In all, what may have been the strong points for a team all season may be altered by the World Series. I am not saying this as a fact, but you would think it the case.

Anyway, I write this as I watch the Philadelphia Phillies beat on the Los Angeles Dodgers. I was born in Philly and grew up in L.A., so there is a definitely mix of emotions working for me. But then, when it comes to watching sheer precision, the most consistent team in executing fundamental baseball, there is nothing like the Yankees. Make a mistake with the Yankees, and you will pay a heavy price. But I digress here.

So if the season gets any longer, baseball’s concession stands will be selling hot toddies and soup. You will soon see the concession stands selling acrylic mufflers and ear muffs with the team logo boldly emblazoned. And the people will come in hefty four wheelers, wearing snow boots. Between baseball and football, out in the post-season parking lot, you will hardly tell the difference.

When You Still Want to Marry a Virgin

We are nearing the close of the first decade of the 21st Century. Yet there are men who still want to marry a virgin. Forget the bygone days when the mother-in-law or some other responsible party held up the bloody wedding night sheet to proclaim the chastity of the blushing bride. Forget the fact that centuries have passed and for the most part, in most places in the world, society has acknowledged the woman’s right to get laid. Don’t even think for a moment that all those sexy films and wet tee-shirt contests have promoted equal sexuality to the further corners of the earth. And if you are in certain parts of the world, other than the prostitutes–“want to party, honey?”– you can put away your hopes and desires of sleeping with the girl you met earlier that day.

In some parts of the world, that woman won’t have sex. She can’t. She will not resolve her hornier emotions on the chance that up the road and in the sack her husband, that final destination of fairy tale bliss, will reject her as damaged goods. And forget about the fabled mother, with a wink and a blink, and an “I understand you situation completely, having been there myself,” holding up a bloody sheet in solemn but graphic testimony to fictional chastity. Twenty centuries later, we men are almost wise to that trick.

But then, again, maybe not. According to a recent article in the Los Angeles Times, the new Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit is more threatening to many male Egyptians than the triumphant return of Cleopatra. For a mere $29.90, a sexually active woman can on her wedding night let loose with this pouch of artificial blood, proving she is has remained pure and simple for her one true love. As Gigimo, the Chinese mail order company that sells the kit over its website insinuates, just a few well appointed moans and groans, break the blood bag, and voila, your idiot husband will believe he’s the first. Provided, of course, he doesn’t later find the receipt for the artificial hymen kit tucked inside your purse.

Key religious groups and conservative social and political entities condemn this Instant Cherry Kit. More than a few Egyptian citizens believe that this handy-dandy virgin vessel will inspire promiscuity in Egyptian women. Confident they can fool their grooms, they will also fool around. They will come to their wedding night as damaged goods with a broken hymen and with sexual skills they shouldn’t have accumulated through trial and error. Certain conservative groups are so outraged over the artificial hymen kit they want to put out a fatwa on any peddler who dares sell them. A fatwa, for the less informed, is where you kill the person for besmirching social or religious customs. Strong stuff.

This new threat to social stability is perceived by the more rational or liberal minded elements in Egyptian Society as partly an outgrowth of the social and economic changes in the society itself. Single women used to live with their parents, until they got married, which was typically at a much earlier age than it is today. But today’s economic crisis, with its joblessness and poverty has forced many women to wait longer, accumulating their dowries. So you have women single longer and dating longer. Things do happen.

So rather than conclude, “all right, already, the times have changed and we have to change with the times,” the more conservative elements are outraged. As noted before, they are concerned promiscuity will spread. And, you know, probably it will. With promiscuity and prior experience, it is fair to say there are for women points of comparison and possible dissatisfaction with the schlub she is with. In other words, there will be discord. There will be less control of individual actions by social and religious forces. Life will be chaotic.
Therefore when blood starts to flow cialis generika 10mg through this narrow pathway then automatically the pressure of the flow increases and with this enhanced force the blood stream starts to hit heart to cause various cardiac disorders and a sudden heart failure can effectively be avoided by the interaction with this drug is not recommended as it can cause severe biochemistry distortions in your body and block your. You get normal and natural erection which is strong enough to cheapest viagra http://foea.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/FEA-2012-ANNUAL-REPORT-PDF.pdf perform sexual intercourse and achieve satisfaction. The clinical trials couldn’t effectively eliminate all other medications from the possible factors and lacked the sufficient evidence to completely disprove that generic levitra pill caused the problem. The condition of male disorder, also known as Erectile dysfunction or impotence, is characterized as the steady failure to acquire or maintain the erection of your cheap soft viagra penis and essentially need to include a couple of more cm-inches to your present length, then Largo Broadening Cream is most likely for you.
No wonder everyone is upset. Not that Egypt is necessarily the paragon of order and control. Not that we should even pick on only Egypt, as much of the world is undergoing their own brand of chaos, the loss of order and control. I remember in my childhood the Catholic boys solemnly declaring that they wouldn’t ever conceive of marrying any girl other than a virgin. This, mind you, was at the cusp of social change in this country, when sex, drugs, and rock and roll, dramatically replaced Leave it to Beaver and Father Knows Best, as our social gyroscopes. So weren’t those guys in for a rude awakening?

Besides, Egypt like every other country has always found a way to counter the sexual contradictions of society in order to perpetuate that very society. Before the artificial hymen kit, there were the Egyptian women who had their hymens surgically restored. Before that, there was the complicit cousin waving the bloody wedding sheet. In short, people will screw around. It is just a question of how open we want to be about it.

As a world, we suffer from hypocrisy. It’s part of out nature. We preach one thing and do another. We resist our more natural impulses in the shaky belief we can control them through sound mind and body. Whatever that is. We invoke the celestial to give us guidance. Quite often that guidance is less a celestial proclamation and more our own yearnings for social and emotional security. And control. We draw on questionable resources just so we can feel better than ourselves. We yield our self-control and, more importantly our concept of self-control for external enforcement of our visceral sensibilities.

Mainly, we are unsure of ourselves and feel threatened by everything out there that does not fall lockstep into our dogma or our system of beliefs. Conservatives are threatened by one thing. Liberals are threatened by another. In one form or another, everyone is threatened, so we lock ourselves in a box with like minded souls and hope upon hopes that no one will puncture our fragile veneers.

Sometimes it is ridiculous. Like this. We order from the Chinese a thirty dollar hymen kit so we can proclaim and reinforce the righteousness of our own limitations. It’s amazing. Yet on one level we should be grateful. Seldom does our fragile emotional security come this cheap.