Message-ID: <1.5.4.16.19970604141220.088f2be2@mail.telecom.net.et> Date: Wed, 4 Jun 1997 14:40:04 +0300 From: Dawit Angelo <mailto:dangelo@TELECOM.NET.ET> Subject: Re: Common resources & common good To: mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU
Selam Lee and all,Lee wrote, [...] >Instead, they are brainwashed daily by their television sets to consume
>whatever they can in order to feed an unsustainable economy, and if that
>means walking all over someone else, so be it;
[...] >Teenagers and children while away their hours vicariously beating,
>maiming and killing humanoid beings on video screens... Ah Western
>culture... I'll stop before I really begin to ramble.
How about the following piece ''AMERICAN Top NEWSPEAK Stories of the Week #73'' posted in a weekly list mailto:@ wjrytt@brat.net also horded @ http://www.scn.org/news/newspeak
>Ad Agencies Have Worries Too
>Advertisers in their search for emotionally compelling ideas are running
>into a roadblock. It's getting harder and harder to reach consumers who
>are hit by an estimated 245 commercial TV messages a day. David Lubars,
>ad executive with the Omnicom Group, complains that consumers "are like
>roaches - you spray them and spray them and they get immune after
>awhile." A truly humbling simile.
Humbling eh? Sacred humanity comapred to roaches. The article continues,
>Apparently advertisers have done their work too well. In the quest for
>spontaneous or "naked" subconscious reactions to base new ad campaigns
>upon, researchers are now turning to scanning eyeball movements and using
>hypnosis.(WSJ 5/30)
Sounds that we are bent on discovering the limits of the consumerism.The Roman ''gladiatorial experiments'' at the collosium come to mind. Don't they? In history, such craze (sorry for the strenghth of the term here) reaptedly preceeded the downfall of civilizations. Seems that civilizations are programed to self distruct.
Pending the much talked about push technology, it is a pitty that the ad world did not succeed yet to be selective as it always wanted to be though that is only to save on costs than of concern. Technology increasingly widened reach through cheaper or compelling mediums and the effect thus shows on both the haves and the have nots all over the globe. That meant resentment which in turn breeds all the so called ''evils'' of capitalism that are now threatnening the very existence of the race itself. Who would want to toil in a food for work program to build an ill planned, soon to be inundated highland rular road while everything around him including the six color catalogue on the dashboard of the role models cruiser is a reminder that there is a lot more in life than that?
Bye for now Dawit
Stay tuned for the 2nd recipient perspective posting.
>A Brave New Health Care World
>Richard Scott has turned Columbia/HCA into the McDonald's of the health
>industry, with 348 hospitals flying its banner. Now the Wall Street
>Journal has been kind enough to make us privy to Mr. Scott's grand vision
>of the future of healthcare. "It is a world," reports the WSJ, "in which
>diseases from cancer to diabetes to manic-depression become profitable
>'product lines' for businesses like his..." Columbia, for example, now
>offers 8 "product lines" for cancer, cardiology, diabetes, etc. Individual
>doctors are to be replaced by disease management programs that standardize
>treatment, thus allowing lower priced health technicians to punch into a
>computer and come up with treatment plans. In Scott's world, executives
>produce sentences like the following: "The disease management approach
>would give the company a competitive edge with managed care in marketing
>these lines." Keep repeating it until you feel fluent with this manner of
>speaking or your cerebrum shortcircuits. (WSJ 5/28)
>The "Cleanliness Is Next To Godliness" Dept
>The CIA found to its surprise that after promising to open its files on
>our many overthrows of governments, like that of Iran in 1953, the
>cupboards were bare. The records had already been destroyed. Brian Latell,
>a CIA official, revealed that CIA higher ups had told the keepers of the
>Iran records that their "safes were too full and they needed to clean them
>out." Few people are aware of the CIA's dedication to cleanliness. And
>sadly the money strapped agency could only afford a few safes, so tidiness
>was of paramount importance. But disregarding this reasonable
>interpretation is a former CIA historian, Prof. Nick Cullaher, who claims
>the records were obliterated by a "culture of destruction." The CIA
>harboring a "culture of destruction"? I do hope he was just referring to
>the paper shredding. (NYT 5/29)
>Respectable Panhandling
>Congratulations are due to Rep. Susan Molinari for her promotion from
>Congress to a Saturday morning news anchor job with CBS. No more
>panhandling from multinational media giants. But it raises an interesting
>question. Given the daily fundraising politicians engage in and their
>willingness to run errands for big corporations, just how low has the
>job's reputation fallen? Well, Sam Walker, a professor of criminal justice
>and an ACLU advisor, has a backhanded answer. He uses politicians'
>behavior to defend the rights of panhandlers. "You cannot draw a line
>between making a political speech and asking for money. Panhandlers have a
>right to talk to someone else about their condition. It's like talking
>about a political party." It certainly is today. The once existing
>difference between public representation and pandering to those with ready
>cash has dissolved. The destitute pleading for spare change certainly
>should enjoy the same rights as the Representatives they mimic. (AP 5/30)
>NEWSPEAK is posted weekly and is available via a mailing list at
mailto:>wgrytt@blarg.net. To request it just complete the phrase "Roaches united >will never be ...."