[ culturologist.com ]

Following up on Nas’s video on FOX, comes these two clips on a America’s Next Top Model contestant born a man, now a woman,

check it out:

MyDeath Space Video

Check it out:  http://www.cbs.com/latenight/lateshow/live/index/php/963405.phtml?play=1

New song by NAS, talks about the Fox channel in “Sly Fox” and the fact that media is “misleading ya…” interesting to see and hear hip hop culture which usually has the pulse of youth and music…warning listeners to beware of the media and hype….

Media literacy comes in all forms

Remember that line from Twilight Zone: The Movie? I was reading blogs and news items on the net today and came across this video: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/02/palins-church-may-have-sh_n_123205.html

It is beyond my comprehension that this woman has been nominated to fill McCain’s shoes if he drops dead in the next 4 years. The Republicans are screaming the media is left wing, the Democrats are screaming it is right wing…but the reality is that a world power, to have this type of person represent it…wow.

This does affect Canada and the rest of the world. This woman exemplifies smoke and mirrors politics at its best. The media obsessed on her daughter’s pregnancy…this is not the obsession it should have.

The woman has a bachelor’s degree, has never traveled, and is declaring that she answers not to her family, herself, or even to her job as governor of Alaska…but to jesus. This frightens me…the turn to fundamentalism of any time is a turn back to pre-modern times.

Looking at all the signifiers of media from the Canadian venue…mostly American…reporters covering the DNC, now the non-RNC, Hurricane Gustav…wondering where Canada comes in?  As much as the Southerners affect the lives of Canadians, I am concerned that we continue to loose the maple leaf within the larger behemoth which has led much of the world into war, economic depression, and anger.

And looking up…will it come to pass that a Black man will become President of the US?  I am not convinced that the Americans are indeed openminded enough to truly consider this leap into the postmodern era, and that somehow, the senile old man the Republicans have trotted out will actually win–accompanied by the pitchy voiced, screaming, gun-toting, anti-feminist candidate from the far North.

Images, signs, sounds…all mediated for us by biased news media–a media who determins just “what we should need to know” and “how we should know it.”  The hegemonic forces of the North American (mostly US) news envelope us into an audience compliance which is seriously disturbing…Followed along by the “entertainment” images of Hannah Montana modelling just how little girls should be, and the Jonas Brothers and their faux-chastity vibes.  Do kids have any chance of making up their own minds?

What do you think?

so, great class…fun, open, informed, and participatory…very cool for a summer class.  it is amazing how much media is in our veins…our students’ veins…our consciousness and formation of our knowledges.  it is hegemonically in the dominant culture’s interest to keep us media illiterate…perhaps that is why media literacy is not on education syllabii, in core curricula, and on our radar.  how different would a critical media curriculum be?  we would not have to alter our content, merely add another lens in which to read media. Freire advocates us to teach our children and youth to read the world–that reading the word is not enough–being functionally literate is still being culturally illiterate.

and so we begin two weeks exploring the effects of media, and critically understanding the multiple meanings in a mediated society.  i am looking out the window at a large Chevron filling station in the middle of the bay…a signifier of corporate consumerism even in the water…that is a symbol i remember from my childhood, laden with red, white, and blue, the gas company remains an american icon–i am interested in your symbols, the symbols of our students…what do these symbols mean?  how do they inform our consciousness?

in the language of Mike Myer’s Linda Richmond….discuss

Ok, great weather…found a music station on TV featuring a Reggae Christian band, Ganja something…watching MTV Totally Gay after schlepping around the redlight district wondering how much I would have to be paid to stand gyrating in a window???? Men seemed especially skanky today, especially the ones hanging out of the hotel windows with bunkbeds in the background. go figure…Hemp museum was a bit scant, feeling somewhat taudry today. On the whole better dressed people, a bit more trendy, and the calf muscles are amazing on the population who is obsessed with biking–we should be so healthy. However, met by a huge fiberglass statue of Ronald McDonald in the airport, first thing we spied…many more McDonald’s in the past few years, that is the most Americanized portion of Dutch culture I have seen.

Do you remember when we used to sing that as kids, and thought we were saying a dirty word? So, off to The Netherlands, Spain, and Spain again, this is the good part of writing and teaching. Wonder if the Dutch kids consume as much as North Americans? Is Hannah Montana big? Paris? Lindsay? These questions haunt me…

Glad to get off North American soil for awhile. Been a long month. Ironic that someone who teaches media got hacked, and identity stolen from my personal email. Huge ramifications, the reality is once someone poses as you, it is hard to convince them that it wasn’t you, even with police reports. Would like to hear from people who have had cyber identity theft in regard to personal relationships (not bank accounts).

Will write from a cafe.

Today I am doing a couple of taped segments for Todd. One is on mydeathspace.com…a website dedicated to the dead. The owner of the site is Michael Patterson, who claims he created it to record deaths, and to prevent drunk driving. I am not all that sure it is as civic-minded as he claims. Patterson charges $34.95 for a premium membership which enables one to learn about deaths 24 hours before the public web readers.

Facebook has groups dedicated to the dead, created by the living–memorials to those who are gone, with blogging and letters to the departed. Often cellphones of the dead will hold late messages to the dead guy telling him or her how much they are loved.

I think there is a fetishization of death and mourning in our society, as Joe calls it, a neo-shrine created to those who are gone. Somehow I think cybermourning is the inability to acknowledge the death of someone…like he or she is now residing in cyberspace, it is easier to accept the death.

unless the internet is down

Interview today with Todd Van der Hayden at CTV Montreal: Todd is interested in Hillary and if being a woman affects political status. Well, as a non-fan of Hill, I talked about her being a legacy politician…in that had she not been married to a previous president, she would have never been a candidate. I believe she is an unlikely candidate in any other circumstance. Honestly, would she have stayed with Bill after the Monica disaster, if he hadn’t had political designs? Cynical, possibly–but if she is the strong woman she is painted to be, no way would she have stayed with him. So, we have Golda Mier, Margaret Thatcher, Corazon Aquino–lots of strong women, not all elected (some chosen by parties)–nothing from the US. Female Americans have had the vote for 88 years, and finally a woman is running–but is she the right woman? Why not Diane Feinstein, Barbara Boxer, Maxine Waters, Olympia Snow…or the late Ann Richards–Hillary is not that caliber of candidate. So, yes…she is a legacy candidate..

Bush 2 was a legacy candidate…what a country, money and a name gets one elected, not capability. Maggie Thatcher didn’t use Dennis to become PM

Some current female leaders:

Philippines

Switzerland

Liberia

Chile

India

Argentina