(Anyone from Brazil? I would be very interested in hearing what you think about this...?)
In un-P.C. Brazil, a list of 96 offensive terms causes offense
by Andrew Downie
The Christian Science Monitor
RIO DE JANEIRO - A plump woman strolling through a Mexican market might be showered with affectionate cries of gordita (fatty). In Argentina, feo (ugly) can be a term of endearment. Even here in Brazil, a black woman might be flattered to be called neguinha (little black girl).
Throughout Latin America, a person is as likely to be described by his skin color or girth as someone elsewhere might be called tall or smart or gregarious. A word that in the US could provoke a fistfight or a court case is often just a personal identifier here.
Now Brazil is making its first forays into changing this. Last year the government quietly issued an 87-page document entitled "Political Correctness and Human Rights," which listed 96 words and phrases it hopes will eventually become unacceptable.
The challenge is formidable: introducing P.C. terms bucks years of tradition and cultural norms. And the government may have undercut its own efforts, prompting ridicule earlier this month when word spread that the list included words such as "clown" and "drunk" that it said could offend comedians or tipplers.
But the move shines a light on the culturally complex relationship between words and prejudice in the region. In the absence of institutional racism, the implicit condoning of racially sensitive terms is one of the reasons racism persists here, many experts say.
"If you use the N-word in public in the United States, you will lose your job, there's no question about it. It is unacceptable," says Thomas Stephens, author of "The Dictionary of Latin American Racial and Ethnic Terminology." "But in Brazil nobody has made a concerted effort to remove these words from the language. Brazil has never corrected itself like the United States has."
That failure to understand how racially sensitive words perpetrate discrimination is typical of many Brazilians, academics and black leaders here say. Because there has been no institutional racism in Brazil since slavery was abolished in 1888 - no separate toilets or buses, no limits on interracial unions, no ban on black groups or political parties - many Brazilians firmly believe that racism does not exist.
Discrimination, however, is evident in many ways, black leaders say. Afro-Brazilians live on average 5.3 years less than white Brazilians and are more likely to be poor, sick, uneducated, and unemployed. Those who do have jobs earn only 46 percent of what whites earn, according to a government study released in 2000.
Rest of the Article
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Chris Hedges: On the Rise to Political Power of the Dominionists
(I'm watching this right now and Hedges, as always, is amazingly insightful and has a great sense of religious history. Then NOW interviews Roy Moore, who provides a good example of a Dominionist worldview.)
NOW
On the rise to political power of the Dominionists, a fringe group of the Christian right, Chris Hedges says: "This movement is different. What it's calling on is for its followers to essentially take control of secular society and create a Christian, what they define as a Christian nation....What they would like to do is impose their...moral agenda on the rest of us." Hedges, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist for THE NEW YORK TIMES, has reported on the religious right, which he has called "a force working with our democracy to destroy it." He has published several books including the bestselling WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING, WHAT EVERY PERSON SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WAR, and his latest LOSING MOSES ON THE FREEWAY. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and is the recipient of the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama Roy Moore sparked a national debate and eventually was removed for refusing to move a granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court building. "The first thing that our forefathers did when they wrote the First Amendment was to acknowledge God," he tells David Brancaccio. "It was all about God. So, when you say that God's not in the Constitution, it is because people don't understand what the Constitution is about." Justice Moore was the first full-time Deputy District Attorney in Etowah County, Alabama, serving in that position from 1977 to 1982. He served as Circuit Judge, Sixteenth Judicial Circuit and was elected as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama in November 2000.
To Access These Interviews and Other Reports on This Subject
More from Chris Hedges:
Force Ministries and the Soldiers of Christ
Chris Hedges on Current Books About the Iraq War
Chris Hedges and the Mythology of War
NOW
On the rise to political power of the Dominionists, a fringe group of the Christian right, Chris Hedges says: "This movement is different. What it's calling on is for its followers to essentially take control of secular society and create a Christian, what they define as a Christian nation....What they would like to do is impose their...moral agenda on the rest of us." Hedges, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist for THE NEW YORK TIMES, has reported on the religious right, which he has called "a force working with our democracy to destroy it." He has published several books including the bestselling WAR IS A FORCE THAT GIVES US MEANING, WHAT EVERY PERSON SHOULD KNOW ABOUT WAR, and his latest LOSING MOSES ON THE FREEWAY. He holds a Master of Divinity from Harvard Divinity School and is the recipient of the 2002 Amnesty International Global Award for Human Rights Journalism.
Former Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama Roy Moore sparked a national debate and eventually was removed for refusing to move a granite monument of the Ten Commandments from the state Supreme Court building. "The first thing that our forefathers did when they wrote the First Amendment was to acknowledge God," he tells David Brancaccio. "It was all about God. So, when you say that God's not in the Constitution, it is because people don't understand what the Constitution is about." Justice Moore was the first full-time Deputy District Attorney in Etowah County, Alabama, serving in that position from 1977 to 1982. He served as Circuit Judge, Sixteenth Judicial Circuit and was elected as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Alabama in November 2000.
