Every Sunday Morning, a place where various things get thrown out, shot at, cut open, and dissected. Topics of interest: psychological, and medical anthropology, privatization, globalization, excess, language, humor, hip-hop culture, jazz, brain and mind, memory, urban space development, Los Angeles, the Chicago Bulls, UCLA Bruins, FC Barcelona, and mankind.
Just when you think you have a unique idea, somebody else has probably done it before. We have about 500,000 years as a speices, 6000 years of documented or written history, across 25,000 miles of earth, with over 6.7 billion people on this planet currently. Assuming most of them have similar capabilities, there is an infinite potential for communication and expression which will also carry on its variations, somebody's bound to have thought what you have.
New technology tends to encourage new nodes of connections, which spawn new ways to interpret our culture and new complications.
While the internet has been up and running en masse for about 15-20 years now, at its root is a materialist and consumerist ideology: the idea that the internet user is there to passively seek information, conveniently do business, communicate with people on limited scales, and perhaps share a few tidbits and old things.
As I recall during the early days of America Online, chat rooms, and the enticement of online shopping, the internet did not exist to produce new information but really just to offer a new way to manipulate information. As with any technology, the internet was not there to produce anything new but to conveniently commence old habits from the paper and pen world --- just in a new way.
Now that the en masse internet is about ready to get its license and start driving, the en masse internet itself is developing its own habits.
We've had years of online messaging, almost a substitute for the phone, except for the fact that you do not hear a human voice. We've had years of message boarding where inside information can be exchanged between professionals and/or hobbyists on any particular subject from politics to sports. We've had a few years of social networking, where people connect and re-connect.
We've had years of peer-to-peer networking where music, video, and photo files would be traded and shared amongst people...to the chagrin of the Recording Industry of America.
We've had years of blogging where people share their ideas and have the opportuity to act as journalists.
We've had a few years of video sites, but those were restricted to people who could afford the webspace.
Enter Youtube. A medium that provides the webspace for people en masse to post their own videos.
Videos, which they could actually watch on site, on command, unlike traditional peer-to-peer networking where you had to know a subject before you consummated a download. They could just happen upon many more videos and variations based on the "related videos" tab. What's more is that they could post their own variation or interpretation of a video, creating further connection and investment in the site.
In addition to being able to watch video on site, they could make comments as if they were on a message board or on a social networking site. However, with some anonymity also the ability to make strong affirmations, rejectons, and even comment on other commentors themselves.
For philosophers, human condition thinkers, youtube makes new food-for-thought fodder as it did for this guy:
He talks about how new connections are to be made over youtube.
I was most intrigued by his notion of cultural inversion (30:34). In the videos uploaded, generally we want to express our individualism, independence, and popularity while at the same time we want community, relationships, and authenticity. We want to express how unique and popular we are, but we also want to belong to something and we don't want things that are full of crap --- the assumption that underlies popular things.
Youtube is a way of negotiating these different extremes. It is prime representative of the new internet with its own new habits. The Web 2.0. The Web 2.0 is a medium we use to produce things as opposed to simply communicating things from the "real world". It is the real world. It's the way we communicate.
With youtube, and other web 2.0 applications we have a new medium to explore and play, learn what connections can be made, and what connections can't be made in general social norms....
Which is kind of funny...
The connections that we can and that some video uploaders do make seem to be quite limited by Copyright law. Remixes unless by the original artist are illegal. Ripping DVDs are illegal.
Essentially, what youtube makes us is a society of thieves rummaging for answers.
The man in this video talks about how technology introduces new complications and ultimately changes law.
Patent law in the United States has always seemed kind of regressive in that they've let corporations dominate it, to the point where it seems to the average person that they're the ones responsible for progressive technology. They're the ones who've come up with every great innovation and invention --- stripping away the context and the authenticity, the knowledge of the common person.
Youtube encourages that knowledge of the common person.
For him, Youtube provides the ability to re-mix and re-make. The re-mix, the re-make acts as a form of literacy, a form of communication. This form of communication acts as a new way to conceptualize and re-organize the world...and perhaps spawn a whole new set of ideas. It's a collection of syntheses that can exponentially spawn new modes of thought. It's sort of like the effect of the shot of earth from a satellite photo from space...inspires a growing, ecological, interconnectedness consciousness.
The insensibility of copyright law is that everything restricts creativity.
It's ironic that a society that likes to call itself "free" in comparison to the "not free", and fight for "free" has such laws that
His end point: Lawmakers are not going to stop this tide of people taking things and re-appropriating them, the best they can do is label them as doing things "wrong." Like the lawmakers adapted to other modes of technology, they must reasonably adapt to new Web 2.0, user-produced content.
That said, here are my top 9 favorite remixes of various things from popular culture, mostly my childhood.
9) Doug Theme Song
Done in 3 speeds. A waste of time, but funny! The slow version strikes me as pretty funny to watch when high.
8) Renaldo Lapuz - You Are My Brother
I love this motherfucker. He is exactly the phenom that the anthropologist in the first video was talking about.
7) Super Mario Bros. Theme Song
A mellowed out version of the plumbers who eat shrooms and their theme song.
6) Inspector Gadget Theme Song
Kinda weird looking, but can't say it's a lack of skills. Flute and beatboxing.
5) Rihanna - Umbrella
I need to know her.
4) Curtis Mayfield - Move on Up
Simply awesome
3) Capcom's Street Fighter - Guile's Stage
2 and 1) Mortal Kombat v. Street Fighter
This was all video-game based. Obviously, the video games have never actually been merged, but some graphic artist took his time to show us what could be...in two parts! Storyline's funny, but I love seeing the action.
Title of the News Story: "Miami Ranks Lowest in Volunteering"
Leads off with...
"MIAMI (July 27) - Blame it on the traffic. Or the number of new immigrants. Or the allure of the beach. Whatever the reason, Miami has secured the bottom spot -- No. 50 among major U.S. cities -- in new rankings of the percentage of adults who volunteer."
Blame it on...the number of new immigrants for low marks in volunteering. It's interesting how you can blame a whole swath of people tagged "immigrants" in the same way you can blame inanimate things like traffic and your desire to go to the beach.
Then expecting only the finest of scholarly thought, I looked over at the comments section to see how they would receive this article, and sure enough the Rhodes Scholars came out for this...
"No suprise here. The fact that people in Miami do not volunteer is a preview of what the United States is rapidly becoming. Not a unified nation but a collection of a few major immigrant groups interested in enjoying our economy not giving anything back to the culture. And it isn't just Miami that's the problem. Nor is it just Hispanic immigrants. Many recent immigrant groups from Asia are equally self-centered. Kiss the U.S. good bye and welcome the new two class economic system."
