It was the middle of December yesterday. Being back in the northeast this usually means that I alternate between sitting in front of a heater or wishing that I was. Oddly enough when my sister and I left the house last night to walk our dog we found ourselves obviously overdressed for a temperature of nearly 70 degrees. Shedding our outer layer immediately we kept walking and again found even our sweaters were beginning to be a burden. I was starting to become annoyed when I realized.

If only all my problems were this wonderful.

Now you have to understand I hate the cold. In fact hate would I think let the cold off too easily and I’m forced to imagine a word with much more umph… I think I loathe the cold. Now this isn’t to say I don’t love layering or hot drinks or winter sports… all the wonderful things that happen in and around the cold. What I refer to here is the biting and clawing cold and its accompanying wind chill that makes me want to hibernate November through March…. When I first moved to NYC I found myself returning to actual prayer asking G-d to please just make it warm again… promising a complete end to all bitching about warm weather.

So anyway thank goodness for the warm… which got me thinking. Is this what global warmings’ going to be like? Does this mean that I’ll be experiencing progressively milder winters during my next 100 years? If thats the case sign me up. I’ve never really met a penguin and from what I’ve seen from the movies they aren’t fans of harsh winters either. In fact my favorite movie penguins ever have spent their last two movies in the jungles of africa…  So I say bring it on mother nature… warm it up… I like it around 67.

Ahh the birthday.

I am not really one to celebrate much on my birthday. The reality remains you are only a day older than you were the day before…when nothing felt different and then you wake up and nothing has changed still.

Anti-climactic at best.

But this year as the clock counted down the minutes till midnight I felt a real sense of excitement. Could this year be the one… where I find my wife, strike it rich, climb everest or die? Will my life next year take on the meaning I’ve been hoping it will have? Will I mature enough to give up my bad habits and man enough to admit that it needs to happen in the first place?

10 years ago I stood at the head of my synagogue proclaimed a man. I hardly know what that means today. Habits and habitual progression have aged me, experiences have made me rich and bankrupted me alike, friends lost, friends gained and here I am the same scared boy I was on that pedastal so many years ago.

So hopefully this year… this year will be the year. If not… theres always next year.

Its happening people. Whether you like it or not or whether you choose to believe it or not… the world is going somewhere fast. I couldn’t tell you for certain when it started. It took millions of years for our evolutionary forefathers to crawl from the primordial soup and walk upright. It took millions more for that being to develop the usage of fire. Then tens of thousands more to create the wheel.

But in only five thousand years since that first life altering invention by mankind… we have accomplished the world and beyond. In scientific output alone we now measure the time between great innovations and discoveries by the day or week…and not by the century as was the case for most of human existence. Society too is advancing at an alarming rate. Recently it (as well as every other sector of life) has undergone a fundamental change with the introduction of the internet. Not everything about these changes are pleasant, easy or even understood. But for certain this change is happening and it is up to our generation to pass the tests the world gives us and adapt.

I couldn’t figure out how to address the bevy of issues that will confront us in the future so I decided to write up a list of questions and put them to you. Pick one and comment… enjoy!!

• Society and Culture

1. The youth of today are more sexualized and enabled than ever before. What responsibility do we have as a society or as individuals to address this problem? Does it need to be addressed at all?
2. Are we all vain? What does the rise of the online social network do to the offline human network?
3. The Questions of Prop 8. What is the status of the modern relationship? What does monogamy and marriage mean to you?
4. From slavery to the presidency in 150 years. What is racism today? Has it evolved or exterminated or just morphed?

• Science and Technology

1. Think about where we were medically 40 years ago. Where will we be 40 or 50 years from now? Do you think there are limits in what medical technology can accomplish?
2. Utopia. What is it… Can we achieve it?
3. Green You. What does “being green” mean to you and how do you think it affects the big picture?
4. Green Them. What company/product/brand makes you think “green?”

• Politics and The Global World

1. Yay Obama! Can this man deliver? (editorial note: I think he can) What is the future of the american presidency?
2. Democracy vs Communism: Round 2. China uses capitalistic communism to succeed and India is succeeding in spite of its beurocratic democracy.. Who are you cheering for?
3. Future Unknown. What is the state of the globalized world…are we going the way of the Brittish Empire? If so is there a way to get back on track?
4. Who has the oil? What are we doing about a finite resource that is increasingly vital in the growth and modernization of a world that is rapidly growing and rapidly modernizing?

