health – Page 3 – Hopeful Romantics

The Vintage Whine of Academia

Some years ago when asked his opinion about campus politics, Henry Kissinger said, “University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.” This was an interesting response and one that has endured with me for quite some time. Nevertheless, when confronting academia, socially or otherwise, it isn’t long before Kissinger’s explanation of the vicissitude of campus politics regurgitates like a bad burrito. I am struck by how so many academics are sad cases burdened by the years of repetition that has led in many cases to a total lack of originality in thought and expression.

Given that I have a jaundiced view of much of academia, I still found it surprising that several professors claimed that tenure fights are stressful and can lead to emotional breakdowns. According to an article in Boston.com, entitled Professors Say Tenure Fights Creates High Stress Situations, David Yamada, director of the New Workplace Institute at Suffolk University Law School, and James Alan Fox, a professor of criminology, law, and public policy, at Northeastern University urged separately that the Universities should reevaluate the tenure process. They urged that the tenure process be more transparent and less “gut wrenching,,” as Fox put it.

Yamada noted that college officials should be “more in tune with the psychological health of the tenure-seeking professor. It was noted in the article that the tenure process can take about six or seven years and prove very stressful. Those applying for tenure, it was reported, are under intense scrutiny and may have to contemplate the possibility of failure. All in all, the article described the tenure process as long and tough. It can make the teacher a nervous wreck. It can lead to tragedy.

The two professors cited the recent incident with Amy Bishop as an example. Bishop was the Harvard educated professor who when denied tenure shot six college professors at the University of Alabama. She killed three and wounded three others. This was their example of a stressed out tenure applicant, reacting to the pressure. They did admit this may be an extreme case, but still…oh the pressure.

Never mind that Amy Bishop had a history of nutty behavior. Not the least of that nutty behavior was the reported accidental killing of her brother. Her finger was somehow on the trigger and, BANG, the shotgun just went off. This is a woman with all sorts of graduate degrees and a Harvard education who reportedly had a problem cleaning a shotgun.. Well…okay.

This was the Amy Bishop who was charged with assault at an IHOP, after demanding another customer yield her booster seat so Bishop could use it for her child. When the woman refused, Bishop punched at her and screamed some not-very-professorial epithets at the poor woman. This nut job who should have never been teaching in the first place is their example of tenure stress.

I take issue with the two denizens of the Ivory Tower, by writing every job worth having is stressful. Every day in the real world people sweat out their working careers, hoping they are not fired because of age, race, or sexual or social predilections. They hope they won’t be downsized because of a merger and acquisition. They pray they won’t be laid off with the economic meltdown.

What kind of insular perspective believes that academics should not be under scrutiny for performance and ability? This is the case in private industry, so why not at a college or university? You can be sure at that same college or university someone is eyeballing the janitor to make sure he is doing his job. The kid at the local Dominoes better not burn too many pizzas, otherwise he is out pocket money for his condoms and pot. Everybody is under stress.

In fact, with the economic downturn, millions are out of work and the millions left are forced to pick up the slack of being overwhelmed and undermanned. Employers are working with bare bones staffs, and heaven forbid if they can’t maintain performance. Everyday millions of people either hope to hang onto their jobs or strive to find another one.

There are millions or workers out there who aren’t just stressed, but terrified they will lose their jobs. Some, like Amy Bishop, who are tightly wrapped, have revisited their workplace to shoot and kill their bosses and fellow workers. Most won’t. Most will steel up and do the best they can, given the fears and pressures of unemployment.

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But this sudden whining about the tenure process is the equivalent of academic dodge ball. Some educators decided recently that the competition in dodge ball engenders negative extreme issues. The same here holds true. Competition apparently is not seen as distinguishing the best of our educators. Instead, competition is viewed as the enervating demon that hovers about, nullifying the creative process.

In fact, one has to look askance in general at the creative process in academia.. Not to paint it with a broad brush, but I have never been overly impressed with creativity among academics. There are exceptions, and there are certainly are those who have distinguished themselves in various endeavors in the private sector and decided to give back to the community by teaching at universities. There are those who have distinguished themselves in more esoteric pursuits, and though their creativity is well received in a niche market, they can’t make a living just by what they produce. So they teach. Understood.

