Critical Positions

Lucaite's article describes how the posted images correspond with the "civil contract of photography", wherein "the citizenship of photography...is animated by the logic of photography...and the ways in which it functions as a mechanism of social interaction (and control)". This contract certainly has many facets and interpretations, but the one point that stood out most strongly to me was that the two pictures (one of the CCTV viewing screens in London and one of protesters photographing riot police) are turning a mirror towards the those that initially sought control: the government.

Continue reading "Protest Photographs Reversing Social Control" »

Posted by fergu229 at 10:36 PM | Permalink

People are very unaware of thing around them. Always going about there day, never just taking the time to notice the small significant thing around them. I understand exactly what Ian Frazier was talking about when he told about the old home plate of the twins. People would just walk by, never noticing it, never knowing that that was where the twins won the world series, that “Hall of Famer Harmon Killebrew, the greatest Twin long-ball hitter ever, who batted right, stood there many times on the way to a lifetime total of 573 home runs.” coming from the small town of Stillwater, or the birthplace if Minnesota, I see people like that everyday. I often found myself downtown Stillwater just looking at all of the old original buildings that are still standing off of the St. Croix River. The old lumber mill for example, just think of how many thousands of trees passed though there when it was still running what though thousands of trees went to. Or the old prison, that was burned down because someone, who was not supposed to be in there, got bored. That prison held one of the most famous bandit to ever walk, or rather ride, in the US, Jesse James. Nobody really seems to care about the old anymore. We are all just too absorbed in our own fast paced lives. Look to the future and leave the past behind, Hakuna Matata as some would say. But I have news for you my friend; history is part of our future. If we don’t remember the past, we can’t move on to the future. History repeats itself. It is sad really that we don’t care about the local events that happen before our time. Our past is part of who we are, and that is something that we can not change.

Posted by nels5850 at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In 2004, Google came up with a new search engine to revolutionize the internet. They wanted to scan books online and put them in the search engine for everyone to find and read easily. However, in 2005, Google was sued by the Author’s Guild and the Association of American Publishers for copyright infringement. The lawsuits were quickly settled and allowed Google to expand its library to many universities and public libraries.

Continue reading "Google and the Future of Books" »

Posted by stark296 at 8:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Ian Frazier’s article “Mall of America” he talks about his experience at the country’s largest mall on his numerous book tours. He talks about how Tim Hedges shows him the ins and the outs, the history of the museum and the overall experience of it. He touches on how the Mall used to be the home of the Metropolitan stadium housing the Twins and The Vikings. I was not aware that this was the deal, I also didn’t know that the Mall was only recently built in 1987, with how massive it is I thought it had been there for ages. I liked his view of how the Mall is ever changing he said, “In that respect the Mall is like television- you know what you’re watching when you’re watching it, but it slips from your mind when new images appear”.

As a teenage girl I have spent many an hour at the mall, and have experienced how it’s changed. From campy snoopy to park at the mall to nickelodeon and how it’s lost it’s glam. As a thirteen year old it had all it’s glitz and glam and adventure, but as a I’ve grown older it gives me panic attacks and is way to overwhelming. At first I was offended by how Frazier ended the article with, “It’s the seed crystal that continues to grow, turning the limitlessness of the Midwest into a limitlessness that holds no surprise”. But even though I can’t go to the Mall of America for longer than fifteen minutes it will still always hold memories for me. Of my first official date, buying that great dress or where I got my ears pierced when I was eight.

I really appreciated the way Ian wrote the article, it was really descriptive and insightful. “the kind of night when you’re eighteen and you step out on the front stoop and close the door behind you and you’re sure that something exciting is just about to happen,” I love that quote. Being a freshmen in college I’m having a hard time leaving behind being a teenager, I’m turning twenty in a about two months and I just completely agree with that sentence. Even when he was talking about the stadium history he wrote beautifully, “History is memory shared, even when what’s remembered has no particular significance or drama. For a while longer we stood in the timeless time zone hovering around the home-plate plaque. Then we went our way, one foot after the other, selling the Mall”.