"Florida might as well be a different country now. It has a different culture, language, and mind-set than the rest of the U.S. Hispanic organizations have said they intend to take back the lands once controlled by Spain. The Reconquista Movement. It's working. California has a record budget deficit due to social services granted to all people in CA. The burden of recent undocumented immigrations is bankrupting them. They'll have no choice but legalize them and bring them into the tax base. One way or the other they will regain political control."
"South FL is basically a different country and different world. On the outside it's money dripping - huge yachts, fancy restaurants, expensive exotic cars, expensive stores, but there is a huge underworld non English speaking people. When we've been down there I feel like I'm in a foreign country with very little English being spoken and if it is, is usually spoken with a Hispanic or Caribbean accent. It is a fun place to visit, but would NEVER want to live there!!
"Okay..here's the deal in Miami...they're are alot of young kids running around trying to live above their means cus that's what most of them do there. They are too damn self absorbed to think of others in need.Then you can add in the immigration situation. Those that come to Miami...typically from Cuba...are too busy trying to find work and make enough money to help their familes that are still in Cuba.The organizations that need volunteers should use a gorilla warfare type of advertising. Mostly at night at the clubs, or outside the clubs...you might actually get a bunch of kids that moved from the higher states in ratings and convince them there are stilll people in need there."
There's nothing at all in the content of the report regarding immigrants, but that won't stop people from using it as a platform to vent their racism! Those who write up this wire report tell us that we have their permission to blame them anyway! Nope, we don't need to have a reason to blame groups of people whom you don't understand, you can just sort of...do it. Pretty cool, huh?
Peculiar is even the images to hammer this not-so-subtle racism either.
Another brown illegal hanging his head in shame for taking an American job.
Compared to images from cities with the most volunteers.
Good ole Austin Texas with the 'Murrican flag.
The nice old white families in Portland Oregon.
Surely, you won't find immigrants tainting the American spirit in Austin, TX or Portland, OR.
What's interesting is the fact that economic and city infrastructure is not targeted for questioning at all, and probably has more to do with volunteering than anything else.
The city of Vice, a city of vices, and a city built on Disney World, NY. They all seem to be built on corporation-operated, thrill-seeking tourist attractions. The first three especially don't strike me as cities with tight communal, familial, and spatial networks, and therefore, they aren't afforded the opportunity to volunteer as much. I would think people volunteer mostly through opportunity and strong personal networks and communities.
by B.J. on 7/21/2008 06:38:00 AM
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Apparently, there was a Ghostbusters cartoon series before the ones that we know of today that call themselves the REAL Ghostbusters. There was a reason that they added "REAL" to the Ghostbusters that we all know and love, assuming that you all know and love the Ghostbusters that had Slimer, Winston, Janine, Egon, Ray, and Peter.
Check this the heck out:
Yeah, WTF.
An ape is one of the ghostbusters. Turns out that he's the scientific brains of the operations.
But it's theme song has been lodged in my hippocampus (look at me using neuroscience terms!) region because of its sheer ridiculosity. The monkey barking actually reminds me of this one Filipino guy on the Macon St. basketball court who would curl his lips into that "O" shape as if he were about to woof.
Someone had commented that its quirkiness in cartoon form was ripped straight out of the Scooby Doo. The monkey represents the scared non-vernacular-speaking, yet highly communicative, intelligent "animal." The human protagonists appear to be these quirks who operate on the margins of society.
The equipment they use is even quirky. Or at least it appears so because it doesn't appear that they even try to explain why they use those objects. They're too busy bouncing around and acting strange, which gives off this very all-around disengaging, disorienting feel. From the skull phone that would tell them their next mission to the humanoid bouncing carriage car, there was too many elements left unexplained to actually understand the storylines.
Though they may operate in what appears to be New York, they react to things defined as outside the city. Representative of its behaviorist antecedent (I always wanted to use that word), at the end they have some kind of explanatory lesson that can be gleaned from the events.
Despite their slightly marginalized status, they apparently had their followers and even took time out of their schedules to do PSAs:
An astute commentary on the appearance of drug dealers.
Well, this series seems to have been part of NBC's final attempts at showing cartoons before their dive into Saved by the Bell and other teen-oriented shows.
Now look at the contrasts to this:
The Real Ghostbusters is the highly institutional cartoon relative to the one above in more ways than one.
It's institutionalism is even embedded in it's logo. A strict crossing out of ghosts, as if it was a say no to drugs or forest fires kind of thing vs. the wavy, almost smiling ghost that you see in its predecessor.
vs.
The Real Ghostbusters is the most known and it brings out this highly authoritative feeling. Creators of this series did not portray them not as kooky, quirky outsiders but as these respected fireman-type heroes who actually did science.
Yes, yes, a double dollop of authority. Firemen as the go-get em tiger types and scientists who strategically and effortlessly planted words like "frequency", "plasm", and "proton pack" into my pre-pre-school vocabulary. They even had a secretary, of course a woman, to take calls.
The equipment they use is not weird at all. At least, I never thought to think how weird it was because they explained why they need to use each of their objects. Ecto-1 is a highly functional shaggin' wagon which Winston maintains which gets them to places. Proton packs bust ghosts. Put those punks in the containment unit, which actually is peculiar and would make them seem to justify the prison-industrial complex --- by taking care of these societal "problems" and packing them into an "airtight" scientifically inescapable portal.
But I won't go there. Yet.
The net effect of this Ghostbusters is that they made it accessible to anyone. Like the other Ghostbusters, they too operated in some type of firehouse in New York, except it actually felt like New York because of the many interactions with regular people.
What was interesting was that after that quote, he was talking about how the kids would be easier to control. You could make kids more obedient. You can flip a switch that would turn off the gay button.
I'm not sure how parents are reacting or if they actually are overmedicating their children, but I do know that all these chemical psycho-social "solutions" are more readily available than they ever were. I have to wonder how the human race has made it so far presumably without its help for over 2 million years.
Every and anything in this age of microbiological-pharmaceutical corporation growth can be defined as a "sickness" or weakness and then "fixed." But fixed seems to mean acting "normal". "Normal" in our context seems to mean "controllable." Oddly enough though, it's only the people in the extremes who we ever seem to acknowledge or talk about.
I've never listened, but judging from poster's comments, it'd probably be best to get to going on it.
To me, he is the new breed of fandom and sports journalism. A fan analyst. One of the boys...err...fans, but also capable of insight and perhaps even a dollop of humor.
Doug makes good and bad posts like anyone else.
He might be looked at as lacking inside information, but we all find out this information in peta-seconds after the rumor leaks. For example, right now, at this very moment, no one, including the ESPNers know the situation regarding the contracts of Ben Gordon and Luol Deng. The fans, the ESPN journalists are all on the same level.
He also might be looked at as a homer at first with nothing better to do, but with information available anywhere, combined with sustained postings and analysis on the Bulls, he can be a lot more nuanced in his questions to NBA brass than the average ESPN or TNT reporter.
