Fight for the Cure

Fight for the cure, and stand up for the weak. Give the gift of hope, and inform others on how we can beat this disease. There are so many ways to contribute to a foundation or cause, you don’t have to donate hundreds of dollars or give body parts. All you need to donate is your time and care. The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation needs all the help it can get and its goal is to raise awareness and one day find a cure. This post is not to inform you about this foundation, when it was founded and all that other biographical information, this post is about why it’s important to me, and why it should be important to you. When it comes to my political engagement with this cause, it comes down to more than just politics. Being political will not find a cure, and as for my political engagement, is that the point? I consider informing the people I love that this is an issue, is as political as I need to be. I engage myself with this foundation because breast cancer is a disease that has hit close to home, and fighting that disease is an engagement I’m ready to step up for.

When life throws a curve ball, we can’t strike out. Leading a life filled with settling isn’t a life that I’m ready to live. Don’t settle for the problems and hurtles we may have to face; this activist project has so many support systems both political and social. Being a small part of both, is a small contribution, for a big cause. Chuck Klosterman is a man I have mentioned before, he is rude and honest and has no filter to his thoughts. In his book “Sex Drugs and Cocoa Puffs” he ends one captivating chapter with this line “That’s all I want, and that’s why I can’t have it”(Klosterman 12). He’s wrong. If this is all I want, to have engaged in a cause that helps me better understand my family’s struggles, then I’ll have it. No matter what gets in the way.

Works Cited

"Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation: About CBCF." Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation: Breast Cancer Awareness, Support and Charity. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. .

Klosterman, Chuck. Sex, drugs, and cocoa puffs a low culture manifesto. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.

Culture Jam

Reach for the clouds, the sky’s the limit, aim high and dream big. Yes, aim higher than your arms will reach, and culture jamming attempts to go against mainstream cultural institutions or advertisements and aims to react against social conformity. There are many different advertisements that represent the reactions to certain ideas and ways of life. One that caught my attention was a poster to be put into local schools across Canada. The advertisement below just shows how some have an opinion about having commercials and advertisements placed in school facilities, and perhaps suggesting that kids are hypnotized and brainwashed into buying into certain things. In the book “Understanding Comics” by Scott McCloud, he talks about what images can mean, and what the words describing them relate to. In this advertisement it says, “Aim higher, campaign for commercial free schools” and if this advertisement had a sequence of pictures, it could tell a story of how this culture jamming phenomenon has to do with schools. McCloud once said, “If the words lock in the “meaning” of a sequence, then the pictures can really take off” (McCloud 159). He’s right, if the words of culture jamming have true meaning, it can really take off, and aim high.

Works Cited

"Culture Jamming -." Google Videos. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. .

"Culture Jamming." UW Departments Web Server. Web. 22 Nov. 2009. .

Mccloud, Scott. Understanding Comics The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1994. Print.

The Consumer Matrix

Consumers. We all consume a daily intake of sources. We all consume a daily intake of reality, a harsh reality known as over-consumption. On November 25^th, 2009 our culture will try and capture the attention of the world and put a halt on the over-consumers of this planet. The plan is to encourage everyone to buy absolutely nothing all day long, as well as turning off all appliances including your cell phones and computers. Do something different, do something for your planet. Park your car in the driveway and park your butt on the couch and reach out to the world, by turning off, tuning down, and living simple. The simplest things in life are of course “free”, but we will pay for our consumption with our lives. Marshall McLuhan is a man of many opinions about how the world adjusts to the new technologies of our world, and he once said, “Any approach to environmental problems must be sufficiently flexible and adaptable to encompass the entire environmental matrix, which is in constant flux”. If he is right, and our environmental matrix is constantly changing, our matrix will potentially fluctuate into something we can’t control. Let’s adapt to this cause, and be our own matrix.

Works Cited

"Buy Nothing Day | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters." Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters | Journal of the mental environment. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

"The Playboy Interview: Marshall McLuhan." NextNature.net - Exploring the Nature caused by People. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

Neutralizing, the Net

NET NEUTRALITY

The Internet, WWW, Web, World Wide Web, computer network, data bank, data network, electronic highway, electronic mail, email, global village, information superhighway, information technology, online community, virtual community, virtual library, virtual reality. There is a mass amount of information flying around, and who’s to say that it is ours? And whether or not, it is here to stay.

