Although America is no longer the aforementioned, Keith Olbermann has been providing me with minor amounts of sanity with regards to my birth-country, and its direction, as of late. Watch this, and be moved, and I’d recommend searching the site for more of his clips…. I save them all.
Check out this fab video.
This is a follow-up to this.
Christo sent me:
Not surprisingly, a second-by-second analysis of The Daily Show’s audio and visual content found considerably more humor than substance — Stewart himself has insisted that he is a comedian and not a journalist. A similar analysis of network coverage found considerably more hype than substance in broadcast newscasts. Examples of such hype included references to polls, political endorsements and photo opportunities.
“Interestingly, the average amounts of video and audio substance in the broadcast network news stories were not significantly different than the average amounts of visual and audio substance in The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories about the presidential election,” she wrote in the paper.
“It should be noted that the broadcast network news stories about the presidential election were significantly shorter, on average, than were The Daily Show with Jon Stewart stories,” she added. “The argument could be made that while the amount of substance per story was not significantly different, the proportion of each story devoted to substance was greater in the network news stories … On the other hand, the proportion of stories per half hour program devoted to the election campaign was greater in The Daily Show.”
Friday was, perhaps, the saddest day in American history. And it went mostly quickly and quietly, except for the "liberal" lefty blogger base.
These crazy opponents to Bush’s new bill, which passed in the Senate 65-34, actually believe that Bush should not be able to legally torture or hold detainees permanently, without trial or charges. Don’t they know people are trying to kill them? Like, journalists or whatever, for example. Habeas corpus no longer exists, Bush and his cronies have been unilaterally pardoned for war crimes, I can’t go on, I am too upset. As always, read some of Glenn’s last few blogs for insightful commentary and legal translations.
More importantly, read Feingold’s comprehensive, clear and patriotic opposition – if only he had broken rank and filibustered. I feel ashamed. Rome must fall.
Update. I think it’s important to further note here (and by here, I mean as an American ex-pat living in South Africa), that one of the most feared and hated aspects of the Apartheid state was the lack of habeas corpus. So officially, the US, Beacon of Democracy and Fighter for Freedom, is where, exactly, now?
If you want to be humbled, motivated and inspired then go to the Guggenheim, and use the building as it was designed by taking the elevator to the top floor, and walking down the ramps.
If you walk up like everyone else, you’ll be too tired to fully appreciate the work by the time you reach the top.
The only reason they design shows starting at the bottom is to accommodate the thousands that visit the museum each day. There aren’t enough elevators and the building was designed to have 500 or so people passing through each day.
Zaha Hadid is an architect based in London, born in Baghdad, and now in her 50’s she is easily one of the most prolific architects living. She has thankfully not developed the one liner attitude to building that someone like Frank Gehry has- build big glass box, make skew, fill with art and people, leave. (see the criticism on Wikipedia).
Her buildings are elegant forms, each work designed for and of the space it uses, both on a practical and physical level, as well as a conceptual level. Her design is practical-something many architects have garnered much criticism for not being. In the last few years she has begun to build and receive commissions across the world- with projects on the go everywhere. And in between all of this she still finds time to paint, draw and keep abreast of the latest technology in building and production: admittedly she has a small army working for her, probably living in fear of being fired at the drop of a hat (something for which she has become notorious for). As one blog stated-great show-now take a chill pill!
An archive of my, Ruth and Marc’s networked_performance between Joburg, Derby and London is now online @ http://www.visitorsstudio.org/session.pl?id=38 – pretty cool medium, and I hope to play with it again in public sometime. It was also really great to use so much South African content! Thanks to everyone who sent me, or uploaded, their work.