To Access These Interviews and Other Reports on This Subject
More from Chris Hedges:
Force Ministries and the Soldiers of Christ
Chris Hedges on Current Books About the Iraq War
Chris Hedges and the Mythology of War
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
Robert Greenwald: The High Cost of Low Price
Music For Trade: Thivai Mix 1
I'm tired of giving money to the corporate music industry and cannot stomach the crap that is played on my local radio stations... so anyone want to trade some music? I'm making a collection of mixes from my CDs and will gladly trade for samples of others' music tastes (Oso and Harry I owe you for other cool stuff, so if you want copies, just let me know and I'll send them):
Thivai Mix 1
Obstacle 1--Interpol
It Kills--Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Ska La Carte--The Scofflaws
Soul Love--David Bowie
Full Disclosure--Fugazi
Nothing to Say--Jethro Tull
Easily Impressed--X-tal
Night on the Sun--Modest Mouse
Murder, Tonight, In the Trailer Park--Cowboy Junkies
Vienna--Ultravox
Going Underground--The Jam
Pay To Cum!--Bad Brains
Uncertain Smile--The The
All the Right Reasons--The Jayhawks
From the Beginning--Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Everything Evil--Coheed & Cambria
The Lee Baby Simms Show--Steel Train
The Laws Have Changed--The New Pornographers
Thivai Mix 1
Obstacle 1--Interpol
It Kills--Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks
Ska La Carte--The Scofflaws
Soul Love--David Bowie
Full Disclosure--Fugazi
Nothing to Say--Jethro Tull
Easily Impressed--X-tal
Night on the Sun--Modest Mouse
Murder, Tonight, In the Trailer Park--Cowboy Junkies
Vienna--Ultravox
Going Underground--The Jam
Pay To Cum!--Bad Brains
Uncertain Smile--The The
All the Right Reasons--The Jayhawks
From the Beginning--Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Everything Evil--Coheed & Cambria
The Lee Baby Simms Show--Steel Train
The Laws Have Changed--The New Pornographers
Monday, June 06, 2005
Context: Call for Photos/Images ($100)
Call for images, Contexts Vol. 4, no. 4 Low resolution ! images due June 20, 2005
CONTEXTS magazine is soliciting individual images (photographs, other types of images) or small sets of images that focus on and illuminate a set of articles about race in the United States.
-- black public intellectuals, in the past and today.
-- interracial marriage
-- race as class
-- racial identities
SUBMIT REVIEW COPIES OF IMAGES by June 20, 2005 - but sooner is better. Initial copies can be paper prints, images posted to a web site (send us the URL), slides, or, preferably, low-resolution image files sent as email attachments (2-300 K max). Send such files to: contexts@rci.rutgers.edu. Please attach no more than two low-resolution images to one email. However you submit, please provide information about images.
If a photo is selected for publication, we will need prints, slides, negatives or hi-resolution scans (2+ MB uncompressed, grayscale files -- tiff is best) by July 6, 2005 . Contexts can pay $100. for a published image.
Thanks for whatever assistance you can provide.
Judith Friedman jfriedman@sociology.rutgers.edu and Jerry Krase
jerrykrase@aol.com
Image Editors, Contexts Magazine
CONTEXTS magazine is soliciting individual images (photographs, other types of images) or small sets of images that focus on and illuminate a set of articles about race in the United States.
-- black public intellectuals, in the past and today.
-- interracial marriage
-- race as class
-- racial identities
SUBMIT REVIEW COPIES OF IMAGES by June 20, 2005 - but sooner is better. Initial copies can be paper prints, images posted to a web site (send us the URL), slides, or, preferably, low-resolution image files sent as email attachments (2-300 K max). Send such files to: contexts@rci.rutgers.edu. Please attach no more than two low-resolution images to one email. However you submit, please provide information about images.
If a photo is selected for publication, we will need prints, slides, negatives or hi-resolution scans (2+ MB uncompressed, grayscale files -- tiff is best) by July 6, 2005 . Contexts can pay $100. for a published image.
Thanks for whatever assistance you can provide.
Judith Friedman jfriedman@sociology.rutgers.edu and Jerry Krase
jerrykrase@aol.com
Image Editors, Contexts Magazine
Free Media Campaign in Kentucky (and Other Places)
Email letter:
Free Press is working with a corps of dedicated Louisville activists in a campaign to stop corporate- and government-sponsored "fake news" before it infiltrates local news outlets.
This is a particularly important campaign for the Louisville region, as TV stations in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee prepare to renew their FCC licenses this summer. The deadline for citizen comments and filing is July 1.
To carry forward the momentum of the National Conference for Media Reform, regional activists are organizing the Media Democracy Midwest Convergence on June 9 in Louisville.