Free at last! Free at last!

Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

Its not really my place to intercede… but the musical community hasn’t really produced an epic love song in a while. They write a lot of songs about cheating. But love seems to be missing to a certain extent. I mean if you really think about the great love songs of all time… its not really a current events situation.

I personally think we need more muses.

Wow… how cool is it to be alive today. We have totally become The Jetsons… complete with ubiquitous video chat and wireless devices to control anything we desire.  All we need now is flying cars and we have officially reached some of the more romantic and historic notions of what a “future” would look like. Children born in the 80ss have literally lived through the beginning of probably the most fundamental change in human society since… fire? It is not unexpected then that this has had a profound effect on the socialization methods of a generation of adolescents who have grown up on a diet of Instant Message, Chat Rooms, Internet Porn and Social Networks. Throw in a national media increasingly tween focused with roll models like Juno, Jamie Lynn and Miley Cyrus and… WHALAA… we got sex people.

Almost 40 years ago this country experienced a sexual revolution brought on by two major factors. The first was a rapid dissemination of information about sex with Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s earthshattering report on the true status of American sex. Our history as a nation is steeped in strict puritan ethics and Kinsey realized that the regular college student’s average knowledge of sex amounted to mostly myths and gossip. Homosexuality and fetishes were largely dismissed as being small and evil groups hiding in the most decadent of urban centers. When Kinsey released his books on modern sexuality they couldn’t sell fast enough. People were hungry for information about something so obviously integral in their daily lives and what they found was that your suburban neighbor was just as likely to be masturbating about interracial sex as you were to be gay. It wasn’t just the deviants anymore. 20 years later flower children from across the socio-economic plane would flock together to places like Woodstock to engage in our first full on sexual revolution.

The second was The Pill, a peice of technology that would fundamentally alter how, when and why we have sex in the modern world. If a woman is burdened with the risk of pregnancy certainly this will reduce her willingness to enter into a spontaneous session of coitus. If Kinsey’s information was the validation we needed to morally change our public attitude to sex… the pill was the piece of technology that allowed us to act on it.

Fast forward to today.

Social networking has taken over our lives. We are more connected to the people around us than ever before. Not counting the traditional methods of calling and and emailing (snail mail..what?) if you want to get in touch with someone you could text them, instant message them, private message them, poke them, or maybe post on their wall.  Besides the two behemoths that respectively have memberships much larger than most countries there are countless number of smaller more niche chat and social networks that operate in the many millions of users logging on every minute. This kind of mass communication again is unprecedented in human history and has happened literally within the last five years.

The interesting thing about online communication is how much it can embolden you. Under the guise of usernames, screennames and carefully groomed profile pages the worlds youth have been given the ultimate tools to craft their own personal identity. I won’t even go into the psychological implications of being constantly required to actually produce an identity but I’m sure its significant. It doesn’t matter because online you are whoever you want to be and well… most of them just want to be… “Sexy.”

So welcome to the second sexual revolution. Kids as young as 11 and 12 are signing on with their own computers and witnessing the GRAPHIC sexual nature of the internet and frankly most “teen” friendly sites aren’t much better. Give them a webcam, a digi cam and a camera phone and add this together with the messages already sent to kids from the mainstream media and you get a very raunchy hormonal brew.

But what’s to do about a culture where children suddenly have the means to completely explore sexuality. Untethered by traditional boundaries kids will no doubt test the limits of this subject, which obviously raises a lot of moral issues that were not present before. If a teen website allows only members ages 13-23 that means they technically endorse a cyber “friendship” between anyone within that age range. Once that relationship is validated whats to stop those relationships from progressing.

A high school in Gloucester Massachussets recently made the national news because of its 17 pregancies at one time, the majority of the girls under the age of 16. The kicker in this story was that most of the girls actually planned to get pregnant. This would technically mean that some of the fathers are guilty of statutory rape (one as old as 24).

But isn’t the point of those laws to protect the innocence of our youth??? Because it seems to me that  our innocence is already long gone.

