Sox are Champs of the World!!!

It's fall and the Sox rule! For the first time in 88 years we can say that and with new pumpkin-related technologies, we can display excellence in gourd fashion. Muchas gracias to the great Levi of baseballrelated.com. Check it out. It's good for you!

First Cookie Monster, Now This!

As if the idea that Cookie Monster had to back off of carbs to set a positive image for obese American children was not sad enough, now Spongebob, Dora and President Bill are in on the act...

Bill Clinton is teaming with SpongeBob SquarePants and Dora the Explorer in a campaign to nudge kids to eat healthy foods and to get up off the couch and move, the former president and Nickelodeon television executives announced Thursday.

Depressing.

Fomer Marine PR Guy Joins Al Jazeera

I thought this was just too interesting to ignore. So here you go...

Is he a modern-day Tokyo Rose, the nickname GIs in World War II gave to the womenthey heard on Japanese radio trying to turn them against America? Is he a propagandist set to tear down the country he once served? A collaborator aiding the enemy?

Rushing, 33, has taken a job reporting for a new channel for Al-Jazeera. That's the Qatar-based network that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said is "perfectly willing to lie to the world" and has "a pattern of playing propaganda over and over and over again" for its 50 million viewers, most of them in the Arab world.

Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly branded it a "propaganda network ... bent on encouraging violence and sympathetic to terrorists." And Iraq's new government temporarily closed the network's offices in Baghdad, saying that Al-Jazeera incites insurgents by showing video of attacks and statements from Osama bin Laden and his deputies.

But Rushing, who will appear on a global, English-language news channel the network hopes to start by spring, considers his decision to work for Al-Jazeera noble, not seditious. "I've given my entire adult life to the health and well-being of this nation," Rushing says. "I wouldn't do anything to threaten that.

"What the Marines trained me to do was to represent the best of what America stands for to a foreign audience. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

And if you saw Control Room the whole thing is even odder. Truth stranger than fiction, indeed!

Sox Win The Pennant!

At least it aint the Cubs. Ozzie Guillen is a minor deity, though I fear there is Major Karma to pay due to Jerry Reinsdorf's cancellation of the World Series in 1994. And Jerry, don't deny you did it... you did! Garland, Contreras, Konerko, oh my! If only Big Frank could get healthy and they could turn the outfield of US Cellular Field toward the downtown, all would be perfect. And Shoeless Joe, you can lift the curse now.

Articles about Internet Control... The US don't wanna let go!

I thought the following portion of this article was interesting...

A senior U.S. official rejected calls on Thursday for a U.N. body to take over control of the main computers that direct traffic on the Internet, reiterating U.S. intentions to keep its historical role as the medium's principal overseer.

"We will not agree to the U.N. taking over the management of the Internet," said Ambassador David Gross, the U.S. coordinator for international communications and information policy at the State Department. "Some countries want that. We think that's unacceptable."

Many countries, particularly developing ones, have become increasingly concerned about the U.S. control, which stems from the country's role in creating the Internet as a Pentagon project and funding much of its early development.

Well, geez, let's see, what would be the counter proposal? How about International control...

EU spokesman Martin Selmayr said a new cooperation model was important "because the Internet is a global resource."

"The EU ... is very firm on this position," he added.

A stalemate over who should serve as the principal traffic cops for Internet routing and addressing could derail the summit, which aims to ensure a fair sharing of the Internet for the benefit of the whole world.

At issue is who would have ultimate authority over the Internet's master directories, which tell Web browsers and e-mail programs how to direct traffic.

Well, this ought to get interesting. More on this later....

Gas Prices Makes More Mass Transit Riders Out of Us After All

I have an interest in mass transit that goes beyond curiosity... it borders on a minor obsession at times. Mainly trains since buses just don't do it for me. But put buses on a power line and I get all excited. I don't know why, something that has to do with my childhood I am certain, but this isn't the time for that. It turns out that in a town where we are supposed to get trains in the ever distant future, perhaps $3 a gallon gas may quicken our demand after all. In places like Dallas and Losa Angeles mass transit ridership is up...