When: Thursday, June 9, 1 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Where: JFVS / Louis and Lee Roth Family Center, 3587 Dutchman's Lane, Louisville, KY
Phone: (502) 458-8573
E-mail: open@theopencommunity.org
Web: The Open Community
All local TV and radio stations receive their broadcast licenses in exchange for serving the public interest. Citizens and community groups have the right to intervene in how issues are represented on local stations. This summer's license renewals represent a chance for communities to put public service back on the broadcasters' agenda.
I urge you to join other activists to learn more about intervening in local television license renewals, stopping fake news, building community journalism and creating regional media democracy networks.
Please forward this message to your friends and colleagues in the region.
Onward,
Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
P.S. To learn more about the campaign to end fake news, visit End Propaganda!
Free Press is working with a corps of dedicated Louisville activists in a campaign to stop corporate- and government-sponsored "fake news" before it infiltrates local news outlets.
This is a particularly important campaign for the Louisville region, as TV stations in Kentucky, Indiana and Tennessee prepare to renew their FCC licenses this summer. The deadline for citizen comments and filing is July 1.
To carry forward the momentum of the National Conference for Media Reform, regional activists are organizing the Media Democracy Midwest Convergence on June 9 in Louisville.
When: Thursday, June 9, 1 p.m. - 9 p.m.
Where: JFVS / Louis and Lee Roth Family Center, 3587 Dutchman's Lane, Louisville, KY
Phone: (502) 458-8573
E-mail: open@theopencommunity.org
Web: The Open Community
All local TV and radio stations receive their broadcast licenses in exchange for serving the public interest. Citizens and community groups have the right to intervene in how issues are represented on local stations. This summer's license renewals represent a chance for communities to put public service back on the broadcasters' agenda.
I urge you to join other activists to learn more about intervening in local television license renewals, stopping fake news, building community journalism and creating regional media democracy networks.
Please forward this message to your friends and colleagues in the region.
Onward,
Timothy Karr
Campaign Director
Free Press
P.S. To learn more about the campaign to end fake news, visit End Propaganda!
The End of BBC As We Know It?
"British Broadcasting Corporation employees strike over job cuts"
World Socialist Web Site
Employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) struck for 24 hours on May 23, in protest at plans to cut 3,780 jobs and privatise sections of the corporation. A 48-hour strike is planned for May 31 and June 1.
The three unions involved—the broadcasting union Bectu, the National Union of Journalists and the white-collar and technical union Amicus—reported that 55 percent of members had participated in Monday’s strike. Throughout the day picket lines were mounted outside Bush House in Central London, TV Centre in White City and Broadcasting House.
Several radio and television programmes were cancelled. The BBC’s live shows, such as TV’s “News 24” and “Radio Five Live” were hardest hit, with the latter broadcasting repeats. The English-language BBC World Service was also affected, as its live programming was replaced with five-minute news bulletins every 30 minutes. BBC One’s news bulletin at 1300 was simulcast with “News 24” without its usual presenters or local news, whilst BBC Radio 4 cancelled such flagship programmes as “Today.”
The job cuts represent almost one in five of all BBC employees in the UK public service division. Approximately 2,050 jobs will be cut from content and output areas and a further 1,730 from the behind-the-scenes Professional Services by 2008. The Professional Services is being cut by 46 percent, but most departments stand to lose between 10 to 20 percent of their employees.
Entire Report
World Socialist Web Site
Employees of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) struck for 24 hours on May 23, in protest at plans to cut 3,780 jobs and privatise sections of the corporation. A 48-hour strike is planned for May 31 and June 1.
The three unions involved—the broadcasting union Bectu, the National Union of Journalists and the white-collar and technical union Amicus—reported that 55 percent of members had participated in Monday’s strike. Throughout the day picket lines were mounted outside Bush House in Central London, TV Centre in White City and Broadcasting House.
Several radio and television programmes were cancelled. The BBC’s live shows, such as TV’s “News 24” and “Radio Five Live” were hardest hit, with the latter broadcasting repeats. The English-language BBC World Service was also affected, as its live programming was replaced with five-minute news bulletins every 30 minutes. BBC One’s news bulletin at 1300 was simulcast with “News 24” without its usual presenters or local news, whilst BBC Radio 4 cancelled such flagship programmes as “Today.”
The job cuts represent almost one in five of all BBC employees in the UK public service division. Approximately 2,050 jobs will be cut from content and output areas and a further 1,730 from the behind-the-scenes Professional Services by 2008. The Professional Services is being cut by 46 percent, but most departments stand to lose between 10 to 20 percent of their employees.
Entire Report
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Archival Files for My Writing/Reading/Thinking Courses, Pt. 1
Works in progress, feel free, as always to leave suggestions:
Essential Online Texts and Collection of Texts
Progressive Guide to the Internet
-----------------------------------------------------
Harry suggests Jay's Leftist and "Progressive" Internet Resources ... I guess I should just point my students to that site, but then how would I occupy my OC impulses? Thanks! This is a great resource that I had never seen before...
Essential Online Texts and Collection of Texts
Progressive Guide to the Internet
-----------------------------------------------------
Harry suggests Jay's Leftist and "Progressive" Internet Resources ... I guess I should just point my students to that site, but then how would I occupy my OC impulses? Thanks! This is a great resource that I had never seen before...
USC Grad School Movie List
(Courtesy of mousemusings)
I have watched 93 of these... good list to continue my thinking about the film courses... anyone know more lists like these (especially of the annotated sort!)
USC Grad School Movie List (assumed you have watched these before you start classes):
MOVIES:
A Hard Day's Night
African Queen
Alice in the Cities
Alien
All About Eve
Amadeus
American Friend, The
American Grafitti
Annie Hall
Apartment, The
Apocalypse Now
Apu Trilogy, The
Band of Outsiders
Band Wagon, The
Barton Fink
Battle of Algiers
Being John Malkovich
Bicycle Thief, The
Big Lebowski, The
Black Orpheus
Blade Runner
Blow-Up
Blue
Blue Velvet
Bob le Flambeur
Bonnie and Clyde
Boyz 'n the Hood
Breathless
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Carrie
Casablanca
Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis)
Chinatown
Cinema Paradiso
Citizen Kane
Clueless
Coal Miner's Daughter
Contempt
Conversation, The
Cool Hand Luke
Crimes And Misdemeanors
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Deep End, The
Dekalog
Dersu Uzala
Diner
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The
D.O.A. (1950)
Do The Right Thing
Dog Day Afternoon
Donnie Darko
Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
8 1/2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Exorcist, The
Fallen Idol, The
Fight Club
Fish Called Wanda, A
Five Easy Pieces
Force of Evil
Godfather, The (I & II)
Gone With the Wind
Graduate, The
Grand Illusion
High and Low
High Noon
House of Sand and Fog
It Happened One Night
Jaws
Jules and Jim
King of Marvin Gardens, The
Kramer Vs. Kramer
La Jetée
La Strada
Lady Eve, The
Last Tango in Paris
L'Avventura
Lawrence of Arabia
Le Boucher
Le Samouraï
Letter from an Unknown Woman
Like Water for Chocolate
Man for All Seasons, A
Matrix, The
M*A*S*H
Memento
Midnight Cowboy
Miller's Crossing
Mother and the Whore, The
Morocco
Mulholland Drive
Nashville
Network
Night Moves
Ninotchka
Notorious
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Out of the Past
Paths of Glory
Patton
Point Blank
Producers, The
Pulp Fiction
Raging Bull
Ran
Rashomon
Rear Window
Red
Red Balloon, The
Repo Man
Rules of the Game
Safe
Searchers, The
Seven Samurai
Seventh Seal, The
Shanghai Express
Shock Corridor
Shoot the Piano Player
Silence of the Lambs
Stagecoach
Star is Born, A (1937)
Star Wars
Stranger Than Paradise
Sullivan's Travels
Sunset Boulevard
Talk to Her
Thelma and Louise
Third Man, The
Tin Drum, The
Touch of Evil
Traffic
Trouble in Paradise
2001 - A Space Odyssey
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The
Underworld U.S.A.
Unforgiven
Verdict, The
Vertigo
White
Wild Strawberries
Wizard of Oz, The
Written on the Wind
Woman in the Dunes
You Can Count on Me
DOCUMENTARIES:
Sorrow and the Pity, The
Harlan Country, USA
Dogtown and Z Boys
My Architect
Triumph of the Will
Hoop Dreams
Roger and Me
Super Size Me
Grey Gardens
Gimme Shelter
Crumb
Spellbound
Capturing the Friedmans
Riding Giants
The War Room
Don't Look Back
Brother's Keeper
What the Bleep do we know?
The Thin Blue Line
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
The Kid Stays in the Picture
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser
Control Room
The Celluloid Closet
Sans Soleil
Poto and Cabengo
TV [available to Rent]:
Six Feet Under
The Sopranos
Sex and the City
Freaks and Geeks
All in the Family
MASH
Seinfeld
24
Arrested Development
Gilmore Girls
Good Times
The Wonder Years
The Shield
The Wire
The Office
I have watched 93 of these... good list to continue my thinking about the film courses... anyone know more lists like these (especially of the annotated sort!)
