sagaciously is...

I love...and I mean really ♥ LOVE ♥ getting goodies in my inbox.

Whether snail mail (preferable) or email, txt message or tweeted, I love a nice surprise in my inbox. It's like unwrapping your Christmas present any / every day of the year.

So, I think I'll start a series on inbox goodies, because some of my surprises are definitely worth sharing. :-) These may be infrequent (seeing as they are surprises..lol), but I'll keep you up to date when I get one.

Today's Inbox Goodies: Vogue and Delivering Happiness.

First, Vogue sent me a coupon for what amounts to a free copy of the September Issue, And a free bag. They had me at the free copy of the September issue. I've been reading Vogue since I was 11. No, seriously - I really did start reading Voguewhen I was 11. Right there next to my Nancy Drew mysteries. I was such a strange child. So, this was not even a sell - they really pretty much did me a solid, and saved me some money...lol.

Now, I know this isn't altruistic, I get it. Print magazine sales have plummeted, so it makes sense that magazines like Vogue would reach out to their subscribers, or former subscribers (me), or even competitor's subscribers and offer them a deep discount, because it typically leads to multi-year subscriptions. *ahem* @ Essence, the Economist, INC and the other print publications I read. Yes, I read Vogue, The Economist and Inc. I am such a strange adult. But it still made me happy :-)

Then, I got happiness delivered to my door in the form of a box from Barnes & Noble that I know I did not order. And in opening it, I remembered! Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos (whom I follow on Twitter, and you should too: @Zappos) had offered for a number of his followers a copy of his new book, Delivering Happiness. (note: there's also a companion website where you can order your copy.)

Now, let me just tell you as soon as I heard about the book, I got excited. Of course, because I'm a happy customer of Zappos. If you've never shopped them before (doubtful), their selection is great, prices are great, but two things that make them stand out from their competitors is their service and their logistics. I've literally ordered from them and without incurring any additional shipping fees, gotten my order in 1-3 days. Overnight. Which is crazy. But I also love their site, which makes online shopping for shoes super easy.

I also love their company's values. They're quirky (before those quirky commercials). They're passionate. They're efficient. And they're pretty effin profitable - to the tune of $1.2B (that's billion) dollars in < 10 years. And with what I perceive to be reputable and ethical business practices. Like treating your employees like humans. And negotiating fairly with your business partners. And not attempting to deceive your employees/partners/customers. Imagine that.

mini-rant, slightly offtopic:: those last few sentences highlight the most maddening facets of America's brand capitalism, in my humble opinion. The idea that you can turn a tidy profit while being ethical, treating employees fairly, having integrity and being honest with your partners should NOT be an exception in this county, and it's maddening to me that it is. I'm looking squarely at you BP, Exxon, Shell, and other multinationals with questionable business practices. I'm also looking at you Mary Kay, Noni, Mela Luna (sp), YTB, and all those MLM businesses that people are so enamored of. Seriously, there has to be better ways of doing business. But back to the story at hand...

So, I'm looking forward to reading the WHOLE book, and posting a review for you all to share. It may take me a few days (social media has chewed a hole in my ability to stay on task), but I'm looking forward to rifling through my goodies and sharing them with you.

I may have to take a bit of a break to do it. So I'll be off twitter/facebook for a few days. I'll check in, but I'll be back with my review.

I got a call last Wednesday (6/2/2010) from a "Central Research". Normally I'd dismiss this call as simply a telemarketing call, but at the time I actually had a bit of time to spare, so I entertained the call.

Very glad I did. Very interesting call.

The caller was conducting a "survey" regarding my "TV watching habits" and assured me the call would only take a few minutes. 25 minutes later, I had to dismiss the caller so I could get to my class.

I'm not going to regale you with all the questions of the call. To basically summarize, the caller was a survey taker, but his questions were pointedly pro-Fox, and his comments explaining the questions were also pointedly pro-Fox. Sprinkle in a few Tea party movement references. A few examples:

• What cable news network show do you normally watch during primetime programming, from 6pm -10pm? Fox News, CNN, Headline News, MSNBC?


• Which primetime cable TV program/personality are you more likely to watch? The O'Reilly Factor, Anderson Cooper 360, On The Record with Greta Van Susteran or Countdown with Keith Olbermannn?


• What's the likelihood that you would watch The O'Reilly Factor for your primetime news source? Rate this on a scale of 1 - 5.


• Which primetime cable TV personality do you find most appealling? Bill O'Reilly, Chris Matthews, Anderson Cooper, Greta Van Susteran, Sean Hannity, Keith Olbermann?


• Which primetime cable news station's coverage do you consider to be most 'fair and balanced'? (author's note:: hysterical. just because I don't watch Fox, doesn't mean I don't know their alleged slogan.)


• What Can _______ (Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Greta Van Susteran) do to improve their show and get you to watch?


• Was I registered as a Democrat or Republican?


• Rate your approval of the current administration on a scale of 1 - 5.


• Which primetime cable news channel are you most likely to turn to for election coverage in 2012?

Yes, you get exactly where that's headed.

That's roughly the order, although there were many additional questions. It was interesting, especially given the survey taker's comments in between my responses, such as the fact that I never watch Fox news, primarily due to it's conservative bias. He did try to slip in an occasional one-liner to suggest Fox doesn't have conservative bias. Riiight. There were also a few questions/comments about the Tea party and which news stations I associated the Tea party movement with o_O.

So, what the hell does this have to do with you? I try not to mentally masturbate through this blog, so I'm always conscious that if you're reading, what I write should relate to you. Well, Central Market Research, Inc is a NYC company that has been doing this for a while. Even pre-2008 election. An interesting comment I found on a no-call list website, from September 2008:

These calls are ILLEGAL PUSH POLLING: SPREADING LIES ABOUT OBAMA, here's the truth from someone that answered a call from that number:

I Just Got Push-Polled on Obama and Israel

It turned out to be a political poll. And not just any old poll.