What it boils down to is that he doesn't seem to be as controlled as the ordinary journalists. It's this rawness, this assumed authenticity is something that seems to appeal to a lot of these Web 2.0 internet users today. Summer League basketball in Orlando was sort of controlled by a mix of Web 2.0 internet users and fan-like commentary. Donte and Gallante seemed to generate a lot of attention just by commenting on whatever seemed to come to mind, and in the process responding to relatively unfiltered viewer-generated email. They had a running commentary on possible names for the new Oklahoma City NBA team, starting with the Bombers. Yikes! They answered questions about what someone should eat for lunch. Someone even sent them an email about possibly interviewing Dougthonus, who incidentally was at Summer League, to which Gallante responded, "he's probably that guy in the purple shirt."
They did not need to say much about the game. What they did in 2 days of "coverage" was much more entertaining than the entire veteran ESPN crew on NBA Draft Night or any other game.
Yes, it's just summer league basketball, and people talking through an NBA game might be a little different.
However, consider UEFA Eurocup 2008, the tournament for European teams in soccer which happens between every two years that the World Cup isn't happening. The tournament was covered by well-known soccer commentators, Andy Gray from FIFA 08 and some Scottish guy. However, what was peculiar was that they were not at ground level. They were at ESPN studios. They were seeing what we could've seen on TV ourselves. No special access to the players, and once they got back from the viewing room to make those in-game commentaries, they would go straight to the ESPN studio with some ESPN guy and Julie Foudy and continue their conversation. The only differences between those commentators and the average fan watching the tournament is that they were probably well-paid to give their opinions and they could indoctrinate on a mass scale.
Now in an age of digital television, an age where these basketball games are broadcast globally, and in different languages, with commentaries by people dressed in suits, but still as far from the game as we are...
...streamed to people like me who want nothing more than moving images of balls in hoops
...just as the newspaper industry is getting ripped to shreds and struggling to reinvent itself thanks in large part to the wide circulation of internet news (and probably environmental concerns as well)...
...just as TIME Magazine revealed that the person of the year last year was You...as in Youtube, as in regular folk person generated content...
...what is preventing fan-based sports play-by-play commentary from rising and supplanting sports commentary?
Yesterday, at about 7:30 PM Pacific Time, I get a call from one, Daniel Larson, Oakland native with the sailor's discourse, Leon Powe's classmate, future mother-fuckin' Golden Gate University Law school graduate.
He says he's in LA! Back from another year at Beijing. Just like he said on the facebook, but I rarely take anyone's promises seriously on facebook.
During his time there, he carved up a niche as an English language teacher. He went from university students to rich kids. He had enough money to rent an apartment and pile it on when he got here. He even got some of that live orange-tang. This motherfucker was living the life.
Then they tell him that they won't be able to renew his visa.
So he was here. First thing he did was go to the 99 cents store to buy a pair of socks and toothpaste. 99 Cents store is unabomber crazy ridic. Went to eat expensive-ass hipster Mexican food, with 'Yell putting his Negro O Modelo in a fuckin' wine glass. Then simmered down with a string of NBA Street 2 games.
Turns out the 'Yell is just one small part of a mass eviction. So I was basically chilling with a live-walking news story yesterday.
If he renewed his visa, it would've cost him $1100 US dollars as opposed to the $20 he usually paid. Somewhat out of range for a guy who got his money under the table and in cash.
Apparently, during the olympics people will now have to walk around at all times with their papers. Now that's immigration enforcement to the max. Kinda ironic that the borders are getting tighter at a time when they want to show their connection to the international community.
The rich international community.
This was supposed to be a big coming out party in terms of certifying itself as a cosmopolitan globalized middle-class burgeoisie-lifestyle and experience. Stadiums were to be built, new infrastructure and transportation was developed, slums were to be cleared.
But everything seems to have been sour so far: from the international torch relays being crashed by protestors to the fact that tourism is down.
Maybe it's my reactionary response to American media discourse, but I feel bad for Beijing in relation to the rest of the world cities who've hosted Olympics. Didn't seem like those other cities had to go through half the crap that they have.
by B.J. on 6/22/2008 05:34:00 AM
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"Dreams be the ashes burn thrashing in the wind flying from the burning bush flung from her fingers and it hung in the air in this moment of truth then it crashed into flames like the end of our youth." - Geo/Pro Brown, Blue Scholars
Michael Jeffrey Jordan.
The man when I was a kid.
Still the man for lots of other kids and men, but now he's just far and away the best player on the team that I like(d).
MJ was the equivalent of a greek god to me. The positive light to the endless tunnels of grade school. I imagined that he lived in a fantasy land where he could just almost magically make any and all things happen.
Then high school started, white kids and even some of the Filipino kids were brutal, MJ retired and un-retired, and I didn't have this hero to hang myself onto.
"...Crash into flames like the end of our youth."
Like a bad drug, 10 years after the second retirement, I find myself still addicted to the Chicago Bulls.
Along the way, I've been coming across the negative MJ files, mostly from sportswriters and fans who were adult when MJ was doing his thing. They knew what an ass MJ was, but I had no idea.
I knew he had gambling problems back then, but that wasn't hurting anyone but himself. He was a rich guy anyway.
His affairs with other women were the first thing to bring this humanness in MJ. As a player for the Wiz, he had already been slipping, but he still was a basketball legend.
The man is still overwhelmingly a positive force, but he's just proof that even positive forces have gigantic holes in their game. What am I talking about? What holes could MJ possibly have in his game?
The part about making players better. I can't believe how ultimately selfish and hubristic he ultimately was behind closed doors...or curtains. Sure, it got him 6 championships and 6 MVPs, and the title of "greatest player in the world", but it seems to breathe a lot of life into the American meme that you have to be an asshole to get results.
Maybe you are bound to a few asshole things in a highly time-pressured environment, but I can't believe that assholism correlates to success.
"You ever hear of a guy, six-eleven maybe and two hundred sixty pounds, a guy big and fat like that and he can't get but two rebounds, if that many, running all over the damn court and he gets two rebounds? Big guy like that and he gets one rebound. Can't even stick his **** into people and get more than that...Big, fat, fat guy. One rebound in three games. Power forward. Maybe they should call it powerless forward." - Michael ripping Stacey King a new one
"It's a hell of a lot easier to make Earl Monroe look good than it is Brad Sellers."
"You're an idiot. You've screwed up every play we ever ran. You're too stupid to even remember the plays. We ought to get rid of you." - Michael to Horace Grant
"If you [pass the ball to Bill Cartwright], you'll never get the ball from me."
"Now Emory Douglas, former minister of culture for the Black Panther Party, joins us in asking you to make a financial contribution so we can continue to provide meaningful access to the lessons of those who have come before us.
In January of this year, Emory Douglas came to the Library for the first time to facilitate an all-day graphic arts workshop for social justice organizations from around Los Angeles."
Much much later in the letter:
"At the Southern California Library, Emory Douglas is not an icon. He is our brother. His life and work are an important part of our collective struggle for justice. We are proud to call him a friend."
