THIS MODERN WORLD

A Sparky photo contest entry from reader Paul W.:

I just heard about your ‘Sparky Photo Competition’ through the list, and I hope I have a valid entry for you, as this is not actually a photo of a legit plush Sparky doll.

Here’s the story: I live in Kuwait, and when I found out about the Sparkys you have on offer, I mentioned to my wife that I thought they were really cool and that I was going to get one when we got back home this summer. I can’t really order one from here, as the national postal system is very unreliable, and chances are better than average that he’d never make it. As my birthday was approaching, my amazing wife took it upon herself to construct one of her own.

One favourite tee-shirt destroyed, an old pair of sunglasses, and several tens of feet of thread later, hey presto, I was presented with this cool facsimile of a plush Sparky on the date of my birth! Heather undersells herself, as she thinks this looks more like Sparky’s banjo-playing cousin from deep in the sticks, but I think he’s awesome!

Anyway, here’s my entry for your contest, if you’ll accept it. This is Sparky hanging around in the deserts of Kuwait with some new friends.

Hanging out backstage with my friend Benmont Tench last weekend.

I thought I’d share a little of what I wrote on Sparky’s List about this week’s toon:

Well, it’s always fun doing a Thomas Friedman cartoon.  This one was inspired by the full page ad in the New York Times last weekend for the Times-sponsored GLOBAL FORUM: THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN’S THE NEXT NEW WORLD!  And I quote:
 
AGENDA ITEMS WILL INCLUDE:
* The World We Live in Now
* Threats or Possibilities
* What Happened to Power?
* How the Digital Revolution
Is Accelerating Everything
* What You Don’t Know Is Coming
* Doing Business in the Next New World
* What an Education Is Going to Mean
* What Energy Is Going to Be
 
Tickets to this daylong festival of Deep Insight are $495 and available only after one requests an invitation.  The video posted on the forum website contains these nuggests of wisdom:
 
While we were sleeping, something really big happened over the last decade. While we were focused on post 9/11 and the subprime crisis, something really big happened in the plumbing of the world and by the plumbing I mean, basically, the technological platform on which innovation and education and companies all rest. So back in 2004 I wrote a book called The World Is Flat, and the argument of the book is that the world was getting connected. Well, I would argue that in the last 10 years, while you were sleeping the world went from connected to hyperconnected.
 
Get it? We used to be sorta connected, but now we’re really, really connected!  These kids today, with their gadgets and their Facebook!  And it all happened while you were asleep and focused on world events, in your sleep.

As Wonkette notes, he’s been pushing this latest buzzword — “hyperconnectivity” — hard.  And you have to give him this: he’s nothing if not relentless.  When he writes a book about the world being flat, or short, or dusty or some damn thing, you can count on seeing that metaphor worked into successive columns for years.

BONUS Friedman follies: here and here.

Just lost a long-time client paper, for the usual budgetary reasons.

On a somewhat related note: you can support independent cartooning AND get a sneak peek at each week’s cartoon by signing up for SPARKY’S LIST!

That is all.

Forgot to post this last week.