Twitter redems its self

Well I have had a mixed technological relationship with things like Facebook twiter and well blogs for that mater. I never set out on my own to join one of these things but have always been asked by friends to do so. what I like about Facebook is that I can communicate with my friends- what I hate about, aside from the increased dependence upon it that it creates (I miss the old phone call or even email), is all the inane bullshit that comes with it. The stalker's paradise/ cultivation network there is so much information you can learn about someone so why not facebook creep- an accepted thing to say to people kind of a I'm board so I looked at a bunch of useless stuff about you and now we are some how closer in a way you would have thought was fucking creepy in the years before facebook. The best example of the useless information I could do with out is the "what am i doing feature" why do I not like it: because I don't need to know what my friends are doing at all hours I couldn't care less if they are taking a shit! The part that makes this worse for me is how when I log into facebook* I am bombarded with information about what my friends profile picture has been changed to or the fact that they have commented on steves joining of the 'I eat my scaps group' It is not that I don't like my friends its just there are things about them that I don't want to or would be better not knowing.

Then came Twitter yay its even more pointless than facebook all it is; is status posting yay I can find out that Steve is currently munching on a juicy scab....mmm good. Now twitter has redeemed its self for me well kind of. Iran Had an election last Friday and not surprisingly there was some questionable election practices. since the results were released there have been protests and being an authoritarian government, Iranian oficials have cracked down on these demonstrations and on alternate news sources. Enter twitter: Iranians with the assistance of Canadians,some guys in Ontario have a page that allows Iranians to get government attempts to block twitter access, and the American government, who told twitter to put off their upgrading of the servers which would have lead to page down time, Iranians have been organizing the protests and getting information about them to the world. Due to the limited number of charters it is hard to censor or block twitter posts making them a viable way to transmit information. that is pretty sweet and hopefully it will work for us if the need for that type of communicating develops.


*maybe I don't have to put up with this and could program my preferences differently but I don't plan to become proficient enough in facebook as I have better things to do.... well probably not but hey


more on stalker tendancys of facebook: http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.flyguychronicles.com/wp-content/themes/flyguychronicles_v2/fgc/images/newarticlepics/stalker.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.flyguychronicles.com/2008/06/you-might-be-a-stalker-if/&usg=__C2GxHKUemArj4XfQ0KPHcYXVcjQ=&h=250&w=400&sz=81&hl=en&start=5&um=1&tbnid=rRV3S_Ux0nr8FM:&tbnh=78&tbnw=124&prev=/images%3Fq%3Da%2Bstalker%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26sa%3DG%26um%3D1
(Yes I know i suck with useing technology)

Ah, history what could we learn from it?

This past Saturday we marked an important anniversary, well yes I imagine some people celebrated wedding anniversary or other joyous occasions (sorry if it is not) but the anniversary of which I am referring to is the 65th anniversary of D- Day. Why should you care? Well for starters it is important to remember the sacrifices of the young men and their efforts to Liberate Europe and overthrow the Nazi Regime. In no way do I intend to cheapen their actions and memories through this post as I am truly appreciative and respectful of what they did.

There is not doubt that the Normandy invasion and the root motivation of the Allies during the Second World War was noble and a just. There are aspects as to how the war was fought and the way the world was shaped that are not as black and white. As you all should know it was out of the ruins of the Second World War that the world we know developed for good and bad.

People’s perspective on history affects the way that they view the world today; this is true for individuals and for countries. For me there are two main ways to understand history: patriotically and preferably striving to understand the larger picture. This is not to say that one should not take pride in their countries accomplishments rather they should acknowledge darker sides of their past as well.

Being a history buff I decided to watch a DVD I got for Christmas one year called "World War II" this 5 disk box set contains the "Why We Fight " propaganda series (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight). As I was watching the Normandy invasion and other videos I was struck by the difference in Propaganda for WWII and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Obviously the media climate is different today but what struck me more was the important role that history played in the "Why We Fight" series.

