PSA

The optimists might be inclined to support net neutrality.

Say here maybe.




See, 'round here even the advertising is intended to raise the level of public discourse

Question

Is rhetoric always bad? I surf the internet and it seems like that is the general opinion. Any examples of good rhetoric?

No Ads Here

I’ve been thinking about what Berger writes on pg. 168 of Agitpop:

It is the advertising that pays for the text, which leads me to suggest that the most important genre in most media is the commercial (in electronic media) and the advertisement (in print media).

I don’t suppose anyone disagrees with that suggestion.

We could discuss the consequences of ad-driven mass media on society but instead we’ll ask:

Is advertising the most important genre in new (Information Age) media?

I will suggest not everywhere.

The advertising at web sites whose intention is to raise the level of discourse in society (local or global) is incidental. It exists to support the content, not vice versa. My favorite blogs are all supported by reader donations, site stores, and blogger time and energy. There are advertisements but they support the content, not dictate it. Wikipedia (the most far-reaching and effective media machine invented by man thus far to distribute information knowledge to society) subsists solely on donation and societal time and energy.

Such a phenomenon barely exists in old media and is impossible in old mass media (with the possible exception of NPR/PBS). There are 'zines in cities all over America but they, like Public Access Television, reach a meager audience compared to new media.

If one is an optimist who thinks ad-driven mass media is bad for America, one might find solace in the concept of a non-ad-driven new mass media.

America!

Here's a song from the movie Team America (by the guys who brought you South Park)with a slide show by some Youtube'r. Careful if you're at work because this one's got a coupla bad words.



My favorite part is the enthusiatic chanting until "Bed, Bath, and beyond!" and "Republicans" (one or two people chant) and then "Sportsmanship!" and "Books!" (no one chants).

More Music

Here is another Pete Seeger song, played to a homemade video. Its word, image, and sound create a powerful message, if you ask me.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy

I think Betsy played this in class.

Music

From brucespringsteen.net:

BRING THEM HOME!: NEW BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN RECORDING!
Click on the links below to hear Bruce Springsteen's version of Pete Seeger's "Bring Them Home (If You Love Your Uncle Sam)".

Penned by Pete Seeger during the Vietnam War, "Bring Them Home" quickly acquired anthemic power in the anti-war movement. Springsteen first recorded the song in January 2006 and added a final lead vocal during his European tour, at a studio in Oslo, Norway. His poignant rendition, performed frequently on the Seeger Sess ions tour, adds several new verses and connects the song to a much earlier topic al song, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home." "Bring Them Home" was written in 1965 and originally released on Pete's 1971 Columbia album, "Young vs. Old."

Bruce Springsteen & The Seeger Sessions Band "Bring 'em Home"

Also, here is the Pete Seeger original

The death of habeas corpus

Betsy asked me to post these links to Keith Olbermann examining the Military Commision's Act of 2006. You can read or watch the "text".

link 1

link 2

Happy Blogging, Red or Blue

I came across this and thought it was most appropriate for our class. This is an excerpt of the Supreme Court's opinion in a 1949 case where a man protested by screaming "snakes" and "bedbugs" in referring to various political groups.

"A function of free speech under our system of government is to invite dispute. It may indeed best serve its high purpose when it induces a condition of unrest, creates dissatisfaction with conditions as they are, or even stirs people to anger."

Terminello v. Chicago, 337 U.S. 1 (1949).

Good off topic post

Sorry about my completely off topic post. However, it was an article that was sent to me and i think it needs to be shared. It is, for me, a different type of rhetoric, thats closer to home as it affects me everyday. I think it is an issue that we need to pay more attention to. It would be great to know what you guys think.

October 16, 2006
Why Aren't We Shocked?
By BOB HERBERT
OP-ED COLUMNIST(NYT)

"Who needs a brain when you have these?"

- message on an Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirt for young women

In the recent shootings at an Amish schoolhouse in rural Pennsylvania and a large public high school in Colorado, the killers went out of their way to separate the girls from the boys, and then deliberately attacked only the girls. (...)

Read the whole article followed by a long discussion thread

What did YOU do last night?

So. Great Fiday night for me. I went down to DC for the annual National Italian American Foundation gala. It's a big deal. Usually lots of celebrities and things like that. I walk in with my guest about half an hour late and who is speaking when I walk through the door?

NONE OTHER THAN GEORGE W BUSH, THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES!!!!!

So I got to hear the president speak FIRSTHAND, interesing since ive been looking at his speeches for weeks. It was amazing. I almost cried, and I trembled a little bit, and I giddy with excitement! I took a few pictures and a video, which I loaded onto Youtube. Just wanted to share it with you. I don't know what any of you did with YOUR weekends, but I'll bet I am the only one that was part of a private audience for the President :)

Good Question

Shouldn't they know this stuff?
link

Continuing My Diatribe

I think this is an interesting synopsis of the Administration's position on the Military Commissions Act and why I believe they would be more than happy to suspend habeaus corpus for any American citizen who might possibly be connected to something nefarious. Does this remind anyone of a certain, um, Joe McCarthy?

Here's the link

A Series of Tubes

So, you don't have to look very far to find some treatises on the political and economic significance of free and open source software (FOSS), cryptography, and various other technologies. Computer geeks tend to have really interesting politics, with a fiercely libertarian streak. They also tend to have odd political arguments, partially because their world, where logic always wins, is in many ways the opposite of the world of politics. Not surprisingly, though, the geeks understand that world much better than politicians understand technology. One such argument just popped up on what is perhaps the most important technology news site in the world, if only because it is the most revered such site among the people who actually create the technologies that make news. So, anyhow, you should read (and participate in) this lively discussion about technological innovation, political rhetoric, the United States government, and the nature of democracy.

evol...I mean... intelligently designing through academic activities

After class today, the Flying Spaghetti Monster came up (I was using it as an example of the action I'd like to take regarding the upcoming House Bill 1215 referendum in South Dakota).

I was surprised to learn that our esteemed professors had never heard of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Open Letter to the Kansas school board.

It's an interesting site, however he recently restructured it so I can't direct you to the fun part like the conversion game (practice for any future missionaries).

Also, because of Swaim's affection for wikipedia, I considered linking it's amusing opposite but it contains some really offensive material so if you want to look it up independently, I encourage that (but I'm not going to actually put it on a class website). So if you are interested, google uncyclopedia. It's built with the wiki script so it even looks exactly the same as wikipedia.

Military Commissions Act

So President Bush signed today legislation that should worry all of us. It will be interesting to see if anyone actually challenges the legislation in court. I'd be interested to hear Paul's point of view but I don't think, given both the current composition of the Supreme Court and given earlier cases the Court has decided, that the Court will overturn the legislation. In Korematsu v. U.S., a case some of you may remember as the "Japanese internment case" where a US citizen of Japanese descent was sent to a detention center during World War II because of a concern about persons of Asian descent on US soil attacking the mother land. The Court, while saying that the Constitution, particularly the 14th Amendment, doesn't allow for classifications based on race, in that instance they upheld the practice because of the circumstances of war. The Court may uphold this law for the same reason... we'll just have to wait and see.

Of course, this is just another opportunity for the establishment to paint the ACLU, which actually was created to sustain Constitutionally-granted civil liberties, and the Democrats as soft, crunchy liberals that border on Communists.

Word * Image * Sound

Rhetoric to enjoy:

1. Words about Words: I actually didn't know half of these but they're kind of fun [these will all appear in my next paper] (words)
2. 12 Warning Signs of Fascism: rhetoric against the rhetoric (images)
3. Peace Not War and the jukebox: various artists (sounds)

And one extra 'words' sample because it is wonderful: How To Debunk Just About Anything (read "part 1" - the middle section).

Easy, Lucky, Free

So I was having a hard time choosing music to post, since most of the political music I like is punk-influenced anarchist folk music. And they don't usually make music videos, so it's hard to find that stuff on YouTube. And I haven't gotten to upload any MP3s to my web space yet, so I thought I'd go another direction.

I picked a video by an artist that isn't usually thought of as political, but rather as lovesick whiny boy emo music. But Bright Eyes, aka Conor Oberst, is actually very politically involved, from over on the far left where I like to sit. This video, "Easy, Lucky, Free," is from 2003, I believe, when we were still being lied into the Iraq war, and still being told that shopping was the ultimate patriotic act. Anyhow, enough commentary from me. Here's the video:

Music, right?

Ok, this was from the National Day of Prayer 2006. I don't have to explain why that's political, right?

