Photoshop Logo Reconstruction

Weyerhaeuser is one of the largest pulp and paper companies in the world and the world's largest private owner of softwood timberland. They employ 41,000 people in 18 countries.

I changed the logo in a way to respresent that the Weyerhaeuser Corporation isn't doing anything for living plants and wildlife but can only prosper and profit once they (trees, specifically but they obviously impact the global environment) are dead.

Stewart V. Cramer

I think it's really interesting that while I haven't seen any of it, the pairing and apparent duel or "war" between two politically-based TV anchors on Comedy Central's The Daily Show had a ton of coverage on just about every other news network. It deserved much of the hype because many of its viewers feel that Stewart basically ripped Cramer a new one, pointing out his flaws in mis-advising the American public when they were repeatedly told by Cramer and the CNBC network to put trust in Cramer and his financial expertise. What we get, however, is a nice resolution at the end of the segment that yes, Cramer realizes his mistakes and while he realizes them, and "really tries to make good choices" (which is what he's paid to do, right?) and agrees to Stewart's urging to reclaim really catering to the everyday American's needs and not playing with rhetoric the way, not Cramer himself but largely CNBC does.

It's funny to look at other news segments' coverage of this "war of words" amounting to Cramer's appearance on CC and understand that its like a web, or almost a copy of a copy in that all they're doing is promoting the interets of other news networks when they could be concentrating on reporting the news.....like they're paid to do! Because really, why would I want to turn to a news network who is offering coverage on a difference in opinion from two guys who are also paid to report the news. I could just watch these guys on their own networks and get (what I think is) the true story.

Celluloid Closet

After watching most of The Celluloid Closet, it was both interesting and heartbreaking to consider than we (heterosexuals) are so normalized of our portrayals in film that it's hard to believe that homosexuals will accept even negative coverage of their subculture. I thought that actor and I think producer Harvey Fierstein (he was my fave in Independece Day) who put this most eloquently when he says that they [homosexuals] have become to desensitized to not being adequately portrared to the point where they will take "visibility at any cost" because "negative coverage is better than nothing." Another commentator points out that "all minority audiences watch movies with hope" and that while we experience a movie as particular to us, the individual, in our oun social and cultural context, "everybody sees a different movie."

More LGBT contributers to the film commented that they are "pathetically starved for images of ourselves" and like everybody, have a "hunger to not be alone." We, as the heterosexual majority, are so normalized of seeing our own actions and behaviors regarding gender and sexuality that anything that deviates from that has always been under scrutiny. With 100 years of film under it's belt, filmmakers and largely, Hollywood, still do not give the LBGT community the voice and image in film as they deserve. We see, though, in this film that it has not always been their fault, that since the first images of gays in film were very...tip-toed around and given strong regulations and rules of censorship against the embodiment of their lifestyle.

What's even more interesting to see is the interpretation of homosexual behavior in the larger cultural lens. Dating back to the 1910's and 20's, the film shows clips that show homosexuality largely as an entity to be "feared, pitied and laughed at." We soon see the prototype of "The Sissy," an image that still pervades modern film as an attempt to make men feel more manly and women feel more womanly.

"We've had the big one..."

I recently watched a documentary that social activist, fisherwoman and marine biologist brought to Durango about the ExxonValdez spill that has caused the longest running lawsuit in history, entitled Black Wave.

A 5 min teaser to the film--
Black Wave - The legacy of the Exxon Valdez (Teaser EN) from Macumba Docs on Vimeo.

In the wake of a film like this, it is so easy to become frusterated with American law, corporations (acting as individuals) and the regulatory processes that stifle us everyday. It just drives me crazy how we are shown CEOs and the big cheeses and what have you literally not giving second thought to consequences that don't pertain to their own lives. It is so clear to me that the people of Cordova and the surrounding area of Prince William Sound were directly harmed by the actions of ExxonMobil --financially, emotionally, physically, spiritually--and though Exxon hires people to issue impact statements and such, no one pays these detrimental impacts any attention. It is ludicrous how all that can just simply have the other cheek turned to it, let alone the seven-hundred-and-some repiratory issues reported by Exxon's workers in 1989 ALONE. It is CRAZY not to acknowledge that you, and I say you because corporations have so clearly defined themselves within limitations of the "individual," have been the direct cause of someone's death. How did we come to compromise these values.

