Toban Black

I wrote this statement for a blog about Coulter in Canada events -
http://counteringcoulter.wordpress.com/to-bjorn/

That statement is a response to an e-mail (quoted at the bottom of that page) from a ‘Free’ Press organization.

Here’s a bit more background -
The ‘Free’ Press Society (which was backing the Ann Coulter in Canada events) had sent out hundreds of event RSVP e-mails by mistake. The Countering Coulter blog then was set up to take advantage of that opportunity to reach people who had RSVPed for the event here in London, Ontario, Canada. Someone out here sent those people a message (much like this post) to ask them whether they would want to use the blog to communicate their concerns about the Coulter in Canada event in London, Ontario. After a guy from the ‘Free’ Press organization sent out an insulting and confusing rant about that e-mail and that Countering Coulter blog — in a message to the same e-mail addresses — I put together the reply on the blog page that I’ve linked to above.

In that writing I tried to hint at the limited effectiveness of blogging and e-mailing in general. Online activism and dialogue (via Twitter, and Facebook, and so on) are very overrated, and I didn’t mean to reinforce the rhetoric and false hopes about ‘digital revolution’ and ‘digital democracy’ (Here are some relevant posts.)

To put this another way -
Free speech only can happen when there already is equality and justice in our everyday lives (with or without digital technologies).

[Read more →]

Back in 2005, Keri Smith offered some insight into problems that come with with ads on blogs — and ads that surround blogging.
Here are exerpts that I’ve snipped out of three of those posts -

=======

“As a blogger who has over time established a somewhat regular audience, I have been approached by many companies asking to advertise on my site, and in some cases endorse their products through my writing. have always had a policy to not do anything that goes against my own beliefs …
And so I would not advertise nor endorse any product or company that I do not fully believe in. But even then I struggle with advertising in general.

As a member of a culture that is so laden with advertising I become easily winded, oversaturated, numb to it all. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to find any public space WITHOUT some form of advertising.” “One grocery store I was in recently has televisions throughout the store selling products in every aisle! As one who was weaned on television at a young age, this is too much even for me.” “I have a hard time and resent being told what to look at as I walk through my day.”

“And so I make choices to not partake in a world that is about selling, (to me being exposed to advertising on a regular basis is the equivalent of emotional junk food and I truly care about my body, so there is an emotional cost to me).”

“If I am making the choice to not clutter my mind with the chaos that is advertising, (as I choose not to put junk food into my body), then I must cut down on the sites that are saturated with it.

If I am to speak frankly here, I am saddened when I go to a site of an artist or a blogger I admire and they have ads on their site. I feel a loss of respect. When companies have approached me for the same thing I admit to a moment of ‘it might make my life easier, I could focus on my personal work more, finish that manuscript’, yes I could.

But I ask again, what is the greater cost? When do we put our human needs before those of the corporations?”

[Read more →]

(Photo by Andy_K)

—–

John Bennett (in this blog post) -
“How can simply placing our hands on the steering wheel impair our judgement, turn us against our fellow citizens and cause us to engage in risky behavior that we know will yield only small, fleeting rewards (if any).”

I’m going to start to explore those issues here –
without focusing so much on car equipment (such as steering wheels).

—–

Matt Richtel on the New York Times Gadgetwise blog -
“Driving While Texting Remains Popular — and Dangerous” (May 20th)

Brad Aaron on the New York Streetsblog -
“Ad Nauseam: Antisocial Thuggery From Pioneer”

—–

Tom Vanderbilt (in this blog post) -

“It’s almost as if there’s something about being inside a vehicle of any kind, removed from the normal pace and experience of walking — the only thing we were actually born to do, after all — that evokes its own special behaviors, its own convulsive social physics, and problems — traffic fatalities, it should be noted, were ranked as the leading cause of fatalities in London in the early 18th century.”

[Read more →]

In London, England

—

The text on that sign is a generic message over there in the UK.
(The “SSP Air” text is unique though, of course — since the surveillance extends well beyond that airport.)

During a recent visit to the UK, I was surprised by the overt messages about CCTV cameras (which often are mentioned on signs, and over radio systems). Over here in Southern Ontario, the cameras aren’t highlighted so openly; so there also aren’t as many messages about why such government surveillance supposedly is justified.

