Monty Star Wars
And, now this...
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A blog for passing time, and passing messages about media, about media ecology which is the study of media as environments, about language and symbols, about technology, about communication, about consciousness, about culture, about life and the universe, about everything and nothing, about time...
Veteran newsman Tom Brokaw says that these books, taken together, present a peerless portrait of journalism's high aims and low comedy.
The five books I've chosen to write about reflect my own attitudes about the craft I've practiced for 45 years now. They're a mix of the triumphs of journalism, the absurdities, the vanities and the importance of a free press in any society.
5. Amusing Ourselves to Death
By Neil Postman
Viking, 1985Neil Postman's polemic is at once provocative, exaggerated, insightful, myopic and instructive. Instructive because Postman does raise appropriate warning flags about relying wholly on television as a medium for serious inquiry about ideas. Myopic because he fails to acknowledge television's role as a catalyst for learning. Favorable attention for a book on television spurs many more sales than a newspaper's positive review. He is right, however, when he observes that TV's entertainment values can smother rational discourse if the two are not kept in balance. As for his claim that the medium's "form excludes content," it is an exaggerated judgment. Take the subject of global climate change. Scientific arguments are of course essential to making the case, but it would be hard to deny how much the images of shrinking ice caps, rising sea levels and parched landscapes reinforce the arguments. Nonetheless, "Amusing Ourselves to Death," a cautionary tale, should be required reading for all broadcast journalists -- and perhaps for their viewers as well.
Worker fights robber to 'look good' on YouTube
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
By GIOVANNA FABIANO
STAFF WRITER
ELMWOOD PARK – A Dunkin' Donuts employee who whacked a robber over the head with a tip cup Sunday night said only one thought was running through his mind – not looking like a wimp on YouTube.
Dustin Hoffmann, a borough musician who has worked at the coffee and doughnuts chain for 10 months, said he fought back because he wanted to "look good" if the surveillance tape turned up on the popular video-sharing Web site.
"What was going through my mind at that point was that the security tape is either going to show me run away and hide in the office or whack this guy in the head, so I just grabbed the cup and clocked that guy pretty hard," Hoffmann said Monday.
The robber walked into Dunkin' Donuts on westbound Route 46 shortly after 5:30 p.m., ordered a blueberry cake doughnut and handed Hoffmann a dollar bill, Police Chief Donald Ingrasselino said.
As Hoffmann opened the register, the bandit lunged at him behind the counter and started grabbing cash, Ingrasselino said.
But Hoffmann didn't give up the money easily, attempting to stop the robber by grabbing his wrists and hitting him over the head repeatedly with a metal cup used for holding tips, the chief said.
Police are attempting to download the surveillance video in a digital format, but Hoffmann said once it's available, he is putting it on YouTube himself.
"There are only a few videos like that on YouTube now, so mine's going to be the best," Hoffmann said. "That'll teach this guy."
The robber fled with $290 in cash, but not before losing his baseball cap in the scuffle, said Ingrasselino.
The robber, who police described as an unshaven, 5-foot-10 to 6-foot tall white man in his 30s, with a medium build, black hair and long sideburns, was wearing a black baseball cap, a blue sweatshirt, a white T-shirt, blue jeans and beige work boots.
Police believe he is the same man who robbed two Dunkin' Donuts in the past two weeks – one on Route 46 in Parsippany, in which he stole $1,500, and the other on Route 10 in East Hanover in late November.
In January, a Belleville man was charged in connection with a string of burglaries at Dunkin' Donuts shops in Paramus, Garfield, Rutherford and Lodi.
Anyone with information can call police at 201-796-0700.
Friending, Ancient or Otherwise
By ALEX WRIGHTPublished: December 2, 2007
THE growing popularity of social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and Second Life has thrust many of us into a new world where we make “friends” with people we barely know, scrawl messages on each other’s walls and project our identities using totem-like visual symbols.
We’re making up the rules as we go. But is this world as new as it seems?
Academic researchers are starting to examine that question by taking an unusual tack: exploring the parallels between online social networks and tribal societies. In the collective patter of profile-surfing, messaging and “friending,” they see the resurgence of ancient patterns of oral communication.
“Orality is the base of all human experience,” says Lance Strate, a communications professor at Fordham University and devoted MySpace user. He says he is convinced that the popularity of social networks stems from their appeal to deep-seated, prehistoric patterns of human communication. “We evolved with speech,” he says. “We didn’t evolve with writing.”
