thefutureisred

No More Gawkers: When Will We Forget About Japan?

I'm sitting here in Argentina, landlocked, about as far away from the seismically active Ring of Fire as a person can get. I am not directly affected by the destruction on the other side of the world, so I watch the news.

And I can't help but wonder when we'll stop talking about Japan.

Every media outlet is reporting every new shake of the ground, showing photos of bodies being pulled from the rubble and posting videos of enormous waves engulfing the coast of Sendai.

But when will we forget?

When is the last time Haiti made the front page? Have the effects of last year's quake been mitigated? Is Chile fine? Indonesia? Peru? What about New Zealand? The earthquake in Christchurch happened less than a month ago and are we still talking about it?

Yes, some people still are. In fact, my list of to-do for this week includes preparing two blog posts for Matador Life about Christchurch for Blog4NZ, a grassroots blogger effort to bring support to the area. Pisco Sin Fronteras, a Peruvian volunteer force set up through Burners Without Borders, continues to work to fix the damage from the 2007 earthquake that destroyed 80% of the area.

But you don't see it in the news.

What do we see in the news?

Last night, one of the Matador team e-mailed around a video of a woman, supposedly from some religous group, thanking God for the earthquake. Apparently, they prayed for a sign from God to teach the athiests of the world a lesson.Personally, I think this video is a hoax. That doesn't make it any less disgusting.

And I am proud to say that Matador, without hesitation decided not to post the video even though it was on the cusp of going viral. Even though publicizing it could have brought in huge hits and publicity for Matador. We would have been the first to post it but said no. 

Since last night, Gawker published it as have other media outlets. I'm proud to say that I'm part of a media organization with integrity.

What does Gawker hope to gain by posting this video? Is it helpful? Does it bring attention to a story that people need to hear? Is there any reason the people of the United States need to watch a video in which a young woman goes on and on about how happy she is for the destruction we're seeing all over the news?

It reminds me of how after September 11, as two massive plumes of smoke poured upward from the once World Trade Center, we heard reports of people all over the Middle East dancing and celebrating. The news reports, too, remind me of that time. It brings back painful memories.

It makes me sad and anxious. It pisses me off badly. 

Yesterday, my friend Mike Lynch, who lives in Okinawa, posted wildlife photos he's taken in Japan. He posts them because he cannot look anymore and urges that we all wait patiently as rescue efforts continue and Japan takes stock of the damage done.

What Japan doesn't need, I can tell you.  They don't need Uncle Bill cleaning out his yard sale collection to send over as a charitable donation.  They don't need some major pharmaceutical company to write off a big donation of drugs with an expiration date of next month.  And they don't need anymore news reporters, cameramen, travel writers or anybody else going after the big story.

No more gawkers.

I think that says it all. Mike goes on to say:

We need to let those on the scene do their work without clogging up their transportation and logistical systems.  They will ask for help where and when it is needed.

It is human nature to show sympathy and want to help those in distress, I know.  I want to help, too.  We just have to be patient if we really want to help.  Wait.

I only hope by that time, the rest of the world hasn't moved onto something else.

Photo by jchong

Propaganda Is Not the Answer to the Muslim Question

Anti-Muslim legislation and propaganda -- particularly that of Geert Wilders -- seems not only to be growing stronger, but is becoming increasingly accepted in the mainstream. Let me tell you why this is not only wrong but, in my opinion, a horrifying mistake.

I originally wrote this post a few weeks ago, but other things came up in between, and I decided not to post until now. Now, it seems particularly timely in light of yesterday's anniversary of Rachel Corrie's death and the rioting and anger now going on in Israel in relation to new construction in East Jerusalem.

My views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are very much in the middle. Which pretty much means, everyone disagrees with me. Everyone thinks I side too much with the other side. While many countries stand heavily against Israel in their views and actions, those same countries and leaders don't see any conflict in the anti-Muslim stance they simultaneously hold.

This video by moderate Dutch politician Geert Wilders seems to be gaining political traction in Holland.

Wilder had initially been banned from the UK for his political stance. The ban has since been repealed, apparently, as he used his latest visit to the UK to continue pushing his Stop Islamatisation message.

Now compare the above film to the following:

What I see? Language like freedom vs takeover. Quoting of scripture as evidence and proof of action. Showing scenes from the lives of the "other" without any real knowledge of context.

"Propaganda," says Richard Alan Nelson in A Chronology and Glossary of Propaganda in the United States, "is defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages."