The Mall holds a great history whether it’s from it’s roots in the Southdale mall or The Metropolitan stadium it holds memories for whoever has visited it. Whether it be a terrible memory, a teenage memory or visiting it as a tourist. The Mall of America is a landmark of what America really is.
Frazier talks about how The Mall of America doesn’t really represent America because all it’s
products aren’t produced in America. But isn’t that what America is nowadays? Most our large corporations are constantly being investigated for workers treatment and pay, why would it surprise us that a patriotic store is made up of products from China? Or that we don’t have manufacturers in North Korea and Iraq? America is all about exploitation, tourists spending all there money at a large shopping center and support of the American high school stereotypical hang out. The Mall has an extensive history and represents America for all it’s blue collar glory.

Posted by deckx006 at 4:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Books have been an educational source and a filled with imaginations for the brain to picture. In the 21st century, technology has taken over many people’s lives and made the world busier. Now no one has time to sit down and relax with a book in there hand. People are always checking the there stocks in the market, checking e-mails, or simply on Facebook; Also known as screen reading. With our busy lives, are books slowly fading out of our lives?

Christine Rosler has taken on a topic that most people are too busy to realize. Books are simply just not that popular when comparing to the old days. I believe that though books are fading away, our society will actually be increasing the better readers than the past, because people have an easier access to the internet to read the news, emails, etc. We will have the world’s news within seconds when it happens. This generation is much well equipped to be smarter than the past generation. Just as Rosler states in the article “Just as our styles of reading have changed, so too have our reasons for reading and the amount of time we devote to it.”

I found the reports of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) published a report, “To Read or Not To Read: A Question of National Consequence” ridiculous. It states that “People who read regularly for pleasure are more likely to be employed, and more likely to vote, exercise, visit museums, and volunteer in their communities; in short, they are more engaged citizens.” I think that people who read regularly for are smarter people but I don’t believe that that would make them more likely to vote, exercise, etc. I don’t read regularly for pleasure but I still do all of those things. It is just that I don’t have time to read regularly, I have better and important things to do in life.

I also highly agree with Steven Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter (2005). He argues against the NEA stating that when comparing the economic status of obsessive novel readers and obsessive computer programmers over the next ten years, who will be more successful? Steven Johnson is trying to say that in this society, novel readers play no big important role in the economic society. Others have found that screen reading is just as or more effective than book reading with educational use.

Comparing the two, they both play a different role in teaching especially to kids. Book reading is useful in a way for the kids to imagine in the mind of the places that the book takes place. When screen reading for example like reading from the internet, games, etc. The games are teaching critical thinking skills and a sense of you as an agent having to make choices and live with those choices. They can control the destiny of the characters and have them learn from their mistakes. In a novel, they would have to follow along with what the author has written in his book. These are the new ways of learning they both are valuable to the children who are at the perfect age for learning. This will give our children a broader experience when comparing to the past generations of just novel reading. This expands the mind to think in different ways. After all this is the new age filled with great technology. The chief executive of Scholastic Publishing said, “We’ll see more about the impact of technology and the interaction between graphics and words,” he said, but since reading is “visualizing in your mind, there could easily be a rebirth of intellectual activity, whether you call it ‛reading’ or not.”

With the fear of books going out of style, an newly item changed the way humans have read novels. It is call “Kindle”, launched in 2007, it is a portable electronic reader. This saves the readers the space and weight of the books that will be needed to carry around. This item has memories to save many books into the system for easy reading. I thought this was a great innovation, this save space and money for the readers. This also saves the trees from being cut down to become the pages for the books. This item will be a great use in this society where everyone is too busy to have pleasure reading time.

Posted by vangx686 at 11:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I think lady Greenfield is taking some of theories to far. "Human brains are exquisitely sensitive to the outside world", but I don't think social networking sites are putting attentions spans in jeopardy and I don't think this should be an issues looked into. I have a facebook page and most of my friends have one too. From what I’ve noticed and from my own perspective I don't block the real world around me and spend all my time on facebook and neither does my friends. Facebook is a place where you can meet and talk to new people while your online at that time, but if someone spends all their time on these social networking sites then I think they have their own self confidence issues and made need to seek psychological help, but I don't think this effect everyone that visits these sites. Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder -- also referred to ADD or ADHD -- is a biological, brain based condition that is characterized by poor attention and distractibility and/or hyperactive and impulsive behaviors and it can has been caused without the help of the popular social networking sites.

