Known for her Naked Happening outside New York's stock exchange (1968) and various hippie orgies, Yayoi Kusama was regarded as a leading post-modernist living artist.  Let us first recognize two facts:  having sexual orgies with a bunch of drug addicts will not stop (a) war, and it is impossible to affect the New York Stock Exchange with polka dots, unless you are buying or selling them.

That being said, Hippie culture seems like nothing more than validated hedonism.  Let's raise awareness of this disease by throwing a bitchin' concert!  Make love, not war!  The very concept of having fun is comparably as important and reactionary as revolting against the technocracy.  On that note, we do not live in a Orwellian dystopia, it is really not as bad as people make it out to be.  Certainly, not everyone is living in a monotonous, bleak, and unfulfilled world, and subversive drug and sex abuse isn't going to free your body and mind, though you might get some bitchin' STDs.

"One of the most prominent advocates of this sort of "downshifting" of consumption and income is Juliet Schor.  In The Overspent American, Schor offers a profile of a typical downshifter--a cute photograph of a young woman carrying groceries, with little arrows pointing out the various ways in which she is fighting consumerism.  As on elooks over these points, it is easy to see what a difficult task this budding downshifter faces.  Here is a sample:

    -'Buys organic food.'  How does this combat consumerism?  Our downshifter is certainly going to have to earn a lot more money if she intends to pay two to three times more for all of her groceries.  Organic food is simply the latest category of 'premium' consumer goods.  Like artisan bread, espresso coffee and handmade carpets, it is more labor-intensive to produce.  Grocery stores across North America are cashing in on the organic craze.  Organic food is one of the major forces driving the return to an almost aristocratic class structure in the United States, in which the wealthy no longer eat the same food as the poor."
~Heath & Potter

Richard Florida is a big fucking douchebag.
His national bestseller, The Rise of the Creative Class, is merely Florida fellating himself in a circular room lined with mirrors, while his own rendition of Marvin Gaye's Let's get it on is playing in the background.

He relates creativity to seemingly esoteric hobbies and activities, portraying his high-bohemian as a complex, worldly, and overall hip American; having a queer-eye for fashion does not make you a polymath,

"..the people in my interviews identify themselves through a tangle of connections to myriad creative activities. One person may be simultaneously a writer, researcher, consultant, cyclist, rock climber, electronic/world music/acid jazz lover, amateur gourmet cook, wine enthusiast or micro-brewer."

While jumping between the first-person singular and third-person omniscient in describing the lifestyle of the emerging super-bohemian,

"Creative people always have experienced and even cultivated a blurring of time..How we organize and use time is changing in ways that go far beyond simplicstic notions..the core issue is not when we work or the number of hours we put in, but that our use of time has intensified."

Then in a later chapter, reinforces how important time is to the creative class,

"In the Creative Economy, time is the only nonrenewable resource."

How does an entire caste experience a blurring of time, or for that matter, how do they cultivate it? If time is being blurred, how is it that it's use has also intensified? Since when is something that is blurry also intense? What a pompous, arrogant prick. Acid Jazz? Errbody in the club getting out. As if construction workers, teachers, and janitors don't enjoy rock climbing or music. The only reason he can regard himself as part of the "Creative Class" is because he wrote two books about it, otherwise, he'd be another "Service Provider."

"Florida's theory asserts that metropolitan regions with high concentrations of hi-tech workers, artists, musicians, gay men, and a group he describes as "high bohemians", correlate with a higher level of economic development than in cities and regions that are lacking these. He suggests that attracting and retaining high-quality talent -- rather than building large job-creation infrastructure projects such as sports stadiums, iconic buildings, shopping centres -- would be a better primary use of a city's regeneration resources for long-term prosperity.

Florida has devised his own ranking systems that rate cities by a "bohemian index," a "gayness index," a "diversity index" and other similar categories. His conclusions are partly based on the results from these indexes." ~wikipedia.org

Saying that a certain caste of humans within America is responsible for the creation of ideas is, in essence, objectifying creativity. Art, culture, literature, music, and any other form of expression is subjective to each individual; be they well educated, low-wage earning, or of a deviating or conventional sexual orientation. Race should play no role in achieving diverse ideas. A Black man, a Latino Woman, and a White child are all capable of the same ideas; diversity should be measured by personality and ability, not by skin colour.

I bet this jackass does Zen Shiatsu Yoga, too.

- - - - -

I love this country

LOCAL MAN DISREGARDS VAGRANT

BIDDEFORD, ME - Grocery store owner Peter Hazleton was appalled when fellow townsman, Bradley Teberman, walked away from a local vagabond without acknowledging him, or making any eye-contact. "Bradley has always been something of a penny pincher, but this time he’s gone too far." Teberman sidestepped the accusations against him. “I always give to the needy, it’s just that Steve is known to buy booze and cigarettes with the charity that is given to him.” Vagrant Steve Simonton denies all allegations, calling Teberman “another deceitful bourgeoisie.”

"In March 2004, it became public through an article in The Independent newspaper that the tap water of Sidcup was being treated, bottled, and sold under the Dasani brand name in the UK."
This is news to me.
When was it that bottled water went from snooty (recall the villainess in Beethoven 2? "I just want a bottle of eevee-ahn watah") to the preferred choice of bottled refreshement? Is it merely coincidence that Evian spelt backwards is Naive?

On an unrelated note..