At 12:50 PM 2/9/03 -0500, Jeet Heer wrote:
> > Kelley
> >
>Kelley, thanks for the link, which offers an interesting spin.
a student's spin. :) and his spin of what I said, too. I sent him your piece and passed it along to a list for sociologists and others interested in using Ritzer's stuff in order to teach one of the triumvirate of social theorists we typically bow to: marx, durkheim, weber. (shhhh. dem's words that invite vilification 'round these here parts.)
ritzer's simply popularized (and, i think, put a spin on) weber's work. ritzer's a good example of mass production and predictability. *yawn* he reproduces the same ideas over and over and overandoverandoverandover again.
weber studied, among other things, the way the catholic church developed methods of rationalization to exert control over a wide swath of geography: aside from principles of predictability, control, efficiency, and calculability it adapted itself to local cultures.
> Yeah, one of
>the dilemma's we had when writing this article is that we wanted to give
>non-academic readers a sense of the increasing complexity of the
>sociological discussion around McDonald's, but also indicate that the
>increasing diversification of fast food means an even greater hold of
>rationalization in everyday life. there is a sense in which this new
>literature on McDonalization hasn't refuted Ritzer's main point, but merely
>shown that the process is more complex and widespread than even Ritzer
>feared. Jeet
Yah. But ritzer does include a section on post-fordism, flexible production, and just-in-time adaptations to local conditions. he also discusses conscious "resistance" to the predictability of rationalization, using Ben and Jerry's as an example of an attempt to use people's dissatisfaction with McD's in order to compete with Breyer's. B&Bs in the face of hotel chains. Etc.
>Here's an idea I'm too lazy to follow through on: someone should count the
>number of posts by those in Yoshie's Marxist or "interesting leftist" camp
>(e.g. Carrol, Lou, Stephen etc.) and compare it to the number of posts by
>non-interesting liberals such as myself. Somehow, I don't think the numbers
>would support Yoshie's angst, although I guess at one time LBO-talk probably
>did have a higher ratio of hard to soft lefties than is currently the case.
>
>-- Luke
How 'bout one that will do something like this? :)
Start Date: End Date: Total Unique Entries:
Total Total Total Sig/ Loser Troll
Address EMails Lines New Noise Rating Rating
Posted Posted Lines Ratio
I'm going to work on this over the next week. If things aren't too crazy work-wise.
At 09:41 PM 2/8/03 -0500, Timothy Francis-Wright wrote:
>Thanks to your hint, I know it's from the Krofft Superstar Hour,
>that highest and best use of the television medium that starred
>both Witchiepoo and the Bay City Rollers. Without the hint,
>I could have feigned ignorance.
>--Tim Francis-Wright
Close, but no Monica-servicing tobacco tube for you! ($1 to budge)
The song I was thinking of (and really, bad hints on my part, sorry!) was from Wonderama. We didn't watch teevee much: dinky black and white t.v. which my father snored in front of when he was home. Snored, that is, until we very slowly, quietly attempted to turn the dial. At which point, he'd awaken and say, "Hey, I was watching the game!"
We watched Wonderama on Sunday a.m., while waiting for my parents to take us to church. They grew out of that habit when I turned 6. The rest of neighborhood kids were at church, so we stayed home to watch Bill McAllister on Wonderama! here's the song, if you want to hear: http://www.tvparty.com/sounds9/excersize.ram
The "Exercise" song sticks in my head because my little sister could never say exercise. She cavorted around the living room singing along, "Essercize, Essercize, dum on everybody do your essercize." (She couldn't say K's and hard C's either. Hence, I was Delley, my other sister was Dimmy.)
Delley