The Poso-Graph: 'A great money maker'

A found advert for a photo booth, 1928.

Sunday News, 7 October 1928, p. 7.

Krieg den Palästen!

I note briefly that the Communist firebrands at The Economist--citing a Congressional Budget Office report--have chimed in on one aspect of the 'Occupy' protests: the 'we are the 99%' slogan.

Their comment:

"Whatever the cause, the data are powerful because they tend to support two prejudices. First, that a system that works well for the very richest has delivered returns on labour that are disappointing for everyone else. Second, that the people at the top have made out like bandits over the past few decades, and that now everyone else must pick up the bill. Of course it is a little more complicated than that. But this downturn ought to test the normally warm feelings in America of the 99% towards the 1%."

And if there's anything I like, ladies and gents, it's having my prejudices supported.

Thank you, Economist, for bringing so much joy to my lunch break.

Hot content

Finally, after nearly five years, I realise that I've been doing this whole blogging thing wrong.

Unlike, as I learn via the New York Times, one Heather Armstrong:

Her site brings in an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 a month or more — and that’s not even counting the revenue from her two books, healthy speaking fees and the contracts she signed to promote Verizon and appear on HGTV. She won’t confirm her income (“We’re a privately held company and don’t reveal our financials”). But the sales rep for Federated Media, the agency that sells ads for Dooce, calls Armstrong “one of our most successful bloggers,” then notes a few beats later in our conversation that “our most successful bloggers can gross $1 million.”

Wow, outstanding, how do they manage that?

By talking about poop and spit up. And stomach viruses and washing-machine repairs. And home design, and high-strung dogs, and reality television, and sewer-line disasters, and chiropractor visits. And countless other banalities of one mother’s eclectic life that, for some reason, hundreds of thousands of strangers tune in, regularly, to read.

This suggests that, should we want to be more successful with this whole new media thingy, we should, as Oprah might put it, 'share a bit more of ourselves'.

Of course, there's a definite shortage of 'poop and spit up' in our four walls about which to opine.

Though, I have to say, keeping things that way definitely seems worth 30-40 grand a month.

Possibly more.