Shut up and keep digging

When I was growing up, there seemed to be no end to the Mommy Mommy Jokes. These jokes all started with the refrain, Mommy Mommy and one went, “Mommy Mommy, I don’t want to see Grandma!” with the reply, “Shut up and keep digging”. It seems that management has picked up this refrain and has run with it. With the siren call to return to the office, and to “normal”, many workers are finding that “normal” no longer works for them. Of course, workers are a commodity, which management wants to purchase at the lowest cost as they do with any other commodity. So basically, under the paradigm that we are told to return to, we are to be like cattle, to shut up and dig. Alas, if we are not in our places (with bright shining faces) management will know as they will be taking attendance. Don’t turn off your Zoom camera or you may be seen as “less than engaged“.  In short, shut up and keep digging. Workers, like children, are to be seen and not heard. These businesses are all deemed, “Too big to Fail” but then, have they not failed us already?
Perhaps the hole we are digging is for us.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On Demand Life

“If you build it, he will come. ” – or so it says in the 1989 film “Field of Dreams” based on based on W. P. Kinsella’s 1982 novel Shoeless Joe. Now we don’t even have to build it for it to come, we can order it from our phone or tablet from the convenience of our wherever and it will come.  The only flaw in this is when there seems to be a hiccup in the system. On demand manufacturing means a product is produced just before it needs to be shipped. This of course assumes that all the individual pieces can be delivered at just the right time to be assembled in just the right order. We have believed in this perfect world so long that we can’t fathom the fact that things might not always go as planned. Strikes, weather and shortages, as well as pandemics can all effect the flow of goods and services. Indeed the flow of information can also effected by something as simple as a disturbance in  the flow of electricity or content.

But what does this do to us as people, what is it to live in a world of immediate or near immediate gratification, where not everything is possible but immediate? How do we as individuals and as a society react when we don’t know patience. And what do we do when the immediate becomes postponed as it inevitably will at some point, remember all systems break down at some point. How will a society built around right now react to, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

 

Age of Amnesia

I should have taken a picture. It didn’t occur to me at the time, I walked past him quickly and it didn’t occur to me until I had a moment to really think about it. The Captain America costume was spot on which said something at WonderCon where so many costumes fall short. It wasn’t so much that but the fact that the Captain was Asian. Now, don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with captain Americas of any race sex or colour and the same holds true for any other comic book character. What got me was the fact that this Asian man was taking on such a powerful symbol of a system that has so often failed them. Created in March of 1941, Steve Rodgers was created as a living embodiment of the American way, he was blonde, blue eyed- all USA. I wondered if this man had any idea of the background of the character he was impersonating, supporting a character whose government once interred Asians, saw then as less than people and even today seem helpless to even acknowledge the fact that the violence against Asians has risen to an alarming rate and needs to be addressed.
Perhaps that is too much to put into the Marvel universe and we have come to an age of amnesia where our memory can only go as far as the last remake of the superhero tale. Perhaps at Comicon, I will have the pleasure to see Hasidic Jews masquerading as Hitler.