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American democracy -- the dismal accountability from many of the folks we elect!

 

Another day in Utopia... now you see it and now you don’t. 

Political campaigns in the United States are interesting.  We, the voters, allow politicians to say what we what them to say, fully appreciating the fact that they don’t mean any of it, and will do what ever they choose to do when elected. 

It is one of the interesting facets about American democracy -- the dismissal of accountability from the folks we elect.  The party that is out is given an edge because they can oppose everything, knowing full well they will not be held responsible for anything they say. 

This all changes of course when the outs become the ins - once elected you can feel free to break any promise you made.  After all, you are now responsible for what happens.  What serious voter would expect you to keep your promises? 

This all works because we the voters only have two choices. And most of us hold our noses when we vote. This supposedly makes American democracy very efficient – and that it does.  Unfortunately, it also turns out not to be very democratic.

 

Brother Giovanni

We also recommend "The Pizzaonian"

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Suppositions regarding faith and the stability of life - and other thoughts....

We live in a time when the concept of faith has lost its luster. Faith by today’s rules is consigned often to the unsophisticated.  As a result, when someone declares a belief or activity as “a matter of faith” it is immediately suspect. 

This presents a major problem. If faith is suspect, than most of our assumptions must also be suspect since so much of what we believe is based on faith-like assumptions. 

A major assumption we make everyday is the world, as we know it, will continue to exist. This is an assumption based on faith. 

The odds may be with us, but nonetheless, we don’t know what’s going to happen in the next minute and must assume we will still be here. 

This obvious assumption should give us pause.  Our arrogant supposition regarding the stability of life keeps us from changing many things that need changing. 

The notion there will be a tomorrow may give us hope, but how many important things never get done because this assumed hope is part of our belief system.  This implicit hope is the “mother” of all procrastination. 

Be careful – the next time you find faith suspect - make sure you are not living most of your life based on assumptions rooted in faith.

 

Brother Franco

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EXPLAINING THE WAY THINGS ARE AS WE PASS THE DAY by PIZZAONIUS

 

A PIZZAONIAN CONCEPTION OF REALITY IF THERE IS SUCH A THING. 

    

 LUNCH WITH PICASSO

 

   

WAITING FOR CIVILISATION

 

STILL WAITING FOR CIVILISATION

 

THIS IS WHAT WE WERE WAITING FOR?

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE PIZZAONIAN ART INSTITUTE.  PAINTINGS (PHOTOS?) BY PIZZAONIUS, cira 345 PET (pizzaonian evolutionary time)

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We are now experiencing what happens when a nation is between value systems!

 Commentary by Brother Giovanni - Image courtesy of the Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Straction, curator (C)2012

 

A nation is most vulnerable when it is evolving between value systems.  When the old values and symbols that define us as a country begin to fade away, and the new values that will redefine us have yet to arrive, a nation is in a very dangerous time. It is during these transitory times that demagogues usually appear.

 

These periods of major shifts in values can not only change a nation, they can rip its people apart and make them weaker and less able to survive. Look at Washington, DC if you need an example. These periods in a our countries history may be more dangerous than war as a threat to our nation’s survival.

 

We have always believed the core values that bind us together as a nation will allow us to survive. Fundamental to this belief is that when the new symbols and values arrive, they will encompass these same core values. This may not be the contradiction this appears to be.

 

In the United States these core values can be summed up in the phrase “evolving to a more perfect Union” because that’s what we have been doing these last 241 years … and it’s no secret we aren’t there yet.

 

The question now is: What are we trying to evolve to?

 

That’s up to you and me.  Pay attention, it’s all happening before your very eyes!

We also recommend: "The Pizzaonian."

 

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Maturity is the long-awaited condition that we hope age and experience will create - unfortunately, not always so.

(C)copyright    Pizzaonian Art Institute, Abe Staction,curator
Image:  Maturity waiting to happen, by Pizzaonious

 

It may be a long way to Tipari, but it is a longer road still to maturity.  Maturity is the long-awaited condition that we hope age and experience will create - unfortunately, not always so. 

In the American experience, maturity is perpetually delayed by entertainment – a process that keeps you from confronting yourself.  The business of having to grow an economy cannot have its potential customers sitting around contemplating life.  Economies require infusions of cash for new products that somehow always seem to resemble the old products they replace- without this infusion they die. 

There is some good in this process.  It brings some innovation and increases the so-called standard of living.  And, if it does none of these things, it always creates the illusion that growing is good and necessary for our well-being. 

The distinction between need and want is the problem that marketers face everyday.  If you are lucky, or smart enough, to have a product that people need, you do not have to work as hard as the rest of us. 

