Elijahstark

In academia, it’s fairly common to hear people bemoan students’ writing skills and the supposed effect that tweeting, texting, and other new communication technologies are having on our use of the written language. I’ve been known to do it myself after receiving an email in text-speak. Generally, humans have a tendency to think that the changes in their own time are unprecedented.

This xkcd comic presents quotes from various sources concerned about the impacts of technology, particularly the dying art of communication. It’s a nice reminder that bemoaning the effect of new technologies is nothing new, nor is the tendency to romanticize some period in the vague past as the “good old days” when things were better.

Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

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Robb S. sent along a great set of images from Vulture.  Using case studies of individual leading men in Hollywood, they show that the love interests cast in their films don’t age alongside them over the course of their careers.  Not convinced?  Here’s nine examples and one exception.  For fun, try to guess which leading man bucks the trend?  I’ll embed it last.

And the exception is!

Lisa Wade is a professor of sociology at Occidental College. You can follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Russian police just raided a secret underground city beneath Moscow inhabited by hundreds of illegal immigrant workers employed making clothing at rows of sewing machines. The subterranean world, where the workers were allegedly kept by lock, had no natural light but did have a market, cafe, chicken coop, casino, and movie cinema. What a metaphor for our economic structure:

The post Underground Sweatshop City Uncovered In Moscow appeared first on disinformation.

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(This summary originally appeared in an alternate form on SkeletonSaint.com )

The battle between the Catholic orthodoxy and devotees of Santa Muerte has hit a high water mark with a visit to Mexico from the Vatican’s Cultural Minister, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi. Sarah C. Nelson, writing for Huffington Post UK, reports on the news that Ravasi has given a charge of blasphemy to Santa Muerte in a series of talks he presented where he compared the devotional tradition to those held by Cosa Nostra organized crime families in Italy:

“A Vatican spokesman has declared Mexico’s folk Death Saint (Santa Meurte) is “blasphemous” and should not be part of any religion.

Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi said worship of the skeletal figure of a cloaked woman carrying a scythe was a degeneration of religion, the Associated Press reported.”

This is Ravasi’s third condemnation of the tradition in four days. Up to this point the Catholic Church’s standard response has, at times, favored the devotional fervor, and intent of Santa Muerte’s followers, while expressing concern over doctrinal issues. Quotes from a Spanish language AP report show that that the Cardinal has gone well past any tense acquiescence, and it seems likely that the Vatican is planning to highlight Santa Muerte as a negative foil during the development of upcoming cultural education initiatives:

“The mafia, drug trafficking, organized crime are not religious forms. Though use of Santa Muerte appears religious, it is not a part of religion. It is a blasphemous element…This is a degeneration, not a religion.”

Followed by:

“Organized crime is not culture but anti-culture…it is important to fight this not only with increased law enforcement. The decisive element is education, the formation of a new human model”.

United States President, Barack Obama’s recent statements regarding the need for careful immigration reform highlight the tense situation in the Americas that attends the Vatican’s pronouncement. Uncritical implications of direct association between Santa Muerte’s devotees and organized crime won’t serve us well with the tradition already spreading rapidly through the Americas.  The diversity of those who follow Santa Muerte needs to be highlighted so that we gain a proper understanding of this complex and passionate tradition.

In a previous article regarding the Vatican’s position on Santa Muerte, R. Andrew Chesnut indicated some of the alternative motives that lie couched in the condemnation:

“Beyond the theological realm, the current religious economy of Mexico and Latin America provides a compelling explanation for not only the condemnation of “satanic sects” but for other dynamic religious competitors. For the past three decades both national bishops’ conferences and the Vatican have been denouncing the “invasion of the sects” in Latin America. Of course, Pentecostals, the most vibrant competitors, have been the primary object of condemnation, but Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Age groups and Spiritists have also been inveighed against. Pope John Paul II shone a global spotlight on the situation during his trip to the Dominican Republic in 1992 when he accused Pentecostal evangelists of being “rapacious wolves” raiding the Catholic flock.

Thus, in the context of Catholic decline in Latin America over the past half-century in which Brazil, home to the largest Catholic population on earth, might not even be a Catholic-majority country within 15 years or so, the Church, particularly in Latin America, is in a state of panic over its losses. Even more disconcerting for the hierarchy is the fact that Latin America was 99 percent Catholic as late as the 1940s.”