You know, I like the way this lettter is written. They do not objectify their person. He is subject amongst them.
An accomplished person not being held up as some holy, untouchable object, but as a living, breathing subject.
Something quite different than a culture of the objectification of relatively non-accomplished celebrities.
There was an article on Alternet a few weeks ago justifying the media's extensive coverage of celebrity lifestyle and gossip.
Essentially, the article says that celebrity gossip is a guilty pleasure from which insights of life can be drawn out. The argument was that there is value to celebrity gossip because it is where the people's interests are and it's really a medium where people discuss their values. It's not dumb; it's democratic because anyone can offer their judgment, their stories on a subject without being reemed for lack of knowledge. Talking about these celebrity stories are like a real-life modern-day greek tragedy full of interesting story lines, twists, and turns. Kim Kardashian, a living, pulsating Venus de Milo.
Celebrity gossip is where the people are and what they're interested in, but I can't get over the fact of how that this is all been such a construct. I am NOT trying to be an intellectual snob or some super-moral puritan who avoids all vices, but I feel like the media has so much power, it could bring light to so many other worthy things.
A commentor named Tom Degan on the website wrote:
"During the era of the Cronkites, the Murrows and the Severeids, our parents and grandparents had a pretty good idea what was going on with respect to affairs of state. That is no longer the case. The deregulation of the FCC a generation ago has had a dreadful effect on the American electorate. Think about it for a minute. A quarter of a century ago, CBS was owned by the Paley family. Today it is owned by Westinghouse - an arms manufacturer.
Why aren't the American people outraged by this turn of events? Because they've been so dumned-down since the dawn of the Reagan Revolution, they don't know any better. It's sickening.
Thank God for sites like AlterNet."
I do see value in celebrity gossip being a connective tissue for people, but I wish we would draw storylines on stuff that actually affects us. Stuff like the life of graff artists, or the fights to save rent control, or the drama behind the privatization of water. Why couldnt struggles for justice be the connective tissues, the addictive things?
What strikes me is that the news used to be a public service, but now its only objective is market driven and now practically all entertainment-related. I gleaned this from a Dan Rather interview on PBS.
He had this to say about news journalism back then:
"...the central thing that impressed me was their spirit of mission. They saw their work -- their life's work -- as something bigger than themselves. ... To do quality news of integrity in the public service. ... And that permeated the halls of CBS News. You could smell it, see it, hear it, feel it. The strongest early reaction was, what a powerful sense of mission these people have."
Its like the media is our moms and dads who threw out the vegetables, fish, rice, grains fruit from the diet so we could just have chocolate cake and ice cream all the time. Celeb gossip is a piece of that chocolate cake and ice cream. As the kids of these proverbial parents, we don't really know any better except that it tastes good, so we just consume it till it makes us sick.
Were happy to keep following these icons and use them in storylines to discuss with people. Were happy to hold these objects of discussion, these icons up as things to criticize, emulate, criticize, but ultimately as mediums to secretly admire and follow. It's as if these objects aren't people who eat, breathe, shit, and fuck like other people do, but walking statues to be watched. Obviously it's gotten to the point where magazines, TV shows, and uh...careers are being built on feeding this objectification.
This objectification is very appropo. We have objectives to meet. We have objects of desire. Object, object, object. We like to criticize and follow these other things, live vicariously these icons, these objects, things we abuse or worship. Celebs lives are those very objects, which the media has warped us into wanting and craving...objects.
Why don't we care much about...subjects? What do we do to live on our own subjectivities, subject to criticism both self and outside? What do we do to honor and care for the subjects of our lives, the people actually doing things you see everyday? What do you do for your moms, your dads, your brothers, your sisters, your friends?
by B.J. on 6/04/2008 08:10:00 AM
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"The pose of objectivity is always the first cover for ideology, as witness the experience of a certain "fair and balanced" news organization." - John Medaille, some guy on the History of Economics Listserv
Why does it seem like everyone on talk radio is a denture-goggling fucking moron?
The top 3 most listened to people on radio in America are good examples. Bill O'Reilly, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage. Old middle-aged white guys prone to bitching about people in socially and economically disadvantaged positions.
Michael Savage in particular is really annoying mainly in part because of his background.
A guy who lives in Frisco. Who went to Berkeley and Hawaii. A guy who posed naked in a picture with an openly gay guy. A former medical anthropologist. Everything in his background screams "tolerance." You would think his ideas in the popular view would be considered extremely tolerant. However, I have found them to be extremely not.
Instead, here we have a guy who now spews non-stop about immigrants, gays, Arabs, Muslims.
I wonder if he's just playing a big rhetorical trick on people. I wonder if he's not just a more serious Stepehen Colbert. You think he'd build some sense of solidarity with other loud mouths. But even Bill O'Reilly hates him.
I don't think O'Reilly, Hannity, and Savage are actual real-life idiots. They're getting rich off of their air time, their books, their products.
What bothers me is not their intelligence, or their views, or even that they're getting rich, but the fact these are the guys that America by and large goes out of its way to listen to.
Guess there's just something comfortable for a contingent of Americans in hate-filled, exclusionary rhetoric.
In all seriousness, these are my top 10 favorite females. For me, they all represent something more than just good-looking females. They are each a combo of aesthetic pleasure, intelligence, and strength --- usually relating to and reminding me of a component of my vida.
Before I spill my list, I urge you to read an article recently posted on Alternet. An article about the over-sexualization of our culture. Right here.
Kinda odd, since part of what I write seems like objectification especially in regards to Salma Hayek, Shakira, Mya, and Livia Andrade. Can't say that I'm completely "conscious" all the time, but the hard facts are that these are the women burned into my memory. If it's any consolation, I really really value what the top 2 bring to the media above anything else.
1.Alicia Keys
My boo.
Love her hip-hop, her curves, her smarts.
2.Norah Jones
Single-handedly responsible for my infatuation with Indian women early in college. Daughter of an honorary Banana Slug and world figure Ravi Shankar who performed with the Beatles.
Jazz and blues...country-simple living...seemingly simple person but with lots of complexity and ambiguity. Can't find a super-hot here's-her-ass picture of her, but whatever, it's all good. I love that she doesn't (or at least looks like she doesn't) try too hard at all.
3.Scarlett Johansson
All I can remember was her smile, her legs, and confidence in Lost in Translation.
She's been disappointing in every other context outside of this movie. She could be so much more. I guess I would describe her as the Carmelo Anthony or Tyrus Thomas of women actors.
4.Raven Symone
Love the fact that she's thick and has bags for days, and doesn't give a crap.
5.Salma Hayek
From Dusk Till Dawn.
OMFGGTFO.
The sexiest role I've ever seen played by anyone, ever, in the history of movie-making, play-writing, whatever.
Downside is knowing that the asshead director, Quentin Tarantino of course managed to get himself some of the action.