Continue reading "Facebook and Bebo infantilising human minds" »

Posted by lambe227 at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

“People of the Screen,” is to me, a highly biased opinion piece on what Christine Rosen calls the death of “print literacy”. She believes that what she calls “digital literacy,” will soon completely take the place of books. I have to highly disagree with her. The internet and other such technologies have opened man kinds eyes to entirely new way of receiving, gathering, and sharing information, but no website, television show, or technological device will ever take over the place of a book. Books have been for hundreds of years the only possible way to track and record history. I can argue this because in the last hundred years books have continued to be printed and published in higher numbers consistently.
Christine also brings to light some studies that were done showing that an individual who does leisure reading is technically more engaged in every day life. I can agree that a person who reads more might possibly be more well versed in the knowledge that surrounds all of us, but I find it really hard to believe that there is a connection between leisure reading and being an engaged citizen.
I also admire her stance that reading for pleasure is a characteristic that is instilled at a very young age and the determining factor is ultimately the parents. The parents should be responsible for helping their children grow intellectually by reading to and providing books to their children. I think everyone can agree that you are more likely to succeed in life if you can read and write.
I say that this piece is biased because Christine throws some tid bits in the article about supporters of a “digital literacy” over that of “print literacy,” but she quickly disregards that which those supporters have to say as obtuse and misguided. She talks about the screen as some thing that has only brought destruction to the age of books. In many ways the Internet and TV have opened an entirely new and innovative way for people to learn. I can agree that reading on the screen can be somewhat distracting sometimes, but it is often useful to have several windows open doing multiple things at once. It is called multi tasking and it is the reason why human beings are at the top of the food chain.
I believe that reading from a book is a great and probably one of the best ways to learn about something, but Rosen describes it, as the end all, be all. When a supporter suggests that the screen also offers an innovative way to learn something based on putting yourself in the position of a character in video games or something of the sort, Rosen quickly denies this saying that when trying to learn in this form, the person in control and cannot possibly learn anything because of this. She suggests that in a book when must first surrender any consumptions that they might have had and accept that they are not in control, that they are the novice and the writer is the ultimate teacher.
I think the article is very well written and that she makes some good point that I myself can definitely back up, because I too am a firm believer in the power of the word in its oldest from. But to say that nothing is to be gained from the screen is absurd. I believe as some do in the article that the two can coincide and that they can build off of each other seeing as how things today are so utterly interdependent in the world we live in.

Posted by mcnut020 at 12:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

January 20, 2009 marked an ultra historic day in the America’s history. A time where it was impossible not to feel affected and moved in some way. Over two million people showed up to witness the inauguration speech of our newly elected president Barrack Obama and it was a day of many emotions. The tears flowed and people came together forgetting the differences that they once held.

Continue reading "Tear of The Year" »

Posted by heini026 at 3:33 PM | Permalink

The countries biggest mall is in the great state of Minnesota. Although it’s not the world’s largest mall it soon will be when the future addition is added. The Mall of America is a huge building with the main building being a rectangle and a smaller rectangle in each corner. These four rectangles represent the four main stores of the mall. The author, Ian Frazier, talks about his different visits to the mall as a writer on his book tours, and how each time he comes back stores change from one thing to another. I think this helps prove the point that things in today’s society are constantly changing and being improved and people still continue to come to the mall and spend their money, so we need to grasp the concept of change and fast pace because fighting it will not help.
The mall isn’t just about the current new stores of today but it also has a rich history. Where the mall is located today is where the Metropolitan Stadium used to stand in from 1956-1981. I myself didn’t know this about the location of the mall. I’m sure generations before me are aware of this since this was where the Washington Senators blossomed into our Minnesota Twins and improved a great deal as well. This is also where game seven of the 1965 World Series between the Twins and L.A. Dodgers was held. This is now marked with the home- plate plaque. So many great players stood in the same place and played the game they loved, that now millions of people are walking on that same spot every year. I have only been to The Mall of America a couple times and I remember the commercials one TV about camp snoopy. It was every little kids dream to go and ride the rides all day, but that too has been replaced by Nickelodeon Universe just another addition to the mall only this time one that I can remember.
The thing about this mall that really intrigues me the most is that the name is The Mall of America, but yet as Ian so proved it doesn’t really seem that American to me. He walked around the different stores and looked to see where the products in each of them were made. Now anyone that pays attentions knows that most of the things in this country aren’t made in this country and he proved just that. I realize that the reason we have these little things made from foreign countries is so we can get them cheap because otherwise there would be no way that we could afford them, but it seems to me that the name really contradicts itself. That was never something I thought about until I read this article.
When we are talking about such a big place with so many people of different races and such the security in the mall needs to be sure that it is set up in the proper places and to the proper degree. As stated in the article the mall in probably the only place in Minnesota that terrorists would be looking to hit. After the terrorist attacks in New York on the twin towers people were scared to come to the mall because of risk of the mall being attacked in some way. That did begin to change not long after people started coming back to the mall and the numbers went back up. Since the attacks in New York the mall actually has a store that you can buy many different patriot things like mugs, hats, and t-shirts and this was among one of the many stores that had every item made from another country. I still think that our own colors and patriot things for the store USA American Pride should be made in the U.S. Afghanistan was likely one of the many on the list that made these items and Afghanistan is in fact the country that the terrorists of 9-11 were from, maybe a correlation there?
Mall of America is rooted back to the Southdale Mall that was built in the fifties, and in all its glory it still isn’t the biggest in the world but it is the most visited. With its fancy Nickelodeon Universe and its many different businesses from a chapel, restaurants, clothing stores, National American University, and its big rectangle with a small rectangle in each corner shape; to me it really is nothing more than a big building with many stores that technically has a counterfeit name.