USC Grad School Movie List (assumed you have watched these before you start classes):
MOVIES:
A Hard Day's Night
African Queen
Alice in the Cities
Alien
All About Eve
Amadeus
American Friend, The
American Grafitti
Annie Hall
Apartment, The
Apocalypse Now
Apu Trilogy, The
Band of Outsiders
Band Wagon, The
Barton Fink
Battle of Algiers
Being John Malkovich
Bicycle Thief, The
Big Lebowski, The
Black Orpheus
Blade Runner
Blow-Up
Blue
Blue Velvet
Bob le Flambeur
Bonnie and Clyde
Boyz 'n the Hood
Breathless
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Carrie
Casablanca
Children of Paradise (Les Enfants du Paradis)
Chinatown
Cinema Paradiso
Citizen Kane
Clueless
Coal Miner's Daughter
Contempt
Conversation, The
Cool Hand Luke
Crimes And Misdemeanors
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Deep End, The
Dekalog
Dersu Uzala
Diner
Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, The
D.O.A. (1950)
Do The Right Thing
Dog Day Afternoon
Donnie Darko
Double Indemnity
Dr. Strangelove
Eat, Drink, Man, Woman
8 1/2
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
Exorcist, The
Fallen Idol, The
Fight Club
Fish Called Wanda, A
Five Easy Pieces
Force of Evil
Godfather, The (I & II)
Gone With the Wind
Graduate, The
Grand Illusion
High and Low
High Noon
House of Sand and Fog
It Happened One Night
Jaws
Jules and Jim
King of Marvin Gardens, The
Kramer Vs. Kramer
La Jetée
La Strada
Lady Eve, The
Last Tango in Paris
L'Avventura
Lawrence of Arabia
Le Boucher
Le Samouraï
Letter from an Unknown Woman
Like Water for Chocolate
Man for All Seasons, A
Matrix, The
M*A*S*H
Memento
Midnight Cowboy
Miller's Crossing
Mother and the Whore, The
Morocco
Mulholland Drive
Nashville
Network
Night Moves
Ninotchka
Notorious
On the Waterfront
Once Upon a Time in the West
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Out of the Past
Paths of Glory
Patton
Point Blank
Producers, The
Pulp Fiction
Raging Bull
Ran
Rashomon
Rear Window
Red
Red Balloon, The
Repo Man
Rules of the Game
Safe
Searchers, The
Seven Samurai
Seventh Seal, The
Shanghai Express
Shock Corridor
Shoot the Piano Player
Silence of the Lambs
Stagecoach
Star is Born, A (1937)
Star Wars
Stranger Than Paradise
Sullivan's Travels
Sunset Boulevard
Talk to Her
Thelma and Louise
Third Man, The
Tin Drum, The
Touch of Evil
Traffic
Trouble in Paradise
2001 - A Space Odyssey
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The
Unbearable Lightness of Being, The
Underworld U.S.A.
Unforgiven
Verdict, The
Vertigo
White
Wild Strawberries
Wizard of Oz, The
Written on the Wind
Woman in the Dunes
You Can Count on Me
DOCUMENTARIES:
Sorrow and the Pity, The
Harlan Country, USA
Dogtown and Z Boys
My Architect
Triumph of the Will
Hoop Dreams
Roger and Me
Super Size Me
Grey Gardens
Gimme Shelter
Crumb
Spellbound
Capturing the Friedmans
Riding Giants
The War Room
Don't Look Back
Brother's Keeper
What the Bleep do we know?
The Thin Blue Line
Fast, Cheap and Out of Control
The Kid Stays in the Picture
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser
Control Room
The Celluloid Closet
Sans Soleil
Poto and Cabengo
TV [available to Rent]:
Six Feet Under
The Sopranos
Sex and the City
Freaks and Geeks
All in the Family
MASH
Seinfeld
24
Arrested Development
Gilmore Girls
Good Times
The Wonder Years
The Shield
The Wire
The Office
Meg Hourihan: Memory Lane
Memory Lane
An interview with Meg Hourihan
IT Conversations
Blogs are definitely changing the Internet, and one of the first people to realize this was Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Pyra Labs (the company behind Blogger) and author of 'We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs' (see below). Being one herself, Meg surely counts as an inspiration for young women entrepreneurs. She is titled a "Young Innovator Who Will Create the Future" by MIT's Technology Review magazine and is one of the People of the Year in the 2004 issue of PC Magazine.
In this very interesting lane of memories, Meg starts from the start and explains what dragged her into technology (that too at a very early age!), how she went on from working for a consulting firm to creating Blogger, and the obstacles she had to face and barriers she had to cross.
Being an English major, which explains the creation of Blogger, Meg digs into some of the more sophisticated on why blogging is what it is and how incidents like September 11th changed the way we look at blogging forever.
Listen to the Show
An interview with Meg Hourihan
IT Conversations
Blogs are definitely changing the Internet, and one of the first people to realize this was Meg Hourihan, co-founder of Pyra Labs (the company behind Blogger) and author of 'We Blog: Publishing Online with Weblogs' (see below). Being one herself, Meg surely counts as an inspiration for young women entrepreneurs. She is titled a "Young Innovator Who Will Create the Future" by MIT's Technology Review magazine and is one of the People of the Year in the 2004 issue of PC Magazine.