From there, the focus became more explicitly political--and, again, perfectly typical. Was I Democrat or Republican? Etc.

But soon enough I understood why they were asking about Carter. After going over some more issues and confirming the fact that I was likely to vote for Obama, the caller made a series of rather pointed inquiries. Would it affect my vote, he said, if I knew that

* Obama has had a decade long relationship with pro-Palestinian leaders in Chicago

* the leader of Hamas, Ahmed Yousef, expressed support for Obama and his hope for Obama's victory

* the church Barack Obama has attended is known for its anti-Israel and anti-American remarks

* Jimmy Carter's anti-Israel national security advisor is one of Barack Obama's foreign policy advisors

* Barack Obama was the member of a board (sic) that funded a pro-Palestinian chartiable organization

* Barack Obama called for holding a summit of Muslim nations exlcuding Israel if elected president

Is it possible to get push-polled outside of "election time"? Seems they're starting early, possibly with a focus on the incumbent seats for the 2010 elections. And yes, the next calls will probably be to your phone, to get you to tune in ;)

I can't tell you to avoid a specific number, since my call came in unpublished. The no-call website has a few numbers listed in the 212 area code, but that's from 2008.

So, this is the next step in political marketing propaganda. Telemarketing for fun and votes? #LeSigh.

Hoodwinked! Led Astray! Run Amok!

So, I woke up like any other day and decided to check my Twitter, Facebook & Ning for the haps. Forget reading a paper, to really get the pulse of the people - let's see what they're talking about. And I walked into ANOTHER fight about black relationships. I'm not going to share the names or venue, to protect the guilty, but I will share with you their points of contention.

They were arguing over some points regarding black female empowerment, and whether or not those points aligned more with black empowerment (the entire community) or the denigration of black men. Please note that I've now officially exhausted all the fancy language I intend to use in this post. Put simpler, it was the "ABW" (angry black woman) vs. the "BBM" (bashed black man). Stereotypes and incendiary language abounded.

Now, I'm not well versed in feminist ideology, but I've always been from the school of black female empowerment. Or so I thought. Although I rarely use the term, I identify with the idea of the Strong Black Woman, or Independent Black Woman. After logging on and reading a bit of both sides, and listening to the wise words of one of my friends, I had to reconsider my position.

It occurred to me that maybe the feminist was wrong and sounded a bit bitter. As did the BBM. They both sounded like the outlying ends of a whole black relationship discussion spectrum. It also occurred to me that they just might be an incredibly vocal minority. The fringe, for lack of a better word. Here's the thought, put simply:

What if...those fringe writers/bloggers/twitterers/authors weren't speaking for "all" or "most"? What if they're really just sharing where they are, in this moment? What if we stopped giving them credit for being the "voice" of the masses that they're suggesting they speak for? What if we questioned the "truth" of what they're saying? Great points aside, and whether I agree with them or not - who is qualifying these folks to speak on behalf of...us?

So, I decided to do a quick straw poll on one of those points of contention: whether/not black men actually want to get married. It wasn't simply to prove anyone wrong/right, but to figure out if maybe, just maybe the common perception (read: blog post) regarding the attitudes of black men was skewed.

I polled 57 of my friends, exes and high school classmates, with and without their knowledge. Okay, I simply looked at some of their Facebook relationship statuses. #dontjudgeme. Here's what I found:

• 23 are married


• 13 of those 23 indicate (act) as if they're happily married


• 28 of them want to be married (I'd guess happily)


• I think one or two of the remaining 6 is gay. I'm scared to ask. No, they're not exes, nosy!


• The remaining 5 are exes that don't like talking to me...lol

Note that this poll is far from scientific. Don't let that stop you from believing it's the gospel. Far too many of us take a blogger's quoting of statistics and run with it, simply because it's on the internet. Don't believe me? Ask your own M/F friends, ask your exes, poll your social circles. Do your own research, and stop taking blog posts, tweets and discussion forum topics for granted.

Beyond that, stop believing that the most vocal minority is an authority on black relationships. One black man doesn't necessarily speak for all (or most) black men's thoughts on any issue. Same thing for women. The person who talks the loudest, or gets the most page hits, or most site traffic, or is most often cross-posted, or most track-backed/retweeted isn't the one representing common thought.

You do realize that one of the oldest tricks in the social media handbook is to a) write an inflammatory headline, b) add incendiary content, c) cross-reference well known people/bloggers/celebrities/pundits/websites and d) post about it a LOT, to make sure EVERYONE sees where you stand, right?. It's easy to gain a reputation on the Internet quickly, simply by starting a flame war. If the prize here is traffic, the very vocal outliers win it easily, because we all buy into it. Even if the prize here is to get people thinking/talking/posting, the very vocal minority still wins.

So, after my lil straw poll (which, btw, took HOURS. Thanks, exes), I returned to see if the "neo-feminist" and the "bashed black man" were still arguing. They were.

Here's the lesson: The more people that buy into the idea that black women and black men cannot get together, the more books, adspace, seminars, radio shows, tv specials, websites sell. The money here is not in the cure, it's in the come-back. Truthfully, if we just talked, we'd find a great deal of variance in that black relationship discussion spectrum. Common black folks would fall in between the two outlying schools of black relationship thought.

We've been bamboozled, and as long as we pick up rocks to help throw them at our perceived opponents, we will stay that way.

Meh. Who would've thought that we'd progress to the point that we're quite literally throwing internet sticks and stones at each other?