There are exceptions among those in the physical and economic sciences who through private funding and university resources perform much needed research and development that can benefit us all. And there are those who are simply damn good teachers.

But then there are there those who engage in the campus politics of Kissinger’s description. This is their world. they live in it and even thrive in it. In the real world, where you actually have to actualize theory, many will perish. It is a group dependent on grants and foundational offerings and neither entrepreneurial or self-sufficient.

They give pointed views on subjects and issues that are best left to theory. They pronounce with certainly ambiguous concepts that simply can’t flourish any other place but academia. They impose questionable points of view on our kids and rigid definitions of creativity and artistry. Anything other than their own insulated thoughts are threatening and deemed the prejudices of the ignorant and misinformed.

And then they complain that their jobs are stressful. Tenure is a demoralizing bitch of a process that in its extreme can lead to bloodshed on the ivy. Teaching is tough. Life is tough. They are under scrutiny. They are being forced to perform.

Well cowboy up. And get real. At least you are working.

When Unemployment Makes You Goofy

These are tough times. These are tough times globally, but for the United States this is also no day a the beach. These are tough times economically, what with personal wealth devastated by the real estate market, the depletion of pensions funds. Money is scarce and credit is tight.

What money there is in the banks and among the fat cats is being horded. The government seems weak and ineffective in forcing the banks to literally get off a dime. While the media shifts back and forth, trumpeting contradictory statistics, supposed financial and industrial experts inveigh equally conflicting predictions about the the economic recovery. The more honest of the pundits, after hemming and hawing on air time, in order to collect their money or sell their book, finally admit, “hell, I don’t know.”

Whether there will be an economic recovery or where there will be a double dip, where the economy drops, recovers and then drops again like some erratic roller coaster ride, it all remains to be seen. Meanwhile, people need to find work. They need to make bucks just to survive or in the luckier cases supplement their diminished savings, before it leaves them looking like bit players in “The Grapes of Wrath.”

So where do you find work when there is not work? Good question. Where do you find work when a great many jobs have either been rendered obsolete or have been outsourced to another country? Simply. Why you go to Disneyland, of course.

If not Disneyland, then you attend the job fairs at any one of the amusement parks and destination sites where people with a couple of bucks left still take their families. According to an article in The Los Angeles Times, amusement park job fairs are enjoying, if that’s the word, record turnouts. It’s not just kids anymore, recent high school and college graduates looking for a summer job or something to do until they can find something else, that are attending the job fairs. Be it the Disney Parks, Knotts Berry Farm, Six Flags, Universal Studios, or Hoolah’s Tuba Land, job candidates from every background and of every description are lining up and looking for work.

At a recent job fair at Six Flags Magic Mountain, in Valencia, California, more than 1,600 applicants stood in line in search of work. Another 1,100 attended the job fair at Universal Studios, Hollywood. Those who attended were mortgage agents and sales clerks. These are teachers and construction workers, forklift operators. These are office managers and restaurant managers, loan processors and once-retired seniors who thought they had enough to retire until the economic meltdown and the loss to their portfolio and pensions made them think again.

These are people looking to work for less than $400 a week. To be Goofy in an amusement park. In this day and age, $400 a week is a long way from big money. It is a long way from what most of us deem “a living.” It is the kind of salary that makes you feel impotent and humiliated, that assures your purchases will be largely guided by what is being featured at the Dollar Store. It is the kind of money that allows you to believe at least you are doing something to tide you over and feed your family, until something better comes along. And then, if nothing better does come along, it is the kind of money that reminds you at the end of every week there is probably no way out.

In short, we have not only ruined an economy. We have damaged its people. Through greed, unnecessary risk, and blatant audacity we have all but bankrupted a country. We have caused such grievous harm to ourselves, and yet we wonder why there are so many among us who become Tea Baggers or whatever, to vent their anger. No matter how misdirected we believe the anger may be, there is no denying people have the right to be extremely pissed off.

We have allowed the few, the venal, and the undisciplined to not only steal away our money but steal away our future as well. For this they are rewarded. For this, we make excuses and mumble something about our institutions being too big to fail and then pray that people will be distracted by one more stupid romance, an athlete gone awry, or a prefabricated news event. We hope that the distractions will prevent the anger from escalating into more tangible manifestations, other than parading around with misspelled signs.

