PopConsumer

links for 2009-12-03

• Katherine Heigl Saves Puppies! - Tonic
  Chihuahuas are actually the second most euthanized dog species in the state of California — second only to pit bulls.
  (tags: dogs chihuahua)

links for 2009-12-02

• Dear Musicians – Please Be Brilliant or Get Out of The Way | pampelmoose Dave Allen of Gang of Four's Music and Media Blog
  And by the way, I do not align myself with those that say the Internet is killing music. On the contrary, I argue that the major record labels and the RIAA, through their relentless lawsuits campaign, destroyed the trust and goodwill that music fans felt when interacting with music brands [musicians, artists, bands,] and by doing that they pushed music into being a good, a mere commodity. We need new thinking…. So I have to ask – why is there no online music equivalent of punk rock? Why is there no real and passionate embrace of the new?
  (tags: music business technology art innovation)

links for 2009-11-29

• Whatever You Decide Is Okay
  My gut said no pretty quickly, yet I was unable to trust myself.

  I started asking for opinions from my support network to see if they agreed with my thinking. And when I didn’t get the validation I was seeking, I got more knotted up.

  I needed there to be a logical, quantifiable reason to say no. I wasn’t willing to take my gut response at face value.

  And then there was the money thing. As in, I need this money, so surely my gut is wrong when it tells me I don’t want to do this.

  I also noticed that this is how decision-making (especially work-related decisions) tends to be for me. Gut-wrenchingly painful.

  
  
  (tags: personalgrowth)
  
  

links for 2009-11-28

• David Brooks - The Other Education - NYTimes.com
  I’m not claiming my second education has been exemplary or advanced. I’m describing it because I have only become aware of it retrospectively, and society pays too much attention to the first education and not enough to the second.

  In fact, we all gather our own emotional faculty — artists, friends, family and teams. Each refines and develops the inner instrument with a million strings.

  
  
  (tags: springsteen music education emotion)
  
  

On Vox: Springsteen: At Least I Have My Memories

Bruce Springsteen just wrapped up his latest tour in support of Working On A Dream. Sadly WOAD is my least favorite Springsteen album. I was so disappointed by my one listening of it, I haven't been able to bring myself...

» Read more on Vox

links for 2009-11-22

• Precious, my Precious: Black Female Citizenship, Complexity, and the Politics of Unrelenting Survival - Feministing
  We do not control our media and cultural systems or the institutions of civil society, and therefore the narrative of black female citizenship has been used in so many ways as the lynchpin to justify the most brutal democracy in the world. The lies that our citizenship is somehow a gift and not a right, that our mothers are responsible for the socialization of black children and therefore the cause of their incarceration, and that our daughters have drained and massacred the economy, have justified mass incarceration, war, the privatization of social services and health care, and the defunding of public education. The same has been done to black men, using different stereotypes. But this, right here, is about black women.
  (tags: race black gender women movies books citizenship unitedstates)

links for 2009-11-19

• Lynne D Johnson: Advertising’s New Social Media Conscience
  A consultant also has to have business experience and understand traditional marketing because there should still be an overall marketing strategy. Social media is just one part of it and does not replace it completely. Stats say traditional television still works. Do banner ads still work? No. Does everyone need to develop a community? Not necessarily. An expert is not that kid who comes out of college. It could be a traditional marketer who is learning some of these new tricks. It can be people with anthropology, journalism, or even scientific backgrounds.
  (tags: marketing socialmedia)

links for 2009-11-18

• Playing the Health Care Lottery - Well Blog - NYTimes.com
  A public insurance plan offers a real alternative to the morally bankrupt idea that health care can and should be big business. Unless health insurance companies are in some way compelled to change their definition of success, we will all be at the mercy of policies that put profits before a patient’s life-and-death needs.
  (tags: healthcare insurance morality politics reform business policy)

links for 2009-11-12

• Op-Ed Columnist - America’s Defining Choice - NYTimes.com
  What’s the best way to spend $100 billion per year? Health reform or troops for Afghanistan? Simple, because lack of insurance kills far more Americans than the Taliban does.
  (tags: insurance healthcare politics policy war)

links for 2009-11-12

• Lack of health care killed 2,266 US veterans last year: study - Yahoo! News
  The number of US veterans who died in 2008 because they lacked health insurance was 14 times higher than the US military death toll in Afghanistan that year, according to a new study.
  (tags: healthcare insurance politics military)