the Walkman

“And the night shall be filled with music, And the cares that infest the day shall fold their tents like the Arabs, and as silently steal away.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Sony Walkman was the first step towards personal, mobile music. Before cassette tapes if you wanted to listen to music you either listened to a vinyl record or an 8 track tape. The eight track was great, because unlike the large shaped vinyl records you could travel with them and listen to them in your car. Then came the cassette, a smaller, more defined version of the eight track analog player. The smaller it got the more portable it got. Now not only could you listen to your personalized tracks in your vehicle, but you could take it with you on the go with the cassette walk-man. Just ad batteries and a headset and now you were able to listen to your Bruce Springsteen, Born in the USA as you were roller skating down the boardwalk. The Walkman was the first technological step in the evolution of what we now called the IPOD or the IPHONE.

the Plastic Water Bottle

Ever wonder about those people who spend $2 apiece on those little bottles of Evian water? Try spelling Evian backward.
George Carlin

Can you remember drinking water out of a water fountain? We still see them everywhere but hardly use them. I think the last time I used one was to get my dog some water after playing at the park. The plastic water bottle came onto the scene nearly twenty years ago when people started to break away from the carbonated beverages.  At first it seemed that only yuppies carried around bottles of Evian or other designer brands of water but it soon caught on like wild fire. Over the decades sales of bottled water have increased dramatically. In 2006 over 115 million litters (30,379,786 U.S. gallons) of water were sold in the US alone. The global rate of consumption has more than quadrupled between 1990 and 2005. One estimate is that 50 billion bottles of water are consumed per year in the U.S and another 200 billion bottles globally.

Bottled water has been described as “one of the greatest cons of the 20th century” and as “marketing’s answer to the emperor’s new clothes”. Keep in mind I finally got over buying bottled water but it took some time. Now I carry a re-fill able container around. Click Here if you would like to see where all of those bottles end up.

the Health Care

The greatest mistake in the treatment of diseases is that there are physicians for the body and physicians for the soul, although the two cannot be separated. Plato

The Preferred Care Card is your pass into a life of being healthy, or is it? The answer is, not at all,  it is however your pass to pay a monthly fee so that Health Care Providers, ie. Health Insurance Companies, can pretend that the are keeping you safe and healthy. The main point here is “pretend” as most of us with half a sense know that Health Care in the western world does not necessarily keep you healthy, but turns you into a servant to their requests and demands. Which usually has nothing to do with health, but money. As humans we remain healthy by what we put into our body, foods, exercise, strength and relationships. However no matter how hard we try we are all expendable, and Health Care providers know this, what they want to you think is that they have the power to extend your life. Much like the old Medicine Man, Preacher or Shaman, one can derive that what they are really giving you is a false hope, so that you give them your money.

the Toy Doll

“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.” Henry David Thoreau

The toy doll, or in this particular case the Cabbage Patch Doll, was desired by every boy and girls under the age of 10 in the mid 1980′s, plus their hording parents, in this particular case mostly the children’s mothers. The Cabbage Patch kids brand of products had originally started as dolls called Little People, created by Xavier Roberts then later attracted the attention of toy manufacturer Coleco who began mass production in 1982.

Parents in the 80′s flocked to stores across the United States in an attempt to obtain one of the toy dolls for their children, with fights occasionally erupting between parents over particular dolls. People would camp outside of stores waiting in line for hours and even days just to get their hands on one of these plastic dolls. Westerners especially in the United States treated this particular doll like deity, waiting days to see one, spending family savings just to behold one, then passing it down to their children to worship.

the Cell Phone

“Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal.” Albert Einstein

The ever so dreaded yet admired cellular technology and it’s progressive force towards mobile communication. The cell phone took mobile technology to an entire new platform bringing communication and surveillance from the satellites above to your front pocket. Where am I, where are you, can you please tell me who I am…. hello….hello…is anybody there. The cell phone has become a must have accessory not just in the western civilization but to the entire world. In 2010 it was reported that over 60% of the worlds population carried a cell phone.

One might say that we have come a long way from the beeper.

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