Burning Man Goes Not For Profit

TENS of thousands of volunteers are gathering to build a city in a Nevada desert that is notorious for triple-digit temperatures, high winds and blinding plumes of dust.

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• Times Topic: Burning Man Festival

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Heidi Schumann for The New York Times

At the festival in 2006, “giraffes” from South Africa met a giant “cat.”

Their organizer is a for-profit company that has collected millions in revenue over the last decade, largely because of this donated labor. At a distance, it’s easy to wonder: why are these people working so hard — in the blazing heat, no less — for a company they don’t own?

Scott Sady/Associated Press, Reno Gazette-Journal

That’s one of the paradoxes of Burning Man, the annual arts festival whose attractions include colossal art installations, all-night dance parties, marathon kite-flying sessions, off-kilter fashion shows, and classes where revelers can learn things that range from Hula Hooping to playing the ukulele to making absinthe.

If you think about it...

...you can't put a price on a human life. People are our greatest asset so why is it we fail to invest in them? Is it because we cannot give them a specific value? Given that any life is priceless does this mean that because it has no price it is without value? If life has no value one cannot come up with a reasonable notion of how much to invest in education, work programs, the environment because these are all ill defined in monetary terms. Being financially dyslexic is a good thing. Instead of seeing life in strictly financial terms we give it another value that is defined by the fuzziest math imaginable. There are no financial returns. Frankly nobody really seems able to put a price on money these days anyway so I see no problem with that. What is my dollar worth? Today eight blueberries, tomorrow ten, the next day, three. Financial constants are no more. What remains constant is the value of life—it is consistently priceless— but unfortunately many who have the where-with-all to invest in progressive and enlightened projects will fail to do so until someone can show them where the money is. I say invest in Gold! I don't mean the mineral, the metal. I mean the gold that glows internally, warms your insides. Throw your money at creative projects and look for the return on your investment in how good you feel.  Money comes and goes, wilts and flows, evaporates and materializes but education and jobs open up and flower and create and grow and sow and sow and sow.  Don't invest in the material. Invest in the abstract. Throw your money at projects that nurture the imagination and encourage creative thinking, and look forward to the returns on your investment. They might surprise you.

Art as ATM

Neutron Loans, Zombie Banks, What on Earth?

This is the first time I have heard the term "neutron Loan":

A neutron loan explodes, destroying the people but leaving the buildings intact. When I was a kid there was a lot of talk about atom and neutron bombs. I made a cartoon about an evil English school boy genius who created a bomb that destroyed buildings but left the people intact. Not as evil as neutron loans...or ninja loans wherein the borrower has no income, no assets and no job!!

Oh, and Zombie Banks are back according to Larry Elliott, financial analyst at Guardian Weekly

Letter to the Bank #70 (Who Consumes the Consumer?)

Dear Mr. Banker,

Who consumes the consumer? I don't enjoy being called a consumer. We are all consumers on some level. THE consumer, the biggest consumer of all is you. You are consuming us little consumers at a massive rate. What will you do when all the plankton has gone? You are way too lazy to create wealth so once you have consumed all the wealth that is already available what will you do then? Do big banks only fail when there is nothing more to suck on?

Just a quick note. Had the thought. Wrote it down. Sent it to you. Doubt you'll give it the time of day. Oh well.


Sincerely, 

the flea in your ear

Brian McFadden in the New York Times Sunday Review

Letter to the Bank #69 (Culture or Policy to Blame?)

SWORDS INTO BROOMSTICKS    Londoners walk with brooms en route to help clean up after rioting that took place the previous night outside Clapham Junction railway station in Battersea, London, Tuesday, Aug. 9.  (Photo: Matt Dunham / AP via MSNBC.com)

Dear BM,

Short of face time, these notes are the best I can do to be in your face. I’m upfront and don’t come at you from behind. That’s good right? You don’t have to watch your back at night. I’m all about verbal confrontation, or more precisely, nuanced debate albeit a one sided debate because you have bigger fish to fry. I’m honorable. If I came to you with duelling pistols I’d walk the requisite ten paces. Would you? This is the crux of our problem. I’m not interested in putting your back up and so ending all communication. I want to keep those lines, channels open. I am slightly interested in putting your nose out of joint, getting you out of your comfort zone. I live in a permanent discomfort zone. I’m already there and want you to join me on the other side. This is all about showing you how the other half lives...again and again and again until it sinks in, if only on a subliminal level, and eventually effects policy in such a way as to improve the lives of those who have nothing by making it possible for them to at the very least keep what they have and perhaps even take the little seeds of their lives and make them grow. Is that too much to ask?

The prime minister, David Cameron, described the rioting there as being the result of the culture not the policy. One nasty racial/bias incident all too quickly diverts everyone’s attention away from the fat bank accounts and unsocially considerate policies of the wealthy by again turning the frustrations of the poor and disenfranchised against itself where it will continue to fester, confused, depressed, unsatisfied, or will errupt in more arson, looting and mayhem. If only the powers that be would get creative—don’t blame the culture —support it, fix it, prop it up with education reform, job creation and revive hope. What a thought. For some reason Tom Brown and Biggles, Flashman and Billy Bunter all come to mind. If none of those names mean anything to you that is fine. You’ll have to do some work of your own. Call it rhetorical thinking, thinking out loud. When you think “honorable” what comes to mind, what do you picture? This assumes you are able to visualize anything at all—because let’s face it you have a lazy imagination and vision is not your forte. Do you see people playing polo, buying the first round, picking up a lady’s handkerchief? I suppose it is a start. We’ll try and work with that. Now lie down. You must be exhausted.


Sincerely,

Kristian Witherkay