The growth of social networks — and the Internet as a whole — stems largely from an outpouring of expression that often feels more like “talking” than writing: blog posts, comments, homemade videos and, lately, an outpouring of epigrammatic one-liners broadcast using services like Twitter and Facebook status updates (usually proving Gertrude Stein’s maxim that “literature is not remarks”).
“If you examine the Web through the lens of orality, you can’t help but see it everywhere,” says Irwin Chen, a design instructor at Parsons who is developing a new course to explore the emergence of oral culture online. “Orality is participatory, interactive, communal and focused on the present. The Web is all of these things.”
An early student of electronic orality was the Rev. Walter J. Ong, a professor at St. Louis University and student of Marshall McLuhan who coined the term “secondary orality” in 1982 to describe the tendency of electronic media to echo the cadences of earlier oral cultures. The work of Father Ong, who died in 2003, seems especially prescient in light of the social-networking phenomenon. “Oral communication,” as he put it, “unites people in groups.”
In other words, oral culture means more than just talking. There are subtler —and perhaps more important — social dynamics at work.
Michael Wesch, who teaches cultural anthropology at Kansas State University, spent two years living with a tribe in Papua New Guinea, studying how people forge social relationships in a purely oral culture. Now he applies the same ethnographic research methods to the rites and rituals of Facebook users.
“In tribal cultures, your identity is completely wrapped up in the question of how people know you,” he says. “When you look at Facebook, you can see the same pattern at work: people projecting their identities by demonstrating their relationships to each other. You define yourself in terms of who your friends are.”
In tribal societies, people routinely give each other jewelry, weapons and ritual objects to cement their social ties. On Facebook, people accomplish the same thing by trading symbolic sock monkeys, disco balls and hula girls.
“It’s reminiscent of how people exchange gifts in tribal cultures,” says Dr. Strate, whose MySpace page lists his 1,335 “friends” along with his academic credentials and his predilection for “Battlestar Galactica.”
As intriguing as these parallels may be, they only stretch so far. There are big differences between real oral cultures and the virtual kind. In tribal societies, forging social bonds is a matter of survival; on the Internet, far less so. There is presumably no tribal antecedent for popular Facebook rituals like “poking,” virtual sheep-tossing or drunk-dialing your friends.
Then there’s the question of who really counts as a “friend.” In tribal societies, people develop bonds through direct, ongoing face-to-face contact. The Web eliminates that need for physical proximity, enabling people to declare friendships on the basis of otherwise flimsy connections.
“With social networks, there’s a fascination with intimacy because it simulates face-to-face communication,” Dr. Wesch says. “But there’s also this fundamental distance. That distance makes it safe for people to connect through weak ties where they can have the appearance of a connection because it’s safe.”
And while tribal cultures typically engage in highly formalized rituals, social networks seem to encourage a level of casualness and familiarity that would be unthinkable in traditional oral cultures. “Secondary orality has a leveling effect,” Dr. Strate says. “In a primary oral culture, you would probably refer to me as ‘Dr. Strate,’ but on MySpace, everyone calls me ‘Lance.’ ”
As more of us shepherd our social relationships online, will this leveling effect begin to shape the way we relate to each other in the offline world as well? Dr. Wesch, for one, says he worries that the rise of secondary orality may have a paradoxical consequence: “It may be gobbling up what’s left of our real oral culture.”
The more time we spend “talking” online, the less time we spend, well, talking. And as we stretch the definition of a friend to encompass people we may never actually meet, will the strength of our real-world friendships grow diluted as we immerse ourselves in a lattice of hyperlinked “friends”?
Still, the sheer popularity of social networking seems to suggest that for many, these environments strike a deep, perhaps even primal chord. “They fulfill our need to be recognized as human beings, and as members of a community,” Dr. Strate says. “We all want to be told: You exist.”
From Birkat Hamazon (Grace After Meals)After this prayer, I thought it appropriate to say the Shehecheyanu blessing that we say whenever we have a special occasion or milestone:
A song of ascents. When Adonai brought the exiles back to Zion it was like a dream. Then our mouths were filled with laughter and our tongues with song. Then was it said among the nations: “Adonai has done great things for them.” Truly, Adonai has done great things for us. And we rejoiced. Bring us from exile, Adonai, as the streams return to the Negev; those who sow in tears shall reap in joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing sacks of seeds, shall return with joy, bearing their sheaves.
Let us thank God. Blessed is the name of God now and forever. With your permission, let us thank God whose food we have eaten. Blessed is God whose food we have eaten and through whose goodness we live. Blessed is God and Blessed is God’s name.