Most of us have to create the illusion that what people want is also what they need.  That is the little kept secret:  Making something no one needs, and making that something that everyone wants is the gateway to success.  We call this successful marketing.  Without it, we would all be in big trouble. 

As time goes by actual products run their course. The natural progression of continually making the same look like the new runs out – there are only so many products.  Thus was born the service industry.  Now we have always had necessary services, but as an industry, we matured.  There are only so many necessary services. The rest we call entertainment.  In the United States we also call it politics.

 

The service industry creates distraction: works of art that only exist for the moment. This makes the artist, Christo, a prophet.  He said, “Do you know that I don’t have any artworks that exist?  They all go away when they’re finished.”  Does anything better define the service industry? 

Now even contemplation is a product.  Create a culture where every waking moment is necessary to survive, and top it off with products that require constant reinventing.  Nice work if you can get it. 

And we wonder why maturity is a delayed process.

 

Brother Giovanni, reporting for Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network, Diverti Mento, director

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The journals of Brother Giovanni and Brother Franco. Each side wraps themselves in some great truth and then proposes ridiculous solutions.

 

ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE PIZZAONIAN ART INSTITUTE.  PAINTINGS (PHOTOS?) BY PIZZAONIUS, cira 345 PET (pizzaonian evolutionary time) Abe Straction, curator

It always seemed strange to our friends that Franco and I portalized to Pizzaonia.  It was a simple and easy decision to make.  It became clear to us while we love our country and choose to remain its permanent citizens, our sanity required we find a beta-world country that would have us. 

The rest is history.  For those who have followed our adventures in Pizzaonia what we have accomplished these past few years is well known. Now that we have retired from our Pizzaonian responsibilities and have returned home, we will occupy ourselves by writing our journal. 

It should be clear to all by now that the world is dysfunctional.  This seems to be particularly true for the United States.  What we are left with are power blocs who use this dysfunction to increase the value of their vested interest.  No one even pretends that they intend to fix the country.  If they did, why are we subjected to such absurd proposals from those vying for political power? 

Each side wraps themselves in some great truth and then proposes ridiculous solutions that no one can accept.  This leaves everyone on the high ground – advocates for undoable grand proposals with no chance of seeing the light of day. 

However, at the heart of this irrationality sits the one truth that no politician can unravel regardless how hard he or she may try to do so. No matter how bad things get the dream of “evolving toward a more perfect union” persists.  This journey still has a rendezvous with destiny that no one can derail. 

This is where Brother Franco and I will start.  We still have some duties remaining and we will continue to portalize between here and Pizzaonia. However, our full time job will be here in the United States representing Pizzaonian Pizza conglomerate, Pizza digogo DiVinci, and conversing with you. 

Until then, remember, “Pop culture is to culture what rocket lettuce is to arugula.” Pizzaonius, founder of Pizzaonia

For me and Brother Franco. Brother Giovanni

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Pizza to be considered as a controlled substance - "Nation addicted" APA

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

FROM:  PIZZAONIAN NEWS SERVICE (PNS)

Contact:  Publicio Relationio at the PNS office of Public Relations at   [email protected]

 

SUBJECT:  Pizza to be considered as a controlled substance.

 

Today the American Pizza Alliance announced it will begin a campaign to have pizza declared a controlled substance and have it put under the control of the Worldonian (USA) Federal Drug Bureau of Narcotic Control (FDBNC).

 

This move was anticipated after it was discovered Pizzaonian Imperialism had taken complete control of Worldonian pizza production. Pizzaonian Mozzarella Pizzas are virtually irresistible, and since infiltrating the American pizza market under a variety of alias, Americans have become addicted to pizza consuming an average per capita 365 slices of pizza a year.

 

Ameri Patriati, head of the American Pizza Alliance was quoted as saying” that’s a hella of lot of pizza.” It seems that APA will now attempt to have Pizzaonia declared a terrorist nation since their “insidious takeover of the American pizza industry is a major factor in creating this nation's high rate of obesity.”

 

State department officials seem somewhat confused by this turn of events since there is no precedent for working with beta-world countries.

 

One issue on the table is to restrict portalization from Pizzaonia to Worldonia.  Up to now the only criteria for qualifying for portalization to either world was the feeling that your life seemed like you were in a Woody Allen movie.  Mr. Patriati said “this is obviously not enough since virtually everyone’s life feels like they are in a Woody Allen movie.”

 

It is paradoxical to find Pizzaonia, a country that exists without governments or wars, embroiled in such a heated and controversial confrontation.

 

More as it develops...........

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Steve Jobs - one of a kind "marketing genius" the creation of a digital community.