In Dallas, an increase in ridership in the past month on DART has resulted in "incredibly creative parking at some outlying stations," and the service received a growing number of complaints from motorists demanding to know why the system doesn't serve their destinations, according to DART spokesman Morgan Lyons.

The Trinity Railway Express, a commuter rail service between Dallas and Fort Worth, has benefited even more from high gasoline prices, posting a 15 percent increase in ridership so far this month, Lyons says.

In famously car-addicted Los Angeles, ridership on city buses and subways jumped 7.82 percent in August, while ridership on the Metro-Link, the regional commuter rail service for the metropolitan area, rose 6 percent, the largest monthly increase since last November.

15% and 6% increases... that is meaningful and let's hope that we begin to realize that we need zoning that demands density, a return to car pools for commuting and every metro area needs an adequate light rail system. And as the song goes, some may say I'm a dreamer, but I am not the only one...

Nano Nano - Pogue Goes Batty Over New iPod

David Pogue, the NYT technology columnist went nuts over the iPod Nano this morning in his review. While skeptical, there was one part that really struck me...

What's so clever about the iPod Nano ($249) is that it merges these two approaches. It contains memory chips, so it's dazzlingly tiny - 3.5 by 1.6 by 0.27 inches, to be exact, about the size of a folded playing card and thin enough to slip under a door. Yet because Apple stuffed it with four gigabytes of memory, it holds as much music as some hard-drive players - more than 1,000 songs. (Apple also offers a $199 model with half the capacity.) Because it contains no moving parts, the Nano is less delicate than full-size iPods and virtually skip-proof.

Did you catch that last part? "Skip proof". Wow, now that is appealing. Coming from a professional klutz, getting four GB of hard drive that doesn't include moving parts is amazing. I'm still thinking about that 60GB model, but that is damn tempting. Besides, I think 1,000 songs around my neck is more than enough... well, ok, maybe I do need 15,000 songs...

On Playlisting

Ok people, I wrote an article for Flow last week and here it is. It's on "playlisting"... kind of... well, you'll see.

New Orleans

I have tried not to blog about this, but I am so depressed about what has happened in New Orleans. So many, so much has been lost. The many... so poor and so stranded, so powerless. The first lesson I learned from my fourth grade chess coach was "mobility is power" and so many who remained to slowly drown and starve were those who live paycheck to paycheck, take public transit, have no credit cards to charge and no friends who can loan them the money to even take a cab were simply powerless. Not stupid, not arrogant, just without the power to move when they could. That we, the US, who knew the storms were coming and the levees unfinished did not help them move shames me.

And so much more could be said about poverty and it is. For now I simply want to note that New Orleans is not just a city, but a cultural treasure whose value is not measured in the factories it no longer houses or the money it no longer makes in exporting goods. Rather, it's value is historical and cultural. It's the birthplace of jazz, the city center of cajun music, the close relative of rock and roll, a cradle for hip hop and one of the most active center of rhythm and blues culture in the world. As Ned Sublette states in the Village Voice, "The destruction of New Orleans, from a cultural point of view, is too awful to contemplate." He goes further...

If you're only looking at it from the rock and roll perspective, New Orleans is a fundamental city in the story. In 1949, Dave Bartholomew, who I hope evacuated in time, led the house band that backed up Fats Domino on his first hit, "The Fat Man", and became the first professional R&B studio band, the forerunner of the kind of thing that they would have in Motown. Singers like Little Richard, Lloyd Price, Ray Charles would come to New Orleans to play with this house band. Many of the first R&B and rock and roll classics were recorded in New Orleans.

