I don’t have a particular thesis for today. My mind is swimming with all kinds of random stuff, and none of it is coalescing into one coherent point. But, it still needs to get out, so I’m going to take the shotgun approach and try getting out some thoughts on a handful of things; and see what sticks.

♦ Of vague, non-specifically personal interest, I’m hitting a point in my career that I expect a lot of people hit; I’m fast approaching the point in my working life that I need to either accept that the current career path will be, more or less, what I’ll be doing for the next 25 or 30 years and be okay with that, or, if I want to try something else, I need to seriously get on to doing that. The thing is, despite the fact that I’m in one of those cyclical periods of general dissatisfaction with the work, most of the time, I like what I do – I just don’t find it as personally fulfilling as some people around me, and I’m not completely okay with that. But, at the same time, in defiance of the current national media narrative, I have a well-paying, secure position that’s not likely to go away any time soon. The fact that I’m in a position to mull over my vague dissatisfaction when one in ten of my fellow working stiffs aren’t working at all (I suspect the stress isn’t necessarily helping the other thing either) is causing me a little bit of guilt. Oh well; it’s an ongoing low-level concern that I just have to figure out how to deal with; it’s part of being a more-or-less grown-up adult…doesn’t mean I have to love the process.

♦ Related very tangentially to the previous item on a larger, national (and less personal) scale, I caught a story on the news this morning about the President’s latest proposals to address the federal deficit; specifically, the so-called “Buffett tax,” where tax rates would be raised on those with annual incomes greater than $1 million. It’s a mostly reasonable compromise on the original position of increasing rates on those bringing in more than $250k annually, and I’m okay with that. I would have also been okay with an increase on tax rates on brackets a lot closer to mine, assuming the increased revenue would be used wisely. I am a big fan of civilization, and I don’t mind paying for things like infrastructure or education, because those things benefit everyone. What I’m not okay with is the Republican response to said proposals – Rep. Paul Ryan, for example, called such a move “class warfare”, which is kind of par for the course for Republican candidates, who when chastizing the distinguished competition for doing something, are usually guilty of doing such themselves. In this case, the constant tax cuts for the rich and cuts to social programs they propose, which merely increase the actual financial burden on the lower and middle classes, pretty much fits my definition of setting the classes at odds with one another. The only difference is, that thanks to some clever social engineering* the right has managed to convince a large segment of (low information) voters to vote against their own self interest, and then ask for more. That’s probably a post in itself, but I can’t contain the idea in my brainspace right now.

♦ Amanda Marcotte had an interesting piece in Slate this week regarding the right-wing crowing about how The Girl Scouts of America has a “radical feminist lesbian agenda”. As someone with a little bit of experience with several corners of scouting, the GSA is certainly more liberal and secular (at least on a national level) than the Boy Scouts. Amanda makes the case that the GSA grew out of a more foreward looking philosophy (the idea of providing girls with new opportunities to succeed), than thhe BSA (which started as a way of looking back and re-kindling old fashioned masculinity). I think the theory works at the national level, though individual units vary widely (I’ve seen some exclusionarily Christian Girl Scout units as well as some very Gay and Atheist friendly Boy Scout Troops over the years). Of course, the hysteria the article describes is based on complete misinformation. Besides, anyone with experience with modern Girl Scouting can’t help but see it built on the model of entrepreneurial capitalism – it’s largley a cookie-delivery business with cheap labor in the form of middle school girls/MBA wannabes earning badges – exactly the kind of thing you’d think old-money conservatives would applaud.

♦ This Netflix thing that everybody’s talking about today with the spinning off of DVD mail service as a separate enterprise (unfortunately) named “Quikster.” It’s a pretty awful name, and the hassle of splitting it off, and thus creating the headaches of two billing entries for customers and all that, is probably going to cause a large subscriber drop-off for the disc service, especially when combined with the previously publicized price increases. I’m also pretty sure this is exactly what Netflix wants. To anyone who’s been watching for the last however many years, Netflix has never really wanted to get stuck with the DVD rental by mail model. It’s right there in the name – “Netflix” implies over-the-internet delivery of content, not a mail-based service; it’s always been their eventual goal, and reaching that goal has been a long game – get people with a convenient rental model (which, in the end, pretty much killed Blockbuster), ease them into using a streaming service and hook them, while getting the hardware and software for access into a wide variety of devices most people would have anyway. The idea has always been to ditch the mail-order model and go streaming. It’s working (I’m probably going to be dropping my disc plan soon – I don’t turn over discs fast enough anymore). They’ve got the infrastructure and subscriber base in place for delivery. Once the studios give up the dream of owning the means of delivery for their filmed entertainment (they’ve got to know that people aren’t going to subscribe to half-a-dozen different services to have access to everything they want), Netflix will be there with a turn-key solution for distribution. It’s really been interesting to watch this play out; someday, someone will right a kick-ass dissertation on it.

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* – This social engineering is largely handled by certain elements of conservative religious organizations with a combination of fearmongering based on homophobia and abortion legislation, as well as (at least in megachurch circles) by the growth of concepts like “proseperity theology,” which contends (via interestingly twisted interpretations of biblical scripture) that rich people are favored by God, better than the masses, and should get rewarded. And of course, if you revere exactly the right God in the right way, you’ll get rich, too! It’s a kind of “feel good” Calvinism, and of course doesn’t hang together logically (it doesn’t even work as Calvinism), but unfortunately it works in getting people to vote for their fantasy “if I win the lottery interests” instead of supporting policies that would help them and their families now.