These issues don’t concern those of us in the Americas that have no interest or incentive to perpetuate Catholic orthodoxy, and the Vatican’s position needs to be carefully weighed while considering their stake in demonizing a popular faith that’s quickly becoming a potent rival. This is especially true as the Vatican’s position will be leveraged by government and law enforcement groups looking to use Santa Muerte as a strategic asset in their operations. As Chesnut points out:

“In 2005 the Mexican government reacted to similar events by revoking the legal rights of a church devoted to her veneration in Mexico City. Let’s hope that as the cult of the controversial skeleton saint continues to grow on this side of the border, we uphold our own cherished tradition of religious freedom.”

In light of the increasing confusion over Santa Muerte’s place in contemporary culture, and the central role She is currently playing in debates over immigration and drug policy, Dr. Chesnut and I have launched SkeletonSaint.com to provide an ongoing resource for those looking to gain a more nuanced view of the tradition.  As the website develops we look forward to engaging more deeply with a number of faith traditions in the Americas that find death to be an important teacher, guide and center point to their devotions.  Rather than demonizing these passionate practices, it seems that in a world with so much tension and flux, it might be wise to learn from them, and listen to what they are telling us about the motivating forces behind modern society.

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David Metcalfe is an independent researcher, writer and multimedia artist focusing on the interstices of art, culture, and consciousness. He is a contributing editor for Reality Sandwich, The Revealer, the online journal of NYU’s Center for Religion and Media, and The Daily Grail.

Metcalfe writes regularly for Evolutionary Landscapes, Alarm Magazine, Modern Mythology, Disinfo.com, The Teeming Brain and his own blog The Eyeless Owl.  His work has been featured in The Immanence of Myth (Weaponized 2011), Chromatic: The Crossroads of Color & Music (Alarm Press, 2011) and Exploring the Edge Realms of Consciousness (North Atlantic/Evolver Editions 2012). Metcalfe is an Associate with Phoenix Rising Digital Academy, and is currently co-hosting The Art of Transformations study group with support from the International Alchemy Guild.

The post Catholic Church Officially Declares Devotion to Santa Muerte Blasphemous appeared first on disinformation.

Vogue’s photo-shoot titled “Storm Troopers: Celebrating Hurricane Sandy First Responders” features various images of models with workers of different organizations who combated the damage of Hurricane Sandy. Vogue praises the attributes of these workers in the caption: “when Hurricane Sandy hit, the city’s bravest and brightest punched back.”

Although the title and caption suggest that the photos are meant celebrate the hard work of the men and women who responded to the hurricane, they also serve as a foil against which the models stand out. In other words, this photo spread is at least as concerned with celebrating a look and lifestyle associated with money and beauty, as it is with celebrating the working class.  This is obvious for at least two reasons.

First – the weaker argument — the majority of the workers are dressed in baggy, loosely fitting uniforms; they are not wearing the make-up or striking the poses so cherished by magazines like Vogue.  The models, in literal contrast, embody high fashion.  Their expressionless faces and leisurely poses are the province of the elite.

The next image is particularly striking in this regard.  The glamorous model not only contrasts with the gritty workers, she is elevated above them; the eye is drawn to her ephemeral presence, not to the men and women below.  Their presence serves to make her allure all the more impressive.So, the class contrast elevates the models, figuratively and sometimes literally in these images.  We see race contrast used to do the same thing when Black men and women are used as props in fashion shoots as well as East Indian and Asian people.

Second – the stronger argument – if Vogue wanted to celebrate the men and women in working class occupations that helped after Hurricane Sandy, they could have left the models out altogether.  As it is, the implication is that the workers aren’t valuable in themselves, they’re only valuable as a setting for high fashion.

The photo shoot, then, instead of honoring the workers, affirms the class hierarchy in which they are embedded.  The photographs fall in line with the magazine’s message – a celebration of an elite lifestyle – one that is well out of the reach of blue collar men and women.

Eliza Connors is a first year student at Occidental College.  She hopes to pursue a degree in sociology.  

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

The post CEO to Worker Pay Gap Up 1,000% Since 1950 appeared first on disinformation.

In 2011, Westpoint Graduate and Iraq Veteran Antonio Buehler was arrested for taking pictures of two cops abusing a woman they had pulled over in Austin, TX. He was accused of spitting in one of the cop’s face and charged with a felony. Luckily for him, there was someone filming the whole incident from across the street and showed that it was actually the cops who were the aggressors. Since that incident, Antonio has launched the Peaceful Streets Program which aims to bring accountability to police and their actions and to encourage people to flex their rights by filming the police.

Via WeAreChange

The post Craigslist Proved My Innocence Against A Felony Charge appeared first on disinformation.