Blessed is Adonai our God, Sovereign of the universe, who sustains the entire world with goodness, kindness and mercy. God gives food to all creatures, for God’s mercy is everlasting. With abundant goodness we have never lacked, and may we never lack sustenance forever in God’s great name. God sustains all, does good to all, and provides food for all the creatures created. Blessed is Adonai, who provides food for all.
For all these blessings we thank Adonai our God with praise. May God’s name be praised by every living being forever, as it is written: “When you have eaten your fill, give thanks to Adonai your God for the good land which God has given you.” Blessed is Adonai for the land and its produce.
May God rebuild Jerusalem, the holy city, speedily in our lifetime. Blessed is Adonai, who restores Jerusalem with mercy. Amen
May the Merciful One Rule over us forever and ever. May the Merciful One be blessed in heaven and on earth.
May the Merciful One send abundant blessing upon this dwelling and the table at which we have eaten.
May the Merciful One bless all of our brothers and sisters of the house of Israel who are now oppressed and bring them from darkness into light.
May the Merciful One grant us a world that shall be entirely Shabbat and eternal rest.
May the One who makes peace in the heavens let peace descend on all us, and let us say Amen.
May Adonai give strength to our people; may Adonai bless our people with peace.
Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the universe, who has granted us life and sustenance and permitted us to reach this season.
Psalm 100I took elements of two different translations to get what I thought was the right effect. Anyway, from there the service proceeded as usual, until right before the prayer for peace, at which point I made a brief statement about how there are people who experience the Thanksgiving holiday as a time of mourning, specifically the native American peoples, and that we, as Jews, should feel a special kinship with them, and given that we have celebrated the American holiday of Thanksgiving, I asked for a moment of silence on behalf of the first peoples of our land. Following that, I had us read together a native American prayer of thanksgiving. We all took turns reading each paragraph, and between each paragraph, we all said the short line together. The specific source was A Haudenosaunee "Thanksgiving" Prayer From Native American Poems and Prayers, and here is how it goes:
A Psalm of thanksgiving. Shout to the Eternal, all the earth
Serve the Eternal with gladness
Come before God's presence singing praises
Know that Adonai is God
The Eternal made us, and we are God's people, and the flock of God's pasture
Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courtyards with praise
Give thanks to the Eternal and bless God's name
For Adonai is good
God's kindness is forever, and until generation after generation is the Eternal's faith
GREETINGS TO THE NATURAL WORLD! Today we have gathered and we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living things. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give greetings and thanks to each other as People.I think that everyone found it to be a beautiful and meaningful, and of course spiritual experience. Immediately after saying this prayer, we sang "Shalom Rav," a prayer for peace in the world.
Now our minds are one.
We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of time. To our Mother, we send greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
We give thanks to all the Waters of the world for quenching our thirst and providing us with strength. Water is life. We know its power in many forms - waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the spirit of water.
Now our minds are one.
We turn our minds to all the Fish life in the water. They were instructed to cleanse and purify the water. They also give themselves to us as food. We are grateful that we can still find pure water. So, we turn now to the Fish and send our greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
Now we turn toward the vast fields of Plant life. As far as the eye can see, the Plants grow, working many wonders. They sustain many life forms. With our minds gathered together, we give thanks and look forward to seeing Plant life for many generations to come.
Now our minds are one.
With one mind, we turn to honor and thank all the Food Plants we harvest from the garden. Since the beginning of time, the grains, vegetables, beans and berries have helped the people survive. Many other living things draw strength from them too. We gather all the Plant Foods together as one and send them a greeting and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
Now we turn to all the Medicine herbs of the world. From the beginning, they were instructed to take away sickness. They are always waiting and ready to heal us. We are happy there are still among us those special few who remember how to use these plants for healing. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to the Medicines and to the keepers of the Medicines.
Now our minds are one.
We gather our minds together to send greetings and thanks to all the Animal life in the world. They have many things to teach us as people. We see them near our homes and in the deep forests. We are glad they are still here and we hope that it will always be so.
Now our minds are one.
We now turn our thoughts to the Trees. The Earth has many families of Trees who have their own instructions and uses. Some provide us with shelter and shade, others with fruit, beauty and other useful things. Many peoples of the world use a Tree as a symbol of peace and strength. With one mind, we greet and thank the Tree life.
Now our minds are one.
We put our minds together as one and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds - from the smallest to the largest - we send our joyful greetings and thanks.