Unlike the propaganda, er sorry news reports leading up to the invasion of Iraq the people behind "Why We Fight" deemed it necessary to give a history lesson on the nations they were at war with and the ones they were trying to help. An effort was made to link past occurrences to current action, at the same time as they were condemning the positions of Germany and Japan they were explaining what exactly lead up to their aggression so one could understand where their enemy was coming from. Oddly by seeing enemies’ motivation our own position was strengthened and further justified. Obviously this is propaganda, so some inconvenient facts were left out or under emphasized but over all the films gave more credit to the ability of citizens to make the right decision than current efforts to promote military action. Where the likes of fox news (and CNN) offered no real truth or background on our ‘enimies’* in their coverage. In a weird way it seems as if we were safer in the day when Government was in control of our news of war.

* Al-Qaeda are obviously the enemies of the west but there is not real effort to understand why they are willing to die in a fight against us something that I think would be useful to know.

Crime

If you city is of any respectable size, it likely has some sort of gang problem. While this may seem like some sort of local issue they tend to a global reach, either through associates or by being a chapter of a larger gang. Gangs are not a new issue, sure they may look and act differently from gangs one hundred years ago but they essence remains the same. I am not an expert on the subject but from my observations of human organization we seem to generally be a pack animal- we tend to organize our selves into groups and as little as we would like to admit it these groups share similarities with wolves, chimpanzees and other pack animals. When you strip down the complications things like spoken and written language these our groups have the same basic dynamics as any other pack animal. The more dangerous or shitty our lives are the more dependant we become on our friends, family or members of our group.

The city I grew up in has for the past few years been facing a gang problem. While this has been somewhat beneficial to the local news broadcasters- providing them with nightly eye-catching, interesting and titillating tales to tell to their oh so willing (including myself) viewers. When the shootings first started, most of us tolerated them acting like we wished they would stop wile secretly enjoying our own local nightly CSI. Five years on the gang activity in Calgary has become some reality show we are sick of (like survivor) and can’t wait till it is canceled.

The situation has become too real- the gangsters are shooting each other in public places were we would like to frequent and on our roads! All helping to turn our formerly friendly city into the cut-throat boomtown it has become. The Gangsterism on our streets is just one of the obvious symbols of a sick city. It distracts from the other equally damaging aliments Calgary is facing. Some people seem to think that if we get rid of the gangsters the city will once again become a pleasant place and are looking for a fast simple solution. Many of the Gangsters involved in shooting each other and the occasional bystander or witness originally came from Vietnam or from a Vietnamese Canadian family (in recent years they have expanded beyond this demographic. This is not to say that it is because of the ‘foreigners’). So one of the simple solutions seems to be send them back where they came from deport he criminals from our country. But we must ask the question if this is the right thing to do?

I recently watched a BBC program on El Salvador’s gang problem the focused on the 18^th street gang who are originally from Los Angeles. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMqVd0PAm4Q&feature=related ) Under the Clinton administration (and I’m assuming the trend has continued) the founding members of the gang and their rival gang MS were deported to their country of birth El Salvador. Once there they resumed their turf war recruiting local youths. The gangster problem of LA multiplied exponentially and has bloomed into something much larger. In El Salvador the government has a separate prison for each gang as their rivalry is so intense and their numbers are so large. Instead of acting like a correctional facility the prison acts like a university for gangsters; a common thing in prison but it is explicit the case.

Gang busting is not an easy job, gangs create a parallel society and reality. Like pirates in days of yore gangs can provide disadvantages individuals with the opportunity to become very powerful and enjoy riches, family and a sense of belonging they would not otherwise have. Once someone has entered a gang they are basically committed for life. Not only is there a sense of obligation to the gang, the more you are connected you become the more dependant on it you become. Much of Gang activity is illegal so it is hard to resume regular a law abiding life after. For starters your fellow gangster may not want you to depart with secrets and the police and regular citizens will hold prejudice against you if you manage to break free; thus creating a wider gap than had existed before. This is a problem for criminals in general how can they become ‘respectable’ citizens after they have started down the road of criminality. Obviously some criminals do not deserve to rejoin civil society as they do not want to live with in our social norms and are content or compelled to pray on others; however some people have been forced down the road by bad choices and social conditions.

for anther interesting doc: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ekqt27CwJqk&feature=related its about Russian criminal's prison tattoos