You cannot abandon New Orleans. You can say that New Orleans has no viability as a business or industrial city. But if our history and culture as a nation mean anything, New Orleans is central to it. And if we can save New Orleans--if we haven't lost it already--it has to be put back and saved right. If we can somehow turn around the hateful direction this country is going in, and really save and fortify New Orleans, and really show the world that we as a nation can save our own cities, that our concept of homeland security means something, then we can be proud of ourselves. Right now we can't.

We're not only watching history disappear. History is watching us disappear.

End of Six Feet Under, Beginning of School

Ok, ok, school begins on Monday and I am looking forward to it. In a weird way, even though I know it will be exhausting, I know I am looking forward to the schedule, the students, my faculty brethren and sisters, and, of course, learning. I dig the classes if only because it drives me deeper and deeper into these subject areas. The benefit of repeated teaching means that you begin to understand your work in new dimensions. When the work is substantial it blossoms with each petal offering us something new and different, but the same as well. It's hard to explain but it's one of the reasons that when I teach a class that I have already prepared I still get a bit nervous. The truth is you think you know, but you know better and you never really do. More on that throughout the semester.

So as I told one of my colleagues, the end of Six Feet Under pretty much made me feel like I was suffering some sort of TV-induced form of post traumatic stress disorder. For about two days I walked around feeling as if I had just lost a best friend. That show, more than any other, crawled under your skin because of its messiness. It's not for the faint of heart. The show begins with death, ends with death, and in between there is joy, struggle and suffering. Lots of suffering, mainly spiritual suffering. Families can do that to you, you know. And if your family is dysfunctional and runs a funeral home, well, you get the idea.

Still, what does it mean to lose a favorite serial television show? The loss of a predictable part of modern fiction is something I haven't really thought much about. It's presence, yes, I get that. It helps us mark time, it gives us a narrative through which we can understand our lives in some sort of form of "parallel play", etc. But what happens to the audience when it ends? How does it feel? How should it feel? How did Dicken's readers feel at the end of each of his serial stories? What do Star Trek fans do every time one of their shows are cancelled? Is their a grieving period? Is there supposed to be one?

It's Showtime... Almost!

Summer's almost over and I am looking forward to teaching. Yeah, I know, no one believes this. I didn't say I was looking forward to grading, I said teaching! That said, I am finishing up some stuff around the house tonight and a good friend is coming into town, so I hope to get in the double feature at the Studio 35 tomorrow and break out the DDR.

Ok, here's the deal... the last episode of Six Feet Under is on Sunday. Can you say, "must see TV"? Good. Love it, learn it, live it.

Hey, hey, we're the Gorillaz!

Yep, go go Gorillaz! I would have to say that my second favorite CD of the year is Gorillaz' Demon Days and the latest Wired interviews Damon Albarn about his Cartoon band. I won't say much for now other than this is the best extension of Warhol in pop music since Don Kirshner and his Archies... ok, I always loved The Monkees more (the most famous Kirshner project) and, oif course, the connection between the Kirshner band is clear. will write more about it later, but let's just say that when it comes to pop these days there is something going on between me and my monkey, indeed!

Yes, a Good Anti Effects Study Essay

Not a big fan of "media effects" work for so many reasons, luckily this essay gives you ten good reasons to really question this work.

There is So Much to Share

It looks like I am going to have to teach a seminar on gaming at a 400 level and I am thinking about doing one on social action, in particular something that works to produce a game on homelessness. I am not certain what that would look like, but it may be like "The Sims", but we will see.

Heck, I learned about Red vs. Blue and My Trip to Liberty City. But that's only the beginning of what we are doing. Among discussing theory and the like, the most interesting the are doing is playing games, of course. The website will be coming soon!

Digital Gaming Seminar!

Today I am at NITLE at this year's media studies seminar, which is on Digital Gaming. I am really looking forward to dealing with this issues of gaming, not only in XBOX and PSP land, but also how to use gaming in other places such as SimCity in the Urbanity class. For myself, I am wondering how to think through the issues of material culture and popular music, but others as well. I may teach a class on gaming in communication, but it would be from rudiments to "complexity", but that is all relative. Anyways, we will see how this works in teaching in media studies/communication. So, interested and, of course, looking to play!

