Burning Man has entered the mainstream.  Not only did the event sell out for the first time in its history, but the Wall Street Journal and New York Times both gave it prominent coverage.

What is Burning Man? For the still uninitiated: “Once a year, tens of thousands of participants gather in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to create Black Rock City, dedicated to community, art, self-expression, and self-reliance.  They depart one week later, having left no trace whatsoever.  Burning Man is also an ever-expanding year-round culture based on the Ten Principles.”  Those ten principles, in turn, are: (i) Radical Inclusion; (ii) Gifting; (iii) Decommodification; (iv) Radical Self-Reliance; (v) Radical Self-expression; (vi) Communal Effort; (vii) Civic Responsibility; (viii) Leaving No Trace; (ix) Participation; and (x) Immediacy.

According to the WSJ, this “mantra is so compelling that some 50,000 participants have gathered in this rustic setting for the 25^th annual rite,” but a more honest count might conclude that it draws about 1,000 people eager to explore the philosophical implications of alternative socioeconomics, and 49,000 people looking for a good party.  Yet, with all the potential to report about alternative events and lifestyles, both papers focused on the incursion of capitalist trappings into this supposedly non-capitalist venue: the NYT wrote about the for-profit nature of the parent corporation, while the WSJ described the emergence of a class structure among Burners.  The irony falls equally on the newspapers and the Burners, however, because far from presenting an alternative to capitalist socioeconomics, Burning Man is a glorious, joyful expression of them.  And therein lies the true story.

Three years ago, I attended Burning Man for the first (and so far only) time.  Like many virgins, I was unaware precisely what to expect—or how I could contribute to the community.  After all, as a professional technology lawyer and an avocational political philosopher, the demand for my skills in an alternative art city appeared somewhat unclear.  Fortunately, a chain of telephone referrals led me to a long-time Burner organizing an “academic style” conference on The Future of Art.  I volunteered a presentation on contemporary copyright issues, reasoning that the ways that we regulate art would have a profound effect on the art we get.

On my second day on the Playa (as the grounds of Black Rock City are known), I thus found myself in a scorching shade structure addressing a scantily clad crowd curious about art and its future.  I spent my twenty minutes running the crowd through a series of hypotheticals designed to illustrate the profound effect that the regulation of art can have on determining whom we motivate and what we motivate them to do.  The next speaker, a fine Marxist graduate student in I forget what at I forget where U, read a paper to the crowd extolling the gift culture at Burning Man as an appropriate curative to the rapacious excesses of capitalism—as exemplified by that most imperialistic of all evil empires, the United States.

That’s when the real fun started.

(more…)

I happened to be in a hair salon when the news first hit. The shock was palpable as word spread from the employees to their clients. There was surprise, then sadness. It was one of those moments some people will always remember exactly where they were and what they were doing at the time.

Upon returning home, sketchy details emerged on internet-news sites, and the Facebook and Twitter-sphere were abuzz as people came to terms with the sad reality.

Amy Winehouse was dead.

This particular singer, who’s only semi-legitimate claim to fame was an appropriate ditty about her refusal to go to rehab, should have surprised no one who bothered to care when she reportedly topped her own previous attempts at excess with a mix of cocaine, heroine and horse tranquilizers; or if you’re to believe her parents, a lack of alcohol.

This singer-turned-public-spectacle became the latest martyr of the Me Generations who elevate practitioners of extreme-hedonism-to-the-point-of-death to romantic notions of victimhood. You know, troubled creative geniuses struggling with enormous and unexpected success. Pushing a 27-year-old body to the point of death through partying takes actual work, and an absolute inability to control one’s cravings.

The next weekend, news hit that a Chinook helicopter had been shot down during a raid in Afghanistan, killing all 30 on board, including 22 Navy SEALs, many reportedly from the elite Team 6. Loss of life during a time of war is tragic, but military casualties are an expected and necessary evil and cost of wars fought for an ostensibly greater good.

But there’s something especially devastating – both psychologically and militarily – about losing so many of the very best. To the extent the internet blogosphere and Facebook are any indications of public sentiment, at least among certain demographics, the public expressions of sadness and grief at this event was mostly confined to those few pro-military individuals. The public expressions of shock and sadness were far less than the number reserved for the drug-addicted dead singer/public spectacle, and only one brave person in my sphere of online friends dared to call out the general population on their sad priorities.

(more…)

Who is responsible for America’s culture of freedom?

