All posts by Chuck Fager

Harry’s Razors: Not Making the Algorithmic Cut

Pervasive: Sirius/XM is an example of how Orwell’s 1984 Big Brother society is growing, its tendrils silently stretching & enfolding us like those of the morning glory vines that are taking over the little garden plot outside my kitchen door.

The network knows & tracks everything I listen to, and (besides turning it over to the NSA & whoever other real Spooks want it) uses this “data” to pursue its real goal, that is, selling me stuff. And to do that it sells the data to others likewise tracking me, including the New York Times.

Nothing new or surprising here; part of today’s totally quotidian. And the demographics seemingly make good sense: a Times reader who listens to an earnestly thoughtful show on politics: should be prime for “quality,” somewhat-above-middlebrow products.

Now the limitations part: the product in question is a razor; Harry’s razor, to be specific. Take a bow, Harry:

Harry seems determined to make me a customer: the ad usually pops up several times in each day’s Times, in different shapes & with varying copy. As I say, this has been going on for weeks.

And with each appearance, it reinforces my bemusement. That’s because of how, despite all the impeccable logic applied by the various marketers involved, assisted by their expertly high-tech algorithms, the ad is an utter misfire: I am just not a candidate for Harry’s merchandise.

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Life, Death & a Jesus Car Wash

The son of a slain Christian car wash owner says he plans to reopen the Eastern Boulevard business Monday and leave it exactly as his father would have wanted.

“There ain’t nothing changing but the owner,” said Matt Mansfield, the 28-year-old son of Michael Mansfield, who police say was beaten to death early Sunday. “I’ve got all my guys supporting me so I’m going to open full force. I know that’s what my dad wanted me to do.”

Mansfield said the building will keep the same signs, the same blaring music and the same employees at 1st Place Auto Wash & Detail Shop – more commonly known locally as the “Jesus Car Wash.”

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North Carolina Yearly Meeting: Is “Reorganization” Beginning?

It’s been pretty quiet around North Carolina Yearly Meeting (FUM) in the weeks since their annual session, when the group stepped back from a formal split.
That was a very close shave. The YM leadership came into the gathering wanting a purge disguised as a split. The steamroller machinery was in place. They trundled it up to the brink, and teetered on the edge.
Then they drew back. Lacking “sufficient unity”, they recalculated and suggest a “reorganization” instead. That was agreed to — but not defined. No one yet knows what it will mean, except that the two-year purge effort has been, thankfully, ended. (More on that here.)
That was one of the two most telling items of the session.
The other was the number 8.
We’ll get to that presently.

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A Concentration Camp in California: The Past Haunts the present — And sketches the future?

Ten thousand of them were packed into a camp called Manzanar, in the remote Owens Valley of California. Owens Valley could be a good definition of the “middle of nowhere.”

It’s almost 120 miles north of Death Valley in California, and 100-plus from the eastern entrance to Yosemite. This is the Owens Valley. It’s home to bands of Paiute-Shoshone Indians, some hardy fruit farmers, cattle ranchers, and not much else on two legs.

From here it’s 336 miles to San Francisco, 226 to LA, and almost 250 to either Reno or Vegas. “Manzanar” is Spanish for apple orchard.”

This is high desert, nearly 4000 feet, so it’s hot in the summer, freezing and snowy in winter, and whipped by strong winds at any season. Twenty miles or so west are the Sierra Nevada mountains, usually capped by snow and fantastic slow-swirling cloud formations.

Conditions were tough in the camps. Legal challenges to the internment were turned aside, even by the Supreme Court. Most Japanese-Americans were kept in the camps until late 1945, when the war ended.

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Dog Days Tale: Honesty Is the Best Policy – Mostly

I was ready to cut up columns when Mike nodded at me over the phone receiver again. ”It’s Judy Drake,” he said. “At the Phoenix.”

“Chuck! I got an idea for you!” she said. Judy was one of those people the word “perky” was invented for; but I was glad to be distracted. Judy was the culture editor at the Boston Phoenix, the big downtown weekly paper where I used to work. She got to cover the really big events in town, like new movies, plays, the symphony, and above all, the big-name rock concerts.

When I worked at the Phoenix she doled out free concert tickets like lottery prizes, and we all lapped them up. Boston had a lot of big events. I had seen Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, even Johnny Cash this way.

Those giveaways also worked great for the owner of the Phoenix; as long as we kept humming the latest concert tunes around the office, we forgot to notice that he didn’t pay us decent wages or benefits. But heck, who needed health insurance when we had a chance to see Frank Zappa, or The Who, for free? (Ah, youth.)

I was still a sucker. “Do you know,” Judy asked, “about the concert at Boston Garden tonight?”

Did I? Didn’t everybody? It was Sly and the Family Stone, who were still hotter than a firecracker after their many hit records, like “Everyday People,” “Dance To The Music,” “Life,” and their show-stealing gig at Woodstock.

Boom-chocka-locka-lockaI hadn’t made it to Woodstock, but I had watched the movie more than once, and their pulsing rendition of “I Want To Take You Higher,” with its “Boom-chocka-locka-locka” refrain was engraved on my brain cells. “Oh, Sly!” was all I could say.

“Sooooo, how’d you like to go?” Judy teased. I could hear her grinning all the way from town.

“Me?” I shouted. “But, Judy, I’m not worthy! So, who do I have to kill?”

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