In this very interesting lane of memories, Meg starts from the start and explains what dragged her into technology (that too at a very early age!), how she went on from working for a consulting firm to creating Blogger, and the obstacles she had to face and barriers she had to cross.
Being an English major, which explains the creation of Blogger, Meg digs into some of the more sophisticated on why blogging is what it is and how incidents like September 11th changed the way we look at blogging forever.
Listen to the Show
Saturday, June 04, 2005
Hit By a Film Meme
Brainwise has hit me with a film meme:
1. Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
A joint collection: 82
2. The last film I bought:
Super Size Me (if you have seen this film it is still worthwhile to check out the DVD for the geat extras--especially the food "experiments" and the great 50 minute conversation between Morgan Spurlock and Eric Schlosser)
3. The last film I watched:
Theaters: Upside of Anger
Home: Dead Presidents
4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
Yeah right, 20 off the top of my head (they would probably change tomorrow)
Addiction
Apocalypse Now
The Corporation
Crow
Cuckoo
Dead Man
Deadwood (Series)
Dogtown and the Z-Boys
Foxfire
Human Nature
I Heart Huckabees
Iron Jawed Angels
Matewan
Monsoon Wedding
Nadja
Office Space
Queen Margot
Schizopolis
The Seventh Seal
Star Trek Deep Space Nine (Series)
5. Tag 5 people and have them put this in their journal/blog:
I'll think about it...
1. Total number of films I own on DVD/video:
A joint collection: 82
2. The last film I bought:
Super Size Me (if you have seen this film it is still worthwhile to check out the DVD for the geat extras--especially the food "experiments" and the great 50 minute conversation between Morgan Spurlock and Eric Schlosser)
3. The last film I watched:
Theaters: Upside of Anger
Home: Dead Presidents
4. Five films that I watch a lot or that mean a lot to me:
Yeah right, 20 off the top of my head (they would probably change tomorrow)
Addiction
Apocalypse Now
The Corporation
Crow
Cuckoo
Dead Man
Deadwood (Series)
Dogtown and the Z-Boys
Foxfire
Human Nature
I Heart Huckabees
Iron Jawed Angels
Matewan
Monsoon Wedding
Nadja
Office Space
Queen Margot
Schizopolis
The Seventh Seal
Star Trek Deep Space Nine (Series)
5. Tag 5 people and have them put this in their journal/blog:
I'll think about it...
Friday, June 03, 2005
Film and the Meaning of Life
I'm putting together a film course and would like to hear about any suggestions about films that explore the "meaning of life" or good essays that analyze films along these lines.
Robert at loveecstasycrime has a link to a philosophical essay by Doug Mann about Richard Linklater's Waking Life... also check out the link for Cinestatic Research's new online collection of texts TRANSMAT (but leave your film/analysis suggestions here first as this link will send you off in many philosophical directions)
Robert at loveecstasycrime has a link to a philosophical essay by Doug Mann about Richard Linklater's Waking Life... also check out the link for Cinestatic Research's new online collection of texts TRANSMAT (but leave your film/analysis suggestions here first as this link will send you off in many philosophical directions)
Patrick Martin: Christian Fundamentalist Bigotry Reigns at US Air Force Academy
Christian fundamentalist bigotry reigns at US Air Force Academy
by Patrick Martin
WSWS
Excerpt:
Members of the Yale Divinity School who visited the academy last year sent a memo subsequently documenting the overtly fundamentalist environment. During Protestant church services, they said, cadets chanted, “This is our Chapel and the Lord is our God.” They were encouraged to proselytize to others and “remind them of the consequences of apostasy.” Speakers declared that those not “born again will burn in the fires of hell,” and cadets were “regularly encouraged to ‘witness’ to fellow” cadets.
...
The report said that cadets who declined to attend an evening chapel service were marched back to their dorms by upperclassmen (who have command authority over them) in a procedure they called “heathen flight.” Teachers openly identified themselves as born-again Christians, called on students to pray before exams, and sought to recruit students to their religious persuasion.
...
One incident demonstrating the institutional pressure on behalf of Christian fundamentalism is the publication of a full-page Christmas greeting in the academy’s newspaper in December 2003, in which 300 signatories, including 16 heads or deputy heads of academic department, three deans and other top officials jointly declare that they “believe that Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world” and urge cadets to contact any of the signatories to “discuss Jesus.”
According to the AUSCS report, “faculty members and other officers who use their official positions to communicate such messages ... are sending a strong and unequivocal message of the Academy’s and the United States Air Force’s unconstitutional endorsement of religion.” It concluded that the evidence showed “systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the Academy command structure.”
...
The tone is set from the top: the academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, is a professed “born-again” Christian who addresses the cadets in chapel service and urges them “to discuss their Christian faith” with other students. In an official “Commander’s Guidance,” he declared that cadets “are accountable first to your God.” He also instructed cadets to engage in a call-and-response in which he would shout the word “Airpower” and they would reply “Rock Sir!”, invoking the New Testament image of the church built on a rock.