I somehow don't think the situation in Iraq fits the honor God message, but don't pay any attention to me. My brain actually works, unlike the president's.



I still think we should have had to sing this in class...but then, I do bad karaoke. I don't remember anyone not wanting to sing this after 9/11, but I may just have been too numb to notice.



This song has always struck me as political. It may be the use of the word freedom. It's also rather idealistic and unrealistic.

"Don't worry, it'll be alright...say your prayers and sleep tight."

If the song is applied to current events, it sounds like blind trust, which is what way too many people had in Bush. I know my dislike of him comes out a lot, but I don't think I could hold it back if I tried. (I am not, however, saying the song has anything to do with him. I'm not even sure when it was recorded. Before 9/11, I think.)

"Lend your voices only to sounds of freedom. No longer lend your strength to that which you wish to be free from. Fill your lives with love and bravery, and you shall lead a live uncommon."

I wish it was that simple. The soldiers dying in Iraq may be brave, but they are dying for no reason. I wish this country would stop lending it's strength to that which it wishes to be free from. A war against terrorism? Bull. There is no such thing. Fighting for peace? Ridiculous. What does this country really want?

It's funny how songs come to have new meaning in one's mind.

No protest music? Hmmm...

Much as I sometimes hate to admit it (as a father of two middle schoolers) I actually love Mr. Mathers' music (Slim Shady or Eminem to you younger folks :).

Good news for me is that he became politically active in 2004 when he released a video and accompanying lyrics prior to the 04 elections. Some media outlets still suspect the now-infamous "Mosh" single and video actually influenced the higher-than-expected younger voter turnout. I am not convinced it was borne of Eminem's efforts but do believe that the composite efforts of this type of music and imagery along with other musician outreach from the folks at Moveon and their tour did have a profound influence on the way younger people think about politics...whether it energized them enough to vote or take action remains to be seen.

In any case, the link to the Mosh video and music is pasted below. Note that there are now two versions of this -- one representing the pre-04 election period and the re-edited version for post-2004.

I hope I got the html correct:


Link

Paul

..and I know this is supposed to be "MUSIC" week but this song really works best with the accompanying video. Much like the Eddie Vedder clip we saw in class ----- only different.

'Talking Right': Why the Left Is Losing, Linguistically

So I know we're shifting from words to music, but this was too good not to throw in... I just caught an interview with linguist Geoff Nunberg on an old podcast of WHYY's Fresh Air (NPR). He wrote a book that was published earlier this year, and... well, why don't I ljust quote from npr.org:

"In his new book, Talking Right, linguist Geoff Nunberg examines the parlance of the American political right. Conservatives, Nunberg notes, have been remarkably effective at creating a language through which to convey their agenda. The subtitle of his book illustrates what he's getting at: "How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show."

Nunberg, who teaches at the University of California-Berkeley, is a researcher at the Center for the Study of Language and Information at Stanford University. He is also the author of Going Nucular and The Way We Talk Now."

You can listen to the interview, as well as read an excerpt from the book, here.

The Investigators

(Courtesy of The General)

The thousand words

Not too long ago I posted a picture (here) of some people talking during the 9/11 attacks and asked everyone to talk about their interpretation.

Now here's a link to the article that goes along with the picture: here

The article, by Richard B. Woodward, is entitled Looking Through a Lens and talks about so-called "photoshopping" in the mind, the need for captions, and how "the meanings of photographs are inherently unstable".

Enjoy!

Bush Protest Music

I think it is interesting that there isn't more "obvious" political protest music in the past decade - at least as compared to the 60s when there was a clear connection between the lyrics and current events.

I heard this guy on NPR over the summer. This is one of the best examples of current, "pop" music where someone is taking a clear slap at the Administration.

Here's the link

Doonesbury

This is from Betsy. Click on the picture to see a bigger version.

Uhm...how'd I miss this one?

This is going to be humiliating if we have already talked about this, and I forgot it already (a cognitive failure...retrieval failure, yes?).

It just came to my attention that the dean of the business school is running for comptroller. Of course, I'm a Democrat, so it makes sense that I've ignored her presence in this.

Besides feeling like an idiot, I have that weird skin-crawling feeling. Anyone have any thoughts on this woman as a politician? (Glad I'm a libreal arts student, by the way.)

We have always been at war with Eurasia ...

Betsy asked me to post this.