I was taught growing up that one of the first signs of the impending Holocaust was the outlawing of Jewish practice. So when I see civilized European countries outlawing Muslim practice, it does not sit well with me.

France is considering making it illegal for women to wear burkas -- a face and head covering -- in public buildings. Switzerland calls the minaret -- the tall, slender turret attached to mosques -- a symbol of Islamic law and not simply of religion and therefore wants to remove them from mosques.Geert Wilders wants to place a ban on head scarves.

Yehuda Avner, who worked with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin among others discusses in the Jerusalem post the nature of such conflicts from his recent book The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership. He quotes Rabin as saying the following:

While a political conflict is possible to solve through negotiation and compromise, there are no solutions to a theological conflict. Then it is jihad - religious war: their God against our God.... Our conflict would go from war to war, and from stalemate to stalemate.

You or I may believe the burka oppresses women or not want to see extreme Islamic law become the guiding moral authority in our hometowns, but what exactly will be accomplished by outlawing personal religious expression? What do we hope to gain?

The propaganda of the past set us on a path to war, death and destruction. Why would it be different this time around?

Coming Soon on The Future Is Red: A photo essay of my time spent on the West Bank.

Do Viral Campaigns Really Help Fight Cancer or Save the Environment?

"Going viral" has become the holy grail of the internet these days. Everyone wants to find or create the video, photo or contest that will bring millions of hits and downloads, lead to network television interviews and all in all create an overnight star sensation. But beyond attention grubbing, do they do any good?

This question has been on my mind a lot of late. With Matador Life now on my plate of daily delicacies to do, I find myself sorting through endless articles, videos and photos trying to decide what should be posted on the Life blog and what should not. Each individual thread, cause, or idea demands attention and after a while, I find it very difficult to pay attention.

Today, for example, is a day to focus on climate and our environment. The Guardian along with fifty-five other papers in addition to countless blogs, websites and general media, have banded their voices together in a call for action from world leaders for climate change.

Unless we combine to take decisive action, climate change will ravage our planet and with it our prosperity and security," begins the editorial. The dangers have been becoming apparent for a generation.

Julie Shwietert from  Matador Change urges us to take responsibility and clean up after ourselves in her editorial response to a New York Times op-ed article written by Suketa Mehta in relation to the 25th anniversary of the Bhopal gas disaster.

There are plenty other causes as well.

Last week, a fun and heartwarming video called the Pink Gloves Dance for Breast Cancer Awareness emerged from the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, Oregon.

Mashable reported that the video had gone viral along with information of an FOX network performance with the dancers.

A sweet video of a soldier greeted by his dog Grace on his return from war caused an uproar a few weeks earlier, so much so that the soldier involved ended up begging for his privacy and to be left alone.

It begins to seem, at times, that going viral becomes the story, but what effect does such virulence have on the actual causes? Does awareness lead to action? Or does the blaring sound of media simply leave us numb?

What do you think?

Photo by HH-Michael

Lies, Lies, It's All Lies! And Other Media Conspiracies!

Is it me or is the headline of Obama rescheduling his meeting with the Dalai Lama simply not news? Certainly not worthy of being front page Yahoo!

I also recently saw a TV news story on CNN about the International Monetary Fund meeting in Turkey. Basically, a reporter was standing in a tear gas filled street. He could barely talk, and we watched him run down the street to get to a place where he could breath again. Was three to five minutes of watching a man choke truly necessary? 

I suppose I've always been skeptical of what I read, hear on radio or see on TV and online, but I can track my strong distrust of the media to one particular date.

9/11/2001.

When I saw exactly what unedited media looks like. We heard and sometimes saw reporters on the scene. We felt them fight their natural reaction to run, and we heard the horror in their voices. News unfolded in real time, real life, because no one had a clue what was going on. There was no time to design glitzy graphics and taglines.

Then when things settled down a bit, the news became measured and slick once again. We returned to headlines of Mission Accomplished and Shark Attacks Up Again this year. And silly tales of how Sanjay Gupta contracted swine flu.  Swine flu -- aka H1N1 aka Hamthrax --another media kickstart frenzy.

Of course, how NY State now mandates the H1N1 vaccine for all healthcare workers, we don't hear so much. But it may be enough to make many NYC nurses, including a good friend of mine, quit their jobs. Which would mean fewer nurses in an already hurting field.

