When culture gets overinflated, yet refuses to pop, I want to be there with the needle. Enlightened cynics of the world unite! Express your love or hatred of things from the sacred to the mundane.
http://www.jjchandler.com/tombstone/
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If I was Wired or the LA Times or FOXNews or the Wall Street Journal, etc., I'd call my podcast journalism. Such is the very reason journalism is dead.
NOTE: Learn why MAY is a three letter obscenity.
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A reflection on how the distraction stories that media lumped on the public in the 19th century were so much more interesting than now. Brought to us by the fine folks at newspapers.bl.uk.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a big content guy.
Call me weird if you want, but when I look at the "Weird" News section of a "news" website these days, things really aren't that different from the "real" news. In fact I sometimes wonder if perhaps the only difference between the two is that the "real" news is about weird people doing mildly out of character things, while the "weird" news is about "real" people doing things that are often completely "in character".
A bizarre juxtaposition on SanLuisObispo.com. Full kudos for covering the protests in China during the 60th anniversary of communism, but is such an important world event best paired with the "party girls" from F. McLinktock's Saloon and Dining Lounge? Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps most of the protest signs are actually ads for The Gap or Stuckey's.
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Is it just me who doesn't get the need to comment on articles or comment on comments and thumbs up or thumbs down comments on comments? Am I that only one who's confused here? Feel free to comment below!
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Yeah, I can ramble a bit, but when someone says "Citizen Journalism" it kinda gets my back up a bit. It's not that I don't think the person on the street can't contribute to the ongoing dialogues and diatribes about everything from the crucial to the mundane. It's simply that, almost all the time, it ain't journalism. And with Twitter, there's even less of a chance... but I digress... give a listen.
A couple of months ago I'd posted a link to a story that seemed absurd, incredible, and sickening. I couldn't believe, yet was struck, by a story describing Tanzania's witch doctors using the body parts of albinos in rituals to bring good fortune to patients... I suppose unless one's patient was an albino. That post became one of the most viewed posts I'd ever done surrounded by quirky views on cereal boxes, Sesame Street, Web 2.0 and popular media.
This follow-up story from Burundi shows that the practice is not limited to Tanzania, but at least, it seems, the authorities in Burundi are making arrests. Those charged, found with albino bones, have largely been middlemen harvesting bodies for profit.
"At least eight people have been arrested in Burundi in connection with a trade in human body parts from people with albinism. Those detained had fresh body parts in their possession, police say. Witchdoctors in the region tell clients that potions made with albino body parts will bring them luck in love, life and business."
That one of the comments on my post of a few months ago thanked me for helping to expose this story was shocking in that I would've guessed those concerned would find my idiotic ramblings anything but illuminating. If, for no other reason, that so many people seemed to get something from that post, I humbly offer up my outrage, my further incredulity, and my sympathy to those affected.
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On the folly of citizen and network journalism and how Twitter might
plan on making money... oh, and girls being married to frogs.