Some claim this is the Great Recession and second only to our Great Depression. While much of it may be true, I also beg to differ. When the Great Depression ended, American people had jobs to which they could return. We had our industries intact. There wasn’t talk of technical innovations and alternate fuel sources creating new jobs, while our present industries were demoted to the trash heaps or shipped offshore. We didn’t have a situation where the greatest concern was the bottom line, to the point where industries were downsized and American workers deemed obsolete by virtue of their professions and job descriptions.
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When we recovered from the Great Depression, there was industry and with the industry there were jobs. And from the jobs came money, and with the money people were able to buy what they needed. But after the Great Recession, many jobs are gone and will never return to these shores. These were jobs were people worked, made their livings, had their dignity. But not now.

If there are no jobs, then where do people come up with the money to buy what they need? How do they send their kids to school? How do they enjoy the brief time they have on Earth? Certainly those who used Tarp money to consolidate their own businesses and award themselves bonuses haven’t given it much consideration. Clearly, from the way they ran this country into the ground, they are not prone to think that far in advance.

In short, we may have demoted ourselves to a second tier nation. We have former industrial workers now performing menial service tasks in rusted and blighted cities. We have journalists out of work, news sources collapsing around us. Small businesses are in jeopardy and have no credit sources. We have collapsing infrastructures and a public education system that does anything but make our kids competitive in the global economy.

I know, I hear others say, “well hey compared to other countries around the world, we are still doing pretty well.” This is sophistry. We have been reduced as a nation to comparing ourselves to less fortunate nations, developing nations, so that we can somehow feel better about our own condition. It is no longer a nation where we are looking toward a brighter future, except for maybe in television commercials and in the rhetoric of politicians. Never mind that our condition stinks, and as adults we are looking for jobs in a theme park. We should take refuge in the fact our long term outlook isn’t quite as dismal as that of some other country.

In an oblique way, it may be a good thing millions of us are on Prozac or some other antidepressant. If not, then the wacky outbursts we are seeing in the news with increasing frequency may turn into ever more violent wacky outbursts. The pissed off may become more organized and encourage true public disobedience. The Tea Baggers in true American tradition may put down those misspelled signs, grab a little tar and feathers, and start hoisting the bonus babies on rails. Out of work intellectuals could join them, along with the downsized and disenfranchised and the permanently neglected.

I am not saying this should happen. There are better ways to address our problems and to solve the present and future crises. But when the political body proves unresponsive, and when people feel they are being overtaxed and without representation, true representation, legislators concerned with the public interest and not lining their own pockets, then history dictates that things can get out of hand. History is indeed in this way a cruel teacher. History is an even harsher teacher when its lessons are ignored.

I don’t believe we are in anyway near the breaking point, reaching critical mass, if you will, where the people start acting up and the Shays Rebellion and the Boston Tea Party start looking like good ideas. I think we are a country too smart to tear itself entirely apart, having learned that lesson 150 years ago in our previous debacle known as The Civil War. But life is full of surprises, and with the advent of modern media and technology, news travels fast if not all that accurately.

But let’s face it. Unemployed people need something to do. If you are an adult and working a menial job for $400 a week, then the magic is gone from our magic mountain.

Nature’s Way of Sorting Out the Environment

I was reading a recent article in the Los Angeles Times about how the cold spell in Florida is killing many of the nonnative animal life. Burmese Pythons and African Rock Pythons are buying the farm on a major scale. Iguanas are falling dead from trees. Nonnative fish are dying by the thousands. The Mayan cichlid, walking catfish, and spotfin spiny eel, are among the fish floating lifeless to the water’s surface.

I would take this to mean that this is nature’s way of telling these invasive animals to get the hell out of where they don’t belong. Not that they had a choice in the matter, as many were brought over on ships, or in the case of the snakes, they were former pets that were let go in the Everglades when the novelty wore off or when the hurricane deposited their former domiciles on FEMA’s statistical list of trash. Nevertheless, these animals who thrive in the warmer climes of he tropics will only thrive so long when the temperature takes a dramatic turn.

Yes, I would take this as part of nature’s way of rearranging the order of things. I have to wonder what else does nature have in store for us. We are inundated with dire predictions about global warming, which is not global warming, really, but dramatic climate change. What’s this mean? It means that not everything will warm up, but in places that are already warm, it will probably get warmer still. In the colder spots on the climate, it may get colder still.

Yet the Arctic is melting and Florida has a cold spell. Who knows what is really going on? What I do know is that things change. I have stood in places up on the high desert of Four Corners, Monument National Valley and further North. It is hard rock, bone dry. Yet in places you can still see actual dinosaur footprints in what is now rock or really hard ground. Dinosaur footprints. I kid you not. This is the legacy of an earlier time when this vast region was under water, either covered by seawater or vast marshes that prevailed for millions of years.

Things change. As a civilization that wants to believe that all things are safe and permanent, we have yet to get the memo that the planet is ever changing and in doing so is making things more or less secure at his own universal discretion. Or in reaction to the conditions we inflict upon our planet.

Suffice it to say that while some of the global changes my be cyclical, it still doesn’t mean it is a good idea to pollute the hell out of it. You can’t treat the Earth like a rental car and expect it to run smoothly. Common sense would have it that dumping poisons into our water, filling our air with toxic crap, and leaving piles of waste on our lands and in our oceans will hardly result in something positive. Common sense would say if you put poison in water then you will poison yourself when you drink the water, and poison the fish that live in that water. Who you will eat.

In short, global warming may not be a result of our human transgressions, but our human transgressions aren’t helping things either. No matter how long we care to live in denial. You do not have to tie natural cycles and human pollution together to validate the fact the planet is going through changes. Planetary cycles can still take effect, regardless of human pollution. But for sure as hell, human pollution is not going to improve the situation, any. Poison the oceans, the fresh water and the landscape, and it is still poisoned, whether there is climate change or not. Common sense should bear that out.

But, unfortunately, common sense is not so common. It took certain people hundreds if not thousands of years to realize that crapping upstream and drinking the same water downstream will result in disease. People in some spots took thousands of years to correlate sex with the making of babies. In some places on the globe, it seems it is still the case. Recognizing the existence of germs took awhile.

And then there is the money factor. There are those who are making money and those who are making more money by ignoring the obvious. It is cost effective n the short run to ignore the obvious. If you take the precautions and impose the industrial standards to eliminate or reduce pollution it will cost you bucks in the short run. This cuts into your bottom line. The bottom line in America and most countries is the major modern religion and messing with the bottom line for the sake of such minor considerations as the welfare of humanity borders on sacrilege.

Then there are the people who are allegedly in power. The legislators. What was once a somewhat responsible body of lawmakers who tried to oversee the well being of their constituents, looks more like a group of small time hustlers, working the corridors of government for their next corporate handout. With some exception, most are being paid by their keepers to assure us that all is well and that they are maintaining “our way of life.” They are paid to nod their heads and look the other way, examining their purses and the prospects of future elections, which more often than not conflicts with public interest.

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We leave a lot of things out of any argument. We do this out of convenience. While there are obscure noises about overcrowding, increased strain on an already fragile infrastructure and ecosystem, we don’t talk much about overpopulation. We fear for social and political repercussions when entertain the fact that the world has too many people. We are are overcrowded. Some of the population is undernourished. And most of the population is undereducated and hardly prepared for the next decades of the twenty-first century.

We cover this by talking about the unique quality of every human being and making Hallmark cards of our sentiment, without addressing the true dangers that overpopulation will create. We talk about global warning and claim hundred of millions will die. What we don’t do is say that if we keep flooding this planet with the crushing hordes, it will cause natural reaction. And natural reactions are often grim and consequential.

We cry over an earthquake in Haiti but ignore the fact that overcrowding, ignorance and the rest may well result in a pandemic, the likes of which we have never experienced. Yes, it is a pity for Haiti, but if watching a quarter million die on one small island is nearly unbearable, what will it be like when hundreds of millions, billions, start dying from previously unknown diseases? Diseases for what there will not be a cure.

So we argue out of convenience. Convenience in this case means we pick and choose the safer salient points while leaving out the dozens of considerations that may really cause us harm. We find consolation in sentiment when pressing issues loom before us. We deal in modern day superstitions and embrace the religious either in its traditional form or as some metaphysical salad bar to support whatever half baked theory we are using to confront very real global events.