The academy engaged in institutional religious discrimination, denying Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist students permission to attend off-campus religious events on Saturdays, while permitting Christian students to attend such events on Sundays. A cadet who wanted to attend a Freethinkers’ meeting off base was denied permission, and also denied the right to form a similar non-religious group on campus.
(Colorado Springs, Colorado, the city where the academy is located, is the headquarters of dozens of evangelical Christian groups, including Focus on the Family, the best-financed right-wing fundamentalist pressure group, as well as the International Bible Society and the New Life Church.)
Perhaps the most ominous allegation in the report from Americans United for Separation of Church and State is the following: “At a more basic level, we have been informed that General Weida has cultivated and reinforced an attitude—shared by many in the Academy Chaplains’ Office and, increasingly, by other members of the Academy’s permanent [staff]—that the Academy, and the Air Force in general, would be better off if populated solely by Christians. A stronger message of official preference for one particular faith is hard to imagine.”
The implications of this are quite staggering: it means the Air Force officer corps is being educated not as a military force subordinate to a civilian authority, but as soldiers who are “accountable first to God.” Those who will be placed in control of the vast destructive power of modern aerial weaponry, including “smart bombs” and nuclear missiles, are to constitute a sort of praetorian guard of Christian fundamentalists.
Aside from its dire meaning for American democracy, there is the overriding question of mankind’s survival: The Pentagon is putting the power to incinerate the human race in the hands of religious zealots who believe in an imminent “second coming” in which Jesus Christ will stage a fiery return. Certainly an officer corps steeped in such a religious dogma will have few moral qualms about the use of nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary, they may well see a nuclear holocaust as a religiously ordained and even desirable way of hastening the “end time.”
Entire Essay
by Patrick Martin
WSWS
Excerpt:
Members of the Yale Divinity School who visited the academy last year sent a memo subsequently documenting the overtly fundamentalist environment. During Protestant church services, they said, cadets chanted, “This is our Chapel and the Lord is our God.” They were encouraged to proselytize to others and “remind them of the consequences of apostasy.” Speakers declared that those not “born again will burn in the fires of hell,” and cadets were “regularly encouraged to ‘witness’ to fellow” cadets.
...
The report said that cadets who declined to attend an evening chapel service were marched back to their dorms by upperclassmen (who have command authority over them) in a procedure they called “heathen flight.” Teachers openly identified themselves as born-again Christians, called on students to pray before exams, and sought to recruit students to their religious persuasion.
...
One incident demonstrating the institutional pressure on behalf of Christian fundamentalism is the publication of a full-page Christmas greeting in the academy’s newspaper in December 2003, in which 300 signatories, including 16 heads or deputy heads of academic department, three deans and other top officials jointly declare that they “believe that Jesus Christ is the only real hope for the world” and urge cadets to contact any of the signatories to “discuss Jesus.”
According to the AUSCS report, “faculty members and other officers who use their official positions to communicate such messages ... are sending a strong and unequivocal message of the Academy’s and the United States Air Force’s unconstitutional endorsement of religion.” It concluded that the evidence showed “systematic and pervasive religious bias and intolerance at the highest levels of the Academy command structure.”
...
The tone is set from the top: the academy commandant, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida, is a professed “born-again” Christian who addresses the cadets in chapel service and urges them “to discuss their Christian faith” with other students. In an official “Commander’s Guidance,” he declared that cadets “are accountable first to your God.” He also instructed cadets to engage in a call-and-response in which he would shout the word “Airpower” and they would reply “Rock Sir!”, invoking the New Testament image of the church built on a rock.
The academy engaged in institutional religious discrimination, denying Jewish and Seventh-Day Adventist students permission to attend off-campus religious events on Saturdays, while permitting Christian students to attend such events on Sundays. A cadet who wanted to attend a Freethinkers’ meeting off base was denied permission, and also denied the right to form a similar non-religious group on campus.
(Colorado Springs, Colorado, the city where the academy is located, is the headquarters of dozens of evangelical Christian groups, including Focus on the Family, the best-financed right-wing fundamentalist pressure group, as well as the International Bible Society and the New Life Church.)
Perhaps the most ominous allegation in the report from Americans United for Separation of Church and State is the following: “At a more basic level, we have been informed that General Weida has cultivated and reinforced an attitude—shared by many in the Academy Chaplains’ Office and, increasingly, by other members of the Academy’s permanent [staff]—that the Academy, and the Air Force in general, would be better off if populated solely by Christians. A stronger message of official preference for one particular faith is hard to imagine.”
The implications of this are quite staggering: it means the Air Force officer corps is being educated not as a military force subordinate to a civilian authority, but as soldiers who are “accountable first to God.” Those who will be placed in control of the vast destructive power of modern aerial weaponry, including “smart bombs” and nuclear missiles, are to constitute a sort of praetorian guard of Christian fundamentalists.