Her words:

"Jim just forwarded these images to me--very interesting in terms of the video we just saw. Three different times? If Fox news says that he is a Democrat, and enough people hear them so pronounce, does that make it true even if wrong? The power of an image rattling around in the subconscious minds of whose who have seen it is not insignificant. Hm..."

Here's a link to the other curious Fox News screenshot.

And here's a link to the original post on Brag Blog. They have links to other people talking about it too.

On a music tip:

Here's a band called I Can Lick Any Sonofabitch in the House
(or SOB for short).

In this review they get called “possibly the most unabashedly political band in the country” and almost everyone who catches a live show calls them one of the best rock and roll bands they’ve ever seen.

They have a wide variety of songs to choose from for this post:

Dear Mr. Heston (about guns)
Rachel Corrie (about the protester killed in Israel)
American Fuck Machine (read the lyrics)

But I’m choosing Westboro Baptist Church. It’s a simple song and to the point.

Click here to listen to the song (on the left click on “Westboro Baptist Church”)

I’m not posting the lyrics on the blog because I don’t want my Grandma to read them. So everyone but Grandma click here and scroll down (it’s the 10th song).

The lyrics are a little dirty (ok a lot) but no one deserves it more than Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church, you know, the people that protest funerals (of people who’ve died of AIDS) with signs that say “God hates fags” and other hateful things.

Let’s talk about the rhetoric in the song. What do you think they’re trying to persuade us to think? (not “do”, thank goodness) What kind of an approach are they taking? Who is the audience? Is the style and arrangement of the song important?

The last two verses are my favorite.

A good politician?

I have been searching for a speech from my favorite politician, Delegate Brian McHale, but I still haven't found one online. I do, however, have him on tape talking briefly. (I wouldn't rely on my own memory, since a few weeks of cognitive psych have convinced me that memory isn't necessarily truth!)

I know some eyes are going to roll because it was a Catholic situation in which this happened. Basically, the pastor at Holy Cross and St Mary's in Federal Hill got kicked out of being the pastor (and no, he wasn't a child molestor...he hired a gay man to play piano...that's the real reason he got kicked out...and no, that's not the official reason given by the Archdiocese of Baltimore...this happened in 2002 and I'm still pissed).

Anyway, Fr Tom Malia got kicked out, and the parishioners decided to protest...at a speech by a few priests from the Archdiocese (we drowned them out by stomping our feet...ok, it was childish), by letters and email, and by holding signs outside of the Archdiocese's office. What does this have to do with Brian McHale? He came along. He's a parshioner at Good Counsel in Locust Point, so he didn't really have any personal reason to show up for this.

I've refused to hear a bad word about the man since. He spoke at this protest, but I think his presence said more than his words. Having talked to him more times than I can count now, I can't see him as anything less than sincere and honest (which I know is naive to say about a politician, but I guess I'm just biased).

All others politicians bore me (in Bush's case, to tears), so this is all I can come out with.

Bush Speeches- Brilliant!

I always hear poeple complain about Bush's speeches. even in our last class we discussed the fact that his speech writers cant write or dont seem to know how. well after laboring through my two speeches for the paper i realized that his speeches are brilliant. this is not the first time that i have had to analyze a Bush speech, however, i have always watched them prior to reading them if i ever read them at all. this time around i read them before i watched them and it made a big difference. the more I pulled the speech apart is the more i found the the speech writer knew what he or she was doing. the tone, the language, the setting was all perfect. especially in the September 11, 2006 speech. that speech would have driven an average American to action. It was very powerful in its message with its use of patriotism and fear. the next good thing about his speeches is that the writer tailors it to fit him. there are no "big" words, it is very simple. when i was learning to write newspaper articles my professor always told us to write for an audience educated at an 8th grade level. according to him if you did this you would always keep your audience. it is done in a way that they can understand. it is the same tactic that is usedin the speeches. they are written in a wy that the average person can understand. so i will not be so quick to knock Bush's speeches anymore. i think he doesnt know how to present them as well as they have been written. but they are written well.

Worth a thousand words

What's your interpretation?

R.I.P. U.S.A.

This is a powerful and appropriate response to the "torture" bill that passed the House and Senate.

Also, an explanation from the guy that created the site.

This is really serious stuff. I'd like to hear the law students in the class weigh in on the bill. Do you think the courts will have anything to say about it?

The Colbert Report spanked the Democrats: