Though the main fixtures of a classic, Hollywood film are conspicuously absent – narrative, sequential time, protagonist – it would be a mistake to describe Terence Davies’ film as experimental. Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) does not, after all, revel in its play with filmic form: it does not push the limits of film language [...]
My last post on the Biblical and philosophical concept of “kenosis” ended with a reference to Emmanuel Levinas, whose essay, “Judaism and Kenosis,” though unread at the time seemed to promise an altogether different approach that that found in contemporary and poststructuralist philosophies, which remain in large part derived from the Christian tradition. From Luther to Hegel [...]
As the latest instance of a major media outlet prescribing mass surrender of even the most limited workplace rights, the cover copy for the May 25, 2009 issue of TIME Magazine reads: “Throw away the briefcase: you’re not going to the office. You can kiss your benefits goodbye too. And your new boss won’t look [...]
In a CNN article on “How to keep your job” Tyler Cowen (of Marginal Revolution fame) recommends that you approach your boss and preemptively volunteer yourself for a wage cut. So, even as money keeps flowing to the top, mass media outlets are now recommending that workers volunteer themselves for further wage cuts, all under the name [...]
A Los Angeles Times article on “Why text messages are limited to 160 characters” reveals an interesting connection between old and new media: Friedhelm Hillebrand, the man more or less responsible for this figure, consulted postcards in his search for an ideal length for short messages. Initially, Hillebrand’s team could fit only 128 characters into that [...]
Daniel J. Solove of Concurring Opinions recounts the legal difficulties surrounding “the tragic story about a family being harassed by the spread of death-scene images of their daughter, who was killed in an automobile accident. The photos of Nikki Catsouras were particularly gruesome — Nikki was decapitated in the crash. According to the article, soon [...]
Juan Cole debunks the Obama administration’s and the media’s Pakistani Taliban threat fantasy: As I have said before, although the rise of the Pakistani Taliban in the Pushtun areas and in some districts of Punjab is worrisome, the cosmic level of concern being expressed makes no sense to me. Some 55 percent of Pakistanis are [...]
It seems that the GOP considers even pandemic preparadness a form of welfarism: When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year’s emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans. Obey and [...]
SunChips, Frito-Lay’s popular line of multigrain snacks, will introduce for Earth Day 2010 the first fully compostable snack chip bag made from plant-based materials. Packaging Digest describes the key design innovations behind SunChips’ new packaging: Current snack food packaging has three layers: a printed outer layer with packaging visuals/graphics, an inner layer, which serves as [...]
Jeremy Scahill is not pleased: The U.S. State Department has announced it is sponsoring a “New Media Technology” delegation to Iraq to “explore new opportunities to support Iraqi government and non-government stakeholders in Iraq’s emerging new media industry.” Of all of the areas in Iraq in desperate need of attention, its “emerging new media industry” [...]
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