Some Fluff, earlier today
Recession? These people can’t even spell the word. Despite all considered wisdom, that which would have us believe there’s a crisis on, some wealthy people with far more money than business acumen have chosen now – of all times – to launch a fluffy lifestyle magazine.
Called, simply, Fluff, the magazine will be distributed for free in the select Bucharest neighbourhood of Baneasa (you know, that collection of garish villas, unpaved streets and open sewers next to the airport, where people who wear de firma clothes live).
Now, while we applaud the publishers for their attitude towards paper (we love to see paper wasted. Whenever we get an email with one of those annoying ‘Do you really need to print this email, think of the environment’ notes at the bottom the first thing we do is print it off. Twice.) we nevertheless can’t help thinking that this magazine is set to last no more than oh, two issues? We could be wrong but with ad spending falling everyday, the owners of this thing will need deep, deep pockets to keep it going.
The ‘free lifestyle magazine for Baneasa’ niche is not a huge one, and would already appear to be full, with the Styler magazine put out each quarter by the Baneasa City shopping centre people.
Anyway, we wish Fluff magazine luck, and hope one of our rich friends will bring us a copy soon (we are too poor to live in the area). We love reading deep, incisive interviews with great ideas men such as, ahem, Catalin Botezatu, and stories about how Romania is the only country in the world to issue biometric passports…
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Right now we would need efficiency, we would need to digest what we conquered in the last 100 years: make more efficient cars, cure all diseases, make better means of transportation, stopping the destruction of our environment etc… so if I were in charge, my policies would be:
- to limit the number of children as they did in China with due respect to maintaining a proper median age in various regions of the world
- cutting all expenses made for exploring the Universe and keeping NASA, the European Space Agency, etc… only for communications purposes (satellites)
- heavy investments in all areas of medicine to solve once and for all the problems that still weren’t solved
- strict environmental policies and laws, forbidding the destruction of our environment through wilfull human action (if someone cuts a tree, I would hang him somewhere in the forrest)
- filling the Sahara desert with solar power plants; at the same time I would have the biggest prison in the world to be set up in the Sahara desert, prison in which all dangerous convicts from allover the world would work to maintain the solar plants
- subsidizing the development of magnetic levitation technology and step II – replacing the current railway system with magnetic levitation railways in order to insure faster means of transportation
And some other policies that I would implement starting from tomorrow, like finding out where the fuc**** money is gone and re-introducing them in the economic cycle, by force if I had to!
Actually we’re too many because we consume too much and we put back in place almost nothing.
If we managed to put in place more than we consumed then we were not enough people indeed.
Let’s say that we’re gonna replace oil through some other means of energy like solar or something.
Let’s say that after we pollute all the inland water we’re gonna build some devices to make ocean water drinkable.
But how can we replace the trees that we cut?! Through oxygen masks?! We have no choice here: either we cut trees and free the land for cultivating food and building our cities because we’re too many people or we keep trees and we die of hunger because we’re too many and the food is not enough.
Are we gonna move to another planet?! No, I think that trees will be long gone, together with the human race before we can move to another planet.
Because of our disastrous environmental policies new diseases appear before we can even conquer the old ones.
Let’s face it, the human race needed a few tens of thousands of years in order to adapt to changes that occured in it’s environment, but right now we have the power to change our environment at such a pace that it’s making adaptation impossible!
We are consuming too fast and we put nothing in place, so we’re too many.
Not another one…
Too many people? Not enough more like.
Botezatu is the only Romanian designer who actually has something to say in the industry. The rest of them are crap.
Well, considering that Baneasa – Pipera – Tunari area is not really affected by the economic crisis (see my comment about the black money ‘occuring’ within the Romanian economy), the launching of [another] fluffy magazine is not that counter-trend as it may appear.
And yes Sir, we were better people back when stuff was rationalized but don’t worry because it will be rationalized again, very soon [in our lifetime]; actually it already started, in China for example the number of children that a family may have is limited to 1. Timber, water, oil and food will be rationalized next, probably in this order.
We are too many, the resources of this planet are not infinite and we manage to consume them at a stunning pace. Isn’t it clear that resources will be over sooner or later?!
All fine, but what is that Chinese statue doing next to those Indian pieces? These Baneasa Plush’n Mire folks want to re-open the South Xinjiang & Arunachal Pradesh issue or what? Doamne fereste, mai copii…
I asked my colleagues at the office they like waste too as long as it’s recycled to produce more waste
It never ceases to amaze me that the plucky Romanians pretend to have become over the night a sort of ancient Roman patricians. Behind the veneer of Western affluence and manners is just the worst Balkan mentality of individuals who made their money in most instances through political connections, abject transactions, cheating the state or gullible western clients (yes! that’s an important factor) or even their peers. One can only hope that the oncoming crisis will have some positive effects on the upper echelons of society in Romania.
Valentin Mandache
http://www.viapontica.worpress.com
No joke intended. We like waste, it is a sign of affluent societies. I know some people want to go back to the days of shortages and and rationing (because apparently we were better people then) but not us.
I take as a joke that thing with “we love to see paper wasted”.
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