Now our minds are one.
We are all thankful to the powers we know as the Four Winds. We hear their voices in the moving air as they refresh us and purify the air we breathe. They help to bring the change of seasons. From the four directions they come, bringing us messages and giving us strength. With one mind, we send our greetings and thanks to the Four Winds.
Now our minds are one.
Now we turn to the west where our Grandfathers, the Thunder Beings, live. With lightning and thundering voices, they bring with them the water that renews life. We bring our minds together as one to send greetings and thanks to our Grandfathers, the Thunderers.
Now our minds are one.
We now send greetings and thanks to our eldest Brother, the Sun. Each day without fail he travels the sky from east to west, bringing the light of a new day. He is the source of all the fires of life. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Brother, the Sun.
Now our minds are one.
We put our minds together and give thanks to our oldest grandmother, the Moon, who lights the night-time sky. She is the leader of women all over the world, and she governs the movement of the ocean tides. By her changing face we measure time, and it is the Moon who watches over the arrival of children here on Earth. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to our Grandmother, the Moon.
Now our minds are one.
We give thanks to the Stars who are spread across the sky like jewelry. We see them in the night, helping the Moon to light the darkness and bringing dew to the gardens and growing things. When we travel at night, they guide us home. With our minds gathered together as one, we send greetings and thanks to all the Stars.
Now our minds are one.
We gather our minds to greet and thank the enlightened Teachers who have come to help throughout the ages. When we forget how to live in harmony, they remind us of the way we were instructed to live as people. With one mind, we send greetings and thanks to these caring Teachers.
Now our minds are one.
Now we turn our thoughts to the Creator, or Great Spirit, and send greetings and thanks for the gifts of Creation. Everything we need to live a good life is here on this Mother Earth. For all the love that is still around us, we gather our minds together as one and send our choicest words of greetings and thanks to the Creator.
Now our minds are one.
We have now arrived at the place where we end our words. Of all the things we have named, it was not our intention to leave anything out. If something was forgotten, we leave it to each individual to send such greetings and thanks in their own way.
Now our minds are one.
Prayer for Thanksgiving
This time of year is set apart
As a time of Thanksgiving in our land.
And we certainly ought to give thanks
For living in a land of great abundance.
But we can only give thanks
When we give thanks to someone,
When we give thanks to a higher power,
So we give thanks to You, God,
We give thanks to You.
And it is easy enough to give thanks to You,
For those of us who live comfortable lives,
Who have our health, and the love of family and friends,
Who have clothing to wear and a roof over our heads,
And more than enough to eat,
Not to mention some measure of material wealth.
And for those of us whose lives are not blest by such abundance,
Or whose lives are touched by sickness, tragedy, or isolation,
It still may be easy to give thanks,
If we have found spiritual fulfillment,
Inner peace and outer contentment.
For all of us who feel some form of satisfaction with our lives,
It is a time when we ought to be recalling our good fortune,
And recounting our blessings,
And giving thanks for all that we have received,
It takes so little effort
For us to do it for ourselves,
We need no one else to speak on our behalf.
And that is why, God,
That I do not want to speak now
For the self-satisfied and the satiated,
And instead I want to give voice
To those among us who are angry at You,
Yes, angry at You, God,
And for that reason find it hard to give thanks,
At this time of year, or any other.
I want to give voice for those among us who are angry at You,
Because some of us seem to get more than our fair share
Of sadness and affliction,
More than our share of pain, hardship, and tragedy,
Because the burden You have placed on some of us
Seems so much heavier
Than what You have asked the rest of us to carry,
Because the world that You created
Sometimes seems so unjust, arbitrary, even cruel.
And I want to speak for those of us who are angry at You, God
Because we see evil triumphant,
Oppression and murder rule the day,
Because hate, aggression, and violence go unanswered,
Because there seems to be no punishment for the wicked,
No reward for those who do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly,
Because the innocent go to unmarked graves without number,
And because even at the best of times, Your angel of death haunts our days.
And I want to talk to You, God, on behalf of those of us who are angry with You,
Because our prayers seem to go unanswered,
Because Your silence is overwhelming,
Because Your eclipse leaves us in the dark,
Because Your absence leaves a void in the human soul
That no science, philosophy, or politics can hope to fill.
I want to say a prayer, God, on behalf of those among us who are angry at You,
And find it difficult to give thanks,
Wanting instead only to ask You,
Why?
In our tradition,
It is no sin to question God,
To debate God,
To argue with God,
So why should it be a sin to be angry at God?