I would consider that more people have died from ignorance than anything else. Ignorance has led to war, has caused us to crap upstream and drink downstream. We overpopulate out of ignorance of the consequences and how it reduces the general well being of this planet. We declare theory and conjecture as truth and fact, although we have not yet been able to gather all the relevant information. We are ignorant and proud of it.

Will all this happen? It’s probable but not certain. History is often a cruel prognosticator of what life has in store. Historically, civilizations have come and gone. Civilizations here have vanished. There is room to speculate that even on other planets what was once living is now long since dead.

But then there is the other side of the coin. Despite the cold spell in Florida, not every nonnative animal has died. the smaller pythons are surviving, as they are able to adapt by slipping into smaller rock crevices and other spots that may keep them warm enough to ride out of the cold. Only half the green iguanas have succumbed. Maybe it’s dumb iguana luck, or it is Darwin’s Laws of Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest, as it is sometimes known. Or as the more religious will inveigh, it is the hand of divine providence.

I don’t know. In the case of how and why some live and others don’t everyone has a valid opinion. As long as it remains an opinion and isn’t carved in stone as absolute fact.

What we do know is that things chance. Nothing remains the same, whether we want it to, or not. And life goes on.

When Sex Goes to the Dogs

Let me begin by saying I enjoy having pets. Pets are great companions, and they give you unqualified love in return for very little. To be the object of adoration, you just need to pet them, feed, them, change their cages or little boxes every now and then, and take them for a walk. Pets are healthy for our spirit and made even add years to our life. And when their life ends, it leaves us wanting and missing them.

I have had at one time or another, either because of children or on my own, a pretty rich assortment of pets. I have had a couple birds, a frog, an Iguana, enough turtles and fish to populate a small lake, the brief stint with a cat left by a runaway neighbor, and at least a half dozen dogs. All things considered, I prefer the dogs.

I have loved my dogs, some more than others. I grew up with a dog loving parent who kept Dog World Magazine in the bathroom for comfort reading. I went to dog shows and probably knew more types of breeds at nine years old than most adults.

I have experienced the terrible moment when you have to put them down. I have taken them with me on long trips and spent time walking them and doing all the things dogs love to do. The thing is, no matter how much I have enjoyed my dogs, or other pets, I realize they are not people. Dogs are much simpler, but still require much attention. People are far more complex and tougher to deal with. Some animal lovers deal well with animals, but have it rough when dealing with relationships, no matter how casual.

Lately, I have noticed more people are pet centric and less people centric. They adore their pets, bestow on them the affections and attention folks don’t seem to be getting elsewhere. Pets are not only pets but objects of transferal. They lavish the kind of love and attention on them they have normally reserved for close friends, family and the people with whom they engage in romantic relationships.

What used to be reserved for people love and romance, those with whom we have sex, share histories and develop relationships, we give to the dogs. Perhaps it is the economy and daunting times that people need so much reassurance without complications. Perhaps it is life and all its disappointments and knowing that tail wagging fur ball loves and accepts you know matter what. Perhaps we are experiencing levels of arrested development and any relationship more complex than that with the pet or a twenty minute reality show is far too daunting for our childlike sensibilities.

I would like to think this perception applies largely to aging Gen Y people or Boomers. Here it is somewhat understandable. Whether for good or bad a lot of Boomers, especially, for reasons unknown to me, are winding it down and resting on what they mistakenly consider their laurels. They have been hurt in love, carry enough baggage to settle in Paraguay, and are too set in their ways to adjust to another human brain pan. Besides, as they are climbing in the years, romance is scarce, sex for a good many is near nonexistent, and there isn’t a whole lot going on, anyway.

For those who were married with children, the kids are out of the house and are soliciting not desiring your advice and counsel. The children are no longer dependent and will rarely show up for the holidays yet alone paddle every night up to their food dish, do a little begging or lick your hand. Or give you the dog breath kisses so many seem to adore and even boast about on Facebook. Notice in Facebook all the people who instead of themselves post photos of their dogs. Subliminal desires?

