The politics of the image

Today you read about and listened to people debating the ethics of publishing a "selfie" photo of the Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. At issue is the question of glorifying, or at the least humanizing a monstrous act.  Does this image make us reflect on the fact that "the boogie man" can be among us, he does not necessarily stand apart and call attention to himslef by projecting a monstrous image.  Or, on the contrary, does it create a barrier to reflection by being so controversial that we may react with visceral outrage , not caring to explore the issue of images when so many lives have been destroyed.  Today you will reflect on what you have read and listened by exploring the issue yourself.  Take a stand and join your voice is discussing the politics of the image.

Meanwhile, take a look at some iconic Rolling Stone covers of the past.

 

Now how does Tsarvaev fit within the framework of these images?

For a look at famous covers, click here

Postcard from a new frontier

As the thermometer plummets and the days darken, I don't envy the protesters of the Occupy movement camping in  their makeshift tents, eating their watery porridge.  The thought of all of that communal living makes me want to crawl into my bed with my warmest duvet with a DO NOT DISTURB sign posted on the doorknob.  I am not a fan of tams tams and free hugs.  I own mutual funds, I hate car pooling and occasionally I throw cardboard in the regular trash.  In other words,   I am a stakeholder and beneficiary of  our capitalist system.

And yet.  I am fascinated by the Occupy movement and a supporter of the protesters.  Occupy Wall Street and its transborder cousins grew as a result of economic turmoil that is wreaking havoc on all classes, races, ages.  Although I readily admit that I participate in the system, I firmly believe in reforming it.  The economic crisis and disenfranchisement of a generation may be the key arousing us out of our apathy and empowering us to demand a redistribution of wealth and power.  We don't have to revolutionize society, we have to create a more fair and caring one.  There are  simple changes that can be implemented in order to become more inclusive, more just, and more sustainable.  The Occupy movement can be an intrument of these changes.

And so, I am enjoying the uncomfortable confrontations between the Occupiers and City Hall, between the voices of change and the condescending  pundits of the mainstream media , between the leaders of a new mentality and the gardians of the ideological status quo.  I agree to occupy this experimental space where people everywhere are joining together to map out a new territory of possibility.  Just let me bring my duvet.

Be Proactive!

Well, a new school year has begun, it's the perfect time for a fresh start.  It's a great time to spend money too and all the stores encourage us to buy: new clothes, new school material, new appliances, new electronic goods, new makeup, new apartments!

The new school year is also a time where many of us take stock of ourselves, of our appearances, of our habits and of our insecureties:  we believe in self-improvement.  Advertisers prey on this desire for perfection and even though we are more media-savvy than previous generations, we are still willing to buy a piece of fantasy in order to boost our self-esteem. 

Let's take a look at an ad for a product I'm sure you've all seen heavily marketed on tv.  What are people really buying when they order this product?

It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine

Last month, when I opened my RRSP statement, I was quite pleased to note a 9% increase in my Global Energy Fund.  On the other hand, when I fill up my gas tank twice a week at $126.4/litre I feel a lot of pain.  And when I see images of unrest in the Middle East, I cheer for the victory of the people over the forces of oppression and cringe as pro-regime forces attempt to crush the popular movements and I am forced to admit to myself, as if I didn't already know already, that it's all interrelated. My mutual funds, my car, my CNN, my MTV, my iPhone, my grocery cart are all links in a chain that bind us from our safe -haven of  insouciance to the rest of the world.  My conscience has known this for a long long time but the recent world events that are turning me into a news junkie have made me conscious of my conscience.  I can no longer look away.  I can't go on living as if my actions have no impact on the world.

The paradigm is shifting.  I am struggling with the following question:  how can I continue to live my life as if I am not concerned when the world is in such upheaval?  Are you familiar with the old  R.E.M. lyrics?  It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.

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But...I. don't. feel. fine.

I watch in awe and despair as the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis transform parts of Japan  into an apocolyptic ground zero.  And yet, life goes on here.  For example, the night after the earthquake, I watched the news in horror and then stayed up until midnight filled with guilty pleasure, licking the dregs of leftover chocolate fondue while watching Sex and the City: The Movie and revelling in its irreverent silliness.  I am a terrible, frivolous person!

The other day, my kids were incessantly bickering over ipods, iphones ,the  Wii and the laptop.  I couldn't take the spoiled sense of entitlement any longer so I sat them in front of CNN, made them look at the images of devastation from Japan and lectured them:  "You cannot fight over your personal entertainment choices when there is a nuclear meltdown on the other side of the world.  Banality is immoral boys!"  Its the post-apocalyptic parenting equivalent of the old standby:  "Eat all the food on your plate--don't you know there are children starving in Africa?"

I believe in resilience, in social justice, in the victory of the good over the forces of evil.  But today I feel like a helpless spectator with the uneasy knowledge that I am, in some small way, involved in the world.  And as R.E.M. plays in an endless loop at the back of my mind, a line from the prophetic William Butler Yeats (Ireland)  poem The Second Coming emerges to the forefront:  "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold."

If you are in a doom and gloom mood like me, I invite you to ponder  the entire poem, written in 1919, in the disillusioned aftermath of WWI.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer,
Things fall apart, the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed in the world
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming!  Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant birds.

The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocky cradle,
And what rough beast, its now come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

Blogfest

There are lots of inspiring blogs in the blogosphere where you can read inspiring stories about hope, survival and overcoming great obstacles. The best of these blogs use their circumstances to comment on an aspect of society.

