Are we seeing the end of serendipity?

[applegrove]

Are we seeing the end of serendipity?
Dec. 29, 2005. 07:25 AM
JOANNA WEISS
SPECIAL TO THE STAR


This is what the historians will probably record: 2005 marked the beginning of the end of serendipity.

We might remember it fondly someday, that experience of glancing at a page of paper, flipping through television channels, unwrapping a new CD, and stumbling on something unexpected. Some tidbit of information. A brilliant song no one was talking about. An episode of Arrested Development.

In the future, as 2005 began to prove, we are more likely to live in an entertainment world of our own making. TiVo and other personal video recorders, long beloved by early adopters, finally seemed to reach the critical masses, and even sparked a change in how U.S. TV ratings are calculated. The ubiquity of iTunes — singles, cheap and easy — called into question the future of the album. Link-up sites such as MySpace.com, where every band seems to have its own page, makes the record label start to feel obsolete. (Except that, last month, MySpace announced it was launching a record label of its own.)

Snip..... "

Boston Globe

Reprint at the Toronto Star:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1135810215123&call_page=TS_World&call_pageid=968332188854&call_pagepath=News/World&pubid=968163964505

[applegrove]

1. Very true. When everything around us is for sale - airways &

the air we breath - chances of good luck and chance are less.

The innocence of being a person is gone. That human to human connection where - as luck would have it...

The world is not as scarce as the neocons would have us believe. Not everything needs to be wound up and packaged. Only if you have to make 1/2 the population rich so that you can remain rich and keep getting richer do you have to control everything and everybody.

I keep thinking of those Bolivians and the rain they were told they could not capture. Without paying a fee.

I suppose if you cannot even look up to the sky at the first sign of rain if you are a farmer and laugh if that option is no longer there - then some corporation will look much better to you if there is nothing left that is free - but why do we need to destroy it all just so a few can get rich.

To the deminishment of us all. Having the world so specialized towards ones needs isn't all its cracked up to be for sure.

[Demeter]

2. I'm Having Serendipity About BushCo Every Day

Each morning another piece of the puzzle is filled in, another misty figure materializes, another indictment begins. It gives me chills, sometimes.

I didn't have this with Nixon--local papers were uninformative, and the whole thing was quite a shock.

WIth Iran/Contra, they kept the shells moving so fast, no one noticed the pea had disappeared at all.

But today with the internet and the ability for anyone to publish, the whole ship of state leaks like a sieve. Technology, properly applied, is a miracle worker.

[freesqueeze]

3. I felt a change for the worse

When Bush admitted to warrantless spying on Americans.

And he was proud of it!



I want my country back.

[applegrove]

4. Yes - warrantless is quite scary.