Nice little interview with Ice T. My favorite part? When Belzer describes his reaction to Immortal Technique.
Thanks to what the fuck have you done for the link.
Category Archives: media
Google is going to sell your search data in a couple of days. Do something about it.
On March 1st, Google will implement its new, unified privacy policy, which will affect data Google has collected on you prior to March 1st as well as data it collects on you in the future. Until now, your Google Web History (your Google searches and sites visited) was cordoned off from Google’s other products. This protection was especially important because search data can reveal particularly sensitive information about you, including facts about your location, interests, age, sexual orientation, religion, health concerns, and more. If you want to keep Google from combining your Web History with the data they have gathered about you in their other products, such as YouTube or Google Plus, you may want to remove all items from your Web History and stop your Web History from being recorded in the future.
Filed under capitalism, learning, media, Surveillance
Puppets: more real than the judge
Channel 19 in Akron, Ohio was disappointed that it wouldn’t be allowed to take cameras into the corruption trial of Jimmy Dimora, a former county commissioner. But when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla: they bring the courtroom proceeding to their viewers’ TV sets by re-enacting them with puppets.
via Puppets re-enact no-cameras-allowed corruption trial on the nightly news – Boing Boing.
It is an interesting moment when real life is understood through fantasy. Situationists would call this detournement — to turn the medium around against itself. To corrode the ideas of those who continue to think about this idea. I bet a lot of people in Akron who talk about the corruption trial wind up including themselves in the ridiculous puppet world.
Even more powerfully, the puppets get replicated through the Interwebs, spreading the awareness of this trial far and wide. It is a brilliant response to court censorship.
I also think it’s worth mentioning the racist stereotype of Suzanne, the sex worker whose puppet pigment and willingness to take money make her a true prop in the story.
See. Even though I’m right, that sounds foolish. That is the power of detournement.
Filed under art, communication, media, representation
Margaret Cho on accountability and fat jokes
Things I could say should be left unheard and unsaid because I am not willing to be the bigger person. I do not take the high road. I take the low road and blows below the belt are my absolute favorite. The best revenge is not living well. The best revenge is revenge. My mouth and mind and typing fingers are weapons of mass destruction and I pity those ignorant idiots who would leave insults about mine or any women’s bodies in comment boxes because there’s ways of hunting people down. Lots and lots of ways. It’s not as anonymous as they think, as stupid as they are.
via Margaret Cho Rightfully Loses Her Shit.
Thanks Jezebel for the linque!
Filed under communication, feminism, media, representation
Juxtaposition: gun selling
Artifact 1:
Thirty-four people were arrested, mostly on suspicion of weapons violations, and 23 guns were recovered in a law enforcement sweep targeting probationers, officials said Thursday.
The operation Wednesday was confined to the area represented by L.A. County Supervisor Michael Antonovich, including locations in the San Gabriel Valley.
More than 250 officers participated in the countywide operation, including the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, the Los Angeles County Probation Department, the Pasadena Police Department, the L.A. County Department of Children and Family Services’ Multi-Agency Response Team (MART), and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
via Gun sweep centered in San Gabriel Valley nets 34 arrests – latimes.com.
Artifact 2:
Around 200 U.S. military personnel will remain in Iraq after this year, but only to administer arms sales and other limited military exchanges as members of the U.S. diplomatic mission.
via U.S. military formally ends mission in Iraq – latimes.com.
Filed under juxtaposition, media
Visibility of power: controlling the message on #occupy wallstreet
Thanks to Democracy Now! and MSNBC for unveiling the corporate lobbying group that has offered to the American Banking Association to undermine #occupy wallstreet.
According to MSNBC, the lobbying firm Clark Lytle Geduldig & Cranford sent the memo to the American Bankers Association and offered to conduct “opposition research” on Occupy Wall Street in order to construct “negative narratives” for a fee of $850,000. The memo advises the ABA to take the movement seriously, writing: “It may be easy to dismiss OWS as a ragtag group of protesters but they have demonstrated that they should be treated more like an organized competitor who is very nimble and capable of working the media, coordinating third party support and engaging office holders to do their bidding. To counter that, we have to do the same.” The memo goes on to warn the ABA that Democratic victories in 2012 would be detrimental for Wall Street and suggests the financial industry focus its energy on specific races that would lead to Republican elections.
via Washington Lobbying Firm Offers to Undermine Occupy Movement on Behalf of Wall Street.