6.Shakira
This is how the female body is supposed to move. A collection of booty.
Shakira in a bikini.
7.Tea Leoni
When I lived in the townhouse and we used to watch a lot of TV, we used to buy TV guide magazines. The one below we had and we never tossed it into the recycling bin. It was just there.
I guess I looked at it enough to the point where the image burned into my mind. It was an image that showed how nice legs were supposed to be.
Later in life, I saw some Christmas movie with Nicholas Cage. She played his wife or supposed-to-be wife. That's when I noticed her face.
The most aesthetically-pleasing older woman ever.
8.Mya
Completely, utterly, fucking blown away by her It's All About Me Video when it first came out. Was shocked at the skin, the 'tude...wow...
ALWAYS being extremely sexy in every type of media I find her in. That's her goddamn job.
9.Livia Andrade
Other than studying favelas and futbol, she's got at least 3 of the reasons why I need to move to Brasil.
God. Damn.
10.Michelle Branch
There was really one FHM interview she did that really turned me onto her.
She talked about how most of her fans tended to be 12-13 year old boys, BUT, no one, in her own words..."NO ONE old enough to take back to the hotel."
I love the workings of that perverted mind behind the clean face, clean music, and uneven body.
Plus, I love the Game of Love. Was a good, clean, fun anthem for the Super Bowl and other events of 2004. But of course knowing what she thinks about sex too, she probably had perverted sensual images subliminally invoked into that song too.
It might represent reality, but what I think it is at least for me is one important metaphor: The game is a business, it's nothing personal, but it's what's most important.
Business, business, business.
Anything that happens. Business.
Not too different from folks in LA who sling the drugs, extort pushcart vendors, hold dog fights. Business.
Not too different from them Libertarian bitches who think markets solve everything. Business.
Not too different from people who want to privatize water. Business.
Not too different from defense contractors in Iraq. Business.
What I glean from the show is a metaphor that human life is pretty disposable when it comes to business. Human emotion is definitely packed into the business, but ultimately business is "rational" and doesn't show any emotion.
Business is ultimately about contract and compromise.
In this show, they live by this code to NOT snitch to the police. This business, the drug trade, relies a lot on secrecy, and if the police find out anything, the business is in jeopardy.
So the contract is...you don't snitch, you don't give any clues, you're fine.
But the problem is if you even give the inkling to the higher ups in the business that you are going to snitch, they acutally use the term, you become a "liability."
And that's what happened to Wallace. He became a "liability" in the eyes of that star- Macroeconomist Stringer.
Throughout the show, Wallace was showing his interest in other things other than the business. We just get the feeling that this kid could do more than just sell drugs. He was telling people how Hamilton was no president, he was playing with mind puzzles, he got sick after he saw a murder, he was taking care of a bunch of kids, and he was even thinking about going to high school.
However, none of that mattered because he became a "liability." And it came down to it, it had to be two of his closest friends disposed of him like he was an old Packard Bell computer that needed to be replaced. Wallace meant something for them, but in the scheme of business, he was just another pawn to be sacrificed.
Bodie, soldier of soldiers, and trigger puller, thinks he's all about the game till his buddy Lil Kevin gets it from a new up-and-coming drug boss named Marlo.
After Lil Kevin is killed, Bodie and Poot even take time to reflect back on the conditions that led them to cap Wallace. Bodie ultimately blames the boss, Marlo, the individual.
Bodie: Cold motherfucker [Marlo]
Poot: It's a cold world, Bodie.
Bodie: Thought you said it was gettin' warmer.
Poot: World goin' one way, people another, yo.
To no one's surprise, when Marlo goes to jail, he only thinks of himself as a "business man."
No matter that he ordered the hits on Lil Kevin, Bodie, Omar...and whoever else. Business. Only a part of business.
Ironically in his last scene of the series, we see that he can only resort to what he does best.
The business is a metaphor for a game.
People in the series and even in reference refer to what's going on as a "game."
If it's just a game, everything becomes disposable. You're only pieces to move.
They made metaphor to chess.
"Pawn can never be king, but if it moves all the way to the other side, he can become queen. But he ain't no bitch, the queen's got all the moves."
Not sure who made it all the way to queen in the show, because anyone who was like a pawn ended up dying.
It all came full circle when Bodie was about to die.
"Game is rigged."
"We just like the little bitches on the chessboard."
I am watching CBS now mainly because it was there when Stephen Curry held the ball for 8 seconds before passing it to some random Davidson white guy to brick a desperation 3.
CBS just finished talking about the Beijing Olympics and how their "state-run" media is firing back at "Western" media. Kind or ironic considering that CBS has an eye as its branded logo and a show called "Big Brother" is one of the linchpins to its success.
"State-run" has become a buzzword for communist. It's become the kind of adjective attached to the collective American patriotic amygdala for you to shake your head once again at a country like Venezuela or China.
But then in the report, there is room for CBS to have a bureau in that Communist state. What the hell is that? We've come to expect "state-run" meaning absolutely no-control, no-freedoms at all type of society.
What exactly does "state-run" even MEAN?
According to a wikipedia, the fact that things are state-run doesn't even have too much value anymore.
It's interesting that our media always labels countries like China or Venezuela with Communist and state-run. What's the mechanism behind that?
If they're brainwashed, then what exactly are we? How come we don't give our own outlets these adjectival labels as well? Like "conservative-controlled" FOX News or "excess-green-paper-driven" news outlets label of corporate/rich white person-run media?
In the American team sports that I follow both on TV and online be it the NBA, NCAA football, or the NFL, I see black, white, pacific Island, Spanish-speaking peoples emerging all the time. It's nice because I definitely didn't see much of that growing up, if at all.
Not seeing my culture, my people represented was the kind of thing that made me question why the hell I had to be Filipino. Why did I have to be a culture that no one's heard or talked about? Nowhere to be seen on ESPN. How the heck would I ever become famous or even get on a newspaper (where I wasn't being described as a murder suspect or an FBI wish list) with a name like I had? Delas Armas anyone? Could they even fit that in the back of a jersey? We used to joke that the last name Delespiritusanto on the back of a jersey would have to come full circle.
However, At least nowadays in sports, I'm seeing little trinklets of multiculturalism. More folks from different races and ethnicities in sports representing.
While that counts as a few steps forward, I ask myself what power do these people of yellow, black, brown-skinned identities hold?
When observing fans of all sports, I noticed one thing: people really really love the idea of the white guy as the head honcho, top dog, the leader. People will fight hard to have the white guy be the guy on top.
It's why a white guy like Kirk Hinrich, the Chicago Bulls' point guard automatically gets compared to players like Steve Nash, the NBA MVP and hall-of-famer John Stockton, despite not having any of their abilities AT ALL. Those guys were actually known for passing the ball, and making good decisions with the ball. Hinrich is known for dribbling around the basketball court, and panicking in the clutch. The man is nowhere near their class and basically has earned his prestige because he shares their pigmentation in a league where the pigmentation is generally much darker.
The guy is not even that good on this team. He's had his starting spot on the team saved for him ever since he's been a rookie --- he's the only guy in the Bulls backcourt who hasn't had to fight for playing time despite his lack of actual impact. Since he's not really that talented, people make stupid unquantifiable, highly subjective statements: "he's a 2-way player, he plays really great defense." Even more outrageous is that this guy has had one of the worst fall-offs, yet he's never involved in trade rumors or criticized nearly as much as his more impactful, higher-scoring, clutch counterpart Ben Gordon.
Ben Gordon is currently the team's leading scorer, despite being relegated to the bench, receiving a lowball contract offer, and being ignored on offense by Hinrich. However, when compared to Hinrich, it's his negative traits that are emphasized: he's undersized and one-dimensional.
The naturalness of a white leader is probably why people at Bruinsnation couldn't stomach the idea of a Norm Chow-Dewayne Walker-led team.
I think their distaste for those two as coaching candidates was not necessarily rooted in their race, but it seems that the fans at that site had a tendency to assume the worst with anyone outside of their fellow white folks.
Norm Chow, Chinaman, apparently had no personality to get the job done. They cited his lack of experience, wondering why a 61-year old Asian guy in a white and black league hadn't had a head coaching job despite having coached some of the most elite quarterbacks in college football history and having won a national championship. B
Because he was so old and still had no coaching experience despite those record book and national championship credentials, there HAD to be something wrong with him. There just had to be.
Dewayne Walker was a self-promoting Dorrell-holdover.
Together these two earned the derisive name "Choker."
No other coaching candidates (most of whom were even LESS qualified than these two) received such names. There was "Slick Rick", but that disappared once it was clear that Walker and Chow were being considered as coaching candidates.
Nothing personal against the new white guy at UCLA, Rick Neuheisel, I admit I like what Rick's been able to do so far as far as the working-togetherness of his hired guns and recruiting, but the same people who were pulling strongly for him initially balked at the idea of him becoming coach.
These people thought we had run a lackluster coaching search campaign.
It seems like they only really rallied around Rick Neuheisel NOT because he was a effusively qualified and overly strong candidate (he definitely brings that baggage of cheating with him) but only because he was NOT Norm Chow or Dewayne Walker. He was not the timid, stoic, cold white guy and he wasn't the self-promoting black dude who since he was black obviously was still attached to everything from the fired black coach.
In a twist of irony, when it was announced that Norm Chow and Dewayne Walker would be retained on staff, these same dumbass fans calling Chow and Walker, Choker were going apeshit over their hirings. They were most happy when it happened because in their own words,"it was Rick Neuheisel's choice" as if white people's choices are the only good decisions made. It was Rick Neuheisel's choice so it had to be good. Wonder what it would be like had it been the inverse in any way, with Neuheisel as a coordinator or something.
Funny how in this case like the case with Kirk Hinrich/Ben Gordon, they like to put people of color in specialized one-dimensional roles, but not leadership ones.
Leadership, colored people, never that. One dimensional scoring guard, offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator, as opposed to 2-dimensional player and head coach.
For years, people have talked about this issue, but it's probably been a "minor" issue or something just not talked about.
The paucity of black owners, black coaches, black quarterbacks in sports where the number of players who are black are high is not really a social justice issue, but I think it reflects some lessons about the way our society in the US of A works.
In general, it's become "natural" for white people to be "our" leaders. They need to be the decisionmakers because they're the ones with the experience, the education, etc.
What bothers me is that we don't ask why isn't that they're the ones with "experience" or why their decisions are better?
Without a white guy as leader, it's unnatural and odd otherwise, or so my dad implies when discussing how weird it is to have a president by the name of Obama.
"On a continent woefully short of electricity, 20-year-old William Kamkwamba has a dream: to power up his country one windmill at a time.
So far, he has built three windmills in his yard here, using blue-gum trees and bicycle parts."
"At first, we were laughing at him," says Agnes Kamkwamba, his mother. "We thought he was doing something useless."
The laughter ended when he hooked up his windmill to a thin copper wire, a car battery and a light bulb for each room of the family's main house.
The family soon started enjoying the trappings of modern life: a radio and, more recently, a TV. They no longer have to buy paraffin for lantern light. Two of Mr. Kamkwamba's six sisters stay up late studying for school."
"William says after dropping out of school in 2002, because he could not raise schools fees, he had nothing to do and grew an interest in reading science books…
He says one day while reading he came across two books, Using Energy and How it Works, which are about generation of electricity using a windmill."
People engineering, that's hip-hop.
(On a sidenote: It's interesting how the Wall Street Journal completely oversimplified what he did. They make it seem as if he picked up the ability to build windmills just by looking at a picture.
This is what happened according to the blog and straight from William's words)
"On a trial and error basis, he managed to make a small windmill which generated electricity enough to light his dorm. Seeing its success he planned for a bigger one so that his parents could benefit and some well-wishers gave him money to get some of the materials he needed.")
From my environmental e-subscription, this is what they wrote verbatim:
" Asian Cockroaches Could Aid Texas Growers (January 7, 2008) -- Most people see cockroaches as a terrible pest--with no redeeming qualities or benefit whatsoever. But to cotton farmers in south Texas, an exotic cockroach from Asia could be a highly beneficial insect for biological control. For several years, entomologists has been studying predators that feed on the eggs of lepidopteran pests of annual crops. ... > full story"
I love how they're called "Asian" cockroaches as if they could possibly be related to my cousins Piboy and Jun-Jun (and only my cousins Piboy and Jun-Jun).
To counterbalance their use of "Asian cockroaches", why don't say "most people see American cockroaches as a terrible pest---with no redeeming qualities or benefit whatsoever." Emphasis American.
Scientific discourse (or at least the one from sciencedaily) is just a mirror of real human relations.
by B.J. on 1/09/2008 12:49:00 PM
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"During the recent constitutional referendum in Venezuela, much was made of President Hugo Chavez's decision not to renew the license of a television station which had been instrumental in the short-lived coup against him.
Putting aside the multiple news outlets with which the United States meddled in occupied Iraq, these pundits also ignored that much of the media in Venezuela is controlled by Chavez's opponents.
While the opposition in Venezuela has been able to control the dialogue in its country and around the world, the opposition in the U.S. has had virtually no access to the media. While Venezuela's press has called endlessly for the removal of Chavez by any means lawful or unlawful, not one major news outlet in this country has called for impeachment hearings against either Vice President Dick Cheney or President Bush." - Robert Lee Hotchkiss, some computer science student in San Diego, LA Times' blowback article, January 9
We Hold These Rights Inalienable: the right to life, liberty, and the right to be Ignorant: Bridging Racially Ignorant and Racially Conscious
by B.J. on 11/23/2007 08:00:00 AM
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Nooses are everywhere nowadays. Not just in Jena. But also on teachers' office hour rooms at Ivy League schools. Sold at a store near you in New Jersey, Connecticut. Sold online. As Haloween decorations in a predominantly white neighborhood near you! Who says modernity has elipsed our good old fashioned family values? Were once again partying like its 1899!