I am one of those people who listen to NPR on the way to work every day. I check several news sites every day. During election cycles I am jacked in to cable news TV shows, talk radio, and polls. When major news events happen, I am one of those people that feels the need to stay on the news for hours. Live it and breathe it as if I was there.

I have been critical of this behavior and decided last weekend that I was going to go on a low-information diet to make room for some of the better things in life. That was last Sunday. On Monday a bomb went off in Boston.

After checking in with friends to make sure that they were ok (nobody even close) I decided to stick to my plan and shut the damn news off. I would check my news feed in the morning, and that was it. Music or silence in the car and at home.

Even on Friday when Boston was completely shut down and a massive manhunt was on for the second bomber – I ignored the news coverage. At first I felt stress over this. My mind is like “what if they catch him? What is they don’t? You won’t know…“  So I took those questions seriously. The answer of course is: WHO CARES. I am not in law-enforcement or media, so getting the scoop does me no practical good. I then went about my day, just like I did the rest of the week – almost no deliberate news consumption.

I noticed a few things:

1. My sense of needing to know has blown into a sense of “needing to feel like I am right there and that it is happening to me”. This is not information, this is porn. News porn is not good for you.

News porn creates a false sense of fear. You feel that you might be blown up any minute, when in fact your chances are ridiculously slim. You feel that children that are out of your sight for even a second will be kidnapped and molested when in fact this also is slim.

A good historical example of this negative effect of news porn happened after 9/11. Thousands of people decided not to fly after 9/11 because they were afraid that terrorists would hijack their plane. This caused an increase in auto travel. Auto-travel being generally less safe than air travel, this increased the number of auto accident deaths to a number that was greater than what would have happened if 9/11 happened all over again.

2. Throughout the week I was generally happier and more balanced. Not that I am unhappy or unbalanced, but like anyone I have enough stress from my own life without having to feel like I am in a terrorist attack. I was able to focus on my own life more fully and the lives of those people I actually know.

3. Strangely I remained just as informed as I always have been. You hear things by osmosis remarkably quickly, especially on facebook. I knew they caught they guy within the same hour that the story broke.  People tell you things. It’s hard NOT to find out about stuff.

4. Another strange one is that I was able to be informed about things OTHER than the main event of the week in a way that I generally am not when I get swept up in event fever. I follow the career of General Musharraf pretty closely (he took over Pakistan in a coup in 1999 exactly three hours after I bought a ticket on PIA that would have me in Karachi for a couple days). He was put on house arrest last week, which most people did not even notice.

5. Compassion and care are not effected at all. Some people seem to stay jacked into a story as an act of compassion or empathy. Not staying jacked in, did not lesson my compassion at all. Indeed it gave it a bit of space to manifest. Not only for the family of the victims, but the families of the bombers as well. How strange it must be. As a father I cannot imagine either loosing my 8 year old to senseless violence OR loosing my young adult to radical ideology and violence. What a nightmare.

6. Being the first to announce a story on FB just seems silly now, but it is exactly the type of thing I used to do. Same things with posts about how the bombers are FBI patsy’s or how they should have their rights taken away, or any other wingnut input. I mean, if you have a strong opinion, by all means share it and act on it. It’s just that facebook seems about the least effectual and non-committal way of protesting/lobbying that there is.

In general I am in the process of revamping my processes for everything I do. I want the rest of 2013 to be meaner and leaner and more productive. One key to that is going to be continuing a low-info news diet. Let’s see if I miss anything. I bet I won’t.

To celebrate 4-20, A bi-partisan panel of politicians somehow come to a unanimous agreement that The War on Drugs is totally effed up. Guest Starring Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes:

Lyrics below:

We need to repeal the whole war on drugs
It isn’t working
We don’t have to have more courts and more prisons
This has to change
This has to change

Prohibition didn’t work
Prohibition on drugs doesn’t work
We have spent over 400 billion dollars
It’s a waste of money

We need to come to our senses
Let’s put down the guns and unclench the fists
We need to come to our senses
Yeah, we don’t treat alcoholics like this
We need to come to our senses
Prohibition failing harder than 1926
We need to come to our senses
We don’t treat alcoholics like this

Too many people doin’ time
Somebody tell me – when did recreation become a crime?
It’s bright-eyed kids we’re sendin into prison
They go in as superheroes and come out supervillains

Could have had more Einsteins, more Magellans,
But we made a thousand Al Capone level felons.
Take out a dealer and ten more appear
So let’s ban curing cancer, we’ll cure it within a year.

