Hasta La Gadget!

If food is culture, then we in America are a country divided. Though overt talk of class politics has always been somewhat taboo, the food industry has long engaged in various forms of class baiting. In the early 1960s, food manufacturers marketed their convenient products by appealing to middle class women who might have more free time, implying that through using their products, housewives could lead lives of the leisured upper class, writes Harvey Levenstein in Paradox of Plenty. In 1969, the chairman of the board of Corn Products Company said, “We — the food industry — have given [the housewife] the gift of time, which she may reinvest in bridge, canasta, garden club, and other perhaps more soul-satisfying pursuits.”

This aspirational marketing appealed to a wide swath of consumers who saw the industry’s new products as part of a modern and advanced lifestyle — even a way to move into a higher social stratum. That’s not new. What is new is that the modern-day incarnation of food manufacturers have actually inverted this strategy. It is on full display in several new McDonald’s commercials that have taken many a viewer off guard in their blatant attempts to appeal to a crass and aggressive form of class politics.

One new commercial specifically calls out “vegetarians, foodies and gastronauts,” and asks them to “kindly avert their eyes.” The commercial shows an extreme close up of McDonald’s signature Big Mac and goes on to exclaim that there is no quinoa or soy, Greek yogurt or kale to be found there. The male voiceover adds, “And while it is massive, its ego is not.” This ad essentially says: Forget all those food snobs, food movement elites and otherwise obnoxious kale-and-Greek-yogurt-eating people of the upper classes, McDonald’s makes food for the masses — the “real” Americans, the hard-working folks without ego or pretense.

By appealing to this sensibility, McDonald’s hopes to lure consumers in on the basis of class politics — with the added advantage that its food products are cheap and convenient, making it a near-necessity in our current economy for many of those same hard-working people. But here’s the problem: diet-related diseases affect poor and working class people disproportionately, since people of lower socioeconomic status tend to consume lower-quality diets.

In another new ad that debuted during the Golden Globes (sparking social media ire), McDonald’s redoubles its efforts to be seen as “every man’s food,” to appear integral to the American way of life. In this ad, McDonald’s shows local and national events the company has put up on its roadside signs, “both happy and tragic,” from celebrating local births and anniversaries, to recognizing national events with slogans like, “Boston Strong” and “We Remember 911,” all set to the tune of a pop song sung by a children’s choir. This kind of sappy, overwrought ploy to pull on the heartstrings of Americans while repeatedly showing those famous Golden Arches exemplifies some of the worst in shameless advertising.

This is especially true when we remember what McDonald’s is actually selling: foods that are making Americans sick. The company is hawking dangerous products to the very people it is purporting to celebrate and represent. All of which makes McDonald’s latest ad campaigns more problematic than they may at first appear. If it were selling products equally healthy to kale and quinoa, but perhaps less precious, say, rice and beans, then this type of marketing would be fair game. But since it is selling arguably one of the worst industrial products known to humankind (with related environmental consequences that affect everyone) the ad crosses the line into deceptive and harm-inducing territory.

And in an additional and incongruous ad campaign launched in October, McDonald’s is claiming transparency — something the farm-to-table crowd has been advocating for years. Here McDonald’s is making a gesture toward the same group of people it disparages in the ad that calls out “foodies.” This signals some desperation on McDonald’s part: claiming the “every-man” class politics and insulting “foodies” on the one hand, while simultaneously trying to appeal to those same people by lauding “100 percent pure beef, no fillers, extenders or so-called ‘pink-slime.'” With McDonald’s reporting a 30 percent quarterly drop in profit this past October, the corporation is attempting to cover all bases.

But in doing so McDonald’s insincerity shines through. It’s clear the company doesn’t really care about the people it claims to celebrate or speak for — not the health of Americans, or the right to a fair and decent wage for workers.

Rather than alluding to transparency by making empty claims about its products, McDonald’s foods — among thousands of other industrial food products — deserve labels alerting consumers to exactly what the food contains and what known health risks certain ingredients pose. If McDonald’s really cares about the average American, as it purports to in its ads, how about some real transparency that makes it so “every-man” has more information about what he (or she) is eating?

And let’s also call out its straw man marketing schemes that pit those concerned about the quality of our food supply against the “average Joe.” Why are these mutually exclusive? The food industry has done a brilliant job of making words like organic, sustainable, and now, kale, words that signify a privileged elite bent on ruining real American food and policing everyone else’s behavior. But if anything has ruined American food, and changed eating behaviors, it’s the industrial food system with McDonald’s, the nation’s largest producer of fast food leading the way.

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius. You have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.” — Gertrude Stein

I always know I am on the edge of something big when I want to overhaul my entire website.

I slip down rabbit hole, spending days in a hazy Web search of new themes, artistic fonts, bold colors and innovative plugins.

I used to hate this period. The period of not doing the thing I need to do. It usually involves a big, creative endeavor that is calling to me. Something I’ve never done.

Years ago, when I was first working in the film business, I had the great fortune of being an assistant for the most brilliant editor, Jan.

We often worked 80-hour weeks in a dark, little editing room in Hollywood.

