iMedia: The Media

Please take the time to consider the following headlines of various newspapers:

Newsweek: "Got Him!"
The New York Times: "Bin Laden Killed By U.S. Forces In Pakistan"
China Star: "乌萨马本拉丹是死"
The Boston Globe: "Bin Laden Is Dead"
The Examiner: "The Butcher of 9/11 Is DEAD"
Daily News: "Rot In Hell!"
The Sun: "Osama Bin Laden Dead"

The death of Osama Bin Laden has caused a huge phenomena across the world, and especially here in the United States. As The Examiner's headline recalls that Bin Laden is "The Butcher of 9/11," his death has symbolized a sense of security to the nation, allowing ourselves to retain to a certain degree of leisure.

Bin Laden has been and is still being referred to such titles as terrorist, hellacious, a heathen, and much worse, so worse I cannot censor the words even with symbols due to the vulgar profanity. This man has symbolized fear in our country, just as the idea of communism had once ran rampant in our minds as "The Red Scare." The media has influenced our opinions and alterations of ideas because one broad casted news cast is indeed a very powerful tool to utilize in order to spread a message. If we recall the Egyptian retaliation or the people's attempt to overthrow Mubarek months ago, the Egyptians were hopeless beyond communicating in person because the government had shut down all types of communication to restrict access to one another.

That speaks a lot, for it seems technology has come to have evolved with us. Without access to the internet and telecommunication, it may very well restrict our ways of communicating, a necessity in today's day and age. Our standards of technology has changed so dramatically, Egypt had suffered difficulties, or restrictions throughout the strike.

Of course, we are heavily dependent on technology and the media, at least the majority of us are. However, is it really our prerogative to follow along with whatever the media says? Well no one else is going to bother competing with major news stations because they are all competing within their corporate system. The truth does matter, however sometimes the media is able to give false information about something for they can get away with it because they'll know most of us are going to believe it anyways. What I'm saying is that it seems we must somewhat give ourselves up to what the news has to say.  Well how can that be justified? How do we know certain things are true and untrue?

It's scary how the media is able to do this. Citizen Kane epitomizes this stance for Charles Foster Kane ruled the newspaper business and people allowed themselves to sink into this information, regardless of truth or fiction. Even the Nixon v. Kennedy debate, the first debate to be broad casted on national television was heavily dependent on who was the better speaker. Today, anchorman and woman and reporters, actors, actresses, and many others have mastered their appearance on television. It is quite difficult to see through the truth when they talk as if they were a natural. Our focus on mess-ups and cock-ups on live television has created a new focus on things. Go on YouTube and there are hundreds, if not millions of views on people messing up on live television. This is where our focus is going to!

Here are two examples:
1) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trf6Y_5brsk&feature=related

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9IC7njYYc

So what the hell does this have to do with Mr. Osama Bin Laden? Some say it's a conspiracy that the government announced his death to appease the nation. I am not at all advocating this but some evidence are clear and reasonable to actually be found true or likely. I felt like Osama Bin Laden was a huge focus projected through the media, and even if it weren't, it'd still be a big deal. I felt like I had to exemplify his infamy to prove a point, one that isn't too clear. Hence, I am just trying to explain how the media influences our culture and many other things that contribute to our modern day society.

Blogging Around

Matthew Shancer
Best of Week: Restaurant Sustainability

Matt shares some of his interest in Addie Lord's presentation on a man who owns a series of restaurants and found the food industry to be the most wasteful, and it galvanized him to think in a certain way, to help reduce waste, at least his own. Time, space, effort and waste. These are the four vital wastes that Matt mentions, and the ones he wonders about to make things better.

Comment - Matt, when I read this, I thought it was interesting too. I wasn't there for Addie's presentation, but I can surely agree with the fact that the four waste factors, Time, space, effort, and of course waste are all very wasteful, for it can relate to me, or anybody in that case. It made me think a little, then I also wondered if I could start improving the things around me by applying these four things and keeping em' in mind.

Julie Lee
Best of Week: Water Shortage

With only 2.97% of fresh water inaccessible, people don't realize how limited we are, as Julie says in her blog posting. She refers to Marina Nikolic's TED Presentation, where she talks about the scarcity of fresh water and her experience in Serbia. Julie also shares how she, like many other ad myself, exploit the use of fresh water as well.

Comment - I think it's interesting how you learned about water conservation in AP Environmental. It is true how we exploit the use of fresh water, even though there is very little of it. If we consider how much water we use in a day, the numbers can be catastrophic in reference to how many people brush their teeth with the water running and how many people make copious flushes after utilizing the toilet. In essence, I do the same, and it's all in the habit. I can only wonder if we all put in the effort to alter our habits, how much water can be saved. This posting really got me thinking.

Best of Week: Consilience

This week, we concluded the first half of the "Consilience" essay by Sir. E.O. Wilson. To be honest, I had no idea where this essay was going, due to the wording, terms, and his various outside sources. As I read this essay, I had a tendency to think too hard and digress from what I was thinking. I had no idea what "Consilience," interpretation, or what the title of his essay meant.

Reading it a second time with a dictionary in hand, it seemed a bit easier to comprehend his vast word choice. It made sense that how we as humans have evolved in such a way. When we discussed the essay in class, it made more sense, for what he was trying to say was that art and genetics come together. Wilson sees postmodernism as a "deconstructive philosophy," while stating art comes from human nature for there is a point where it all connects together, referring to the connecting the dots idea from class. His ideas carry out to be a thorough explanation of his interpretation of how humans and art come together. This made me think, doesn't art come from humans? Didn't we interpret this idea? As we went more in-depth - into the essay, his explanation of the Picasso effect and claiming creativity made some logical sense, seeing ourselves all around us. I began to think of how brilliant this essay was, as he over-exaggerates interpretation.

So I got the big picture, great, but did I really understand every detail of his essay? Not really. I don't think I can unless I study it day and night. But the thing is that, I understand what he's saying. I was able to connect the dots and decipher his idea, raveled up in his mischievous vocabulary. He says that "the arts are eternally discursive," and I can relate to that because it's always changing. If there's modernism and post-modernism, there'll hopefully be a neo-modernism or something like that, exerting another idea of the arts, a different perspective. Although I sort of disliked "Consilience" at first, I can really connect to what he says, as if I can have a conversation with Wilson over a cup of coffee. This is why Wilson's essay is my Best of Week.

Wilson, Edward O. "Chapter 10 - The Arts and Their Interpretation." Consilience: the Unity of Knowledge. New York: Knopf, 1998. 230-59. Print.