We need to come to our senses

Of 50,000 arrests, 82% were black and hispanic
These arrests stigmatize, they criminalize
Making it harder to find a job
Making it harder to get into school
Making it harder to turn their lives around
It must end and it must end now

The war on drugs, while well-intentioned, has been a failure
We’re warehousing addicted people every day in state prisons
Giving them no treatment, sending them back on the street
And wondering why they don’t get better
Why they commit crimes again
Well, they commit crimes to support their addiction

The war on drugs is a failure
Put down the guns and unclench the fists
The war on drugs is a failure
We don’t treat alcoholics like this
The war on drugs is a failure
Prohibition’s failing more than in 1926
The war on drugs is a failure
We don’t treat alcoholics like this

The cops got better things to do anyway
Like stop real crimes instead of wasting time
Chasing that mary jane
Stoned people don’t start fights
No, they don’t
Stoned people don’t rob banks
Not even close
The worst thing stoned people do
Is steal their roommate’s oreos
And that’s a misdemeanor at most
A misdemeanor at most
A misdemeanor at most

The post The War on Drugs is a Failure – Autotuned by The Gregory Brothers appeared first on disinformation.

Conservatives may worry that moral decline is destroying the American nuclear family, but in fact economic reality is rendering it impossible and obsolete. CBS News writes:

With the cost of living on the rise and showing no sign of slowing down, total strangers desperate to save money are moving in together. Two million Americans over the age of 30 now live with a housemate or roommate, and shared households make up 18 percent of U.S. households – a 17 percent increase since 2007.

Older adults and even families are using this method to pool their resources. And the new communities are redefining the modern family.

One group of women sold their homes and bought a house together in Mount Lebanon, Pa., after they all got divorced. “It made amazing economic sense,” said one of the women, Jean McQuillin. McQuillin, Louise Machinist and Karen Bush call their home a “cooperative household.” They share the common areas of the house, chores and expenses.

The post More Adults And Families Turning To Communal And Cooperative Living To Save Money appeared first on disinformation.

via Astounde

Since at least the 12th century, man has sought to create a perpetual motion machine; a device that would continue working indefinitely without any external source of energy.

A large scientific contingent thinks such a device would violate the laws of thermodynamics, and is thus impossible.

Could it be that as a race, we don’t fully understand the laws of physics and such a device may indeed be possible? What would the ramifications be if we could actually build a perpetually moving device?

Norwegian artist and mathematician Reidar Finsrud is an outside the box thinker that has devised a machine that he believes achieves true perpetual motion. Take a look at the video below and see what you think.

Sargeant Matron writes at media underground:

Having been interested in the old-time American hobo lifestyle for some time, it has come as a great surprise and pleasure to find a thriving subculture of modern hobos still riding freight trains across the US. PBS has a superbly evocative film about hobos here.

Indeed, some old-timers are still out there migrating by freight-train to find work but there is a new wave of hobo riding simultaneously. It would appear that the new younger generation of ‘bos’ brings a decidedly ‘punk-attitude’ that simply rides the rails just for the sake of riding the rails – wonderful stuff. This creates an amazing mixture of young punks and old hobos doing the same thing, just for different reasons.

Riding the rails is also referred to as ‘freight-hopping’ or ‘train-hopping’ and there is quite a bit of stuff out there. Railroad Semantics is the website of Aaron Dactyl who publishes his own ‘freight zine’ about his adventures and is well worth a read. Northbank Fred has a very comprehensive website that has loads of hobo stories and links.

There is also a ton of stuff on YouTube and I particularly liked the videos from Wizehop.

Sarah George’s documentary Catching Out is also a good all round study of the modern hobo.

 

Data Based is a weekly Cyborgology feature producing original, insightful, and fun data visualizations.

Ned Drummond is a graphic designer and artist living and working in Washington, DC. For more information on her work, please visit maneatingflower.com. If you have any Cyborgology-appropriate data you’d like to see visualized, please email Ned at ned [at] maneatingflower.com.

 

If approved, 1-2 drones like this could be patrolling the skies of Alameda County, just across the bay from San Francisco. @drones

OAKLAND, CA—The Alameda County Sheriff's Department made its first public pitch on Thursday to the county’s Board of Supervisors (PDF) to authorize the purchase of “one to two drones,” coming from a $31,000 state grant.

If eventually approved, the county agency would become the first law enforcement agency in California to deploy a drone. The board did not vote on the item. Coincidentally, the hearing was on the same day that two members of Congress introduced legislation that would regulate the domestic use of drones.

Last week, the City of Seattle canceled its own drone program due to public outcry.

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