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Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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 Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 12:18 pm Post subject: "Miss Jones" celebration of the tsunami and Asia r |
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This story is becoming 'hot' in Asia. Xinhua, SCMP, and many other Asian papers have been running it. I know one Hong Kong paper has been discussing today whether to run more commentary on it.
Unfortunately, for many "Asians" and Chinese, this might be interpreted as a common "American" view. The station, the ethnicity of the principals, the concept of "shock jocks" and "hip-hop" rivalry mean nothing in Asia. Even if "Miss Jones", her team and her managers are the only individuals in America who have these views on the sudden death of a quarter of a million people, it's still damaging. This is particularly sad to see in the same papers reporting on joyous scenes in Iraq.
| Quote: | For the last week New York's Hot 97 has been running a hideously unfunny and offensive skit named the "Tsunami Song," that ridicules the victims of the Tsunami as "chinks" whose children will now be sold into child slavery. It's being played on the station's morning show, hosted by Miss Jones.
Here are some choice lyrics:
"..All at once you could hear the screaming chinks
and no one was safe from the wave
there were africans drowning, little chinamen swept away
you could hear god laughing, "swim you b*****s swim"
So now you're screwed, it's the Tsunami
you better run or kiss your ass away, go find your mommy
I just saw her float by, a tree went through her head
and now the children will be sold to child slavery..." |
http://www.petitiononline.com/tsunmai7/petition.html
From a joint China/Taiwan/Hong Kong/Korea/Japan discussion forum:
| Quote: | u know.. after all this.. i kinda regretted ppl never made fun of the 9-11 event
this natural disaster was even WORST than september 11 yet u r making fun of it.. hm.. if u think about it.. if anybody back then re-wrote the lyrics of the song for 9-11 and made fun of them and mocked them (even though they may be telling the truth) i think the USA would have done a LOT more than now..
another note to add why i'm not a big US fan.. *sigh* disappointed u would think their cockiness would die down.. guess not |
Unfortunately, it only takes the actions of one or two idiots to colour the views of a thousand million. Perhaps free speech should have some limits. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 3:27 pm Post subject: |
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Bob51,
The mentioned Tsunami radio joke was played once and Miss Jones and her entire morning staff were suspended indefinately, which means they were fired. In addition 3 major advertisers pulled all ads from the radio station. The reverberating anti-american sentiment you hear in asia fails to mention the resulting repercussions for the insensitivity shown by this DJ.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/nyc-ethot0127,0,4503838.story
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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| Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 6:08 pm Post subject: |
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Crows everywhere are equally black.
How can you expect to find ivory in a dog's mouth?
Pick up a sesame seed but lose sight of a watermelon.
Old Chinese Proverbs |
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I B Squidly
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 879
Location: Cactus Patch
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| Posted: Mon Jan 31, 2005 8:52 pm Post subject: |
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Bob51,
I didn't hear the song but reading the cheap rhymes and disjointed time scheme I'ld say what you got there is a classic example of 'Gangsta Rap'. Middle-class Black and White youths affect gangster depravity with "songs" that celebrate misogyny and killing police. Sadly this crap makes money; alot of money. Anomy is alive and well in American culture. The 'stars' of this industry endorsed Kerry with violent rhetoric and polemical 'videos'. Fortunately none had the commitment to actually vote. |
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Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:24 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Anomy is alive and well in American culture. |
Well, that just confirms my hopefully age-related anomia. What a wonderful word, IB.
Anomie - a word so poetic the use of it initiates the remedy for the condition it describes.
| Quote: | | Pick up a sesame seed but lose sight of a watermelon. |
Sesame seed or little acorn? What interests me is how the scale of the impact is out of all proportion to the seed news item. The original item was scarcely more newsworthy than a schoolyard fight, yet someone picked it up. Agencies may have used it as a filler between real stories - Asian newspapers use agency feeds extensively since their own resources are limited.
Why don't they mention "the resulting repercussions"?
As stated privately by an editor in a local paper "We've already covered that story".
This is how incremental anti-Americanism proceeds. Even Kitson would have been proud of the cumulative effect of this low-intensity operation had it been a deliberate tactic.
| Quote: | | Miss Jones and her entire morning staff were suspended indefinately |
By the way, the forum hotheads think indefinite suspension should involve a rope and a tree.
On a brighter note, it has led to some discussion of how America values and protects the concept of free speech. |
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I B Squidly
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 879
Location: Cactus Patch
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 7:06 pm Post subject: |
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Thanks Bob51. I've toyed with that word for 30 years but never connected to enema.