People nationwide after the Jena 6 incident have been defending their right to display nooses when and wherever they want, particularly during the past Halloween season.
These latest incidents in noose-hanging are nothing but a platform for them to say what they've been saying since people of color first got civil rights in the United States.
Far as they are concerned, racism is over except for a few lingering isolated incidents and is actually instigated more by blacks. They say that blacks and liberals, and racial militants call everything racist. If asked to respond to someone they perceive as a liberal or racial militant, they counter that "racism is in the eyes of the beholder." They also complain about how society is so politically correct.
If you hear/read that someone believes that "racism is in the eyes of the beholder", for them they believe that racial militants will label anything racist. That statement is full of more bull than a carb-loading session before the Encierro. They think what racial militants do in noting racial incidents is arbitrary. They are generally skeptical when an act is argued to have racial undertones and racial implications.
To support this eyes of the beholder argument, they often speak of how complex it is to know what's racist and what's not.
With that perceived complexity in determining racism, it then becomes difficult for even the average person to know what wrongs they are commiting at any given moment. With that difficulty, it follows that they should just be absolved of any responsibility and most importantly that they don't get any of the consequences associated with doing something stupid.
So this is how they come to defend people who continually display their nooses as proud symbols despite the incidents at Jena, and Columbia University: they say those selling nooses and displaying them at their neighborhoods probably didn't know what they were doing.
In effect, ignorantly displaying nooses during Haloween was a way of getting a free pass for people to "express themselves." "Ignorantly" is the key word.
It's an effective way of breaking with what they perceive is a "politically correct" society. The logic goes: if you don't know that something is racist, then you should be excused because you just don't know better. I'm no law professor emeritus at the moment, but in any other field, if you don't know something, wouldn't it be considered negligence.
Following these types of comments for a while, even before these string of incidents, I've come to a realization. Those who argue for the freedom of expression by the noose-displayers absolutely hate the thought of being considered a racist (which I guess is a sign of progress).
I do think most of them do not want to be racist, but what they're fighting for in fighting FOR the free display of nooses is...the right to be ignorant. The right to be ignorant...of course without incurring any of its consequences.
There's an old saying that goes along the lines of "the less you know the happier you are." Elegantly stated this is the classic "ignorance is bliss" statement.
Ignorance in general is looked down upon, but in reality we all want it and think we need it as a form of release.
It's one of life's counterintuitive ironies at work...we want to be all-knowing, smart, and considered responsible but if that fails, in our less structured world outside of employment, we also want the right to let loose...to be ignorant stupid and irresponsible...without suffering the consequences.
Part of the appeal for non-stars like Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Nicole Richie, etc. is that it seems like they are allowed to act as stupidly and ignorant as possible and still get away with it. Most importantly they do it without much consequence, which is why it was so shocking and the same time, exciting for people to see Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie go to jail.
Plenty of Americans want to re-create part of that in their own vapid lives. They want to break away from all the information and understanding and caring. They want to break away from what they perceive is political correctness. Essentially they're fighting political correctness as part of a bigger societal need to just be ignorant.
Racial humor is one arena/space that fits this description perfectly: people can be ignorant and not care, and most of the time not incur any real consequence. Inherent in these incidents is that people want to feel something real, express something raw without feeling the consequences. They generally expect not to get called out. But when they do get called, they call people like me "too politically correct."
Whether it's printing up tired ass Busted T's t-shirt about Juan-on-Juan basketball or New Mexico being Cleaner than Real Mexico or displaying a noose these incidents are driven by a rebellion against the perceived politically correctness of society.
On online forums, millions of anonymous people can be as racist and stereotype as they want. Possibilities are endless. One look at an LA Times' online forum about immigration issues, homcide issues, would probably make you re-think your position of LA being some kind of hotbed of liberty, equality, and acceptance.
What promotes them to not care is that race probably isn't an issue for the people who so flippantly disregard incidents like Jena as child's play. If you think it's all in humor, consider that people probably think it's humorous too when they draw or graffiti a swastika.
For them race and ethnicity is not something that they are made aware of on a daily basis, so they can be as careless as they want. They actually once again puts them in a privileged position of being there only to make judgments, unless of course they get called out.
But for people of color who are likely made aware that they are different, that they are minorities, it's not so flippantly disregarded. By all means you can do it, but you're probably going to be called out for it.
As mentoned before, we live in a time and place of vast information exchange.
People use information to make decisions, including those people in power. We've learned in history how disinformation and stereotypes lying within power players and the public have continually hurt folks of color from gaining admission to schools, buying houses, and getting jobs.
People's perception of things count for a lot these days, especially when all it takes is a simple "bad feeling" about someone for them not to get a job, a house, a loan, etc.
We don't want people to be bringing these messages to people en masse: that it's OK to hang nooses, that's its OK to have racial stereotype theme parties, or even that it's OK to have these stupid ass orientalized, otherized, T-shirts. This is stuff that while you might get a kick out of, just reinforces people of color's less than human-ness.
We don't get much representation in politics and media, and it's disturbing that the only things that circulate widely is stuff that objectifies our cultures and distances us from other people. I really hope that fuckheads engaging in these kinds of acts aren't going to be decisionmakers, but it's inevitable that quite a few will.
We want to be seen as humans, eating, breathing, shitting, sexing just like you. The way people of color in this country have been disenfranchised has been through skin color (while another color has been promoted on that basis), and for liberal people our color, our ethnicity, our heritages are the the only thing that make us interesting in their eyes.
In all likelihood, those who did hang the nooses at Jena knew what they were doing, but they were secretly hoping that they get away with it. Their motivation is no different than various idiots who print Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts about Chinese people, Busted T-shirts who print other ignorant bullshit about Africa --- to fight what they perceive is political correctness so they can have their space to act ignorant without consequences. Only they want to do it at the expense of people of color.
All this is like kicking someone in the shin underneath the table during a meeting and hoping that you can get away with it.
If we are getting our shins continually kicked, how would you expect us to respond?
My beef with the blog is that while it is extremely informative, it plays onto people's fears because it gives incomplete information about whether victims and murderers know each other or not.
It's a blog full of victims. We read about is the victim's race, age, gender, where they were killed, and how they were killed. We read stats about how black and Latino males are the most adversely affected population. We might even read about how the job market correlates with homicide.
Unless commentors speak online, what we don't read about as often is a relationship a victim and a murderer might have had. We often don't read a story of a life; we read cold, dumb facts about cold, dumb murders. There are no positive stories of people doing anything to prevent anything in the neighborhood.