In the beginning of a project we’d screen the film, cut out the shots we liked and hang them on a little hook in a metal bin.

And then we would sit staring at the script for days.

I used to get so anxious feeling the deadline screeching up on us that I would sit behind her and sigh. I never noticed it until she hollered, “Stop sighing, you are ALWAYS sighing!”

Most likely I was badly in need of oxygen. I was either holding my breath or hyperventilating with anxiety waiting for her to begin working.

Periodically, one of our high-strung producers would fling open the door, shrieking, “How’s it going in here?!” Jan would casually look up from the purse she was cleaning out, or nod in their direction as she joked with a friend on the phone.

I, on the other hand, would jump up and start rifling through the film clips or start rewinding a reel on the bench to look like we were busy creating something amazing.

It took me years to realize we were. We were percolating. We were in the muck of creation. We were swimming around in the dark womb before the contractions started ramping up.

We were incubating.

“All the really good ideas I ever had came to me while I was milking a cow.” — Grant Wood

A spiritual teacher once told me this period is like the rich, fertile, muddy earth right before the first green sprout pokes through.

The days would churn by as Jan sat looking out the window with her cup of coffee, elbow resting on the idle editing table. I tried not to sigh as acid burned a hole in my stomach.

And then out of nowhere, all of a sudden like lightening striking, Jan would turn her long gaze from the window.

It was like a hurricane blowing in.

Film would be flying, the crashing sound of the splicer chopping up and down. “Get me the close-up of Dan in the fire!” she would yell. “Hurry up! Find the tail trim of Samantha running! Give me the Narration! Grab that music cue with the horns!”

I tried my best to keep up with the high speed of her muse.

To my surprise, where once there was only film languishing in a bin, Jan would splice together the most stunning scene. Her editing was legendary.

She could take the worst load of crap and turn it into a breathtaking masterpiece. Scenes that would make you cry or laugh till you collapsed in a heap on the editing room floor with tears running down your face.

I was so lucky to get that chance to learn from her, but unfortunately my creative process turned out to be exactly the same as Jan’s.

Years later, my executive producer would often call in the afternoon to check on the progress of the current music video I was editing. I would do my best to muffle the clip-clop of Bucky’s footfalls but after awhile he caught on and would ask straight out, “How’s your horse?”

All of my problems were solved on the back of my horse.

Before I wrote this piece, I decided once again to overhaul my website (procrastinate). I spent days obsessively researching new fonts, graphics and website themes because I am actually working (or not working) on creating a new coaching program.

There has been much written about creativity and the subconscious, courting the muse, and the mystery of the creative process, and we all have our own way of bringing things to life.

It’s usually somewhat painful and involves periods of writer’s block or shitty canvases or doing nothing at all but laying on the couch reading Oprah.

But trust me we are doing something, and all the stages of bringing something new into the world are important!

The not doing that some call “procrastination” is universally steeped in shame and guilt and treats this incubation period like it should be included in the list of deadly sins next to greed and murder.

It’s as if we are supposed to be creative machines. This is an old idea born out of the Industrial Revolution when factory work became popular. “It’s 8 a.m. I will now and be brilliant until 5 p.m.”

Creativity doesn’t work that way.

It never hurts to prepare for the muse by laying the guilt aside, cleaning our brushes, sharpening our pencils or turning on our laptops.

But usually it’s more likely that we’ll be standing in the shower with soap in our eyes, or walking the dog, or cleaning closets when the muse finally, blessedly, thankfully arrives.

So rather than procrastination I have renamed this mysterious period “incubation.” Feel free to use it the next time someone accuses you of sloth.

And please leave a comment below, and let me know how you spend your time incubating, and what happens when your muse finally arrives?

Mary Ann Johnstone is a certified Martha Beck Life Coach who loves helping people break their own rules and create a life they deeply love. Visit: http://maryannjohnstone.com.

In Q1 2015, we expect that Apple could very well release at least two new products – the Apple Watch and the 12-inch MacBook Air. We have heard two separate rumors that the former will be launched in March and the latter will see a general Q1 2015 release, but if you’re still a little skeptical, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has basically “confirmed” it.

Kuo has been known for his pretty accurate predictions regarding Apple’s product lineup and their release timeframes, so there could be some truth in his claims. According to Kuo, he confirms that Apple will indeed be releasing the Apple Watch in March and the upcoming 12-inch MacBook Air later on in the quarter as well, but no specific dates were provided.

According to Kuo, the Apple Watch could see some supply constraint. This is due to key components of the wearable having low production yields, but Kuo notes that this is not an issue for the other components which should see high shipments in this quarter. He also expects that Apple will ship 2.5 million Apple Watch units in Q1 2015 alone.

Kuo also predicts that Apple will reveal more details about the Apple Watch ahead of its release and offer up more detailed information about its battery life and when pre-orders will begin, which we guess sounds pretty probable. However as is the case with all rumors, they’re best taken with a grain of salt for now, but do check back with us in the coming weeks/months where hopefully we will have more details for you.