But things like Ahmedinejad possibly being a Jew? Who cares if he's a hypocrite? As my Muslim friend Ali -- or is his name Mohammed? -- says, "Jews and Muslims were cousins anyway?" And don't get me started on the Letterman revelation. Ok, I'm sorry, i can't resist. Jaded-me thinks this is one of the best examplese of tailored PR since the Jen-Brad-Angie debacle-drama. But I digress...

I don't exactly consider myself part of the news media, but i do know a bit about choosing images and topics for general publication. I prefer honesty, word and image that represent truth as closely as truth can be represented.

So back to Obama and the Dalai Lama? Is it so rare that a president would postpone a meeting, even with someone as high profile as the Dalai Lama,that it's not only worth mentioning, but worth splashing across the front page of everyone's browser? Or is there another agenda behind this sort of article? One that is perhaps designed to mislead instead of inform?

On reading the article, yes, you learn that it all has to do with the delicate balance between the US relationship with China and the role Tibet plays in that. But again, does posting the story itself turn what might have been a minor point into a major issue?

In the Immortal Words of David St. Hubbins: I Believe Everything I Read

I am an information addict. Yes, I admit it. Most all my information comes to me online. Emails. Twitter updates. Websurfing. And sometimes even ranting late night chats on anonymous message boards. So much information, in fact, that it becomes impossible to distinguish what out there actually rings of truth.

Friday morning, for instance, I received a Twitter update from @nytimes about how Europe's recession is deeper than expected. I followed the link to read the following sentence:

According to the European Union's statistics office, the economy of the 16 countries sharing the euro currency declined by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter. On an annualized basis, that would indicate a contraction of 6 percent - considerably deeper than the 3.8 percent annual rate of decline in the American economy in the same quarter.

Overlooking, of course, the fact that this article was oddly dated February 14th, 2009 even though Friday was actually February 13th, does that make any sense to you at all? Seriously. If you just skimmed that sentence, please go back and read it again. The damn thing makes my brain twist.

I'm no economist. In fact, I'm quite the economy-idiot, but I'm pretty sure you can't just add up projected percentages of economic shrinkage and present that as some sort of sign of anything? Let's say we went back to 2007. Would the last quarter's dollar loss or gains have been an adequate representation of what would happen in 2008?

Then, when I returned to the article this morning, I found the story has changed. 

The economy of the 16 countries sharing the euro currency declined by 1.5 percent in the fourth quarter, according to the European Union's statistics office. That is even worse than the 1 percent decline in the United States economy during that period, compared with the previous quarter.

Am I alone in finding just a tinge of the Orwellian in this?

Now yes, that could just be that the editors realize the problem and fixed it. Good for them. Applause! Applause! But it doesn't account for the fact that the current text is still imprecise. The sentence seems to be comparing the Euro based in the economies of 16 different countries to the American economy. Sure, we can assume they actually meant to say dollar, but since I have no sources for this information, how can I be sure?

You can call this nitpicking, grasping for straws, maybe even paranoia. In this world of constant information with tidbits about economy, war, terrorism, pleas for fundraising to provide clean water, support the victims of tsunamis, earthquakes, war and endless other bytes flying in from every direction, shouldn't we be asking questions? Lots of them?

I can pinpoint the moment I stopped trusting the press. September 11, 2001, around 3:30pm. We didn't leave the house that day. We couldn't, unless we wanted to brave an enormous plume of smoke and the charred debris that rained down on our neighborhood for days after the attacks. I sat on the couch listening to the radio and hearing a news stories, then waiting for updates. As the day wore on, the stories changed. There was one in particular. Ten men were found on an airplane in Newark airport. They were thought to be terrorists as well. A bit later in the day, the story changed to five men and a woman. I waited all day long with the radio on, waiting to hear what happened. The story simply disappeared.

The same happened with a truck found near the George Washington Bridge, thought to be filled with explosives. And a few months later, when I got stuck in a cab on the Brooklyn Bridge, traffic backed up for hours on both sides. There were police everywhere, some with sniffing German Shepherds. When I finally arrived home, I turned to the news. Radio, online, TV. Nothing. Silence. 

When I turned to my friends who worked in media for answers, no one knew a thing. How is this possible in our world of constant information, blogging, video cameras and recorders?

My thoughts, once again, return to Aldous Huxley's Brave New World Revisited:

 Both [religion and entertainment] are distractions and, if lived in too con­tinuously, both can become, in Marx's phrase, "the opium of the people" and so a threat to freedom. Only the vigilant can maintain their liberties, and only those who are constantly and intelligently on the spot can hope to govern themselves effectively by demo­cratic procedures.

So let us be vigilant, shall we?