Not knowing these backstories, a fuller context, regardless of what's in the reporters' capabilities, make the murders seem like murders are randomly executed by people on people they don't even know. Apparently 77% of rape victims know who raped them, I wonder what that percentage is for murder victims. How much acquaintance murder is there compared to stranger murder?
Perhaps there could be better followups, more people assigned to cover stories, better police detail?
Not making these stories or these distinctions of acquaintance homicide paves the way for people from the outside and AWAY from those murders to disengage, stereotype, and label. It is probably this randomosity of the appearance of these murders, uncertainty that really scares people from the outside and causes them to make blanket comments about cutting off people's sources of livelihoods, like hip-hop concerts, parties, gatherings etc. The uncertainty imposed by a few whose own lives mirror that same uncertainty.
In a murder which has plenty of online responses, someone is almost ALWAYS bound to make a comment about personal responsibility like this one from a November 12th murder "Instead of people blaming the police, why was a 14 year old at this kind of party? This is a hallmark of the black community, blame the police for not doing enough, then when they do attempt to help, hold them at fault. Where is the personal responsibility for the parents, family, or friends of this kid?"
While there is reverance and a general sense of respect in the blogs, the dumbassery in some of the comments escalates, especially over the death of young teenagers. This comment was made over a 14-year old who got stabbed to death while the police and response team apparently did nothing to help him. Some commentors used the example of yet another black/brown teen as a springboard to offer all we needed to know to prevent murders: avoid hip-hop functions and listen to their anecdotes on parenting as if this would bring back the kid or that it would teach people a lesson.
In other words, people from the outside can make these big broad generalizations and recommendations because everything in the neighborhood is dangerous. The proof is in their google map of murders.
Left with just the facts of the place of murder, the time of murder, without questions as to why they were murdered (a concrete answer-seeking why) you can only make the same deductions and come up with the same answers.
To get a better grasp of these murders the questions should center around: how often is it completely random? How often is it acquaintence murder? How often is it on stupid young dumb male fighting over stupid shit like the way that x and x looked at x kind of violence? How often is the murder enacted in a whim? How often are these murders premeditated? How often the murderer is employed, has a family, etc...basically if they had much to lose? What was a victim gaining by being a certain place in time?
What They Need to Add to PBS Programming To Make a Better More Understanding World
by B.J. on 11/14/2007 06:28:00 AM
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[Originally posted one of my "other" blogs: deconstructthat.blogspot.com on December 19th, 2006 and now edited for the date above. The feeling that I got watching MJ playing for the Wizards is the same feeling I got posting on any other blog than this. The feeling I get watching you and whoever the fuck the other guy is the same feeling I get posting on any other blog than this.]
Daniel once said that PBS is a liberal white people's television.
I wasn't a big PBS watcher at all back then, but that statement has forever "colored" my view of the way I see PBS and I still believe in it.
We got BBC News, British comedies, the European Journal, Rick Steves Europe. I enjoy BBC News and the European Journal, but still even if we are finding out about other countries outside of the US, we still haven't put a face and/or story to people anywhere else other than Europe and North America.
Why isn't there an African Journal or Asian Journal or hell even an Australian Journal? (Well, maybe not so much about that last idea, but you get the point.)
Obviously, people would say there isn't any market for the news kind of television, usually as a lazy way to block it, but it's not like there's a market demand for stuff like Deal or No Deal, or American Idol. The producers just find a way to make it interesting and then create a market for it. Perhaps someday I could be part of that for real news, news about international, national, local affairs.
But back to PBS. Whatever specials/documentaries on other countries they do have, it's still quite distant-feeling. These specials/documenatries are neatly packaged into one or two hours, and try to cover ALL the customs/ways of life of one particular region. The participants still come off as "the Other." The Exotic. Humans, but not ones you can relate to. No one you're going to have a conversation with, you can hope wins or loses something, you can have a relationship with. We the audience get the outsider, sociological view of people, which usually does not have an en masse appeal because it's just more data for people to process, devoid of meaning and different from "us."
[Edit: P. to the fuckin' S.
I also REALLY, REALLY hated their one special that played a few nights ago... the Ultimate Resource...a neoliberal one hour diatribe on the benefits of capitalism around the world.
Saying that capitalism is helping people is like chopping off someone's fucking legs, and then telling them that it's a great idea to go and get a wheelchair]
by B.J. on 11/04/2007 05:57:00 PM
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Usually to prevent or buffer the tension after racial, ethnic, cultural incidents, employees undergo something called "sensitivity training."
I have a problem with this phrase for this activity. Why can't they call it something more rough and appealing like Getting-your-dumbass-educated Sessions?
I've never been through one of these trainings, but the name saps its importance and immediately attracts criticism by the same crowd who cries about the increasing "political correctness."
The phrase "sensitivity training" doesn't exactly inspire anyone to change their point of view because it doesn't sound very powerful or particularly enlightening. Makes it seem as if they're going to be at a park picnic table with flowers, over a cup of tea, talk, and learn the art of flowery ways of speaking. They're not going to have any important realizations, they are just going to be trained.
It's a triply tough pill for the hyper-testosterone politically incorrect-yelling rebels to swallow.
First the training itself, tells them to stop being dumbasses. Given what passes for news, I'm not sure regular people are ready to give up their right to be ignorant in public.
Secondly, the word "sensitivity" invokes feelings of softness. It's associated with femininity, which is associated with powerlessness. People are not going to want to or learn anything when they feel powerless or disempowered. In fact I think some people would be even emboldened to continue their ignorance or "insensitivity" after a "sensitivity training." It's their way to say fuck you to a training that in their minds practically threatens to chop off their politically incorrect kid holders. Males in general, don't really like listening to females. Males who hate political correctness definitely don't want to play what they think is a gender role associated with females.
Thirdly, the "training" part of the phrase exacerbates the problem. It's as if it's a rote activity to remember in case there's a test. It implies that you're only learning actions instead of substantial reasons behind the actions. The training implies you're not going to make any new revelations, which is probably what it would take to actually stop a way of thinking.
Taken together, "sensitivity training" implies a number of things. You will learn how to act, even though you still feel a certain way. On a deeper level you are being drilled on how to and what to feel. I'd imagine a self-proclaimed politically incorect person's instant response to a phrase like "sensitivity training" is that they're going to feel however they want to feel. In that sense they are right: You can never argue with yours or anyones' feelings. People will come in with a mindset already thinking that the way they feel about race, ethnicity, and other cultures is what it is and it's not going to be changed.
As a result, the content to be taken in during a "sensitivity training" comes off as something trivial and pointless, something people of many races can just get over to the convenience of the politically incorrect.
If this phrase weren't so disarmingly namby pamby, I'd bet you'd open up half the population to being more open minded about the training. If they framed it in terms of an education, I'd bet more I'd see more people advocating on its behalf.
I'd call it Seminars for highly evolved human beings.
Add me to your reading list.
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