And I can tell you this that title will do nothing for your case when attending court, and frankly this is why I think the government has decided to use such a term.  It automatically makes you guilty and sets you up for failure in the court room. Secondly there is this ridiculous notion that people that choose to speed at 150km/h or more should be possibly fined up to $10,000 which is insanity. To put this into context, if you are caught doing 149km/h, more than likely you would be fined around $500 and three demerit points. Oh and by the way you would not get a road side seizure, a massive fine, you car impounded etc.

The point I am trying to make is, this law and others might seem as they were designed to help our city remain safe but in actuality they are simple cash grabs that generate money for a city that squandered all of their resources away. And if you’re still not convinced, then why is it for the last few years the City of Toronto has implemented the “personal vehicle tax” to every driver when they renew their license? So next time you renew your sticker which costs $75 and there is an extra fee of $60 attached to it you might want to think to yourself why are you being charged this amount. It’s simple really, CASH GRAB!



I personally find that most people who choose Xbox 360 are ones who enjoy online game play very much and the ability obtain bragging rights of beating someone as far away as Australia. And the Sony player will push the point of their system being able to play Blu-ray movies on top of video games. That leaves us with the Wii player who from a hardcore gaming standpoint is really not on the same level. This is not to say the level of interaction is worse than the other two, because it is not is actually more involving. But moreover the system is not really marketed as a hardcore, shoot’em up, killing system like Xbox and PS. It is more of a juvenile, family oriented system that makes its focus on friendly and entertaining entertainment. Where Xbox and PS can be considered a 17+ system the Nintendo Wii is somewhere situated in the PG realm.

My involvement with gaming begins at the level of enjoyment of a new game that helps me escape reality and ends at I rather go out with my girlfriend than play video games. Unfortunately for some, they become completely absorbed by the nature of the video game that it ends up replacing the world in which they live in. For example in the news was a story of a gamer in Japan that died while playing video games; how is this possible? Well the gamer in question decided he wanted to start marathon gaming and never left his seat for a total of a week, no food, water, not even getting up to use the bathroom. This is an example of where video games tend to replace reality for some. Unfortunately it is this type of behaviour that has the ability to encourage an individual to do violent acts amongst others. People must understand the fine line between the real world and that of one made up of monsters.

Culture jamming was intended to disrupt the mainstream and to essentially go against the corporate world through activism. The Zombie Walk is no different, but I find it interesting that the very characters these people are trying to depict to fight against corporate dictatorship, were essentially created by the entity there are trying so hard to fight. Regardless, this type of culture jamming has proved prominent in that it has brought awareness not only to pressing subjects but that it has brought an entire landscape of people together.

From all over the world, people in many urban areas come together once a year with a common goal. Although there have been accounts of some violence, and even people have been calling local authorities to complain of zombies attacking them, the underlining tone remains the same in that it brings mass groups of people that share a common goal together as a group. I find it interesting that a society is able to converge on subjects while acting as the dead. Maybe we don’t even need the makeup, because we are all aware of zombie mentality.

Ok so now you have eaten, time to get your day started so you decide to brush your teeth, WOOPS!, better use a bottle of water my friend, turning on the taps constitutes indirectly buying hydro, same goes for the shower stinky. You decide to give yourself a French bath and continue struggling through your day and it is only 8:00 a.m. Time to go to work, you need gas for your car because you forgot to fill it up the night before, sorry buster. Alright what are our options? Bus? Nope. Bike? Nope, work is too far. Taxi? Nope. Alright so now you have decided that you can’t go to work because your transportation methods are bunk. So you decide to stay home, but are unable to call your boss because that would enable technology which indirectly costs money. Ok, so now you stuck at home on a cold winter’s day, but you can’t turn the lights on, forget about turning on the furnace, and did I forget to mention that you must go to the bathroom outside like a dog. It is at this point you realize that you should have just stayed in bed, because that doesn’t cost anything right? Wrong, rent is due bud!

Anyways, as you can see through my little sketch, it really is impossible not to buy nothing for a day, and maybe that’s the lesson here. Western society has become so dependent on the technology that we use day in day out that we simply cannot go through a single day without it. This is true, but it is my right as a hard working citizen of this country to do so. For the people who started this campaign, I feel that they are hypocritical in nature in that they use these given rights just as much as the next guy while creating a stink about them. Personally I feel if you believe that Western culture has become this self indulgent, then move, go live with the Bushman of the Kalahari Desert. And by the way, it’s going to cost you.

For example even from the beginning of the internet, rumours have circulated that internet providers will be incorporating a “Modem Tax”, which will be applied to each IP address. In the urban legends book Baby Train, “The Modem Tax Rumour”, has been said that the “FCC has proposed that users of modems should pay extra charges for the public telephone networks which carry their data”. “Additionally, computer network services would be charged as much as $6.00 per hour per user for the public telephone network”. This “rumour” was collected in 1993 and circulated for many years and disappeared. In today’s modern internet age this rumour has essentially turned into private enterprises attempting to regulate what and how much we are allowed to view through the internet. And even being charged for over use of the broadband by having limits to the amount we are able to download. I believe this is the private entities way of fighting back against these aforementioned Tom, Dick and Harries (the public), that have honestly taken over the complete landscape of the internet. So it almost seems that his urban legend is coming to fruition in that the private sector is attempting to charge the public (the same public that made the internet what it is today) for specific use.