So to put it bluntly, the kids are ungrateful little assholes that can barely remember to buy you a birthday card. The dog is nothing but an everlasting expression of gratitude. Your kids will barely let you touch them. The dog will curl up in your lap and in your bed. When was the last time your teenage or older kid with lie in bed with you as a gesture of affection. You would have to be sick and dying, or close to it, before most of you would see that day again. As for those who don’t have and never had children, will then the dog is a definite convenience. No nasty sex with strangers, in vitro sessions, or adoption overtures. Just a trip the the pound or a few hundred bucks if you are determined to acquire pedigree.

I see a great many women I know, and some men. I watch them thrust their affections on their four legged lovers. They hug them, kiss them, buy them gourmet food and cute little dog clothes that have the kind of price tags animal rescue groups would covet as a generous donation. They talk baby talk, and if there is a prospect of a relationship, the dog comes first. Maybe it is smart, and maybe it is just another rationale for a missed opportunity.

But that is not the only place the pet fetish has fully taken hold. Blame it on the lousy economy, maybe, but more and more younger people are not only acquiring dogs but taking them wherever they go. Living in a high rise building I can see the increase in dog ownership. I can also smell it in the elevators or see the little urine trails the overanxious canines leave on the floor as they scramble to make it to the great outdoors of Los Angeles.
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Ad when the dogs take sick or are o the verge of dying? It is a sad moment. As I have said, I have been there. But the dog is old, or it is sick, and while we can reconcile it more often with people we have a tougher time letting the animals pass on to pet heaven. Rather than let old Fluffy go when it is terminally ill or has reached the age where it is barely functional, these people are spending a small fortune for the kind of medical treatment half the people in this country do not receive. In short, they do more for Fluffy than they would for Aunt Mary, yet alone the ailing kid down the block.

Okay, I am grousing. And what, you may ask, is the point of all this grousing? I will tell you. I believe this sudden embrace of the obsessive canine code is more of a testimony to our abject failure to engage in relationships with people than anything else. I think it tells us more about our dashed expectations, fed and fostered by relentless commercials and magazine write ups about all the glitz, glamor, and drama that is ephemeral at best, and nonexistent for the most part. We embrace an illusion and then grow disappointed when it shreds in our hearts.

We think love with a human will be some kind of fairy tale, and life will be a constant adventure. And then when it doesn’t turn out that way, we shun the possibility and turn to our dogs. After all, they will give us unqualified love and a surfeit of affection. They are grateful that we take care of them, and I am sure grateful to the good and caring souls who volunteer at the animal shelters but not the hospitals and hostels.

But the dog can give us affection, but it cannot give us the intimacy that only humans can provide. Sure humans will give us more grief and disappoint us more than any beast, but they also leave us with complex and richer memories. Humans are the material from which civilization moves forward. In our relationships with humans we come to understands ourselves in ways we can never do with animals. We realize the complexities of love and the nuances and predilections of our sexuality. We are gifted by their involvement in the arts and sciences.

We will miss the dog, and we will love the dog. But the people who have impacted our lives are subjects of ongoing reflection. Through our relationships we comprehend our personal breakthroughs and failures, the measures of our personalities. We become wiser through these human relationships and we pass this wisdom on to forthcoming generations.

So why the breakdown, besides some of the things I noted? Why are we finding it so tough to relate to people and preferring to romance our dogs instead of men and women. I believe it is our reliance on technology that has caused so many to turn away from people and turn to their dogs. Maybe they have sex and maybe not, but deeper relationships are difficult to develop and sustain if your main form of communication is texting. If the relationship is broken down to categorical components, behavioral mosaics that either fit or don’t fit into your own lifestyle, it is difficult to advance the romance. If you want undying and one dimensional love and affection, well people can be tough and more demanding that that.

So with our dogs, we don’t text or email. We don’t even phone them. We spend time with them. We talk to them. We listen to them. Part of that listening if to take note of every nuance, every expression, the slightest movement. We know from their body language what they want. We understand their nuances and can make the distinction between our dog and another dog, even one of the same species. We are intimate and affectionate for reasons other than sex. Well, in best case scenarios.

With people. It’s different. We simply don’t have the time to nurture the relationship. It’s a few characters on a liquid crystal display and a quick roll in the hay.

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.