You've been framed

You saw it in the later part of last week - the Met getting its ideological retaliation in first, trying to shape the 'information battlespace' by worrying publicly about violence at the Put People First March. (And here's the other Met worrying about climate change).

And then there was the ritualistic distancing by various trades unions types. The fringe benefit for our apolitical friends in blue is that time spent proclaiming your innocence is time you can't spend getting the (metaphorical) boot stuck into the Enemy (blue-eyed bankers, finance capital, the System, greed, Capitalism - choose your abstraction).

That's what they teach you on the first day of Perception Management 101, I assume.

But anyway, two other examples of 'framing' recently - an "obvious" one from the front page of the Financial Times for March 10, about Youtube pulling official music videos from its site:

“I don’t think anyone is going to be happy about this, but there’s general understanding that we all need to work under terms that are reasonable for our businesses and we’re hoping we’ll come to a quick resolution,” Patrick Walker, YouTube’s director of video partnerships in Europe, told the Financial Times.

In a blog note, Mr Walker said the costs would be prohibitive, with YouTube losing significant amounts of money on every playback under the proposed PRS terms.

He said there was also a lack of transparency – PRS was unwilling to tell YouTube what songs were included in the licence so it could identify works on the service.

PRS for Music is a collecting agency that issues “mechanical” and performing licences for music to be used online, or performed or broadcast.

Steve Porter, chief executive of PRS for Music, said the organisation was “shocked and disappointed” at the last-minute notice of YouTube’s “drastic action”. “We believe [this] only punishes British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent.”

Both sides trying to make the other guy the bad guy, obviously enough.

But then, if you really want a master-class in this stuff, get your eyes around this from the latest Private Eye. If it stands up (and Private Eye stories often do), it's delicious...

Wanton Destruction

Take the unhappy heroin addict: he gives himself an injection because he desires the drug, but he also has a desire to be rid of this desire. The philosopher Harry Frankfurt has given such "second-order" desires a central role in his analysis of free will: we act freely, he submits, when we act on a desire that we actually desire to have, one that we endorse as our own. Beings that do not reflect on the desirability of their desires- like animals and, perhaps, our short-run selves - are what Frankfurt calls "wantons."

Holt, Jim (2007) The nannyish state, Prospect March 07

Who will teach me what I must shun? Or must I go where the impulse drives? —Goethe

I can resist anything, but temptation - Lady Windermere's Fan Oscar Wilde.

A crazier notion than that we are more than the sum of our spasms is not allowed much airplay, unless cloaked in some variety of theistic mumbo-jumbo.

See also:
False Consciousness
Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl (no, not read it yet)

Local government, newspapers and all that

I haven't bought (or read) a Saturday Grauniad for a very long time.

Did so today out of curiosity over its G20 coverage.

I won't buy (or read) a Saturday Grauniad for a very long time. Or a weak day one, either.

But the interview with David "The Wire" Simon is worth a look-see.

Arrogant? Moi?

The collapse of the US newspaper industry has left politicians free to pursue their unethical schemes unscrutinised. "The internet does froth and commentary very well, but you don't meet many internet reporters down at the courthouse," he says. "Oh to be a state or local official in America over the next 10 to 15 years, before somebody figures out the business model. To gambol freely across the wastelands of an American city as a local politician! It's got to be one of the great dreams in the history of American corruption."

Reading on the Stepper- 26th March

You can plough through a lot in 97 minutes!

Great piece by Diane L. Coutu in the Harvard Business Review entitled "How Resilience Works."
Makes me want to go and read Viktor Frankl's "Man's Search for Meaning" right now.

And this is good- a quote from Karl E. Weick, a prof of organisational behaviour at the University of Michigan Business School. in Ann Arbor "There is good evidence that when people are put under pressure, they regress to their most habituated ways of responding.... What we do not expect under life-threatening pressure is creativity."

Excellent piece by Eli Kintishc of Science Magazine
"Projections of Climate Change Go from Bad to Worse, Scientists Report"
Yup, we're toast.

Heartening, if you want to delude yourself, is
"Vision 2050: A Sustainable future for Cheshire West and Chester"

Personally, when I imagine the future of mankind (sic) I imagine a carbon footprint, stamping on a human face, forever...

I also read Crain's Manchester Business.
All good stuff, with an especially amusing piece on the massive impending bunfith between Peel and Manchester city Council "Saviour's Gateway or Trojan horse?"

And Monday's FT, of which the stand-out piece, amid stiff competition, is "MBA arrogance and the myth of leadership" by Philip Delves Broughton.

And I even worked up a proper sweat for a change....

snow-capping

This is the rather clever term that gets used to describe organisations where there are few white people at the top, above a whole lotta "non-white" (sic) people who are, you know, doing the work.

I like it, personally (the term, not the phenomenon!).

"CW: I think it’s a real danger of taking a superficial approach to diversity. We’ve heard about – in diversity terms – the whole thing about ‘snow capping’ which is the way they describe having a very diverse workforce but a completely white management board. Now we just don’t want to be that way. That’s not getting the best out of the resources you have. What we’ve set ourselves as a target is that the total representation of minority groups be absolutely equal and equivalent across all of our grading structure. Only then can we say that all of our policies and processes are fair."

CIPD podcat

Ponzimonium!

"Some thought his returns might have been based on front-running- using the information from his brokering business to benefit his asset management clients. Sophisticated confidence tricksters have used a similar tactic for thousands of years. The fraudster hints at impropriety, but implies that the target will be the beneficiary rather than the victim. The suggestion... has two advantages. It provides a possible explanation of the source of the promised gains. And it encourages the victims to keep quiet until- perhaps even after- the deception is exposed."

How the “Madoff twist” entices the financially astute John Kay, FT March 18th

The FT has, understandably, been considerably exercised by the Bernie Madoff thing. Many of their heavy hitters (I liked what Alex Callinicos's description of Martin Wolf as 'primary intellectual ornament')

And this weekend's FT has a lovely new neologism (that's a deliberate redundancy, btw)

"US watchdog warms markets of 'rampant Ponzimonium'.

"Ponzimonium." Priceless.

See also:
A rather good book called "Pandemonium: the rise of predatory locales in the Postwar world."

It makes my brain ache

Reading my FT magazine on the stepper at t'gym, I finally looked at (having probably seen many times) a full page advert for "Neurozan" capsules." These wonderful products are sold by "Vitabiotics", "supporting the brain's neuro-chemistry through optimum micro-nutrition."

And of course, it's like motherhood and apple-pie- it's very hard to argue AGAINST eating a broad balanced diet with plenty of fresh fruit and veg. And why would you? But that's not quite what they're saying. They're saying these pills will "keep you at your razor sharp best." They're appealing to the classic middle-class/knowledge workers fear of losing their Edge.
The worried well is a nice market, especially in a credit crunch.

We get angry when states and corporations dress up their plans (GM, Nuclear) as value-free/hard "science", but we seem to give gentler/individual focussed 'solutions' a free pass.

So I googled, and sure enough, there's a de-bunking website "Holfordwatch" I advise you have a good read of before you go buying any of these capusles, which are available on the high street..

See also:
Ben Goldacre's astonishingly good Bad Science
a book by Kimberly Lau called New Age Capitalism
this about Matey Capitalism and the Appliance of Science