And now for something completely different

Tonight I'm not going to hide behind political or macroeconomic forces. 

A brief review of my past 2 months of prolific blogging leads me to a very micro exercise: revisiting posts that have contributed to my well-being in special ways....why pay for therapy when you can blog????

a) Denial*

b) Escapism**

c) Jim Carrey***

d) Passive-aggressive obfuscatory blogging

e) Pop culture

f) Shameless pandering

Note: the above topics are listed alphabetically and thus do not betray my own weightings of value assigned thereof.

* someone pointed out this is actually a recurring theme here...hmmmmm....

** actually this is only a slight variant of denial 

*** actually this is only a slight variant of escapism

Sometimes I actually encourage denial

Not only is it so much more alluring than reality....but I'm finding that in certain cases, it may yield positively for society!

1) "Sen. Barack Obama has widened his lead over Sen. John McCain, according to CNN's latest "poll of polls." - yeah, while this may not be the case in November, this is TRUE as of 9:18 a.m. EDT, Fri September 19, 2008 so I'm sucking the marrow out of it and snuggling it close as long as I can so I can be in my happy place if only for just a little while longer.

As promised, the following two cases of denial may actually yield some real, positive societal results:

2) “I’ve got to be honest with you,” Christopher Gruber, a vice president who oversees admissions at Davidson College, told me. “I’m not spending a ton of time navigating those student-driven sites. It’s too much to manage. My sense is that the traditional big players, like Princeton Review, are the major sources for online information too, in part because those are the names that parents still recognize.

Don't stop believin', Christopher. We won't go into the fact that parents aren't the only market segment, and they're certainly not the ...future...one...

3) "“SVG support is something that we have been evaluating for some time,” Microsoft said in a statement. “We recognize the demand for vector graphics from Web developers, and realize this is a high-priority demand.”

As Matt said...

“We recognize the demand for vector graphics from Web developers, and realize this is a high-priority demand…” but we just don’t care.

...and thank Someone for that: perhaps MSFT's resistance to creating usable products will, in fact, finally be met by justice, and Apple in fact wasn't so wrong to exclude IE in its MobileMe strategy???

Microsoft's IE market share drops again

September 3, 2008 (Computerworld) Microsoft Corp.'s Internet Explorer lost nearly a full percentage point in market share during August, the browser's biggest drop in three months, a Web metrics firm said today.

IE's rivals -- Mozilla Corp.'s Firefox, Apple Inc.'s Safari and Opera Software ASA's Opera -- all extended their shares at IE's expense last month...

....IE's August drop was the second largest for the year, lower only than May's 1.1-percentage-point fall.

"I can't really explain what happened," admitted Vince Vizzaccaro, Net Applications' executive vice president of marketing. "Perhaps there was some relationship with the launch of IE8 Beta 2. If users are looking at IE8, maybe they're looking at other browsers at the same time, trying to decide which one to use."

Vince, I know you're a marketing guy and have to say that - and that's great! Don't stop believin' either!

Recurring themes

I'm consistently mesmerized by denial...Idiocracy...and my current favorite, euphemisms.

How fitting that the very word itself sounds so much better than, say, obfuscation.

Cap industries’ emissions of the gases blamed for climate change? Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, who leads the House Energy and Commerce Committee, will have to contend with dissent on a panel with Democrats from coal and manufacturing states.

“The legislative process requires compromise and being open to different alternatives,” Mr. Waxman said.

In defense of Henry though, I'm not sure I'd want to say, "We're copping out on this one."

Finance is the new sexy

Theoretical? Abstract? Removed?

It's been over 9 months since I emailed some friends a snarky-yet-frighteningly-incisive piece laying out the intricacies of the current sub-prime-and-the-kitchen-sink crisis. Fast-forward to today, where the NYT tells the exact same story, detailing the tragic implications that this human propensity for denial has had on school districts, municipal authorities and local governments (and of course, all of their attendant constituencies = us) around the globe.

A sad taste of the destructive ripple:

...the transportation authority has already announced it will raise subway and train fares next year because of various fiscal problems, and may be forced to shrink the work force and reduce some bus routes. Some analysts say fares will probably rise again in 2010.

People have always wanted to be the exception. To not, as someone recently said, "be average" but to be "above average." This means timing the markets. Escaping risks that, while explained to you, don't really apply to you. This is not new. But, what has changed is the scope and the degree of interdependence that results from this behavior.

Time for financial literacy to get sexy!

Then again, denial always remains an option.

Take the state of Alaska, for example.

"Hey, indictment isn't conviction."

"84 is the new 50."

"People have been voting for Ted for 40 years and their inclination is to keep doing it," Dave Cuddy, a former state lawmaker who finished a distant second to Mr. Stevens, said in a phone interview several hours before the polls closed.

We've all been there.