In times of crisis, arguments about power become more visible. In this case, we get to see the generation of propaganda at the stage of inception and amplification.
Filed under capitalism, communication, media, propaganda, resistance
Mario, raccoons and suicide food
Nintendo’s new Mario video game apparently contains some animal violence. Humans, playing the game can kill a tanooki raccoon dog and wear it’s skin to get special powers. I’ll probably skip playing the game.
I thought the defensive reaction was pretty interesting.
While it is true that at points in the game, Mario dons a raccoon-ish looking “Tanooki” suit that enables him to float in the air and swat bad guys with his tail, he never slaughters an animal to get it.
Instead, as MSNBC’s In-Game blog points out, “the magical Tanooki suits that [Mario] wears in the game typically spring from magical squares that magically hover in the air. These squares magically give up the suits, (which at first look like magical leaves), when Mario bumps his head into them.”
via PETA takes on Nintendo’s Mario and his Tanooki suit – latimes.com.
This is an interesting take on the notion of suicide food. I’m not buying the argument that abstract violence against animals in the fictional world is any less significant because the realism has been distorted. In particular this is the slaughterhouse-as-magic-box theme. I think this idea only fuels the disconnect between eating meat (or wearing fur) and the killing of the animal.
Filed under Animals, media, nature, representation
Chris Hedges and Cornel West prosecute Goldman Sachs
Thanks to Glen E. Friedman, we have a little write up and video from Chris Hedges and Cornel West prosecuting a corporation in the #occupy wallstreet park.
This is the kind of street theater we need to see in cities all across America. In addition to marching and occupying public places, we need to explore creative and provocative ways to capture the attention of the media. In our ADD culture, we’ve got to keep things interesting. West and Hedges are taking a page from the Abbie Hoffman play book.
via WHAT THE FUCK HAVE YOU DONE?: THE PEOPLE VS.GOLDMAN SACHS: CORNEL WEST AND CHRIS HEDGES PRESIDING.
Filed under capitalism, communication, documentary, juxtaposition, media, protest, resistance
Google, the government and privacy
US law enforcement agents request more information from Google than any other nation in the world. Why bother to build a China-style firewall when you can just snoop on google searches to find naughty citizens?
Between January and June 2011, U.S. law enforcement agents made 5,950 requests for data about Google users. That was not only by far the highest reported total — India was second with 1,739 — it was a 29% increase over the previous 6 month period. So our government not only demands more information from Google than anyone else in the world, they’re continuing to ramp up these demands.
Filed under capitalism, media, propaganda
Propaganda of big soda
Thanks to consumerist.com for the alterered billboard image.
I gave up soda-type beverages a couple of years ago. I certainly enjoyed the carbonated, caffeinated little cans of wonder, but somehow I knew that they weren’t good for me. As a scholar of propaganda, I’m amazed at how similar the large soda manufacturing companies are to the large tobacco manufacturing companies.
The comparison is mostly that they seek to change audiences minds without letting them know that they have a vested interested in selling more soda. I’m not the only one who noticed this comparison. Kelly Brownell writes the following in Time Magazine:
The soda industry funds scientists who reliably produce research showing no link between SSB consumption and health. The tobacco industry bought favor from community and national organizations by giving large donations. In an ironic twist, Coca Cola and PepsiCo are corporate sponsors of the American Dietetic Association.
The soda industry hit a new low this year. In 2010, Philadelphia’s mayor and health commissioner had both supported an SSB tax and came within one vote of having the tax passed by the city council. In 2011, when the mayor made it clear he would reintroduce the tax, the industry created an organization called Foundation for a Healthy America, which gave a gift of $10 million to the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia for research and prevention of childhood obesity. Would the hospital accept money from a tobacco company to study anti-smoking programs? The hospital tried to give some of the money to the city to run obesity programs through city health centers, but the mayor refused on the grounds it was funded by the beverage industry.
via Kelly Brownell on the Dirty Tactics of Soda Companies | TIME Ideas | TIME.com.
Filed under capitalism, communication, media, propaganda
Life of refinement 