And just as there are times
When we ask God to put aside his anger,
And grant us forgiveness,
There are times when we too need to put aside our own anger,
And forgive God.
To forgive You, God, for not living up to our expectations and fantasies,
To forgive You, God, for not being the God that we want You to be,
For instead being the God that You are,
To forgive You, God, for not being an overprotective parent,
And instead being a partner,
And leaving it up to us to finish what You started,
To complete Your creation,
To repair reality,
To heal the world.
And if we find it in our hearts to forgive You, God,
Then maybe,
Maybe then,
We can all of us find it in our hearts to give thanks
For what we have received.
For the gift of life, however brief and troublesome, still, life itself is a miracle.
For our bodies, through which we can enjoy pleasure and delight.
For our senses, through which we can encounter great beauty, and wonder.
For our feelings, through which we can know love, and joy, and hope.
For our minds, through which we can learn and grow,
Acquire knowledge
Gain understanding,
Seek wisdom,
And find meaning.
For our spirit, through which we can experience
The sacred and the sublime,
The holy and the holistic,
Transcendence and communion.
For the universe, through which we can experience
Connection across time and space.
For others like ourselves, from whom we can draw comfort and strength,
With whom we can form communities, gaining commitment and purpose.
For the chance to make things better than they were before,
To contribute, even in the smallest of ways,
To be a part of something greater, so much greater, than ourselves.
And so, it is for these gifts above all else,
Which You have provided to all of us
To each and every human being,
We give thanks to You, God, we give thanks to You.
Wow! Fabulous! What an immense undertaking, David and Si, and apparently very much the labor of love. You have really used the medium well here. The idea of hypertext, and hypertextual poetry (or should we say hyperpoetry) has been around for almost two decades, predating the web itself (which relies on hypertext markup language aka html), but there is surprising little experimentation with the form here among the MySpace poets, at least the ones I've encountered. And maybe rightly so, as just because a technology makes it so you can do something doesn't mean that you ought to do it.
But this isn't a hypertext in the original sense, that is, a single-authored work with links that allow you to move in nonlinear fashion among different pages. This is web hyperpoetry, where the links take you to other pages that already exist, and that were created by others. So, at once you have a poem that stands as its own work, and as others have indicated, it is a fine write in and of itself. The fact that it's co-authored makes it a little bit atypical, especially for a poem, but collaborative writing is far from unknown in print culture.
But it seems clear to me that you did not write this poem first, then decide to look for appropriate links, but rather that you had the idea to create this new form, and that the writing of this poem was shaped and influenced, at least in part, by the other poems that you were thinking of including. That imposes certain constraints, of course, which can often lead to a better work than just going free form, but it also means that in some way you have retrieved aspects of traditional oral poetry (e.g., Iliad, Odyssey, Beowulf, etc.), in which pre-existing elements are woven together to create a new composition.
In other words, while this is not epic in scope or theme, but rather a more individualistic, inner-directed, self-conscious meditation on poetry of the sort that was born out of print culture. It is epic in the sense that it goes beyond the individual to represent an entire community and a tradition of sorts (albeit a very young one). It is epic in weaving (and the weave metaphor is at the heart of epos, that's what rhapsode is all about) a grand tapestry that stands as a great celebration of poets and poetry. And of community. More than anything else, you have made a beautiful and loving statement about a community of poets, a tribe!
All media are best understood as environments that we live in, not just things that we use (or ignore), but this poem truly brings that to the fore as what you create is a poetic environment that the reader can move through, and explore that community of poets. This is truly representative of a new, electronic form, that is outer-directed and other-directed, and yes, environmental. I think that, more than a good write, this stands as a significant achievement of lasting value.
On a personal note, I would add that I feel privileged to have been able to join that community, and honored to be included in this work. Thank you, guys.
And I hope I've made myself sufficiently clear: I like it, I really, really like it.
The ancient ritual of brewing a distinctly rich and flavorful beer is nothing short of magic. Our mysterious mix of time-honored ingredients, chaotic chemistry, humble patience, and blind faith age into the secret brew we share in the rousing company of good spirits.
A Beer Cloaked in Secrecy
An ale whose mysterious and unusual palate will swirl across your tongue and ask more questions than it answers.
A beer brewed clandestinely and given a name whose meaning is never revealed. Why #9? Why, indeed.
A sort of dry, crisp, fruity, refreshing, not-quite pale ale. #9 is really impossible to describe because there's never been anything else quite like it.