Analyst “Confirms” Apple Watch And 12-inch MacBook Air’s Q1 2015 Launch , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

We have been hearing about a bunch of Lumia devices that could be launched soon. One of the devices we have heard about is the RM-1072 and now thanks to the folks at NPU, potential specs of the upcoming handset have been revealed. According to NPU and based on the specs of the device, it looks like the RM-1072 could end up being a more affordable Lumia 830.

For starters the handset is expected to pack a 5-inch 720p HD display. It is also going to be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 quad-core processor (clock speed unknown at this point), and will come with an 8.7MP rear-facing camera, a 0.9MP front-facing camera, 8GB of onboard storage that can be expanded upon via microSD.

If you’re wondering why this sounds very familiar, it is because its specs are almost identical to the Lumia 830. The main exception here would be its cameras. The Lumia 830 comes with a 10MP rear-facing camera with ZEISS optics, while the RM-1072 comes with an 8.7MP sensor instead. It is unclear if the RM-1072 will also feature ZEISS optics but it is speculated that it could be a PureView camera.

In any case the handset has already passed certification in Indonesia as per our earlier report, so we reckon it is only a matter of time before it is made official, perhaps at MWC 2015 which kicks off in March, so do check back with us then for the details.

Upcoming RM-1072 Could Be A Cheaper Lumia 830 Alternative , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.

As a kid growing up on Chicago’s South Side in the 1950s, I loved baseball. But most blacks then didn’t love the Chicago Cubs. There were two reasons for that. The Cubs played at Wrigley Field on Chicago’s North Side, and blacks almost literally took their lives in their hands walking or driving though the lily-white, rabidly hostile neighborhoods around the ballpark. The other was that most blacks then lived on Chicago’s South Side. They adored the Chicago White Sox, who played at Comiskey Park on the South Side.

Many remembered that five years before Jackie Robinson crashed through the color barrier in baseball in 1947 with the Dodgers, the Chicago White Sox gave him a look-see tryout in 1942. When the Sox were away, team owners rented the stadium out to Negro League teams and the biggest game for the Negro Leagues was the East-West Classic All-Star game held each summer at Comiskey. My father and other blacks regularly jammed the park to watch some of the era’s top baseball talent. Nearly all of whom in the early to mid-1950s still had almost no chance to crack the color bar that had morphed from the rigid barrier before Robinson broke it in 1947 to a gentleman’s arrangement among the owners to clamp a tight quota on the number of blacks that each team could have on their roster at any one time.

Despite my disdain for the Cubs, the name that I and every black baseball fan in Chicago knew was Ernie Banks. I closely followed Banks’ exploits. I’d listen to Cubs games on the radio. When the announcer said “And now Banks is stepping to the plate,” I got a thrill of pride and anticipation that with that easy almost nonchalant trademark batting style of his — with the right elbow cocked high — he would smack one out of the park. When he did I screamed with delight. The avalanche of accolades, tributes to, and remembrances of Banks on his passing made the obligatory gush that he was a great player and a model of decorum and civility. The undertone to this is that Banks, unlike Robinson, was a great guy because he never uttered a peep about racial bias within and without baseball. This supposedly enhanced his status as a paragon of greatness. This deliberately distorts and ignores what Banks said and had to face when he broke in with the Cubs in 1953.

Banks lived on Chicago’s South Side not far from where I lived. He often commuted to Cubs home games on the L train. He had no choice. Though he was the biggest name and biggest draw the Cubs had, he could not buy a home or rent an apartment in the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field. I remember my father and other blacks talking about how Banks privately would complain that few blacks ever came to Wrigley field for Cubs games. Years after he hung up his glove in 1971, he opened up and expressed his disappointment at the invisible racial barrier for Cubs games: “I lived with a lot of schoolteachers and bankers, and they never came to Wrigley.”

Banks tried to do something about that. He cajoled John Johnson, the publisher of Ebony and Jet, to buy Cubs season tickets one year. A decade after his debut with the Cubs, Johnson became reportedly the Cubs’ first African-American season-ticket holder. It was all for naught. Johnson didn’t use them and Banks told why: “He called me and said, ‘Ernie, I gotta cancel my tickets. I can’t get nobody to go with me!'”

Banks did not turn a blind eye to the Cubs unstated quota system for black players in the 1950s. He acknowledged that the Cubs would quickly trade away young black players. He flatly attributed the reluctance of blacks to come to Cubs games to the lack of black players on the team.

Even though we didn’t go to Cubs games, Banks still deeply appreciated the support he got from the blacks on Chicago’s South Side, especially in the neighborhood where he and I lived. He said so — “Very few blacks came to Wrigley Field at that time and, in my own community, people were really proud of me. They assisted me, made sure I got to bed on time, congratulated me. … It wasn’t like I was a star or a hero. It was like I was taken in, like a family. They would come and watch my kids, wash my car, invite me to dinner.”

I was not a fan of the Cubs. I was a fan of Banks. I cherished him for his phenomenal baseball skills, grace, warmth and dignity. He was a sports role model for me and other young blacks in Chicago at a time when we desperately needed them in the Big Leagues. He was a man who never forgot that his achievements on and off the field meant so much to us. That’s the other Mr. Cub I’ll always remember.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour heard weekly on the nationally network broadcast Hutchinson Newsmaker Network.