Much credit is given to the Founding Fathers who crafted the Constitution, but what about the drunkards who threw horse manure at British soldiers?

Historian Thaddeus Russell explores the taboo side of America’s fight for freedom in his new book, A Renegade History of the United States . Russell’s list of heroes of freedom includes pub owners, prostitutes, and sexually liberated pirates.

“People who existed and operated purely for their own pleasures and interests expanded freedoms for all of us, says Russell. “They broke open American culture in ways that most of us—not all of us—value if not cherish today.”

(more…)

Avon Products recent announcement that the firm wants to avoid using ‘high-carbon, high-impact fuels’ derived from the oil sands is yet another hit and run on America’s safest and most secure oil supplier. It is a disingenuous publicity stunt that misleads the public with false promises under false premises.

Avon’s latest so-called “environmental” campaign boils down to asking its transportation contractors to eliminate higher-carbon fuels with a special focus on Canada’s oil sands. Given Avon’s sudden distaste for petroleum products one might set the same standard in return for Avon.  To speak tangentially, when the dictionary definition of hypocrisy immediately springs to mind there may be a credibility problem; ‘feigning to be what one is not; especially the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion’.  Yes, we have a credibility problem.

This is a company that nets huge corporate profits from the sales of millions of reps who idle, drive and willingly gas-guzzle their way from neighborhood to neighborhood hocking petroleum based products. Perhaps when Avon rethinks one of their core business models, we can stop laughing in Alberta.

This rash of anti-oilsands actions (we aren’t officially allowed to use the term boycott at present)  rely on a set of specious arguments.  To begin there are the technicalities that Avon and these nouveaux-environmentally sensitive companies like Gap Inc., Timberland, Levi-Strauss, Lush (operating with the aide of misinformants such as ForestEthics) hope the unwitting public will miss or at least misunderstand.

There is no real or practical way for transporters to avoid using fuel from a refinery from any one particular source of crude oil.

(more…)

Remember your high school year book that the popular kids were the editors of and made their friends the top of every list and highlighted pictures of them on what seemed like every page?

They apparently are now the editors at Forbes Magazine.

Yes, Forbes Magazine has released its list of the “100 Most Powerful Women in the World”, and from the get-go of the article it starts defending itself in saying that the standards are changing.

Obviously.

Number one on the list? First Lady Michelle Obama.

Forbes gives a biography listing why they feel she is powerful. It states that she has a fitness program for kids and that she is a style icon. Oh, and 54% of people like her according to a poll.

That is all it takes now to be considered the most powerful woman in the world? I am going to J. Crew right now and opening a store credit line.

If she were not the President’s wife, she would not be on the list. Period.

(more…)

Oliver Stone’s uber-villain Gordon Gekko is back in the new film, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which (surprise!) features greedy capitalists behaving badly. It might remind you of Avatar, Mission Impossible 2 or roughly a zillion other films in which capitalists destroy the environment, concoct killer viruses, harvest organs, and cover up murder in order to feed their lust of profit. Even when capitalism isn’t the primary target, the representatives of commerce are often flat-out repulsive (think Jabba the Hut).

Perhaps it’s ironic that Hollywood filmmakers practice what they preach against. Sure he palls around with socialist dictators Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez, but there’s no doubt Oliver Stone hopes to rake in obscene profits with his new flick.

(more…)

The participant list prepared for the White House/NEA/Ministry of Propaganda organizational conference call included autobiographical blurbs to apparently help the call’s organizers identify the participants since none of the “artists” involved could be considered a household name.  That is unless your household is comprised entirely of unemployed, surly twenty-somethings whose worldly possessions consist of an i phone, a Vaio, a skateboard and, perhaps a few cans of spray paint.

The conference call and other efforts now emerging were organized by the National Endowment for the Arts at the behest of the White House to try and coordinate and focus the existing pro-Obama passion of the artistic community to directly promote administration political objectives.

This effort is justifiably being criticized as a misuse of government resources and a creative example of adapting the Chicago pay-to-play style to the federal scene.  What is an alternative artists supposed to think when the largest artistic grant-dispensing agency of the federal government comes-a-calling asking for help?  It is only natural that one would expect a quid pro quo when it comes to doling out cash for all manner of non-traditional, (read: incomprehensible) art, while the chap who cleverly mocked up the Obama/Joker poster will probably not be in line to cash in at the federal trough.

(more…)