News from the BBC: American Journalism is the Laughing Stock of the English-Speaking World!!!

The BBC, arguably the best newsservice in the English-speaking world, has this to say about our missing-white-woman-obsessed media...

Since the teenager went missing after leaving a nightclub on 30 May her picture has stared out from newspapers, while TV bulletins have covered every movement in the story.

It is not hard to imagine cynical reasons why.

Natalee is young, pretty and white. A judge and his son are among five people held over her vanishing.

Aruba, where the teenager was celebrating her graduation, is renowned for an intoxicating party scene.

Tragic as her disappearance is, some have criticised the flood of coverage which is dominating the national news agenda.

Mark Feldstein, associate professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University, told the BBC: "Of course there has been too much coverage, by my standards, but this is what we have come to expect."

Mr Feldstein, a former investigative reporter, compared the case to the story earlier this year of the woman who faked her abduction before her wedding, becoming known around the world as the "Runaway Bride".

"These are really not national stories but they get national attention," he said.

Yeah, and more than half of the US has no idea what the words Downing Street Memo mean. You know, I thought editors were supposed to make reporters report the news and edit when it gets excessive. Of course, 24 hour-a-day news, sports and comedy is exessive. Remember, when you follow the logic of Capital, too much is never enough!

More Oscar The Grouch, Less Grinch.

Given that the US Congress spent essentially a month focusing on really important stuff like the Terry Schiavo case and another deciding whether or not to change the rules so that we could get a tyranny of the majority, now we are getting down the the nitty gritty: depopulating Sesame Street and Mr. Roger's Neighborhood...

A House subcommittee voted yesterday to sharply reduce the federal government's financial support for public broadcasting, including eliminating taxpayer funds that help underwrite such popular children's educational programs as "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," "Arthur" and "Postcards From Buster."

In addition, the subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- which passes federal funds to public broadcasters -- starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB's budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.

In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry's total revenue.

If it sounds partisan to say it then let it be: today's GOP really doesn't care for much that is "public" as evidenced by the following dollops of wisdom (insert sarcastic tone here)...

Rep. Ralph Regula (R-Ohio), the subcommittee's chairman, said the cuts had nothing to do with dissatisfaction over public radio or TV programs. "It's pretty simple," he said in an interview. "The thinking was, there's not enough money for everything. There are 'must-do,' 'need-to-do' and 'nice-to-do' programs that we have to pay for. [Public broadcasting] is somewhere between a 'need-to-do' and a 'nice-to-do.' "

Let's eview the facts: 98 percent of America has at least one TV set, most families have more than one and many of us consider it a "must-have" item. And of those of use who were raised in families that wanted us to learn the alphabet and count to ten, Sesame Stree and Zoom were "must-dos". As I have gotten older I often think that the only broadcast (not cable) programming I can watch on a consistent basis are PBS related. Call me an "old man" but I would rather watch a Frontline on the Iraq situation than American Idol. And, sure, PBS has problems... tends to be too white, too middle class, nothing on the channel represents Working Class views and it needs to get a helluva lot more financially secure so I don't have to watch two people stand in front of a phone bank taking bids on a seven day vacation to the Smokey Mountains. The way you do that is by actually funding this channel. Or more public channels.

That's right, I just asked for more. For too long Americans have considere one public station in their market as good enough. But what if I told you that that just about every other first world country in the world would find this laughable, the televiusal equivalent of being happy just to get one ladle of water a day (that you have to drink from a tin can to boot!)? For many of us we believe that we can make the public sphere more bountiful, not less flexible. Take Michale Curtin's suggestion from a recent edition of Flow for example...

