Nine Shift

I live in Lake Wobegon

I live in Lake Wobegon. And the Lake Wobegons of our country are still relevant. My brilliant co-author Julie says of our town, "we're so far behind we're ahead."

If you listen to Garrison Keillor and the show is live, the weather he reports in Lake Wobegon for that day is exactly the weather in River Falls, Wisc. for that day.  But it goes beyond that, and the fact Keillor has a house outside of River Falls.  My favorite small town aspects of River Falls:
-Parking downtown is a penny.
-The hardware store owner knows my name.
-The movie theater, for first run movies, charges $3. Popcorn is 50 cents.
-Farm Tractors drive through town. (They are enormous)
-Everyone brings a potluck dish to the bar to share on Packer game days.
-The family run local radio station has funeral announcements every day, and its "sports from around the world" means every team within 20 miles.
-Farmers sell their produce on the honor system. Drop money in a box, take your food (see below).

And what I know is that some of the small town Lake Wobegon values are actually those of the 21st century. Small dense communities, people walking, safe neighborhoods at night, knowing your neighbor, volunteering, closer touch with farms and nature. What other values of small town America are 21st century? 

Is Garrison Keillor Still Relevant?

Tell us what you think.  Is America's best story teller still relevant?

Garrison Keillor is selling his home outside of River Falls, Wisc., the small town where I live.  And he will be retiring soon.  He is a master of the values, attitudes, morality of the small town, where agriculture might economically be no longer dominant but the agrarian spirit and values are still dominant.  His powers of observation, and of course humor, are wonderfully insightful.

But while Keillor accurately compares and contrasts the agrarian values of Lake Wobegon with the industrial suburban values and lifestyle of the last half of the 20th century, he seems to miss totally the ability to compare and contrast the new Internet values and lifestyle of this century.

This week we explore Garrison Keillor and Lake Wobegon, asking if he is still relevant. Your thoughts? 

 

Gen Y Humor after SOPA

So now that you know the real issue for Gen Y with SOPA (see my previous post), you can appreciate their sense of humor. Going on Reddit after SOPA was defeated, I found this dialogue:

1st person: We win! Wait... It's a trap!!!

Reply: Excuse me, sir. "It's a trap!" is copyrighted by Lucasfilm. We'll need you to come with us.

3rd person: Uhm, "It's a deceptive plot!"?

Reply: Ironically, the United States government holds the copyright on that one...

 

Someone else: It's an untruthiness?!!

Reply:That word doesn't exist in our American English dictionary. You must be a foreign terrorist! We'll detain you indefinitely now.

Me: Ya gotta love Gen Y.

Photo: This is taken standing on a sand bar in the St. Croix River, where the Kinnikinnic River joins the St. Croix.  The St. Croix merges with the mighty Mississippi just 10 miles downstream.

The Real Issue Behind SOPA, PIPA and DMCA

The real issue is intellectual property ownership and sharing rights. 

The real issue behind SOPA, PIPA and DMCA is not online piracy or violating laws, but what those laws should be and fundamentally ownership of words, phrases, media, music, video, from the Bible right on up to the present.

Big corporations want to own words, ideas, concepts, genes, and more.  But Gen Y understands that sharing of words and images is essential for the Knowledge Society, innovation, invention, and the betterment of people.

The classic example: there is a corporation that owns the patent on medicine that could cure hundreds of thousands of people in Africa.  No only won't this corporation save those lives, they won't let anyone else save these people either. 

The head of Wikipedia, understanding the Nine Shift 100 year connection, compared it to 100 years ago when bank robbers used cars (Marmot mainly).  The solution was to get the bank robbers, not ban autos.  Yes, when we decide what is piracy and what should be illegal, enforce those laws.  But first we need to decide what should be legal in this century. 

Photo: the Kinnikinnic River, which runs through our town just a few blocks from my house. The water stays same temperature throughout the year, so it doesn't freeze in winter. It flows into the St. Croix River.

Gen Y's Power

21st Century History made last week. Gen Y is exhibiting its power in several ways.  Their victory, if temporary, over SOPA and bad intellectual property laws last week was an example.

Willie alerted us to the Reddit driven effort.  Thousands of people boycotting pro-SOPA companies, and supporting (even with money) candidates for politcal office who are anti-SOPA.
Within hours they exerted massive influence.

Willie sat online for 12 hours and watched as Reddit people forced GoDaddy to change its stance, and then started to send money (thousands of dollars in one day) to a candidate running against pro-SOPA Congressman Paul Ryan.  The candidate even went on Reddit to dialogue and thank them. 
Photo: The beautiful St. Croix River last week.

 

Predictions for 2012: "Nothing will ever change"

In the midst of this enormous change, when 75% of life is changing within just 20 years, one of more common beliefs is that "Nothing will ever change." 

I was in one of my favorite taverns early this evening, having a $1.50 beer and talking with a guy about global warming, trains, and of course politics. He said "Nothing will ever change."

Then I went home and watched another episode of Downton-Abbey, where the chauffeur of the newfangled motor car tells his lord's daughter about his views on society, saying "Nothing will ever change."  And of course, like today, amazing changes took place within just a few years. Ya gotta watch this show.

 

How Can Foreign Affairs and NPR Be So Wrong?

This week we cover 2012, and how it is exactly like 1912, as seen on Downton Abbey, the brilliant TV series on 1912.

But we pause to wonder why the media never get the parallel. Earlier this month, Foreign Affairs editor Gideon Rose was interviewed by Robert Siegel of NPR, with Rose claiming that 2012 is more like 1950 than 1910.  How can they get it so wrong?  Tell us your thoughts. 

Predictions for 2012: The Job Force Changes

From 1912, we can easily predict a massive change in the job force for 2012 and beyond.

In 1912, one in seven (14%) of the workers were servants. Within just a few decades most were out of a job- - as a servant. 

The Industrial Age created factory jobs for those servants and their children.  Today manufacturing jobs are disappearing, retail jobs will drop, car related jobs will disappear. What will they do?  What did the servants do?  There's your answer. 

But what we know is that new jobs in the Knowledge Economy will be created.  And the factory worker's children and grandchildren will be just fine, just like you are fine as the great grandchild of a servant.

Predictions for 2012: Will Week Ends Disappear?

The "week end" was invented about 100 years ago. Will it disappear in this century? 

From Downton Abbey, the matriarch in 1912 asks "What's a week end?"  when the term is heard for the first time.

Before the Industrial Age, people worked six days a week, taking off only the Sabath. So there was no work week, and thus no week end. The 8 hour work day and 5 day work week created week ends.

Even in the early 1960s my father, city editor of a daily newspaper, worked Saturday mornings. With telework increasing, there's the possibility that a rainy Saturday could be productive and a sunny Tuesday could be a great day to take-off. What do you think?

Civil Rights Story for Martin Luther King Day

One day, back then, my brilliant co-author confronted the Klu Klux Klan directly. Here's the story.

Julie Coates (then Taylor) was a civil rights leader in Greensboro, NC, in the 1960s. The KKK threatened to kill her.  They surrounded her house and tried to burn it down. AT&T turned off her phone because she had a black friend. The police all knew her license plate number.

One day she was waitressing and into the restaurant came Catfish Cole, the Grand Dragon of the North Carolina Klu Klux Klan.  When he sat down,  Julie pretended to trip and spilled a whole pitcher of ice water in his lap.  The other waitresses never let Julie wait on him again, just to protect her.

Julie is intereviewed on the new DVD, Change Comes Knocking.   We honor her and the other civil rights leaders who risked their lives to make our society a better one today.