The Cosmopolitan Blog

24 hours after the Rally to Restore Sanity, I have to say, I’ve had a blast watching cable channels completely IGNORE the rally (Bless you Howard Kurtz from CNN for redeeming your network!). Heaven forbid News Networks should tear themselves away from recycling candidate speeches, exit polls and political experts standing firmly on their over-polarized side (or the hourly interjection of fear through reminding us of the bombs found in recent packages… coincidence this happened 4 days before elections? i think not!)… heaven-forbid you should go off message for 2 minutes to report something that may *gasp* be critical of you!

Yes, yes, i hear you already, i know, networks and news shows DID show parts of the rally, yes, they showed the music and mocked how the rally was really about nothing… but where are those experts analysts when it comes to paraphrasing Jon Stewart’s closing message?

I also had  a blast reading the reviews and following the twitter feeds too. Two comments here:

1. For the love of all that’s holy, Twitterers! please! stop comparing numbers of attendees to those who showed up to Glenn Beck’s rally, it’s an insult to us and goes against the entire concept of sanity Jon Stewart was on about yesterday, don’t you see? The whole point is NOT to hype this up, not to obsess or get competitive, but just to appreciate it for what it was, even if only 1,000 people had showed up
2. I do have to point to this review from someone called Z on TV, that had me laughing my sights off: i’d paraphrase but i don’t think i’d be doing him justice. He’s a reporter, so he felt scorned by Jon Stewart’s criticism of the 24-hour news cycle, and goes about proving how Jon Stewart is just plain “wrong”… uh, ok, thanks for that Z, glad to see journalism objectivity is alive and well!
   I did want to mention 1 point. Z says that Stewart’s tirade was an insult to journalists who risk their lives every day reporting from war zones and endangered areas. Z, if you raised your nose up for a second from those Reese Peanut Cups you bought as a result of the advertisement you’re so angry was shoved in your face, you’d realize it wasn’t the journalists Stewart was insulting, it was the networks and the way they SPIN the news that those brave journalists bring home.

So in order to restore peace and sanity in my own head, I want to thank Eddie Izzard for pointing me to this article that explains it way better than I ever could.

My 2 latest blog posts have actually just been me trying to get to the point i’ve been trying to make as a result of the rally and the way i see the current political process. But i’ll spare you a never-ending post and just start a new one that i’ll post tomorrow.

I guess if anyone was going to get me out of my blog-post-freeze, it would be Jon Stewart. LOL. I just finished watching the Rally to Restore Sanity. And as we do on The Daily Show, here we watched Jon Stewart “play” the democrat, while Stephen Colbert caricatured the conservative voice.

But I wonder, do people realize there was more criticism of the media in Jon Stewart’s message than there was of republicans? This was not a democrat vs. republican rally. The goal of THIS rally (restoring sanity) is a reference to the craziness that is the fear-mongering by the 24 hour news cycle, amplified by the millions of bloggers chiming in to reinforce, prying on the insecurities of the average human being and exploiting it.

Look, i’ve lived in the US. and what I’ve seen is a people, like in every other country, working hard, loving their families, their church and their communities and just generally being responsible citizens. What Jon Stewart said is true “We work together to get things done every damn day! [...]“. Good things happen in this country every single day. Except that THAT doesn’t make for interesting news. Telling people that ANY economy has natural cycles of recession and boom does not make for interesting news. Telling them that a Republican president wouldn’t have ended this recession any faster Read the rest of this entry »

So my european experience continues… on the tube… aaaah, the british tube!  Actually, i’ll be honest, it took me a while to remember, it wasn’t called the subway like in NYC, it wasn’t called the metro like in Montreal, or the T like in boston. it’s the underground, or the tube in good ol’ England.

I remember hating it when i was growing up here. I remember thinking the stations were dirty & old looking, the trains were run down, and i just remember wishing that something, anything! would change or get updated.

I got to montreal & thought, waow, now this is nice. Read the rest of this entry »

I’m starting to draw a mighty big list of cons, when it comes to technology. Surprising, considering it’s the field i work in… or not… i hear those who work in chocolate factories never want to eat another piece of chocolate ever again, so….

For something that’s supposed to make us more productive, have u ever counted how much time you spend fiddling with, fine-tuning that technology for it to ACTUALLY do what you want it to do? Settings new systems up, figuring out how to make them better, fixing something that doesn’t work, installing product updates, rebooting, watching progress bars… UGH. I’d love someone to actually study this and tell us if we’re actually more productive or if we’re just more… well… busy…

We complain that the computer is making jobs obsolete, but what about all those jobs created to make sure that technology actually works?

Today, as i continue my european experiment, i realize one thing… technology takes your attention away from life. When you’re watching tv, it’s time you’re NOT spending outside taking a walk, when you’re surfing the Read the rest of this entry »

So here I am. England. London. I grew up here. And i’m back, staying at my mom’s, taking care of her as she recovers from a knee operation. Translation: i have NOTHING to do for a week. And i’m not a tourist here. And i don’t particularly love this city (long story)… so what does one do? Return to my blog, for 1. But i had an idea for an experiment, you know me, ever the sociologist.

Let us compare european and north american cultures for a week. I grew up in the former and couldn’t deal with the laissez-faire attitude, I longed for the hyper-productive, go-go-go attitude of the latter, so i moved there. A decade later, and i look back at the other side of the pond and wonder if these europeans hadn’t actually figured something out. 5 weeks vacation is the norm. Good food. Historical patrimony and traditions. Sidewalk cafés…. hmm….

So this is my goal this week. Compare. Not to draw conclusions, after all, seeing the sizable population living in each, i’m thinking there’s no clear winner or looser. But to understand. Stay tuned…