 A subgenre of this type of blog, however, is the fabricated personal challenge blog in which bloggers impose artificial limits on themselves and then write about their trails and tribulations, their triumphs and defeats all in order to to have something interesting to write about in which ME is the star.  This subgenre reminds me of reality tv because both present a narrative arc that is entirely based on artificial challenges and fake fortuitous circumstances.  A classic example of this kind of blog is the Julie/Julia Project.

And so, because I am feeling frivolous and in the hope that one day  I too will become famous and  have a movie produced based on my blog, here are my suggestions for my ticket to fame:

Incognito:  I infiltrate the mafia and write both scathing critiques and lush praise for this deadly yet alluring secret society.

Karaokegirl:  I enter karaoke contests throughout Asia in a bid to become a karaoke star.

$%?*(*&?  -OFF:  I challenge myself to stop swearing in French or in English for an entire six months.

Choxtasy:  I eat a chocolate bar a day (not Mars or Caramilk--the good stuff!) and describe the taste sensations in exquisite detail.  Perhaps Lindt will sponser me?

Canterbury Tales:  I take a year off work in order to write about living like a woman of medieval England.  I write about food, health, education, entertainment, work and family life.  Nevermind that blogging is certainly anachronistic for the year 1310.

Well, I can go on and on but my eyes are getting blurry.  Which one do you vote in?  Do you have other suggestions for me?  How about you?  What's your challenge, real or imaginary?

The Strawman Argument

With a nod to the American midterm elections last night, let's take a look at Grammar Girl and listen to what she has to say about a debating technique dear to the politician's heart.  Her tips on this podcast are useful for a critical analysis of Maclean's articles too!

If you enjoyed this podcast, I encourage you to become a fan on Facebook.  With charm and humour, Grammar Girl has great writing tips and commentary on grammar faux pas in the media. I am not a geek (or am I ) but I do relish discussions about grammar.  Really!

Run

Ran to fix breakfast.
Sped to drive the kids to school.
Sped back home to get ready for work.
Jumped in the car.  Ahhh, I can relax, I'm not late, the sun is shining, Gloria Steinem is being interviewed on Q
 $%%#!!$! a dead moose on the back of a truck, zoom and another, zoom and another, at least six today all the way to Rimouski.

Sauntered to the office,greet colleagues, check Omnivox, Groupwise, Hotmail, telephone messages, catching up, catching up.
Ran upstairs for a meeting.
Ran downstairs for Cool-Aid center.
Strolled to office
Madly produced administrative documents due NOW and  sent them out
Quickly ate lunch with one hand while typing with the other.
Ran downtown to buy a birthday present.
Glanced at watch, holy $%#%!! I have a meeting in 7 minutes.
Sprinted from Alphabet to the third floor of the cegep in 5 minutes.
Arrived at meeting transpiring and out of breath but ON TIME.
Finished the meeting, jogged to the second floor for  other meeting.
Dashed to office, grabbed work, ran to car.

Sped back home, come on lady, you are driving too slow.
Brisked into the grocery store, purchased supper, slight twinge of guilt for not offering all four food groups.
Pulled into the garderie, picked up kids, B is there, N is there--what É isn't there?  Oh, he's at a friend's house.  Aghh!!! which friend?
Found É, drive home, fervently repeating my mantra :serenity now, serenity now (you know, from Seinfeld).
Unpacked backpacks, helped with homework, spelling words, dictation, addition, subtraction, conjugation,
Exponents--Hey, I'm an English teacher not a math teacher ummmmm, let' s see now.....

Walked dog.

Gobbled supper, get back in car, drive É to arena, tie skates.
Drove back home, read stories.
Got back in car--I said buckle up!
Picked up É at arena, come on, hurry up! hurry up.
Got back in car . Drove back home.
Made and eate snacks, read stories.

 Walked dog.

I am wiped out.  I am beat.
Bed time everybody. Sweet dreams.

I can't sleep.

Revenge of Bonhomme Carnaval

Our hero on the rampage.--from Actualité

Bullet-proof

You are walking along a road,  you hear crunch crunch crunch, you look to your right, you see antlers, you see a majestic brown beast, you see a moose, you see two of them!  You are on your bike one day and you hear the familiar crunch crunch crunch, sure enough, its the buck and his partner.   You are driving along that same road, the windows down because your air-conditioning is broken and hey wind-cooling is more environmentally-friendly than air-conditioning anyway and you hear crunch crunch crunch and there again, on the side of the road, stands that buck.  This happens to you all summer, every couple of days.  You become attached to this animal, you admire his grandeur, his quiet nobility. You reflect: gee, am I ever privileged to witness this great creature, just being.  You think to yourself, I hope I never hear bang!

Autumn arrives, it's back to school, back to work but that's ok too, you love your work, you love your 45-minute drive at this time of year.  You drink your coffee, you listen to the radio, you contemplate the surroundings, you're in your bubble.  Then one day as you turn your attention from the red yellow orange trees to the vehicle you are approaching, you realize with growing nausea in the pit of your stomach that your woodland companion has been shot, killed, and tied to the hood of a car.  You become a  voyeur in spite of yourself, you are a hostage, you can't escape any more than the moose can.  Look away too long and you will crash.  You are complicit, you are a witness to the scene.

 And you know it's hunting season again.   You reason that you live in a rural region, it's to be expected, hunting is a hobby, a way of life, a means of subsistance, part of the cycle of nature.  And who are you to criticize, you carnivore, you meat-eater, you who enjoyed all those barbecues all summer long!   But it's that shameless display of that poor sacred creature, the macho arrogance of victory that you just can't digest.