Aside from its dire meaning for American democracy, there is the overriding question of mankind’s survival: The Pentagon is putting the power to incinerate the human race in the hands of religious zealots who believe in an imminent “second coming” in which Jesus Christ will stage a fiery return. Certainly an officer corps steeped in such a religious dogma will have few moral qualms about the use of nuclear weapons. Quite the contrary, they may well see a nuclear holocaust as a religiously ordained and even desirable way of hastening the “end time.”
Entire Essay
Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story
(Reminder to check this out)
INDEPENDENT LENS
PBS
"Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story"
Tuesday, June 7, 2005 10 - 10:30 pm
Join us for this look at how a community was betrayed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone astray. Don Normark's haunting photographs evoke a lost Mexican-American village, in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium.
Learn more about Chavez Ravine at the companion Web site.
INDEPENDENT LENS
PBS
"Chavez Ravine: A Los Angeles Story"
Tuesday, June 7, 2005 10 - 10:30 pm
Join us for this look at how a community was betrayed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone astray. Don Normark's haunting photographs evoke a lost Mexican-American village, in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium.
Learn more about Chavez Ravine at the companion Web site.
National Hunger Awareness Day 2005: June 7th
(Courtesy of PSoTD)
National Hunger Awareness Day 2005, is the grassroots movement to raise awareness about the solvable problem of hunger in America. Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 will mark this year's observance with activities taking place in communities across America.
National Hunger Awareness Day 2005, is the grassroots movement to raise awareness about the solvable problem of hunger in America. Tuesday, June 7th, 2005 will mark this year's observance with activities taking place in communities across America.
Thursday, June 02, 2005
Student Montage: "Who Is In My Circle of Responsibility?"
(This moved me... and inspired me)
Who Is In My Circle of Responsibility?
Student Montage
Facing History and Ourselves
Twenty one students participated in a Facing History student symposium titled “Who is in My Circle of Responsibility” on two Saturdays in March. These students from Another Course to College, Brookline High School, Champion Charter School, Lexington High School, Swampscott High School, and Woburn Memorial High School discussed the responsibilities of citizenship in the 21st century, with a particular focus on how media can influence the choices of individuals and groups. Students’ exploration then moved to questions of prevention—and what responsibilities they may have when faced with the current genocide happening in Darfur. The students hope this will be an activism piece that will encourage others to think about the reasons we act and don't act in the case of Darfur and beyond.
To Watch the Video
Who Is In My Circle of Responsibility?
Student Montage
Facing History and Ourselves
Twenty one students participated in a Facing History student symposium titled “Who is in My Circle of Responsibility” on two Saturdays in March. These students from Another Course to College, Brookline High School, Champion Charter School, Lexington High School, Swampscott High School, and Woburn Memorial High School discussed the responsibilities of citizenship in the 21st century, with a particular focus on how media can influence the choices of individuals and groups. Students’ exploration then moved to questions of prevention—and what responsibilities they may have when faced with the current genocide happening in Darfur. The students hope this will be an activism piece that will encourage others to think about the reasons we act and don't act in the case of Darfur and beyond.
To Watch the Video
Pepe Escobar: Pipelineistan
(Courtesy of Thoughts on the Eve of the Apocalypse)
Pipelineistan's biggest game begins
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Article Link
Pipelineistan's biggest game begins
By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times
Article Link
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Sept. 24-26, 2005: End the War on Iraq!
(Courtesy of Rhetoricians for Peace)
Sept. 24-26, 2005: End the War on Iraq!
Massive Mobilization in Washington, D.C.
United for Peace and Justice
Sept. 24-26, 2005: End the War on Iraq!
Massive Mobilization in Washington, D.C.
United for Peace and Justice
Conservatives Choose "Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries"
(Courtesy of Melissa who shared this with me this morning when I noticed her grumbling about #7)
Human Events self-described as "The National Conservative Weekly" has polled their experts and come up with a list of the ten most dangerous books ... the first three by Marx, Hitler, and Mao, are obvious choices (even though #2 is a classic of right-wing thinking) that could be assumed to be included in their list, but what are the other choices? Test your knowledge of the conervative right and see if you can guess what they are... then read about their reasoning for their choices. It provides an interesting insight into what they view as dangerous...
"Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries"
Human Events self-described as "The National Conservative Weekly" has polled their experts and come up with a list of the ten most dangerous books ... the first three by Marx, Hitler, and Mao, are obvious choices (even though #2 is a classic of right-wing thinking) that could be assumed to be included in their list, but what are the other choices? Test your knowledge of the conervative right and see if you can guess what they are... then read about their reasoning for their choices. It provides an interesting insight into what they view as dangerous...
"Ten Most Harmful Books of the 19th and 20th Centuries"
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