 

One of the most amazing events of the past twenty-five years is how Apple created worshippers instead of customers.

Steve Jobs, for all the other things he may have been, was a marketing genius who understood how to create a digital community, and how to mold that community into a cult concept.  No matter how competent his replacement(s) may be - Apple can never be the same without him.

Many will object to the word “cult” but in its broadest sense, that is what the digital Apple community is. 

Jobs became the messiah of the ubiquitous information age and intuitively understood how to set Apple products apart as the symbol of the new age that was dawning.  The concept of symbol is important because understanding how to create a symbol and make it a totem of a new generation is what Jobs did. This was his genius. 

Though it is veiled by the material age we live in you can see the same progression of the Apple experience in many spiritual and religious experiences from the beginning of time. They have existed through the ages and come to us through mythology and religion. Understanding what Jobs accomplished is a Jungian delight.  

In a time when alienation abounds and when technology eliminates the one-on-one experience, the world was waiting for a way to unite the millions of alienated people.  Jobs became that symbol of unification and Apple products became the “digital bread of life” that united Apple users, not only with Jobs, but also with each other. 

Organized religion eat your heart out.  Can you imagine a church where millions wait in line to join and are willing to pay hundreds of dollars to become part of the experience?  Again, that is what Jobs did.  He was truly one of the great minds of his age. 

 

Brother Giovanni, for the Pizzaonian Newsertainment Network

We also recommend:  http://pizzaonian.com

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A funny thing happened on the way to the polling place. Voters stopped taking candidates seriously.

Image courtesy of  "The Pizzaonian Art Museum" - Abe Straction, Curator

REFLECTIONS ON THE AMERICAN POLITICAL PROCESS

Some time ago a funny thing happened in the United States on the way to the polling place.  Voters stopped taking their political leaders seriously.  To some extent they still try to pay attention to their elections and keep up with what’s happening in the political arena, but for the most part they no longer believe what they see or here. While information is king, facts are no longer relevant.

What replaced their need for facts is a nebulous, intuitive feeling on how the events they are witnessing affects them.  If they are agitated enough, they vote on this feeling, if not, they can wait for another day. If you think this is the way it always was, you might be right. 

However, what makes this time more alarming is the degree to which this phenomenon is now unfolding and shaping present and future events.  Information overload has taken its toll.

All of this is not lost on the opinion makers.  Today they are able to get information out to millions of people in minutes.  That information does not have to be accurate.  What it does have to be is good enough to create the negative or positive impression they are trying to place in the public’s mind about a candidate or an idea.

No longer do you see serious attempts to bring reform and positive change.  Now what you get is tacit acceptance of the system as it is while the manipulators without restraint use new, ingenious methods that exploit the situation to further their self-serving point of view.

Unfortunately, exploitation of public opinion has become the true art form in the United Sates. This includes the constant manipulating and bombarding of public opinion by innuendo, half-truths and lies all packaged to be made palatable to a mass audience. 

This is now endemic to the culture here and has become so pervasive, cynicism is considered normal. Will they change this? - Only when it stops working – and I can see nothing in the immediate future that suggests that is going to happen.

What has caused this?  And why do people here feel the way they do about politicians and political events?  That will be for scholars of another generation to determine.  As for now we can only speculate.

As Edward Murrow said, “The speed of communications is wondrous to behold. It is also true that speed can multiply the distribution of information that we know to be untrue.”

 

Brother Giovanni

We also recommend "The Pizzaonian" 

Posted at 10:45 PM in POLITICS | Permalink

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I was asked recently what is a recovering dilettante. My answer .........

Conjectures of a Recovering Dilettante -- The nature of being a recovering dilettante

 

I was asked recently what is a recovering dilettante.  My answer was we are all recovering dilettantes and as such; we need to recognize the condition. 

Simply, in our digital age of transformation, information is now so ubiquitous and comprehensive it is no longer possible to be an expert in most areas.  Certainly, in some fields of law, medicine, science and philosophy there will be the few extraordinary individuals who are experts, but they are the few, not the many. 

For the rest of us, we are journeymen and women in our fields and unfortunately, we are all on the treadmill of obsolescence.  The digital machine can do most of what we do.  

I know this is extreme and controversial, but that does not make it any less true.  The sooner we all come to grips with this, the faster we can move on to the new life that awaits us – and that life may not be as bad as some think. 

My recent move back to Pizzaonia was partially motivated by the realization of the innovative life that is emerging for recovering dilettantes.  I believe this emerging future is waiting for us to embrace it and when we do wondrous things will happen. 

I will continue to explore this in future writings and invite your comments and participation.  Thank you.

 

Brother Giovanni

We also recommend: "The Pizzaonian"

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