McDonald's US advertising slogans, 1960 - Present

"Lets eat out!" (1960 - 1965)

"Look for the Golden Arches!" (1965 -1967)

"The closest thing to home" (1967)

"McDonald's is your kind of place" (1967 -1971)

"You deserve a break today" (1980 - 1983)

"Nobody makes your day like McDonald's can" (1983 -1983)

"We cook it all for you at McDonald's" (1982)

"McDonald's and you" (1983 - 1984)

"It's a good time for the great taste of McDonald's" (1984 - 1988)

"It's Mac Tonight" (1985)

"McDonald's is your place to be" (1986)

"Good time, great taste" (1988 - 1990)

"There's nothing quite like a McDonald's" (1988 - 1990)

"You deserve a break today" (1989 - 1990)

"Food, folks and fun" (1990 - 1991)

"McDonald's today" (1991 - 1992)

"What you want is what you get" (1992 - 1995)

"Do you believe in magic?" (1993 - 1995)

"Have you had your break today?" (1995 - 1997)

"My McDonald's" (1997)

"Did somebody say McDonald's?" (1997 - 2000)

"We love to see you smile" (2000 - 2002)

"Smile" (2002 - 2003)

"I'm lovin' it " (2003 - Present)

Bear Markets & Banker Suicide

By all accounts, in the immediate aftermath of the Black Thursday market crash of 1929, the sidewalks of Wall Street were littered with the bodies of Wall Street bankers. Ruined financiers were jumping to their deaths because of their massive losses in the market they had trusted -- their faith in both capitalism and existence simultaneously squandered. The  suicides were framed as a sort of financial morality tale, and the most horrific and enduring symbol of the age.  

So ever since the stock market took its recent epic plunge, I have wondered -- where are all the bodies? October's crash has been universally compared with the crash of 1929. The market dropped more than 20 percent in seven days. So what is the difference between the two crashes? The answer -- not much. It seems that the banker suicides from Black Friday are nothing more than urban legend. According to Slate, only 4 in every 100 suicides in 1929 were linked to the stock market crash, and only two of these took place on Wall Street. 

This begs the question -- why has the myth of banker suicides persisted? 

Aesthetic Echo by Rafael Rozendaal

Click this link to view

debt, defense, death

via the CIA world factbook

Ornament and Crime

Adolf Loos (1870 - 1933) was a Viennese modernist architect, and a virulent opponent of ornament in all elements of design. He considered ornament and decoration enemies of modernism, and evidence of a cultural regression into primitivism:

The evolution of culture is synonymous with the removal of ornament from objects of daily use.

Loos was also a bit of an extremist, and like his Futurist contemporaries, he took his intellectual proclamations perhaps further than necessary to prove a point. Here's a passage from his often confrontational and sometimes ridiculous text "Ornament and Crime" (1908), where he makes sweeping comparisons between tattoos, fine art and criminality:

Children are amoral, and so, by our standards, are Papuans. If a Papuan slaughters an enemy and eats him, that doesn't make him a criminal. But if a modern man kills someone and eats him, he must be either a criminal or degenerate. The Papuans tattoo themselves, decorate their boats, their oars, everything they can get their hands on. 

 But a modern man who tattoos himself must be either a criminal or a degenerate. Why, there are prisons where eighty percent of the convicts are  tattooed, and tattooed men who are not in prison are either latent criminals or degenerate aristocrats. When a tattooed man dies at liberty, it simply means that he hasn't had time to commit his crime.

The urge to ornament one's face, and everything within one's reach, is the origin of fine art. 

Visual Vocab

Result #1 from Google Image Search for the word "random"

Royal Blood, Part 1: The Devolution of the Habsburg Genealogy (the Habsburg lip)

from left to right-

Philip III: King of Spain and Portugal (1598 - 1621)

Philip IV: King of Spain and Portugal (1621 - 1665)

Charles II: King of Spain and Portugal  (1665 - 1700)

Much like pedigree selection in the science of animal husbandry, hereditary monarchies around the world adhere to a strict form of selective breeding. This is due to a belief that Royal blood is inherently superior to "commoner" blood. Thus, Royal bloodlines are painstakingly preserved for centuries by keeping the breeding confined to an elite few. But this form of controlled inbreeding among close relatives can have a detrimental effect on a gene pool (called "inbreeding depression"), which leads to some pretty horrific mental and physical disabilities. 

The Habsburg family of Spain and Austria provides a dramatic example. Generations of rampant inbreeding led to the development of an inherited deformity that became known as the "Habsburg lip". The "Habsburg lip" was characterized by a protruding lower jaw, which often led to difficulties chewing, speaking and keeping one's mouth closed. 

Philip IV (son of Philip III), suffered from prominent "Habsburg lip", as well as a difficulty in producing a suitable heir. In his lifetime, Philip had fifteen children with two separate wives. But most of his children were physically degenerate, and most died in childhood. However, the need to name an heir was absolute, and Philip had no choice but to hand the throne to his youngest son Charles II (son of Queen Mariana of Austria... Philip's second wife and niece). 

In King Charles was manifested centuries of tainted Habsburg genes. Charles' "Habsburg lip" was so pronounced, he was unable to chew food. His tongue was so large, he was unable to speak intelligibly. He was so severely mentally handicapped, he was never given an education or taught to read. By the time he reached his thirties, Charles' was fully bald, epileptic, and unable to walk. Towards the end of his 35 year reign, the Spanish people began to believe that he was possessed by the devil, and so Charles II became known as "The Bewitched". A marriage was arranged for him, but he was physically incapable of fatherhood. When Charles II died heirless in 1770, the Habsburg bloodline died with him. 

The progression of the genetic devolution is apparent in the Royally commissioned portraits of the three monarchs (painted by El Greco, Velasquez, and Juan Carreno de Miranda).  Though its safe to assume that the portraits are flattering to their subject, the progression of the hereditary deformities are clearly visible from generation to generation.