That was nice and clear about atomization and quite worth the length.

Now I really feel dim, but can you define atomization for me? I totally get your second post about control and productivity. Studied it a lot in a management class. But I don't think I've come across that word, or if I had I've forgotten.

Wow. The consumerism and waste conversation is pretty much the same one my husband and I had today.

Not that I have anything to contribute. . . but I can talk about cartoons! I miss Blake and Mortimer from Teletoon. I'm not sure how a French comic book ended up being a Canadian (?) cartoon, but it was cool.

atomization - splitting into seperate unconnected parts. So everyone is a little black box. Everyone concentrates on their tasks and strictly defined interfaces with others; thinking about the business or system as a whole strongly discouraged.

t On Edit So actually I think you got everything. You just were not familiar with the word in that context. Which meant it was an unneccesary piece of jargon on my part.

Oh and Fayjay - you mentioned before how slammed you were right now. I simply forgot. I should not even have asked. But thanks for your patience in any case.

wow, this thread all with the long thoughtful posts...

in a nonthoughtful post...

We Spanish kids got crap like "Destinos," despite there being Almodovar right there at the local video stores.

the kids in my hs french classes also read "huis clos"! And we in the spanish classes had to read borges and garcia marquez and garcia lorca (and god knows I couldn't make it through a page of any of those now, which makes me sad)...but when we were good, on fridays the spanish teacher would let us watch "Destinos". It was our treat. How sad is that? But really, "Destinos" was SOOOOO much better than what I had to watch in my college french class--at least in Destinos, there was a plot, and people went places and did things (though I never did find out what happened...last I recall, they'd gone to Mexico, and then some caribbean nation...and there was mystery...). Er, but anyway, "french in action"? There was no action. Grrrr.

Hee - we get Destinos every Sunday here. I TiVo it. Do you want to know how it ends, meara?

Thing was, we watched it out of order, and often only bits at a time, because the teacher would turn it off whenever we talked back to the TV. So we never knew if there was a plot. But then, he was British, so he saw it as more important to mock the fact that our Spanish pronounciations sounded funny to him since he spoke it in his Liverpudlian accent.

I TiVo it. Do you want to know how it ends, meara?

Yes yes! Though really, I need a website that has a brief explanation of the plot, because although I remember startling amounts of it, I last watched it ten years ago (ACK!).

Ooh. Suddenly occurs to me that maybe *I* get Destinos somewhere on my channel lineup! Off to TiVo I go!!!

I figure I do my part by not owning a car. Saves society untold burdens. Everyone who calls themselves an environmentalist and still owns one, choosing to live in a place where they "have to" have one, sort of looks suspicious to me.