ADBUSTING & CULTURE JAMMING

"Now something rather strange has begun to happen to the Arabic language news broadcaster al-Jazeera and the English language channel it launched nearly five years ago; American viewers have begun to demand it. It is clear some kind of watershed has been reached when the Kansas City Star publishes a cut-out-and-keep guide to the "easiest way to get al-Jazeera English". The Qatar-based channel's acclaimed coverage of the Egyptian crisis has been referred to as the broadcaster's "CNN moment", doing for al-Jazeera English what the first Gulf war did for CNN, pushing it to the forefront of the public's consciousness. Every global media story produces its winners. Egypt's drawn-out agony is a tailor-made opportunity for al-Jazeera English, which it has seized with careful on-the-ground journalism. If the US cable owners relent to the emerging public pressure, it will mark a coup for a news service that, until recently, was battling to prove it had

* another adbusting & culture jamming session with the Prof of Garbology* With the opening of another of these nightmares in my area, I thought I would share a couple of points from the book by George Ritzer "The McDonaldization of Society" which I have just read. The principles of the process Ritzer terms “McDonaldization” are rapidly coming to dominate more & more sectors of society, with predictable, generally adverse, results. It seems no sector of society is immune - not only the restaurant business, but also education, health care, work, travel, insurance, dieting, politics, the family and more are rapidly being remodeled into this new paradigm. Ritzer says:“The forces behind McDonaldization seem intent on replacing the laws of nature with a completely rational regime, making the world in every way efficient, calculable, predictable & controlled", and goes on to quote Jean Baudrillard: “The fundamental law of the social order is the progressive c

This blog will poke blunt sticks into the proverbial eyes of the media-crap we are fed each day.....we start with the true reality of cigarette addiction: