Media Mindfulness

I saw Paul Hawken give a talk at the 2006 Bioneeers conference, The Other Superpower (you can download an iPod version here). He recently scribed a book based on the ideas he presented called, Blessed Unrest. His basic argument, which is highlighted below in an article for Orion Magazine, is that there is a massive, […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

Not to belabor the point, but sometimes adults could use a good metaphorical spanking. Watch and listen as this child speaks from the heart about state of the world to a UN panel of so-called grown-ups.

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One things I miss about the good ol’ days of modernity is the massive output of manifestos that artists and activists churned out to contest the prevailing ideas of their world. With names like Futurists, Surrealists, and Bauhaus, people seemed to care a lot about having clear and strong opinions. With the advent of the […]

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I’m a big fan of solution oriented thinkers. Thus it’s refreshing to hear the clarity of David Korten’s ideas and his overview of history. His book, “The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community (BK Currents)” (David C. Korten) comes highly recommended. Please, if you have time, watch this video.

“The Great Turning: From Empire […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLK-rK3rfW8

I couldn’t make the Media Reform conference this year (click on the link for video, blog and pictures), but it can be experienced vicariously via YouTube. Here is Bill Moyer’s giving his keynote.

Technorati Tags: BillMoyers, MediaReform

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“Digital Destiny: New Media and the Future of Democracy” (Jeff Chester)
I’ve mentioned Jeff Chester before. He has done remarkable work on the issue of media mergers and mass marketing. His darkest views focus on the “brandwashing” of America, but he also has innovative ideas for a progressive media, which are highlighted in the following Alternet […]

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As the hype machine salivates over Steve Jobs‘ announcement of the the new iPhone (at a whopping $400 price tag!), Greenpeace is pushing for a better ecology policy at Apple. At issue is the continued built-in obsolescence of Apple’s products (as a Mac user, you can imagine the frustration of the constant equipment upgrades that […]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWt0XUocViE

The folks at Save the Internet have released this nicely produced video into the googlesphere that explains the issues of “net neutrality.” Granted , this is not an objective presentation of the materials, but I still like how the CEOs of communications companies are portrayed as aliens. If you are convinced that you should take […]

Jose Ignacio Lopez Vigil and the Radio Venceremos crew (nice hair!)
More from the ACME summit. It was fun to reconnect with Jonathan and Susan from Reclaim the Media, folks I met several years ago in New Mexico at the first ACME conference. They are radio and indy media activists who told me of a really […]

As a mentor (no, not a member of that gawd-awful trash metal band of the ’80s who wore executioner hoods when performing live), I work with youth to guide and support their media activism. (You can read about it in the article I wrote in Clamor Magazine called, “School of (Punk) Rock.”) I hear many […]

A friend once said that if you don’t envision a future, you will live in someone else’s. This is why I like the following piece of media produced by Free Range Studios (the folks who made The Meatrix). It’s a news dispatch from the future on how we averted climate catastrophe, albeit some of the […]

OK, so Roger Waters is a bit of a cynic. But you don’t have to be. The folks at MySpace have a really cool feature, A Brick in the Toilet. There’s lots of little, practical features to get your ecology on. Plus you can see a preview of El Presidente Gore’s new missive: An Inconvenient Truth. Speaking of which, I haven’t seen the film, but I wonder about the disaster film aesthetic. Can anyone tell the difference between The Day After Tomorrow and an infomercial on global warming?

It’s that time of year for the international holiday for freaks, TV Turnoff Week. Sponsored by Adbusters, this has become a calling card for school librarians (yes, they are feeing the pinch) and is a good time to reflect on our addiction to media. A few questions, though. What is a TV anymore? With TiVo, […]

Today there will be national demonstrations against revised efforts to “reform” immigration law that are expected to draw over a million folks. This is great news. In an effort to explain why this sleeping jaguar has awakened, some in the mainstream media have finally examined the debate from a Latino perspective. In particular CNN profiled […]

Polar Bears On Thin Ice:
“Perfectly at home in one of the world’s most forbidding environments, polar bears spend their summers roaming the Arctic on large chunks of floating ice. They drift for hundreds of miles, finding mates, hunting for seals and fattening themselves up for the winter. Without these thick rafts of sea ice, […]

**Update**

This whole Chevy thingy is going crazy viral.

**

Democracy can be dangerous… to car commercials. You can remix the Taho ad at Chevy’s Web site. But if you blink, it may be too late. Catch these unwitting culture jams before they get tossed down the memory hole:

Here

Here

Here

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Update:
Democracy Now! devotes its show to the student walkout in SoCal.
Talk about extracurricular activity! Apparently many of the high school students who walked out of class on Monday in Southern Califaztlan to protest the proposed draconian immigration bill (HR 4437) had been inspired by the film, Walkout, which taught the kids a lesson they probably […]

This is slightly old news, but it needs to be said again that Brinco shoes are slammin’, and it is one of the few occasions when conspicuous consumption is in order. Commissioned by inSite-05, artist Judi Werthein designed these for border crossers who face real dangers, but for me they appeal to my inner-alien (I […]

What happens when you give to seemingly oppositional social forces disposable cameras? Hopefully a more humanized image of conflict, in this case the Minutemen vs. illegal border-crossers coming from Mexico. The Border Film Project supplied disposable cameras to immigrants in Mexican shelters and asked them to document their journeys. The vigilante Minutemen group who are […]