Google's pull media technology is popular largely because it addresses at least three noteworthy and enduring aspirations among media audiences. The first is a desire to escape at times from the world of commercial imagery. The second is a longing to create meaningful patterns and linkages in an era of symbolic excess. And the third is a yearning to counteract the imperatives of push media, which seek out audiences in order to corral them within a universe of proprietary content. Such aspirations are also manifested in the popularity of other recent technologies, such as TiVo, DVR, and podcasting, suggesting that audiences value diversity and intelligibility despite U.S. media's current emphasis on synergy and cross-promotion.

Using these audience aspirations as a point of reference, Thomas Streeter and I have recommended four strategies for media reform in the United States.[i] The first calls for an aggressive expansion of non-commercial services to be funded both by the FCC's upcoming auction on spectrum reallocations as well as a modest tax on commercial users of the public airwaves. Instead of engaging in dramatic David-vs.-Goliath struggles over primetime TV content or News Corps market share, it seems more reasonable to work toward the expansion of alternative resources. If our society is to be truly innovative, then we need structural diversity in media, media organized in a variety of ways, not just more and more outlets that are all following the same principle of delivering audiences to advertisers. Is one public television service enough? One community radio station? Or one or two severely underfunded cable access channels? Are reliable, non-commercial Internet resources available regarding such crucial topics as health, environment, and workplace safety? We need to expand the number of non-commercial services wherever possible but we should at the same time emphasize structural innovation: not just more public television or radio, but more kinds of public TV or radio. Why is there nothing like Britain's Channel Four in the US? The terms "commercial" and "public" have become inadequate to describe all the different structural possibilities; we need terms adequate to the task of engendering a new era of experimentation in media.

In other words, when it comes to creating free space away from Corporate imagery and for-profit endeavors, less isn't more... only more is more.

Comm 226: Framing the Language and PR in British Politics

Hey guys, I know you are all working very, very hard these last few days, but if you read the papers then one of the things you know is that there is a General Election in Britain this Thursday where the people of the UK will elect a new Parliament and a new Prime Minister. I think it is interesting that most people expect Labour to win and Tony Blair to remain Prime Minister. There are many reasons for this, but US Based Liberal Blogger, Markos Moulitsas, has this to say about how Labour controls framing language...

with the Republican sweep of 2004, Democrats have finally come to terms with its minority status. And with that realisation has come a desperate effort to study the factors fuelling the rise of the American right.

The factors are various, but key among them is the notion of "framing" - that is, controlling the political language. Republicans realised decades ago that those who controlled the language, controlled the political battleground. A sort of electoral high ground, providing a tactical advantage in the battle of ideas. ...

Reading Britain's Sunday Times' expected endorsement of the Conservative party, the direct parallel between disaffected American Democrats and disaffected British Tories was startling. "The Tories have accepted that Labour has won the political battle over tax and spend," it says. "Talk of deep tax cuts would, they fear, frighten voters. So the party offers new Labour-lite; no significant tax cuts and plenty of extra public spending."

With all of Tony Blair's faults, and he clearly has many, his ability to win the framing wars in Britain is probably his chief legacy - the sort of victory that rises above immediate political concerns, including Thursday's election, and can provide the philosophical foundation for a long lasting Labour majority. That is no small feat, no small accomplishment. And presents a huge challenge for British conservatives given their already significant parliamentary deficits. (The Liberal Democrats appear to be on more solid footing, sharing Labour's economic frame: social services good, tax cuts bad).

In other words, never underestimate the power of framing language as a communication strategy!

Ok, take care and talk with y'all later.

Comm 226: Review Stuff

Dear Class. As promised you can get the review sheets by clicking here and here. The more you prepare, the better you will do on this exam. I want you to think big and synthesize topics on this exam, so go back this weekend and look through all of the notes and your marks in the book to help you.

By the way, I also wanted to note that the issue of education cropped up in the New York Times editorial page. Thomas Friedman, who is one of the loudest voices on issues of globalization, wrote this in today's NYT...

ne of America's most important entrepreneurs recently gave a remarkable speech at a summit meeting of our nation's governors. Bill Gates minced no words. "American high schools are obsolete," he told the governors. "By obsolete, I don't just mean that our high schools are broken, flawed and underfunded. ... By obsolete, I mean that our high schools - even when they are working exactly as designed - cannot teach our kids what they need to know today.