So here we are… Jetsons indeed. Except in our version its a dual income household for George and Jane. Judy is locked in her room stripping on webcam and Elroy is in his room masturbating to space porn. What an interesting future indeed.

I am not much of a drinker. I rarely do it but when I do It’s my practice to walk home from wherever I partied so that I don’t arrive home drunk and wired… instead I’m totally sober and dead tired….

So at four in the morning on a completely deserted new york street somewhere downtown I walk into the underpass of a scaffolding. These are dimly lit paneled pedestrian tunnels and and as I rounded the corner I got the shock of my life. This angelic waif who I swear was glowing came out of nowhere and walked right past me… It’s not abnormal to have walk by encounters that stick in your head because you never did anything… but this time I did something… I turned around.

I don’t know why but she turned around as well. And well we started to talk… turns out she likes to walk off a long night just like me… We exchanged numbers and after seeing each other at fashion week functions for the rest of the week I went back to LA and we haven’t spoken since. Sounds anti climactic right… I mean I never even got to see her naked.. But I guess I won’t have to worry too much…

I say this because Lily Cole is now on the cover of Playboy…

Now Playboy is a priceless piece of our American cultural history but lets be fair… even though I spent a fair portion of my youth stealing glimpses of my grandfathers playboys (he has a complete collection I will inherit someday) I always knew that something about the fake tits and fake hair just wasn’t doin it for me. Playboy has gone from being at least culturally relevant (if not progressive) to an expose on everything horrible about modern popular culture

But before you imagine this high fashion muse intermixed with bleached blonde over-tanned college coeds and editorials on the best ed hardy gear… I want you to imagine that everything you know about the modern playboy did not exist… then imagine Jefferson Hack got to create a girly magazine. This is French Playboy.

Since I do not speak french you can guess I do NOT buy it for the articles… but that’s ok because visually this magazine rates against any glossy mag you can give me… just another reason the French are amazing.

So take it from me…

J’aime le Playboy français

What a mess we’re in. Our President is weak and ineffective, the dollar is at an all time low, the economy is slowly slipping towards recession, the middle east is in shambles, gas prices are sky high and we as a country are generally… pretty fuckin pissed off. Essentially we’re back to the Carter administration. 

Now you should know as you read this article that I come from a strong political background. My dad worked in the Reagan White house as the youngest person to ever hold an associate director position. He then went on to help run Reagan’s famous landslide reelection campaign. After that he was the Jewish Liason to Bush Sr. and then later ran for Congress himself.  What’s important to know is that my dad grew up in a staunchly liberal jewish Californian household in the 1970s. So how did someone who grew up in a large ultra liberal jewish family end up as an integral part of the most famous conservative movement in modern history?

The answer is Hope. 

In the late 70s American’s had lost hope. Our supposed power in the world was trivial relative to the crumbling nature of our economy and low morale of our citizens. While Carter scolded us for being in a “malaise,” Reagan reminded us to hope. While Carter made excuses, Reagan promised and delivered progress. Today we face a similar issue.

Right now this country needs hope more than it needs actual change. Most of our problems are purely based on low morale (although the ones that aren’t will definitely not be fixed by the policies of Barack Obama). You’d be suprised how much an economy can be affected by mood…and often its a self fufilling prophecy. When the newsman says that we’re entering a recession… the soccer mom internalizes that feeling and spends less when she’s buying groceries… If everyone does this… guess what… RECESSION!

So if having a charismatic leader can make us feel confident again people will buy more, businesses will hire more… and we will right ourselves again. The problem with Obama is that if he does more than just inspire and starts to actually put his policies into effect… think higher taxes, an even more destabilized middle east and many more steps towards a socialized welfare state. Boy do I miss “reaganomics.”

Barack Obama is the man I will vote for this November. Without regret or trepidation I will disregard my party registration and cast my vote for a democrat. This will definitely be my vote for hope but I’m not completely sure it will be a vote for progress.

Apparently Obama and I agree though…
 

 

38,000 BC- Homo Erectus learns to control fire

1904- Fletcher Davis introduces the first Hamburger at the St. Louis World Fair… 

1983- Internet is released to the public

1987- Nike releases the first Air Max 

2008- This picture is emailed to me… 

Just look at how far we’ve come as a species…