if you follow climate science, what has been striking is how insistently some of the world’s best scientists have been warning — in just the past few months — that climate change is happening faster and will bring bigger changes quicker than we anticipated just a few years ago. Indeed, if Mother Nature had a Dow, you could say that it, too, has been breaking into new (scientific) lows.
Consider just two recent articles:
The Washington Post reported on Feb. 1, that “the pace of global warming is likely to be much faster than recent predictions, because industrial greenhouse gas emissions have increased more quickly than expected and higher temperatures are triggering self-reinforcing feedback mechanisms in global ecosystems, scientists said. ‘We are basically looking now at a future climate that’s beyond anything we’ve considered seriously in climate model simulations,’ Christopher Field, director of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University, said.” — Mother Nature’s Dow
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Herewith are examples of excellent blog entries by your peers this semester:
- Barbie’s 50th.
Excellent use of images and analysis. - Sexy American Apparel.
Excellent use of images. Good analysis. - Say whaaat!?!
Excellent typography and layout. Good analysis. - Using the song structure or breaking grounds?
Excellent use of the text and theory to analyse songs. - creep me, please …
Good use of ethnographic observation and connection to media theorist. - Hook-up Culture
Good use of images and data. Good extension of a topic mentioned in class. - From the “Pale Blue Dot” to the “Little Glass Dot”
Thoughful reflection on media experience. - Evolution of Dance
Thoughtful, good use of typography - Reality Class Notes
Extra impressive — uses video to duscuss the medium of video! - Raw Chicken
Note the clever subtitle that frames the blog content. - Can’t A Kid Just Dance?
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Here is an excellent parody by a University of Ottawa student:
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From: “TV and video games increase teen depression risk: study“
Spending more hours watching television or playing video games as a teenager may lead to depression in young adults . . .
participants had significantly greater odds of developing depression by follow-up for each hour of daily television viewed . . .
those reporting higher total media exposure had significantly greater odds of developing depression for each additional hour of daily use . . .
Young women were found to be less likely to develop symptoms of depression than young men when exposed to the same amount of electronic media.
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I have created a Facebook page under the name Doc Strange
so students can join my page and I can have a million friends.
See you on Facebook.
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In one more of countless such examples, the police have been caught spying on ordinary citizens engaged in peaceful civil liberties. This story, from the Washington Post, shows the erosion of civil society into a post 9/11 police state, and demonstrates the very narrow degree of actual liberty in the disciplined social order of capitalism. New media will enable counter-surveillence strategies.
The petty and pernicious spying operation of Maryland’s state police
American governments have an inglorious history of spying on domestic dissidents; compared with FBI operations during the Red Scare, the Maryland State Police seem like Keystone Kops. But it’s a mistake to dismiss Maryland’s police espionage against its own residents as the work of hapless bunglers. In fact, it is pernicious and symptomatic of a post-Sept. 11 erosion of respect for fundamental civil liberties…
Justice Department regulations explicitly prohibit police from gathering information on groups and individuals unless “there is reasonable suspicion that the subject of the information is or may be involved in criminal conduct or activity.” But with state and local law enforcement agencies awash in federal money meant to root out domestic terrorist plots, civil libertarians have warned that police will start seeing potential terrorists and plots everywhere, “reasonable suspicion” be damned. The Maryland episode and other recent cases in Colorado and Massachusetts suggest their concerns are justified.
If the authorities equate dissent with criminal intent, they undermine the impulse for free speech and political activity itself. The specter of police infiltration can sow suspicion and paranoia and prompt people to keep their mouths shut. Could anything be more anti-American than that?
The police, invoking the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, suggest that any operation undertaken for any reason is legitimate. “In a post-9/11 world,” said Col. Terrence B. Sheridan, superintendent of the Maryland State Police, officers are duty-bound “to protect the citizens of Maryland from threats foreign and domestic.” But if they cannot distinguish five middle-aged peaceniks from criminals, the police themselves become the real threat to American society.
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