Thinking without thinking in the outposts of tyranny
Extending or deflecting interest in the "axis of evil" Condoleezza Rice at her confirmation hearing named Cuba, Burma, Belarus and Zimbabwe as "outposts of tyranny" requiring "close US attention". Softer language perhaps than "axis of evil" but with the same intent: there is also a glaring freudian slip in there, as the term "outposts" can also reflect the implicit idea that there is a "headquarters of tyranny", which most people would have no hesitation in nominating as being located in Washington, DC. For instance, the Herald is also reporting from the Gitmo kangaroo courts that "no lawyers were present during the tribunals, and the detainees were only told unclassified portions of the allegations against them" - that is (as is the case in Australia now) that a "terrorist" can be tried by a court that does not even disclose all of the charges, let alone all the evidence. Yes this is the just "freedom" that GW is fond of emphasising, ("we have a calling from beyond the stars to stand for freedom") as opposed to "tyranny" elsewhere.
News Ltd reports reports that an "Elephant disaster system" is being "mooted" following the tsunami and the very objective accounts of the reaction of animals, particularly pachyderms, to the incoming waves. The paper writes that "Theories are flying thick and fast throughout the scientific world, debating everything from a sixth sense to highly developed ultrasenses, to simply being in the right place at the right time... The answer may lie in a combination of all three." Interestingly, the Taronga Zoo senior curator said the animals' survival "probably came down to a mixture of practical factors and more 'mystical' reasons", a rare admission of the place of the "irrational" in proper consideration of such phenomena.
The media is usually too busy dumbing and numbing to reflect on itself very deeply, but the NYT elocutes critically (to some extent) the context of advertising slogans like "Blink, don't think". That slogan is born from a book called "Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking" that apparently argues "our instant decisions can be better than those born of long contemplation". In other words, an exhortation to impulse rather than reflection or consideration. Some credit to the NYT is due for the mere mention of a "second mind" that "sends its messages through weirdly indirect channels, like the sweat glands on the palms of our hands" - not new research, but a very rare mention of it.
The products refered to by such slogans ("the book from the prehistoric world before silicon" and "the music player from five minutes ago" they write) - are the excuse for the "suggestion" to consumers that "there is a way to remain thinking, feeling people in a world overgrown with data, options and demands". "They are two things that say your rational process of making sense of things is a model that may be obsolete" adds a commentator from Wired. "Life is random" (one such slogan) is a "really great way of shrugging your shoulders in a Buddhist way of nonattachment... It's kind of grim, actually."
And therein lies the sting in the tale - explicit criticism of an "impulsive" or "random" way of making reflection obsolete is reserved for the very end of the story; as if it's more important to sell the "fact" of "dumbing down" as a standard way of operating, than to engage in constructive comment and analysis of the idea (which, rather recursively, actually confirms the impact of deprecating "prehistoric" notions like honest reflection in favour of "randomness".)
Meanwhile, it is also being reported that Israeli banks holding assets from European Jews killed in the Holocaust have "failed to make a determined effort to return the holdings to their heirs, and when they were returned, they were not returned at their proper value, according to a report of the Israeli Parliament released Tuesday. The Israeli government, as custodian for a large part of the assets, also failed to make a serious effort to maintain their value or to return them to survivors or heirs", the report said. A story with major implications, very much buried in a news-feed, given no prominence or follow-up, and yet it has the potential to undermine the very integrity of the Israeli state, which has used to holocaust to their advantage at every opportunity for sympathy, yet apparently does not seem to think the survivors have just entitlements despite much propaganda to the contrary.
Netscape's CNN news portal is pronouncing that "The coolest four-letter word is dude", as a "proclamation from a linguist at the University of Pittsburgh, who has published a scholarly paper in the journal American Speech that deconstructs and deciphers the word "dude": "he found the word taps into nonconformity and a new American image of leisurely success, notes AP" they write. Without a hint of irony expressing the "nonconformity" of a word used invariably to demonstrate conformity with the norms of subculture, despite reference to a clear Hollywood facilitation of the word entering the "teenage lexicon".
Under the heading "Deeply flawed leader sees the light" The Courier Mail exposes its own peculiarly right-wing and biased form of "reporting" as it announces that "REALITY triumphed over ego yesterday when Mark Latham put himself down and out of politics" - loaded with emotive and denigrating terms just subtle enough to blend in as reporting, while still explicitly colouring the subject as editorial policy seems to demand.
But it's not all bile and lamingtons for journo's: the International Federation of Journalists says 129 media workers have been killed in 2004, "the most deaths recorded in a 12-month period since records began in the 1980s". A spokesperson said the organisation would continue to "focus on the scandal of impunity and the failure of governments to bring the killers to justice".
Blaming "a computer software error", the US government admits overstating the nation's weight problem in a study last year. The study, conducted by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and published last March in the Journal of the American Medical Association, said that between 1990 and 2000, obesity-related deaths climbed to 400,000 a year. In the journal's latest issue, the government said the increase was 65,000 deaths, a noteable margin of difference. The effect of the convenient "correction" is to downplay obesity as a cause of death.
And returning to a peice (from last year) on Tinariwen, the band of nomadic Touareg. They are said to have "sought refuge in Libya" where Gadaffi "helped to train them in guerrilla tactics". "While in their barracks, they heard rock'n'roll" and "invented their own desert blues". As "warrior rockers" (or at least in a romantic westernised notion) they "went into battle with guns and electric guitars", but today, the writer observes, "they play Womad in Reading" - again probably more "coloured journalism" than substance. And the "desert blues" they are supposed to have recently invented, has actually been shown by other research to be traditional and very old, and may in fact have influenced the African slaves sent to America in the direction of modern "blues" music: as the Toureg in those times were deeply involved in the transit of slaves across the Sahara, and their instrumentation (six string guitars) and style (12 bar measures) have remained unchanged for centuries. The writer makes the worthy observation that "you might learn as much from the musical voice and freedom struggle in some of these songs, whether from Beirut or the Paris banlieue, as from the foreign pages of a newspaper", before trying too hard to be humorous with the just slightly xenophobic closing line that it is "too bad the gigs don't have subtitles".
And it is also too bad that a lot of media news reporting doesn't have proper research behind it, but perhaps they are just thinking "beyond the stars".
Item posted by AutoEditor at 1:35 pm ::
