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Riding the train one night after class, I heard this exchange between two teenagers. After a long day, I am grumpy, and this incident verified my suspicion that I’ve become a crotchety adult. That is, my ability to endure idiots has increased, while my threshold for what constitutes an idiot has lowered dramatically. I would like to chalk it up to that, but it’s not. I don’t consider these kids idiots. I am always grumpy. Here’s what they said, and later, what I felt.

Boy: My whole life is watching TV.

Girl: Cool.

Boy: Me age 1: {pantomimes watching TV} Ga GA!

Girl: Tee hee.

Boy: Me age 5: {pantomimes watching TV and then dances around} Wow!

Girl: Tee hee.

Boy: Me age 17: {pantomimes watching TV and then jumps up and down} Damn!

Girl: Tee hee. I didn’t get it, but it was funny.

Mostly, I feel pity. For them, for you, for me. The medium has transformed us into a bunch of picture tube idiots. What made the event so memorable is the same thing which makes pieces of art work or not: does it speak to some condition which is universal to all human beings. In this case, unfortunately, the answer is yes. Of course, that ‘unfortunately’ is a value-driven judgement from someone who appreciates literacy.

The other feeling I couldn’t help but shake in this whole incident was one of newness. That I was watching a new species, with a new set of experiences to process and a new language for sharing those experiences, was evolving right before my eyes. How will they manage the world they inherit? Could they do worse than we’ve done?

Wow—Abode buys Macromedia!
It’s the end of an era, and that may be a great thing. I wonder which products each business unit will keep? It’ll be so nice to export from Illustrator directly into Flash or drop’n’drag stuff, etc. Is that what’ll happen? Man, I hope so.

Molinillo: Swollen Fortunes is a great take on the 100 year attitude shift towards the responsibilities of the wealthy from today’s roots as the party of conservative, responsible government and today’s Republican party run by K-street and the rich. For background on the death tax, and its amazing journey from pundits laughing at the Mars fortune’s heirs hiring their lobbyists to today’s repeal of the tax, check out this Wash post story.

The day job is also becoming the night job and the weekend job, and I’m researching alternate interfaces to musical instruments, so my time is becoming quite limited. I named this post, “The End of the Experiment,” because I think we’re there. American democracy has jumped the shark.

The experiment known as American democracy is officially coming to a close, as we codify into law a class-based caste system, in which each class has rules which apply to it based on income level, but in the opposite direction Teddy Roosevelt saw.

Instead of the rich bearing the majority of the tax burden because they derive the most benefit from society (i.e.—security in the fact that the masses don’t rise up and unjustly take everything from the rich), the new Republicans have a better idea: make the poor responsible for their actions (like in this week’s bankruptcy bill) but exempt the rich from the results of theirs. It’s the ultimate rejection of American fairplay and, well, equality for all under the law.

Have a great week.