Disqus - Latest Comments for RobMcGinleyMyers

Re: SOF Observed

RobMcGinleyMyers — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:40:31 -0000

It's interesting that when people talk about free markets, they so often quote that line from the movie Wall Street: "Greed is good." I recently read an essay by Stanley Weiser, who wrote the screenplay for Wall Street, explaining that he never understood why "Greed is good," became a such rallying cry for capitalists. After all, the character who makes that pronouncement ends up in jail by the end of the movie. And Adam Smith wasn't in favor of greed either. His theory was that economies tend to benefit as a whole when individuals are given the freedom to pursue their separate self interests. But as we pointed out in our program, The Buddha in the World, Adam Smith also wrote about the dangers of materialism:

"Power and riches....are enormous machines contrived to produce a few trifling conveniences to the body. They are immense fabrics, which it requires the labor of a life to raise, which threaten every moment to overwhelm the person that dwells in them, and which, while they stand, can protect him from none of the severer inclemencies of the season. They keep off the summer shower, not the winter storm, but leave him always as much and sometimes more exposed than before to anxiety, to fear and to sorrow, to diseases, to danger and to death."

Re: Fishing as Metaphor

RobMcGinleyMyers — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 15:42:45 -0000

Yes, we wanted to get the show out as soon as possible before the holiday weekend, though we're still finishing up the web elements. Glad to hear you enjoyed the show!

Re: SOF Observed - Giving Thanks

RobMcGinleyMyers — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 12:28:49 -0000

I had an English teacher in high school who, as one of our assignments, made us write a letter to a living artist whose work we appreciated. He said we'd be shocked at how many of these artists, even the most famous, would write back to say that we had made their day. And he was right. He had letters his students had received posted on the wall from Donald Fagan (of Steely Dan fame) and Edie Brickell (of New Bohemians fame), among others. One of my classmates got a wonderful letter from the novelist Tom Wolfe. It was amazing to me that these glamorous strangers would care what a high school student thought, but they did. Or at least some of them did. For some reason, I chose to write my letter to the rapper Ice-T. He never got back to me.

Re: SOF Observed

RobMcGinleyMyers — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 13:40:42 -0000

Having worked here for only six months, it's been fascinating for me to see how shows emerge from that first whiff of curiosity about some subject. But as I said, the hard part is finding a specific voice on that subject. And for us, that right voice usually has to be someone who can speak from personal experience, not just from their knowledge. So, can you think of anyone who could speak both knowledgeably and personally on this topic?

Re: SOF Observed

RobMcGinleyMyers — Thu, 22 May 2008 09:27:51 -0000

That's so interesting, Richard. It reminds me of something the novelist Vladimir Nabokov wrote about his idea of the afterlife, "The unfortunate image of a 'road' to which the human mind has become accustomed (life as a kind of journey) is a stupid illusion: we are not going anywhere, we are sitting at home. The other world surrounds us always and is not at all at the end of some pilgrimage. In our earthly house, windows are replaced by mirrors; the door, until a given time, is closed; but air comes in through the cracks."

Re: SOF Observed

RobMcGinleyMyers — Tue, 20 May 2008 10:08:26 -0000

How about, "We also won a Peabody."

Re: - The prophetic voice of science fiction

RobMcGinleyMyers — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:39:53 -0000

My wife had what I believe was a unique reaction to 2001. We were watching it on DVD, and it was the first time she'd seen it. At some point, near the middle, there's a shot of a space station or something just spinning in the air, and it just spins and spins and spins. And after one or two minutes of this interminable spinning, my wife started laughing and she couldn't stop. From that point on, she couldn't see the movie as anything but hilarious. And though I'd never thought if it that way myself, I couldn't help but agree with her.

Re: The Ineluctable Modality of Numbers

RobMcGinleyMyers — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:16:46 -0000

Well, it's good to know I'm not crazy. Or at least I'm not the only one who suffered from this childhood mental illness. I remember once trying to explain this to my mother, and she actually didn't believe me. I described the personalities of all the different numbers to her, as I imagined them, and she said, "I'll bet you couldn't tell me that the same way twice."

Re: SOF Observed Blog

RobMcGinleyMyers — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 12:05:55 -0000

I'll never forget a comparative literature professor my senior year of college summing up our discussion of Freud's Interpretation of Dreams by saying something like, "The unconscious tricks us into thinking we know what we want. But our desire never finds a real object to satisfy us. In the end what we REALLY want is to want."