10.31.2004

Political Prisoner in Waiting

I am sick to fucking death of politics. Doesn't anyone else realize that both cadidates are bad and we should just wing it captainless for awhile? I mean, we've never tried it, how do we know it won't work? Just because I have never eaten brussel sprouts doesn't mean I wouldn't like them.

And who knows? Once we try not having a president, we may never want one back! I mean, no annoying political ads to darken your otherwise cheery evening watching "Survivor: Siamese Twin Removal" or the new metrosexual sitcom the networks have to offer.

If you think like me, show your (lack of) support for the elections this year by purchasing one of tshirthell.com's lovely political shirts. This is my favorite one.

Happy Halloween and Daylight Savings Time!

Happy Halloween everyone! Don't drink and drive, and make sure you eat all your candy tonight. Don't worry, you can pull a supermodel and puke it all up in the morning.

In addition, don't forget to set your clocks back an hour so you can have an extra hour of drinking or smoking or whatever... :-)

10.30.2004

OPM

Chasing the dragon before Halloween is awesome! I'm listening to all the fucking drunk college kiddies scream and puke and scream again.

Awesome.

10.23.2004

What is this, Iraq?

I have seen it all now! Down the street from my boyfriend's house (right next to the Southwest Missouri State University campus) there is a huge Kerry/Edwards sign attached to the ground with cinderblocks and barbed wire! Now I know for sure that we are in the buckle of the Bible Belt.

I'll get a picture of it soon; its been raining and grey all week, so pictures wouldn't come out right. I'll post it as soon as I can.

10.21.2004

Organic media



This site is aesthetically and intellectually awesome, in the truest sense of the word. Ben Fry is a graduate student at MIT and his master's thesis pertains to organic information design, which I understand to be the process of transforming large pieces of information into visual models to be more thoroughly comprehended by our ocular society.

He has several neat programs ("Zipdecode" is cool, although a reload button would be a great addition) and a generally informative site. WARNING! If you suffer from low self-esteem regarding your IQ, this site is not for you!!!

This particular screen shot is of "Anemone," a program that reads web traffic and maps it into this growing creature like crystals forming in a petri dish. The normal version reads cached traffic, but he has a real-time one as well, although I would recommend viewing at a high-traffic time to fully appreciate the program.

Pisces body art


This is a great picture body art (no, its not my body, but I wish!). This is a Pisces symbol. If you haven't read my profile, I'll tell you that I'm a pisces.

This was from a day that I did a lot of image searching. Search Google Images for weird nouns like "meat" and "coin purse." I guarantee a lot of weird pictures, if not at least 15 unproductive minutes.

Gas is $4.20? Where are we, Amsterdam?


This is the only time I would pay over $2 for a gallon of gas. I saw this on 4-20-2004, as I was driving down Campbell Street in Springfield. It was like 10pm and no one was out on the street. Seriously they fucking roll up the sidewalks in this town! But anyways, gas doesn't cost this much here thank God.

10.18.2004

Reducing commercials on the radio can't be all bad, you say...

...but you'd be wrong. Sure, it sounds great to reduce the annoying number of ads you hear day in and day out on any given commercial FM radio station; every 15 minutes the station reminds you of what station you're listening to and what cool things you should buy to be like all the aweseome DJs and musicians you can't wait to get back to listening to.

Why is this so bad, you ask? Well, for one thing, its not. Its a great idea, and I'm glad someone is finally doing it. The problem isn't the move toward more music, the problem is in the agency doing the moving. Clear Channel Communications is almost solely responsible for the disposable FM radio you hear all over the United States. Thanks to their corporate ownership of over 85% of the rock radio market in the US, Milwaukee sounds exactly like Long Beach, at least on the FM dial. (Thank George W. Bush for Clear Channel's monopoly on the radio waves.) With this much of the market controlled, Clear Channel keeps getting bigger and richer (like America) and competitors get smaller and poorer.

Most FM radio station's income is generated by advertising dollars. The more listeners a station has, the more money advertisers are willing to spend on airtime. Since Clear Channel owns a large portion of the radio market, they receive even larger portions of both the listeners and the advertisers, making their revenues increase. Plus, they often own several different formats in a given market (i.e. both classic rock and modern rock stations in one town) and can air the same commercial on all their market stations. Paired with the aforementioned homogenization of their national market, this makes Clear Channel a formidable corporate foe that small, poor FM stations can barely compete with.

Following the decrease in hourly commercials, expect to see an increase in the cost of advertising on Clear Channel stations nationwide. Not only that, but this move will attract more listeners, making advertising on Clear Channel stations a privledge only afforded Fortune 500 companies. Smaller stations can't afford to cut their profit margins any closer than they already are, and the advertisers won't want to advertise on stations that can't control much of the market anyway.

Your mother was right, you can have too much of a good thing.

10.15.2004

GOP Radio

Check out this disturbing little news snippet I found on Punkvoter.com. It seems Bush is responsible for more than just terrible foreign policy.

Jul 06 2004 / Bush Connection to Clear Channel

This is a lesson in “If you pay the right people enough money, laws will be changed so that your corporation can own more than a fair share of the market.”

Bush Connection to Clear Channel

In 1998, George W. got an excessive amount of money from a guy named Tom Hicks.

Here’s how: Tom Hicks purchased the Texas Rangers from George W. Bush and other investors for $250 million. From an initial investment of $600, 000 George W. profited $14.9 million on the transaction.

On January 22, 2001, (un-) President Bush designates Michael Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell as Chairman of the FCC.

Tom Hicks then becomes Vice Chairman of Clear Channel Radio.

One dog says to the other, “I licked your ass, now you can lick mine.”

On June 2nd, 2003, FCC Chairman Michael Powell voted to further loosen media ownership rules.

Clear Channel goes from owning 36 radio stations (two below the legal limit at the time) to over 1200!

So easy!

Now, you know what this means, right?

If one media corporation owns more and more of the market, we the public get a narrower news perspecive. How are we as citizens supposed to make up our own mind when we’re not given all sides of the story? Sounds like fascism to me. Who could support an administration that supports this kind of a policy?

As for the people who think the media is already liberal enough: Maybe the Journalists, Reporters and News Readers are, and maybe even the Program Directors, but not necessarily true for the CEO’s and owners of those huge corporations. They are the ones in charge, and they support the party that supports the corporations. That’s not the same as supporting the people now, is it?