The World Wide Web’s battlefield includes these main contenders: you, oh and those Internet dudes. The struggle to prevent net neutrality, the ability we have to control our web, will never come to a settlement, while certain problems are still on the battleground. Piracy, political information and copyright are some of the featured problems at this time. It is becoming harder and harder to define the term public, and easier to break the barrier of private. On one side we have the consumers, creating more and more obstacles to contain their private environment, and access others. On the other we have “them”, these are those who will do just about anything to stop us from owning our own web information. Why? You must be asking that question. Why would they want to prevent us from being our digital selves? Well, that’s simple. They want you to pay for your Internet, not to expand, but limit your access to the World Wide Web. Corporations want to be in complete control of your digital environment, or for some, your digital lives. Lawrence Lessig, the Internet enthusiast once said, “As the Internet integrated into ordinary life, it has changed things. Some of these changes are technical-The Internet has made communication faster, it has lowered the cost of gathering data, and so on” (Lessig 7). I disagree with this. We pay less for what we get, right now. But soon, will you settle with the fact that you will give more than you get? And as for our lives, as Lessig says, are they really all that “ordinary”?

Works Cited

InternetSecure. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture The Nature and Future of Creativity. New York: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005. Print.

Warner has many brothers

Warner Brother’s describes themselves as “a fully integrated, broad-based entertainment company – is a global leader in the creation, production, distribution, licensing and marketing of all forms of creative content and their related businesses.” Warner Brother’s studios owns hundreds of other companies that all have to do with the entertainment industry, some include: Warner Brother’s pictures, The CW television network, DC Entertainment Inc, and any well known movie or television program you watch today. Not only that, but they have a chain of movie theatres across the globe. There are so many owners, and companies that it is hard to keep up with the ongoing development of the Warner Brother’s studios. They are a prime example of hardcore cross media ownership.

Media Hegemonies can take on an entirely new meaning when it refers to a major media company. Hegemony refers to the power of a single group that essentially leads and dictates the other groups of the same society, in other words; cross media ownership, and yes there are some benefits and “pros” to cross media ownership. But few include media growth. Let me explain. In the book Free Culture by Lawrence Lessig, he discusses the implications of piracy, but he also represents the insight into owning more than we can handle. “I have become increasingly amazed by the power of this idea of intellectual property, and more importantly, its power to disable critical thought by policy makers and citizens” (Lessig 12). When cross media ownership becomes a large part of a company, they become bias in all of their decision making, whether it is to cancel a show, or produce more of a certain product. Like Lessig once said “There has never been a time in our history when more of our “culture” was as “owned” as it is now” (Lessig 18). When it comes to crossing the media, why do we cross their ownership? We don’t, because most of us are unaware that when you deal with Warner’s, you’re dealing with all entertainment.

Works Cited

Lessig, Lawrence. Free Culture The Nature and Future of Creativity. New York: Penguin (Non-Classics), 2005. Print.

Warnerbros.com | The Official Site For Warner Bros. Web. 18 Nov. 2009. .

Culture Participation

To be involved in our culture can be an issue of so many meanings. Whether you are a blogger, a writer, a facebooker, a creator, a gamer, you are a cultural contributor. To define culture is like trying to define the sky, it is something that is larger than our knowledge of it. People of the world come together to invent and create new ways to live life, to experience living. I am involved in many of these categories of culture, but the one I am most deeply connected with is social networking. I am currently on facebook, myspace and with the perseverance I have gathered recently I am writing and continuing with a blog.

No matter how you look at it, all cultural elements affect the public and how we interact with one another. My personal involvement may not have an impact on anyone, but who’s to say it doesn’t? I create ways of communicating my thoughts, just like how Stauber and Rampton created a mindset that contributing to the public should be for the truth, and the better of society. In their book “Toxic Sludge is good for you” they mention that they “want the public at large to recognize the skilled propagandists of industry and government who are affecting public opinion” (Stauber and Rampton 16). But how can any of us recognize what’s real and what has been manipulated? I myself have been convinced that blogging is something natural and although it is my opinion, no one will know the difference. Public Relations is a big part of culture, do I want part of that? Of course not, because it is currently being described as what a democracy doesn’t need. Journalism is what provoked me to start writing in the first place, and encouraged me to participate in today’s culture. I won’t let social networking be the demise of my imagination, or let public relations be the reason I continue. Let’s all participate and see where life takes us.

Works Cited

Stauber, John, and Sheldon Rampton. Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry. US: Center for Media, 1995. Print.