Of course, over-inflated rhetoric about terrorist threats is pervasive throughout the pro-surveillance messages in the UK. (For instance, when I was in a museum in London, at least one radio announcement suggested that I should look for abandoned baby strollers; presumably I was supposed to be worried about a bomb that might have been left in one of those strollers — which, I assume, is why I was told to inform the guards if and when I saw one of those strollers. Otherwise, why were strollers mentioned over the radio broadcasting system?)

(I basically visited London and Cardiff when I was in the UK. Since those are capital cities, I’m sure that they’re somewhat unique. Yet, the UK also seems to be a cohesive bubble — so I expect that surveillance systems are consistent across the British isles.)

—

On a bus in London, England

[Read more →]

Alexander Zaitchik has published an article titled “Twitter Nation Has Arrived: How Scared Should We Be?”

Here are selected experts –
with interjections from me -

“It was less than three years ago that Twitter hatched as a … curio modeled on Facebook’s status-update feature.”

“By mid-2008, the San Francisco-based site was garnering feature coverage in national magazines and batting away $500 million buyout offers. With nearly six million users and counting, it is now [rapidly expanding] to obliterate last year’s growth clip of 900 percent.”

But “Twitter [postings are extensions of] those aspects of American culture that have become all too familiar in recent years: look-at-me … neediness, … media addiction, … attention-span compression and [degrees of] vapidity. When 140 characters is the ascendant standard size for communication and debate, what comes next? Seventy characters? Twenty?”

“How can you not [object to] a site that encourages people to post, ‘At the park — I love squirrels!’ and ‘F@*K! I forgot to tivo Lost last night.’ ”

[Read more →]

Lisa Goldman on private, liberal bubbles in a bubble around the city of Tel Aviv, in Israel -

“[In Tel Aviv] most people eschew political discussions these days – mostly out of accumulated weariness and cynicism.”

“Israelis have turned inward – to family and nesting at home. Many of my friends boast they have stopped reading [journalism-]papers and rarely watch television [journalism].

[Read more →]

Parts of an e-mail that I received earlier this month -

—

Hello,

I’m writing to you to know if by any chance you would be interested in doing an unbiased review of our site on your blog http://tobanblack.net/blog/

Here is some information about the site -
[Then there were about 5 sentences, which basically promoted the site.]

If you agree we will send you a payment for the review.

More information about the site would be sent to you along with the payment.

[Read more →]

Apparently “Best Buy” sells grotesque Christmas ‘happiness’ -

—

‘Excitement’ and ‘love’ -

[Read more →]

Matt Taibbi at RollingStone.com – “Economic Realities Are Killing Our Era of Fantasy Politics”
U.S. “election season will be packed with horserace media distractions, but [the U.S.] economic situation is becoming a matter of life and death.”

—

The thing is, most Americans still are far, far, far more interested in the sort of media fare that you’ll find here:
http://entertainment.msn.com
That’s an enormous understatement, actually.

Don’t believe me?
Check out what people are searching for through Yahoo!:
http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/

—

Related posts -
“In everyday life” and “Everyday office work“

Geert Lovink (in his book Zero Comments) criticizing promises about radical change on and around the Internet -

“Despite all the talk, the Internet has not delivered the revolution it promised. Societies adapt to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) but do not change in a fundamental way and prove remarkably flexible in staying as they are” (p. xxvii).

“Despite a new generation of applications, the spectacular rise of the Internet population, and increased user involvement, most of the topics facing the Internet remained much the same: corporate control, surveillance and censorship, intellectual property rights, filtering, economic sustainability, and governance” (p. x).

“How can libertarian techno-celebrities continue to sell dream worlds about freedom and leveling the fields without being scrutinized? There is little indication that they will shut up or even face serious opposition. There seems to be a never-ending demand among geeks and entrepreneurs for salvation. We can only repeat so often that the Web is not a place apart” (p. xxvii-xxviii).

—

Update -
Here’s a Twix commercial that is somewhat relevant — and, I think, funny — in this context:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQJ2SegGWyc [via Chet Scoville]