"Training the work force of tomorrow with the high schools of today is like trying to teach kids about today's computers on a 50-year-old mainframe. ... Our high schools were designed 50 years ago to meet the needs of another age. Until we design them to meet the needs of the 21st century, we will keep limiting - even ruining - the lives of millions of Americans every year."

Let me translate Mr. Gates's words: "If we don't fix American education, I will not be able to hire your kids." I consider that, well, kind of important.

So do I and I know that all of you mentioned it last week as well. Anyways, if you want to read the rest you can register on the NYT website for free and have at it. Otherwise, have a great weekend!

Comm 200: Readings, Dossiers and More Dossiers

Hey Guys. I know that everyone is burning at at both ends these days but I wanted to remind you of a couple of things as we finish, and say something new as well.

1) First: Even if you have read the articles for Friday, please re-read them. One of things that I think you should learn how to do in college is to re-read. It isn't a skill that many of us think of as valuable because much of our busy lives but it is far more important than many of us would like to admit. Often articles we are researching will enlighten you in a different manner than it did the first time. This may be because concepts you didn't get the first time you finally get. It may be because you just didn't notice what was going on the first time. This is true for all of us. I know that there have been books I come to once or twice a year and I feel like they pay off in different ways every time I read them.

2) If there are a set of questions I would like you to ask of everything piece of research you read and write for college, they would be

1) What is the thesis?
2) What is the unit or units of analysis?
3) How did the researcher investigate and analyse their data? Always remember, how questions are method questions!
4) What is the research question that the person is trying to answer?
5) What is at stake in this research? If you do not know what is at stake, ask the teacher. For me this is always something that I feel like I need to know. Research is not something that should be done purely for the pleasure of research. Research always has real world consequences. Some research is better known than others, but all research, when done, gives us a new understanding of a topic, method or question. Giving the world a new understanding is a real world consequence!
6) Could this research be proven or disproven? If it cannot then it probably isn't research. It could be an essay, but not a research essay.
7) What kind of sources is the researcher drawing from? When you begin an article try this: start with the endnotes and works cited first and take note of what the sources are. This will always clue you into other kinds of questions?

Believe it or not these are lessons that are easy to state but difficult to learn. Practice these in your upcoming classes and make them habits of the mind. The more habitual they become the better student and learner you will become. And that's one you can take to the bank!

Tomorrow, bring your dossiers. Last week you spent some time looking at each others works cited. Look at these again tonight and now look see what you would like to xerox in other folders. You may also want to bring your earliest drafts with RQs and Theses and workshop them in class. We will be doing that on Monday as well. I know that this is a busy time, but I do have high hopes for you. Also, tomorrow, please be ready to leave your dossiers behind. I would like to, with your permission, place them in library here in Higley so that we can access them for the next week. All I ask is that when you look at an article you LEAVE THE DOSSIER IN THE SAME CONDITION AS YOU FOUND IT. You all worked really hard on your work and we should be considerate of each others work.

Finally, I need to let you know that I have one VERY IMPORTANT REQUEST regarding your dossiers. Please note, when you turn in your repory you should...

1) Make certain your proposal has a detachable cover sheet with all of your information (do not print on the other side!!!)

2) Please, no self-identifying information throughout the paper in any way shape or form!!!

3)Failure to do so will result in an automatic “incomplete” for the course and the assignment.

The reason I need it in this fashion is that your papers will be read by othger professors in the department to see if we are doing a solid job in the 200 level course. We value anonymity and no professor reading your paper will have an effect on your grade for the class. In fact, we will read them in August well after your grades are returned. We think this is a valuable way to see what is working and what isn't. By giving us this kind of anonymous feedback you will be making us better teachers and much more robust department.

Take care and see you tomorrow.