As to the phenomenon that converts news gathering into news making I recommend "The Image; a guide to psuedo events in America" by the late, great Daniel Boorstin. Better than the paranoia of Vance Packard or the meta-physics of McCluhan, Boorstin writing contemporaneously accurately predicts and describes the media cacophonia we've come to know and loathe. |
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Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject: On media and discourse |
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Thanks IB, long ago I read Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death". Have you read it? From the introduction:
| Quote: | But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another - slightly older, slightly less well known, equally chilling: Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.
What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance. Orwell feared we would become a captive culture. Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy. As Huxley remarked in Brave New World Revisited, the civil libertarians and rationalists who are ever on the alert to oppose tyranny "failed to take into account man's almost infinite appetite for distractions". In 1984, Huxley added, people are controlled by inflicting pain. In Brave New World, they are controlled by inflicting pleasure. In short, Orwell feared that what we hate will ruin us. Huxley feared that what we love will ruin us. |
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I B Squidly
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 879
Location: Cactus Patch
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
Neil Postman's "Amusing ourselves to death". Have you read it?
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Sorry, I 'm not familiar. But a title like that demands attention.
The debate, Huxley vs Orwell was seemingly resolved to Huxley's favor with the collapse of the Soviet Union. The totalitarian model is inherently unstable in the long term. Either the status quo is unsustainable (4th Century Caesars, USSR) or the external world is compelled to intrude (Hitler). Boorstin doesn't directly address the argument but is definitely in the Huxley camp. The American experience has become an echo chamber of our prejudices and appetites. Self interest heavily modified by the latest, chimeric fashion guides the populous reflected in not directed by the nation state. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 4:51 am Post subject: |
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Orwell saw the future and it is here. Watch your back Big Brother is watching. 
Everytime I swipe that damn grocery card to save a couple bucks I think of Orwell. BOR's treatment of the Swiftvets was something Orwell warned us of in '1984' with Newspeak, as well as Rathers the documents might be be forgories "but I stand by my story."
The right and left appealing to the individual taste at the detriment of society as granted by God and you begin to tread Huxleys world. Both Huxley and Orwell warned of this.
I would like to add if you have not read 'Brave New World' or '1984' they are must reads!
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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msindependent
Vice Admiral
Joined: 26 Aug 2004
Posts: 891
Location: Colorado
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 11:14 am Post subject: |
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| If you happen to leave your grocery card at home, you are still in luck. Just punch in your telephone number instead of swiping the card. It doesn't matter if it's a Safeway in Colorado or a Tom Thumb in Texas, you are approved. |
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GenrXr
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 05 Aug 2004
Posts: 1720
Location: Houston
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| Posted: Thu Feb 03, 2005 2:09 pm Post subject: |
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| msindependent wrote: | | If you happen to leave your grocery card at home, you are still in luck. Just punch in your telephone number instead of swiping the card. It doesn't matter if it's a Safeway in Colorado or a Tom Thumb in Texas, you are approved. |
It is scary.
_________________
"An activist is the person who cleans up the water, not the one claiming its dirty."
"All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to stand by and do nothing." Edmund Burke (1729-1797), Founder of Conservative Philosophy |
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Bob51
Seaman
Joined: 13 Jan 2005
Posts: 156
Location: Belfast
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| Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 1:21 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | msindependent wrote:
If you happen to leave your grocery card at home, you are still in luck. Just punch in your telephone number instead of swiping the card. It doesn't matter if it's a Safeway in Colorado or a Tom Thumb in Texas, you are approved.
It is scary. |
Scary?, perhaps, but there are scarier things to think about..
| Quote: | | Quote: | the next segment of ubiquitous biosensors and
sensor networks. So to HUMINT (human intelligence) and SIGINT
(signal intelligence) we may increasingly have to introduce bio
intelligence, namely the ability to analyze a broad repertoire
of analites courtesy of the utilization of human nitrization
technologies to create on body or in body sensor technology is
very much a field of active investigation. |
| Quote: | the word “mind print” is now actually in some of the DARPA-esque literature
that derives from the sorts of proposals I revealed to you a
moment ago, namely the ability to have stand off detection of
particular mental states in order to profile individuals with
regard to behavioral intent. |
http://www.csis.org/tech/ssi/sonsw/t_poste.pdf |
Read the whole article and then ask yourself.
How can we come to your rescue quickly if we don't know exactly where you are and have the full history of your contacts?
Our ID cards here are smart chip enabled with biometric and digital signatures. Makes it harder for terrorists to hide. |
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blue9t3
Admiral
Joined: 23 Aug 2004
Posts: 1246
Location: oregon
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| Posted: Sat Feb 05, 2005 6:09 am Post subject: |
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 Bob-51 , flamboyant-bombastick, I would like you to meet my cat! her name is "hey cat"!
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