Media perception of Protesters vs there effectiveness

The one down fall for direct action is how it is presented to the public and therefore perceived by them. On March 17 2009 George warcrimes Bush came to Calgary Alberta, he was fortunately met by protesters, unfortunately much of the media coverage such as this story by Calgary Herald (owned by CanWest Global so the TV news coverage was not much different):

tended to be fairly bias against the protest. Forgetting to add the context that George Bush as the president of the United States lied multiple times to the his people and the world on issues as serious as going to war, the article wrote the protesters off as your standard Bush haters- yes there were some there just because they saw Fahrenheit 911 but there were also people there protesting for accountability and the desire to have George W. rightly stand on trial for Suspicion of Warcrimes. the headline Arrests made in raucous anti-Bush protest Demonstrators hurl shoes and ridicule puts more hype around the story than necessary after all the police only arrested 4 individuals for fairly minor infractions (resisting arrest in the context of a protest is in most cases a minor crime in my books). The article goes on to paint the protesters as anti democratic or against freedom of speech for protesting the individuals who paid $400 a plate to listen to George Bush- a man who does not need let alone deserve anymore money for what he did as President. The most irritating thing about the coverage of this event was how the bad things that out way the good done by the Bush administration are practically forgotten about as if the world went back to the way it was before he came to power.

But back to the issue of media discrediting protests: right next to this article is a link to another one called The Protest Paradox (while it raises some important points it still comes off as an anti protest piece that does more to hurt the protest paradox than help it- a long as media focuses on the negative theatrics of protests they are contributing to problem. perhaps instead of doing human interest stories on the lady with the hat wearing Chihuahua

who's best friend is a really fat cat, they could do a story explaining why people- the intelligent ones- are at anti globalization protests- after all Global national's motto is 'news understood'

Cool Stuff

http://theyesmen.org/ - realy entertianing activists

http://freedocumentaries.org/film.php?id=43 a Vital and intersting Documentry:
Outfoxed

http://wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1409&fuseaction=va2.browse&sort=Collection&imageField.x=15&imageField.y=14
- a online archive of documents from governements
during the Cold War

http://www.g7welcomingcommittee.com/ - its a Winnipeg record label started by members
of the punk band Propagandhi and features some
pretty awesome generally politicaly oriented music
(not limited to punk)

http://www.truthlifedocumentary.com/projects.php -I saw a portion of one of their
documentries at a film festival recently. its
pretty interesting and explores peoples
realityies and how we take our sweat lives
for granted.

http://www.myspace.com/burnside780 - all kinds of music, interesting interviews and proof of a positive world community.

A well ballanced media diet:

You may not think so but consumption of media is a lot like eating food, but for you mind. In North America, and probably elsewhere I don't have enough experience abroad to say for sure, we have problem in our media consumption that is similar to our epidemic of obesity. There is an epidemic of people who uncritically consume media- they are completely caught up in a fake realty of pointless celebrity gossip and the latest items they should buy.

Similar to the obesity issue , a common soft news story, the causes of this problem include laziness on the consumers part, slick marketing and trusted names feeding us low quality goods. If all you eat is fast food then you will likely become fat or at the very least really unhealthy- likewise if all you watch is so called reality television you will become dumb or at the very least stop viewing things critical.


The point that I am trying to make is that people need to start challenging themselves and their media providers. Do not always take the quick and easy route. whats a more enjoyable experience going to a fast food place picking a combo number and eating what they give you or going to one of those hot pot type places where you get to cook your own really tasty food?

In case you do not know what hot pot is check out this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tI6M7NJbaZ4 as for the fast food place I'm just going to assume you know. Oh while you are looking at that video do me a favor, look at the comments below look at trends there they will become important for later posts.


So why is it important to expand past reality TV and other fun programming and include things like news, documentary's or reading? well one of the awesome things about living in a democracy is your ability to participate, at some level, in running your country. Now obviously this is not going to change if you start watching the news but as a member in a free and open society you have the opportunity or really the obligation to pay attention to the world around you. How can you vote (which is officially the least you can do) if you do not know anything about the issues- that would be kind of like me voting for American Idol. the difference is that who wins American idol dose not affect what laws the government makes(which affect our way of life) .

As always Feel free to comment or question my thoughts as well as everyone else' s


Jonny B


oh here a link for some interesting documentaries- some I'm sure are boring but you might learn something interesting:

http://freedocumentaries.org/