Brown Motion

 Brands have staying power. Some do. Some not so much. There is even a value assigned to a pop brand (in the case of Coke literally) that is shown on balance sheets as either Goodwill or some such entry that can offset some of that businesses' liabilities. There is yet another wondrous ranking of most valuable brands that some marketing so and so publishes to rank these companies. As one can imagine the top 10 are worth their weight in gold. Or crypto or whatever their worth one wants to measure it in. As of 2022 the collective value of top 100 brands topped out at a cool $3 Trillion.  That is 3,000,000,000,000. The top 10 represent largely well known entities that also happen to command some of the largest market caps and are purveyors of smart technology that runs our daily lives. Some happen to be more pedestrian like Coke and Nike. graphic courtesy Interbrand I got to thinking what life during the prior yugas (aka time periods so vast and prehistoric that no tangible records ex

 Many of the readers of this blog have experienced this. Strange sounding messages popping up in your text or WA or emails all day long from some exotic sounding locale with an out of this world individual looking for love, sex, money or other paraphernalia to get a high. I mean granted that electronic spamming is a low cost enterprise and all but the sheer volumes and the variety in these exhortations is beyond imagination. Having a desire to engage you in some sort of sexual payola or invest in some arcane crypto scheme must be a profound algorithm that someone from Oklahoma to Odessa is cranking on through the night and watching one in a few million fall for. Otherwise this nonsense would not exist I suspect. It would be funny to watch the lifecycle of some such persona that creates said content and that of a prospect for this invite becoming an unwilling or willing participant. Then that whole thing could go on some social channel and earn likes and subscriptions for someone else a

 Of this earth. That is what we say to describe all that we see on the planet.  From cardboard to spaceships to the trash we create to all living beings, flora and fauna on land and sea, we are all part of this very earth. As humans we are but one of millions of species that have come to be around for some time and many more that might come after. But without doubt the most arrogant and self absorbed among all are us humans. It is evident from the fact that we continually seem to analyze the condition of our surroundings and come up with slogans and agendas that indicate we WANT TO SAVE THIS PLANET.  What? Some of us cannot even find our own butthole in a manner of speaking and we have the audacity to think we are going to save this planet?  From what and whom? The planet needs no saving. It frankly does not give a broken red cent to what our existence means. If it so desired it has the ability to get rid of us. But we seem to not dwell on such trivialities. We the greatest race of ape

 Most people imagine a politician as someone who is pursuing it overtly. As in a member of some government whether local or federal. Siding with or authoring some arcane policy and making promises of some sort to placate a demographic he or she believes will ensure their continued success in retaining whatever mantle they hold. Campaigns to boost coffers that ultimately get used to market their value to those that may be in doubt of their imagined prowess; to adverts to attack the opposition are all fair game. But a politician is not just a person in public (dis)service.  Rather they are all over and all around you. If you are a corporate type (cog in a large machine somewhere) you have no doubt seen these kind. At town halls or leadership forums or whatever other jargonified assembly that you might have witnessed. They are C-level execs or middle management. They are always politicking their agenda to ensure they retain the value in the eyes of the beholder. And ideally the beholder p