Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Do you want to understand? -OR- Tell me another story.


Cyril Northcote Parkinson was a fucking genius! If you don't know the name, you know the law.

"Parkinson's Law can be stated very simply: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The consequences of this law--which appears to be applicable to all organizations--are traced by C. Northcote Parkinson in a book which at first glance seems merely hilariously funny. At second glance,the reader feels a kind of chilling sense of recognition: What if Parkinson's Law is true?"

Parkinson's Law (and Other Studies) [alt title: Parkinson's Law and the Pursuit of Progress] (c) 1955

I'm here to ask you, beg you to consider this as POINT A on our slogging, brutal trek out of this nightmare. Consider it required reading. Keep the tome always at hand to use as reference. (Must not be a LAW since my copy is currently out on loan.)

Professor Parkinson was the Raffles Professor of History at the University of Singapore when he penned his definitive work. He was a man, firmly grounded in a reality based world, who wrote Speculative Fiction based on his knowledge of REAL history.

He identified an immutable characteristic of life, the universe and everything.
PDF of the paper he expanded into the book


What we are witnessing, yet again, is nothing less than absolute proof of the man's genius. Will this time be enough to make it stop?

Cable News Networks? Yesterday, Today and for as many tomorrows as possible Blago fills 80% of their airtime. Commercials for Erectile Dysfunction, Time Saving, Financial, Lawyers, Credit products fill another 10%. Leaving a sparse 10% for actual news. Oops, check that. Gotta do the Entertainment segment, the lead-ins, the snappy patter between experts. 2% NEWS YOU NEED?

Why? Professor? Got an answer?
Law of Triviality Sure, that's easy. Everybody has a viewpoint on dirt-bag politicians.
Everybody can speak and wax poetic, and snipe and snark. And the audience will lap it up. Feel "informed" and validated. Win-Win?

Explaining the other news is HARD. They were trying on the whole financial meltdown, but it's just too HARD. Truth wouldn't work. Truth would expose the vapidness of the whole fucking structure upon which the media survives. What they needed was another OJ! Trust me when I say that the Blago saga will drag on for-fucking-ever. He is the tip of a systemic disease. If you forget this, he will also be the end. Once taken down, all will be right with everything. Yep.
Fucking brilliant.

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