culture wars

I wonder if the culture wars are an outgrowth of the increased use of psychographics in advertising. As marketers focus on targeting specific groups in their ads, they create language and difference. They accent these divisions across society. When ads exploit these differences, people are exposed more directly to ideas, language, and lifestyles that (conflict) counter their own. In the past, appealing to some common denominator left "everyone" partially involved...or at least they could identify with or fail to reject because it was part of the larger american persona. Now with this fragmentation of media messages, people are more directly confronted by the "other" that is counter to themselves. Not that these divisions were there, simply that they are more visible.

Book to Read

Adrian says read Belhook's imaginations of gay?

My friend Chainsaw

I had a friend in the Navy; we called him Chainsaw. He was the nicest guy you'd ever want to meet, from Nebraska. He didn't drink, didn't smoke, he never even cussed except to say "Shucks!" or "Stinkin' A."

Why did we call him that? Well, you know that story where some neighbor went nuts and mass murdered everyone in the whole place and then they ask whoever survived about the guy that did it and they were always, "he was such a quite boy, really nice and then one day he just snapped and killed everybody with a chainsaw?

And that's why i call him Chainsaw

From my conversation tonight with TJ...

Books to read

Communication: The social matrix of psychiatry - Gregory Bateson
The Gutenberg Galaxy - McLuhan
Understanding Media - McLuhan
The Human Use of Human Beings - Wiener

From Counterculture to Cyberculture

I'm reading this book about the origins of the internet cultures. It traces some of the most dominant norms of the internet space back to california and many of the big name, 60's scene-sters. It's called From Counterculture to Cyberculture. This is probably the best quote i've found that tries to articulate the dissatisfaction with outgrowth of the boomer youth movement and a struggle to find a new power source for social change. It's taken from the introduction to the inaugural edition of Mondo 2000 published in 1988.

"All the old war horses are dead. Eco-fundamentalism is out, conspiracy theory is demode, drugs are obsolete. There's a new whiff of apocalypticism across the land. A general sense that we are living at a very special juncture in the evolution of the species.

Yet the pagan innocence and idealism that was the sixties remains and continues to exert its fascination on today's kids. Look at old footage of Woodstock and you wonder: where have all those wide-eyed, ecstatic, orgasm-slurping kids gone? They're all across the land, dormant like deeply buried perennials. But their mutated nucleotides have given us a whole new generation of sharpies, mutants and superbrights and in them we must put our faith--and power.

The cybernet is the place...The old information elites are crumbling. The kids are at the controls."

Of course, it's easy to dismiss this a feckless utopian plea into the darkness for a new generation of cyber-messiahs. In hindsight, it doesn't quite feel like hackers have managed quite the transition dreamed of in this declaration. But there is still cause to hope. The slacker generation has always kept it's own schedule. And after all, as a generation, the boomers contributions could be judged under the long shadow of their "greatest generation" parents, at least we, their children, have benefit of low expectations.

44 Scotland Street

Book by Alexander McCall Smith

Also In the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series

God, I love Grad School

So, last Tuesday my cohort got together for a combined Super Fat Tuesday Party. It was a lot of fun. I wore red, white, and blue, of course, with a blue towel cape hung with beads and tiny yellow alligator clamps and topped the whole thing off with my american (flag) cheese head (you mean you don't have one?)

It was an all-out political bash. I spent three hours on Monday night putting together my online pool ballot (pouring over the net looking for the edge). We had to pick the winner in each party/state in addition to points for guessing close to the margin. Then a few hail-mary-long-shot questions at the end like guessing who will drop out and the overall delegate margin. Man, that was a great exercise.

Tuesday night was a fun mix of anxiety, bummers and cheers that was only sometimes over our ballots. Everybody talking down CNN. There was one laptop with a LCD projector that had two US maps where we filled in the state winners and showed the pool leader board (btw, you have got to get one of these projectors for your next party! so much potential). There were a few other laptops around for when we needed to be more up-to-date than the TV.

Anyway. I finished 6th out of 18 (Stupid Massachusetts, i thought they would bite more on the picking-the-next-Kennedy thing). I'm very satisfied (with my score and the political event).

The best thing, however, is this email that was sent out to our list. It's a "concession" speech from the 4th place person to the winner who finished 2nd. (justifiably, the group is refusing to acknowledge the 1st place finisher...except to pay him...because he was the only one who skipped the party.

Enjoy,


----- Forwarded Message ----
From: Jessie Reeder
To: Rich Cleland

Subject: Re: Reminder: Super Tuesday Betting

I would like to congratulate Ms. Thorson, the TA from Missouri, on her hard-won victory. Her ballot was aggressive but fair, and although she and I may have at times appeared confrontational or even antagonistic, we clashed because we each care deeply about Super Tuesday and have strong feelings about its outcome. I concede to her victory today, but my supporters and I know that this campaign is not over. There are many primaries to come, and we fully expect to be met with victory down the road. It's a long election, and I'm still fighting.

Jessie Reeder, candidate for Awesome.