Posted by zwieg007 at 12:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There has been a lot of recent controversy regarding Natalie Dylan. Dylan is a 22 year old female who plans on completing a master’s degree in Marriage and family therapy. However, what has sparked a great amount of controversy has been her decision to sell her virginity online. At first glance, I thought it was in a lot of ways immoral, but after reading through the articles, I realized that this brings up a lot of social issues and in the end may actually be somewhat beneficial to the woman activist movement.

Continue reading "Natalie Dylan, what is the price to pay?" »

Posted by tranx335 at 10:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

World leaders, including our very own Obama met in London to try and work together to solve our global economic crisis. They were not alone, but joined by thousands of protesters trying to demonstrate their opinions, and concerns. There were as many as 35,000 anarchists, anti-capitalists, anti-war, and pro-environmentalist protesters in London, that showed up for these meetings.

After looking through the photographs at the event, it seemed to be a type of circus. People were dressed in costumes of all sorts. Some of these included the Joker from “Batman,” a Storm Trooper from “Star Wars,” Jesus in a police helmet, a nightmare version of Mickey Mouse, a horse with a flower in his nose, a gorilla in a bathing suit, there was even protestors carrying a effigy of a giant dead canary. I seem to wonder if all of the costumes ended up undermining the seriousness of the topics they are protesting about. From the surface, when I look at the pictures all I see is a sort of angry Halloween in the spring. Is it possible that by going to such great lengths to catch the attention of the global press, the world then became distracted from the real issues.

The variety of costumes and outfits played out well for the cameras, the people protesting, failed to send out one main coherent message to the world. Everyone had a different concern about what was being done in this modern world. A man named Harry explained that he was dressed as Death to represent “the death of the economy” and “the death of the English pound.” He was also concerned with the micro-economic problem that he was in danger of losing the deposit he’d left on the grim reaper costume he’d rented, since the police had confiscated the mask that went with it, arguing that people with covered faces were trouble. He was side by side with people carrying a large dead canary. One of the people carrying the canary that he had brought the huge bird effigy to the demonstration “to symbolize the death of Canary Wharf,” a former dockyard area that was redeveloped to become a center of London’s financial industry, and also the death of “the current financial system.”

The large crowd of protesters were not left to roam freely in the streets, but were met by a crowd of the 5,000 police that were deployed for the event, that were armed and ready for battle. Using the photographs as evidence, we know that the clash between the protestors and the police resulted in scenes of dramatic bloody violence. A modern successful protest is an even that requires coroperation between the protestors and the police. Violence only happens when people no longer decide to cooperate. The people decided not to work together with the police, but that’s what got the world’s attention. I also find myself wondering, is this what people are resorting to, in order to get their opinion heard? Shouldn’t the common person’s opinion matter just as much as our world leaders?

As we can see, no longer are people just able to express their opinion. Well, they can, but it’s very unlikely that anyone will hear what they have to say. Now people have to show what they mean through their actions. Costumes and bloody violence may be going to the extreme, but that appears to be what is now necessary. After all, it worked. I am sitting here talking not about the decisions made in the G-20 meetings, but what the protesters did. So their efforts may have been extreme, but it captured the attention of the media, and was brought throughout the world. I am now listening to what all the protestors have to say, and what they want done.

