Saturday, January 20, 2007

Culture Jam - orig. 08/03/05

Culture Jamming has been on the peripheral of my consciousness for some time now. I have just hit on a couple of sites devoted to this topic. Some of the ideas seem counterproductive to me in that I think it is important not to alienate your audience. I do like that people are taking action.

My friend and I participated in a little act of culture jamming at the local Jazz/Blues festival this weekend. We were imitating the guerilla marketing we learned from a advertiser who was interviewed in “The Corporation”. We tried standing on the sidewalk and talking loudly about the movie. We had a hard time not laughing and were both very self-conscious. The one guy who could hear us turned away. I think we might have made him uncomfortable.

I also ended up holding a door open for a stream of people and spent some of that time whispering “The Corporation”. This was a little creepy, but as with any endeavor we will improve with practice.

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I just read a little news-bite of an article on America as a brand. I linked to it from the Organic Consumers Association which looks like it could be an interesting resource.

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Genetic modification has also been on my mind lately. Here’s a nice quote, “Greenpeace warns that Monsanto's aggressive patent practices covering genetically modified (GM) crops and normal seeds threaten biodiversity, endanger world food security...” (Read the Article)

What do they mean “threaten biodiversity” and how does that “endanger world food security”?

It means just that. Companies are working towards owning all crops and animals. To do this they have to modify the animal and patent it. At a certain point all “useful” animals and food crops will be owned by a company. There have already been types of crop seed created that can not reproduce. This forces the farmer to buy new seed every year.

What happens when none of our crops and animals can produce on their own and we’ve destroyed or banned all natural varieties in the name of profit? We know that a farmer who plants only one type of crop runs a higher risk of total crop loss than a farmer who diversifies. There are cases in history where lack of crop diversity has caused famine.

So not only does ownership limit diversification we are also taking natural selection out of the process.

Greenpeace has set up a site that sends an email to Monsanto demanding that they stop their current practices in regards to patenting and exploiting life. I just sent one and encourage you to do the same at http://www.greenpeace.org/no-pig-patent.

Here is a link to Greenpeace.

Ok, I just signed up with Greenpeace to become a cyberactivist. We will see how that works out.

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I just heard a quote/cliché, “The Golden Rule: The people with all the gold make the rules.” That was from an older musician talking on some public television documentary about rock and roll.

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A friend sent me this:

“Hey check out my sad clown:

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^ ^
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(-----)

He is crying over the state of the Earth. Can you feel his pain? Then do something dammit!!!”

She’s preaching to the choir in my case.

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Here is a quote from a site I am currently checking out regarding negative population growth, “Since 1950, U.S. population has nearly doubled - growing from 151 million to over 296 million today. If present trends continue, our population will exceed 400 million by the year 2050.

More people means more pollution, more sprawl, less green space, and even more demands on the earth's already overburdened resources...”

It also offers these figures from www.census.gov:
World Population = 6,453,635,161
US Population = 296,606,757

It’s interesting that one of the first things I came across on the above mentioned site was a letter supporting a moratorium on immigration. I think this is still focusing on a nationalistic level of consciousness.

Here is another resource regarding negative population growth. The usability of the site isn’t great, but at least they are talking about the issue. If you get into the “Why Population Matters” section of the site it has some sweet counters that are worth checking out.

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I picked up some spelt bread at the whole foods store without really knowing what it was. It was a tough choice because I didn’t understand any of the breads. This is what the PCC Web site has to say about it, “Made from spelt—a so-called ‘ancient grain’—spelt bread was initially formulated for people with allergies. The small amount of gluten in spelt is usually tolerated by people who are sensitive to wheat or wheat gluten. Spelt bread is usually denser and drier than wheat bread, but has a similar flavor—slightly nutty and sweet.”

It’s good and it is denser than the bread I’m used to.

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I was looking for what is entailed in the alkalization of chocolate. Here is a quote from the Rapunzel candy company Web site, “What is dutch cocoa or dutching? Does Rapunzel alkalize the cocoa? Rapunzel does not alkalize the cocoa beans, a process which is commonly done to give cocoa beans better processing properties and to achieve a slightly less bitter taste profile. The ‘dutching’, as it is also called, is done by spraying the cocoa beans with sodium or potassium carbonate - roasting and milling it thereafter.”

Well according to another site it looks like just about everything I like to eat raises the level of acid in my body, including chocolate. It looks like fruits and vegetables are the way to go.

One site wanted me to order pH strips so I can test myself. I passed on the pH strips.

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I finished episode three of “Race to Save the Planet”. It highlighted smog in LA and the state of the Rhine river in Europe.

The smog impacts peoples standard of living on a daily basis in LA and is also damaging the surrounding forests. The clean air measures being enacted are being canceled out by population growth in the region.

The Rhine is so polluted that it is destroying any number of aquatic species and the people of Holland have to go to extremes to clean their drinking waters which are drawn from the Rhine and they still are not able to remove trace amount of pesticides. They are working under the assumption that the water has “safe” levels of pollutants, but there are no long term studies to find out for sure. We’ll see what happens.

It also touched on the phenomenon of fungal blooms in all the major oceans which are being caused by fertilizer run-off.

It has come up more than once in my studies that the rate of industrial growth is canceling out the environmental measures that have been instituted.

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Do something. Do anything. If that doesn’t work then try something else.

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