If, in part (b) of Section 101 of the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), it says:


"(b) Continuing responsibility of Federal Government to use all practicable means to improve and coordinate Federal plans, functions, programs, and resources
In order to carry out the policy set forth in this chapter, it is the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government to use all practicable means, consistent with other essential considerations of national policy, to improve and coordinate Federal plans, functions, programs, and resources to the end that the Nation may -
(1) fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations;
(2) assure for all Americans safe, healthful, productive, and aesthetically and culturally pleasing surroundings;
(3) attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences;
(4) preserve important historic, cultural, and natural aspects of our national heritage, and maintain, wherever possible, an environment which supports diversity and variety of individual choice;
(5) achieve a balance between population and resource use which will permit high standards of living and a wide sharing of life's amenities; and
(6) enhance the quality of renewable resources and approach the maximum attainable recycling of depletable resources." (http://montereybay.noaa.gov/sac/2008/081508/nepa101.pdf)

...then who do we have to talk to to point out that many corporations, not just Exxon in this situation, are in total violation of a federal law?! The statements that corporations must now make up before proposing a project like oil drilling or logging are totally pointless...the plan should stop in its tracks when you consider that these actions aren't legally allowed to
"attain the widest range of beneficial uses of the environment without degradation, risk to health or safety, or other undesirable and unintended consequences."
By LAW, they are not allowed to pose risk to health or safety to we can assume humans, but also to animals and environment.

What is productivity without degredation? Whatever it is, it is seemingly impossible in this culture for productivity and progress are hinged upon linear growth and profit, while ignoring what we take from the land in this process. It's insane. It really is...

MASTERMIND

Del rockin' Skull Candy



I read an article about Del the Funky Homosapien (born Teren Delvon James) in High Times last week, prompting me to include some of his tunes on my Pod. And so it was my new favorite song is born: "Mastermind" from the album Deltron 3030by Deltron Zero a side project of Del's, aside from his main thing, rap-group Hieroglyphics...a show I caught last year that introduced me to Del. The song starts out really slow with a simple beat, a catchy melody of course, and Del's visionary lyrics:
"Who fuses the music
With no illusions
Producing the blue prints
Clueless?
Automator - defy the laws of nature
Electronic monolith throw a jam upon the disc
The futuristic looper with the quickness
Hyper-producin' hydrogen fusion liquids keep your distance"

Del's lyrics are a good example of underground hip-hop and why it should be supported. Do you tink Lil Wayne is singing about hydrogen fusion creatively? No, because Lil Wayne's is rapping about this shit:
"I ain't got no loves for broads
I ducks and dodge
I grab 'em, on they butts and all
She fucks my dog
Slut sucks nuts and all
And nothin' small
This dick make 'em hit the floor and touch the wall
Call my hoes to get salami, 'cause they brush the balls"

Seriously? Seriously....I can guarantee you that Lil Wayne will make more money than Del ever will and I find that to be such an indisprepancy in the music industry. So many artists can make a huge profit off of very little talent. The act of rapping itself is not so hard, I can rap alongside most songs I listen to. What makes a good rapper is his lyrics...the creativity, ingenuity, and originality that influence his music. This is just another good examply of the value systems people attach to the music they listen to.

What I wanted to point out about this song, however, is the spoken word between 1:33 and 1:53. We hear a womans voice hauntingly reading the following slowly and dramatially, much like poetry, the background a collection of soft eerie voices. Her words read:
"The day the walls of the cities will crumble away
Uncovering our naked souls
All start singing
Shouting
Screaming
(loud, loud, loud, loud...)"

Initially I just liked the fact that there was a breakdown in the song, followed by the return of catchy and staccato-like lyrics of "psionically, bionically, forget how ya feel.." but the more I payed attention to what the words were, the more heavily affected I became. I ended up searching these lyrics and came up with a song they were sampled from, entitled "Loud, Loud, Loud" by Aphrodite's Child. Upon further research I learn that AC is a progressive Green rock band formed in the 1967. The 2-disc album that was their crowning acheivement included "Loud, Loud, Loud" and was eerily entitled 666, a musical adaptation of the Biblical Book of Revalations. On the album cover it says this above the title:
"Anyone who has intelligence
May interpret this number of the beast
It is a man's number
This number is..."

Creepy. I wonder how Del found this stuff.

The Corporation//THE 28TH AMENDMENT

It's so fitting that I was shown The Corporation when I was. It was just 4 or 5 days before that marine toxicologist, commercial salmon fisherwoman, community activist, author, and all around bad-ass Dr. Rikki Ott was speaking on how she is working on an amendment to change the definition of a corporation so that it is estranged from that of the human person. A corporation, she argues is a collective and not a singular person with the human rights given to each American born citizen. This is precisely why I like going to a liberal arts school, in that I have talked about the idea of "The Corporation" in more than just this class and am using notes from another class to relate to this essay.

Anyways, Dr. Ott layed the foundation for us, which was good because I was pretty unaware of the legalities behind corporate America and all that jazz, saying that in 1886, American law granted right to "corporate persons," allowing corporations to apply our own individual rights that are so highly valued as a citizen of the U.S., amassing great wealth and power. More power. More money. More speech.

But as we have seen this power is an illegitimate power. We wee that these corporations, who were merely trying to produce "a whole galaxy of things to make a better life on Earth" (The Corporation) have actually been in the process of for many decades and will continue to
-abuse and corrupt the legal system
-abuse the environment
-abuse campaign finance
-spread globalization and
-continue to fuel the economic collapse

It is clear that the focus is simply on making money with no (intrinsic, physical, moral) value attatched. Dr. Ott even refers to the idea of a "corpocracy," basically the type of goverment that we're in and that is where corporate values are top priority, we see a "suicide economy," we are inundated with wars, cancer, divorce, etc. and all it is is about money exchanging hands. One needs treatment for cancer. $. One needs $ for divorce proceedings. BILLIONS of $$$$$$$$$$ are WASTED on wars. Acne is only a problem because we can sell you things to make it better. You think cavemen/the Anasazi/the Puritans gave a shit about their blemishes?

So what Dr. Ott is proposing to Congress is that much like the separation of church and state, we have separation of corporation and state. Instead of consolidating wealth and power, ultimately destroying everything, we as a nation should deem that corporations in fact don't have the same properties as natural persons. While I think Dr. Ott is very inspiring and legendary in her kind of word, I think she may have bitten off more than she can chew with Am 28. After all, what can a middle-aged, 100 pound woman do in the face of all the head honchos and big cheeses that are laced in a web of bribery, payoffs, lies, deceit, loss, and capital? I don't know if it is much. I really hope so, though. The point is though that it does take more than a hundred pound woman, or student activist, or factory worker, or single father to make the difference and if we all speak up, something can be done. I just fear that there's many more connections in this web from our goverment to the bigger corporations--money exchanging hands--for this to be solved anytime soon.


***To learn more about this amendment, visit
http://www.rikkiott.com/
http://www.civicengagement.com/
http://www.celdf.org/

Merchants of Cool

It's interesting to take the point of view as these "coolhunters" as anthropologists who are looking at the teenage demographic like a wild indiginous culture previously unseen. It's so difficult to step outside of our culture, especially our generation, and look at how money driven, delusional, and frankly psychopathic we are. If you think about the things we truly value, it's mindblowing. Kids now want cell phones before their 10th birthday. Hot Topic continues to make millions. Artists like (hed) p.e. sell records and kids still beg their parents for Happy Meals.

What happened to the youth culture being concerned with sustainability and being able to feed their grandparents? What does it tell us that in our culture, we pay to basically lock elderly people away instead of ensuring their safety and good health? It tells us that our values are seriously out of whack, misconstrued, often just completely wrong and misguided.

When looking at some old photos depicted in the segment, I was struck how everything shown was definitely "not cool." Try to sell rainbor suspenders now, I guarantee you, you'll get laughed at. Rollerblades? Cool in 1994. Not to much now. "Cool" is such an unstable concept. Obviously there is evolution in what is "in vogue" or trendy at the moment, and we see that these types of products as well as channels, songs, hairstyles, etc. can be off the shelves in a day or stay in style for several decades. Not the best example but Led Zeppelin has been cool for forty years and counting.