Andersen Design Economic Evolution Discourse

  Netflix, CC BY-SA 4.0 < https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0 >, via Wikimedia Commons It takes a special effort to watch a subtitled drama, especially one that relies heavily on dialogue, not only as spoken between the characters but as thoughts taking place in their minds.  The Korean Drama, Stranger, is well worth the effort as it takes on systemic corruption, the psychology of cultural hierarchies, and the impact of individualism through well developed characters. Two central characters in Stranger represent what we naively expect from a system of justice as they go against the grain in which corruption has become the acceptable norm. A series speaks as much through its visuals as it does through the action of the plot. Stranger effectively uses peacefully designed Asian interiors as a subliminal rest-bit. Perhaps this is more evident to those of us exercising our intellectual capacities to read the subtitles in the rapidly evolving dialogue. In an incre...

   Content-Pixie-unsplash                                                                 In my home town on the rural coast of Maine,we once had an economic development council, but it was little more than a public-private consortium with a license to spend the public’s money in the manner of a private development corporation. The council spent taxpayer money on consultants and on advertising campaigns for down town hospitality businesses. For a while, after spending an amount of public resources, the council laid low, before announcing that it was reconvening. Shortly afterward, the pandemic hit, taking economic hospitality development off the table, and the council announced that it was closing down for good, with nary a mention that the economy was being impacted by a pandemic. The campaign talking points of local p...

Maine's Pine Tree Zone Tax Exemptions will be up for renewal again, scheduled to end in Dec 2021, A look back at what happened the last time and what can be done better this time. Who Do you Think You ARE! ? photo by Mackenzie Andersen “Who do you think you are?”, he said, as though I needed to be granted permission from an omnipotent authority to speak my mind freely.  He is over reacting, I thought. I had merely asked his friend if he was the person who works as an analyst for the State of Maine. No answer was forthcoming as the the public conversation was deleted and continued as private messaging commencing with this: Bad move to expose my friend like that. Please consider using discretion better if you want to remain friends. I just said OK. His next message began “Thank you”, seemingly interpreting “OK” as agreement that I would behave according to his instructions. I meant- OK, if asking the simple question means he will stop being friends with me, so be it. There was...