Posted by grigg048 at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Diane Arbus was an amazing photographer with an essential voice to her era. She has capture things that no one else has been able to; she’s gone places no one else has even dared to go and photographed the fringes of society in a depression. Diane Arbus was one of the most adventurous fairy-tale like human beings I have ever read about. When I saw that an article and documentary was up about her, I jumped at the chance to write this, she has been a heroine of mine since I was fourteen and first discovered her in my first black and white photography class.

Continue reading "Arbus: A Photography Legend" »

Posted by deckx006 at 3:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

This is ironic how the CEO's of all these companies are trying to cover up and convince the public that their company is doing fine and will be fine in the future. Basically the public is being lied to and it is hurting the public. The CEO's make it sound like everything is going to be alright, so do not worry if you have some connection to the company. Then you have Jim Cramer telling the public "buy buy buy," when stocks are low because you can make money in the future. Then these companies go under and the public is in a lost. Then you have home owners that went out recently got loans to buy a house and now are losing the house because they cannot afford the payments anymore. They public wants to know why their payments went up. Now it does not matter if you have perfect credit and a large down payment you are going to have a lot of trouble getting a loan for anything right now. Then you have the loan companies working with the public to work out payment plans for their mortgages. They companies will pretty much do anything to get you to be able to pay them some of the money because if they take your house they are losing money. They public needs to start reading the loan agreement know exactly what they are signing.
It is sad that it takes a Comedy Central show like the Daily Show with John Stewart to actually show the real side of the economy to the public. Most people are experiencing hard times due to the economy falling. The public does know what is going on. But to have someone actually sit down and research it and inform the public of something’s they may not know, and actually have evidence to back it up and support it. This is being done by a comedy television production, think that is a little ironic. This is pretty ridiculous. Yes, journals and news papers do not have the opportunity to put videos together to back up what their article is about but the still need to research the thing they are to be writing about. This is getting harder and harder because the companies are losing employees due to cut backs because news papers are becoming less useful and unnecessary. This is just becoming a vicious circle of things going downhill. The public needs to look farther into major choices in their life, like signing for loans.
Serr0069@umn.edu

Posted by serr0069 at 12:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In the position paper Jessica does a very good description of what it going on in the photos as well as on the 9th floor looking over Manhattan. At first when looking at the pictures you are very disgusted and disturbed on what was all taken. But then you have to ask yourself: why am I looking at these pictures? In today’s world we are drawn to violence; we like looking at pictures and hearing stories. Not only that but we also like to watch movies with violence like murder, wars, destruction, and death. We watch this because we do not see it every day and we become engaged in violence. With violence being the leading entertainment for the media and the world this is why we get amused. You think of how they could have money, space, or even veins left to afford the addiction to drugs. Why do the people turn to drugs on the 9th floor: to make it in order to live or just to get their next hit?

Heroin was a drug that was use in a photograph of Dioon who was addicted. Dioon stated the typical junkie seems to only have one thing on the mind when heroin is involved. When getting in the mind of Jessie who had the addiction, Jessie stated, “All I was thinking about was, I wanna get high. I wanna get high. You know, I wanna get high. I guess the junkie life was what I wanted. I had really no other aspirations. I just never tried to do anything. The only thing I really wanted to do was, you know, get loaded, and sit around and do nothing. So that's what I did.” We see by this statement that people are destroying themselves and the person they were before doing the drug. When the drug takes over someone’s body there is no feeling or personality left in the person; that person loses themselves and everything they used to have. When one’s only motivating force in life is heroin, long-term goals, passions, and even friends and family can be overruled by the pursuit of the next fix.

Becoming addicted may only be a psychological illness but once addicted, it is a physical illness as well. Addiction can take over your body and going through withdrawal can be an extremely painful process. Initially, however, it is all a matter of choice and if the resource is available. People today often just want to experience positive emotions and they find they can achieve this by becoming intoxicated or high. Even though I have watched many people recover from an addiction there are also some who have never recovered and continue to be addicted. This is when I think individuals choose this kind of path for their life – when they believe there is no way out of the hole they have dug for themselves. You cannot understand the insanity as you look in from the outside unless you yourself have been inside that hole attempting to put down the shovel and crawl your way out. Dioon later explained, “I'm not stupid. I don't think anyone owes me anything. I know that everything I did I made my own choice about it. And that's what sucks real bad”. This is why people have to take responsibility for their actions. People make their own choices, not the drug. This is when they decide if they want to be saved or not. Dimmock presented herself in a dangerous situation, but as Dimmock said at the end of her whole research article “You can explore further... you should explore further.”

I also have to admit that I am one of those people who are fascinated by the violence and death scenes that Jessica showed and explained. I find it entertaining because I do not see it on a daily basis. This is why you have to think about what it is really like to be addict to actually understand what Jessica is saying in this position paper.

http://www.americansuburbx.com/2009/02/jessica-dimmock-dove-headlong-into.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2005/09/09/magazine/20050911_DIMMOCK_SLIDESHOW_1.html
http://www.foammagazine.nl/index.php?pageId=9&foto=3

Posted by sloa0064 at 11:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

The hot issue on the tip of just about anyone’s tongue these days is the current financial crisis in America. Everyone has an opinion about it and is eager to share their thoughts. Unfortunately, a good majority of these people fall into at least one of the following categories: 1) Everyday citizens who have no idea what the real problem is and therefore just talk out of their ass, 2) Drunks who have no idea what the real problem is and therefore just talk out of their ass, or 3) Political/economic “experts” who have no idea what the real problem is and therefore just talk out of their ass. One of the few people who does not fall into one of these 3 categories is Mr. Jon Stewart. In his facetious rant against “loser homeowners” Stewart hits on many key points regarding CNBC’s (lack of) quality reporting prior to the fall of the stock market. The most striking aspect of this rant, however, is that an economic prowess of Stewart’s level is not even necessary to realize how insufficient CNBC’s reporting is. All one needed to do was to sparingly tune into an episode of “Mad Money,” any of CNBC’s interviews with CEOs of financial companies, or any of the discussions their “experts” had regarding the interviews with said CEOs, and then simply hear of these CEOs companies going under and the market falling. My point here, folks, is that while, in a perfect world, the leading reporter of financial news would honestly and truthfully report to us the condition of our market, the truth is this world is far from perfect; CNBC analysts knew what was going on. The people that provide us with our news benefit more from keeping us in the dark than from shedding light on the dubious, unethical, and sometimes unlawful practices of the institutions that hold our money.

In his blog, Will Bunch writes that the research that Jon Stewart does for his show is “The kind of research that's so hard for most newspapers to do anymore, with downsized staffs and ever-looming deadlines…” While I know there is truth to this statement, I see it as a cop-out excuse at best. I refuse to accept tightening of funding as a reason to not research the truth behind an issue, especially when the countries financial security, which includes Bunch’s own retirement fund, is put in jeopardy as a result. Bunch later goes on to say, “I don't have the answers to problems facing American journalism-“ Hey, I do: It’s called DO YOUR EFFING JOB. On March 12th, Stewart interviewed Jim Cramer from CNBC’s “Mad Money” on The Daily Show. In this interview, Jon grilled Cramer about the knowledge CNBC had about the shenanigans going on in the financial world, and how it kept from the viewers this knowledge. When confronted with clips contradicting his defense of himself, Jim admits, “Should we have been constantly pointing out the mistakes that were made? Absolutely. I truly wish we had done more.” (1) This brings to mind a certain saying my dad once told me about wishing in one hand and crapping in the other. When Jon brings up the access CNBC has to CEOs, Cramer tells him “I had a lot of CEOs lie to me on the show.” (1) The only thing more dangerous than having greedy CEOs driving companies into the ground while telling us they are doing “fine” is for us to accept their words at face value! As I stated before, it does not even take diligent research to figure these things out; this is something you and I can all do.

Now don’t get me wrong, I agree with almost every point Will Bunch makes about how media outlets should take a page or two from Jon Stewart when presenting the news. However, I can’t stand his stereotypical American attitude of “Oh yeah, I really want this to get done, as long as I’m not the one to do it” in regards to doing research to inform readers and viewers of what is happening in the world. It is the job of newspapers, magazines, and TV news sources to provide the consumers with this knowledge. However, it is apparent that this does not happen nearly enough. At the risk of sounding like the usual anti-government conspiracy theorist I say the following: we know what they want us to know. But this does not have to be the case. Keep an eye on the economy, and do listen to what the “experts” have to say, but think critically about their words.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to bow in the direction of Jon Stewart.

1. http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=220538&title=jim-cramer-pt.-2

Posted by labo0073 at 2:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)