If this trend continues, and corporations continue attempts to control this public medium then I fear that the internet will merely transform in to rotting corpse. Think of the internet as being a thriving city that continues to evolve because everyday new people are moving in and adding to the structures that have created it. Now if these people continue to be blocked, regulated and denied access to their surroundings, the end result will be that everyone will disappear. Comparing this to the internet it is no different, people will eventually use it on a minimal bases because the cost will become too great thus shutting down the very concept of what the internet was founded on. And in the end the infrastructure will collapse leaving us with the following: http://wwww.globalgrind.com/source/www.chirpthis.com/334723/internet-1993-peter-mansbridge/

And this would be an extremely scary thought.

Do you see a problem here? I don’t. It is possible that cross media ownership has implications that could dilute or even regurgitate the corporations’ views through all of their outlets, essentially telling you the same message over and over but through many different streams. Or even that because of this mass ownership, it enables a large corporation such as Rogers to have a stranglehold or monopoly on dispersion of media.  I say so what, researching what Rogers Communications owns and operates, I found a lot of radio stations and publications that might not necessarily be here to today if it wasn’t for the strength of a corporation like Rogers.  Taking it further, we can also see that with the amount that is owned by Rogers, jobs have also been created or in some incidents where Rogers has taken over a struggling publication, radio station, media outlet etc. have been saved.

Yes a corporation has the ability to abuse their cross media ownership to benefit the bottom line and to advance personal causes. But it does not happen overnight and every other business entity and individual had the same opportunity to do the same. If you approached Ted Rogers 50 years ago and brought him the list of what his corporation would own and operate, he would more than likely say don’t believe what the media has to say, how ironic.

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Work Cited-http://www.cjr.org/resources/index.php?c=rogers

From a personal standpoint I do not believe that it is, and anyone who believes otherwise I would strongly recommend not getting into business; the primary objective of any large corporation whether private or publicly traded is to make money. To all the naysayers, think of yourself as a corporation, would you go to work for free? When looking for a job do you not hand your resume out to as many opportunities’ as you can? Or even going a little more extreme, have you ever embellished the truth about yourself towards the opposite sex, you qualifications for a job etc.

 Well this is no different than a corporation spreading the word about the business through corporate sponsorships, particular project funding and yes even FAKE NEWS! Even the “real news” can sometimes hype the truth a little more then necessary to grab the viewer’s interest and trust. An example I like to use is from a few years back. My father operates a large transportation company that deals with various contracts across Canada such as Shoppers Drug Mart, LCBO, Home Depot, Canadian Tire, Praxair to name a few. A few years back, I believe it was 2006; one of our transportation units was hauling liquid gas southbound on the 400 series highway unfortunately the truck jackknifed (see link to get idea what a jack knife is http://www.neighborsinparadise.org/images/3-9-06Jackknife.jpg)(1) and rolled causing the 400 to be shut down for hours.

The tanker that was holding the liquid gas was triple sealed, where the product itself is contained in a much smaller canister within the tanker unit itself. The exterior shell is designed to absorb the impact of a collision or piercing etc. Anyways, the truck was severely damaged, and the tanker had to be emptied into another transportation unit before the truck could be turned back on its tires. This is just a cautionary measure taken, because I mean it is liquid gas. There was a zero chance that the product will erupt and cause an explosion of any kind.

Later on that evening I was watching City TV at six to catch the story and to see how the media would articulate the story. All I can say I was not disappointed, in the back drop you see the aforementioned accident and the news anchor stating that an “immanent explosion”  was possible but only City TV had the guts to be there on scene to capture the story for us the viewers. WOW! I am going to repeat there was no chance of an explosion! Zero, Zilch, Nada! Even a few weeks later City TV put a montage together of how they are Toronto’s news station and that they put themselves in harm’s way just to get you the story.

The point of my story is to show that even real news has the ability to have attributes from the fake news. Call it propaganda, call it lies, call it whatever you like but at the end of the day the implications of fake news is what makes the world interesting. And if there wasn’t fake news, or the topic of corporately funded news then we wouldn’t have anything to write about.

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Work Cited

(1)    Google

http://www.neighborsinparadise.org/images/3-9-06Jackknife.jpg

I for one question everything I watch, read and see to the point that I frustrate myself and possibly others. Some could say I do it just to be different, some might think I am just an angry individual and others believe that I question it because I have nothing better to do. So for the sake of argument let’s say I do it because I am an angry individual who wants to be different and I really have nothing else better to do.

Not to take the Chuck Klosterman approach were in his book Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs the first few pages are dedicated to the hate of John Cusack and that he is a so called “motherfucker”(2) rather I will blame the media for my Media Literacy or the lack there of. I mean think of it this way, if Media Literacy is the so called process of “inquiry-based instructional model that encourages to ask questions about what people watch, see and read” then it would be fair to say that media itself are the ones to blame for this school of thought.

If the “media” per se didn’t show questionable material then all these media literacy scholars would have nothing to talk about and the whole theory would be as useless as the Mac commercials featuring D-List actor Justin Long. With saying that I am going to change my thoughts a little, for the rest of this post I will blame Justin Long for all this. Why you ask, well in the aforementioned Mac commercial he questions and pretty much interrogates a middle aged loser that represents the PC.

Basing my thoughts of the media literacy theory, I would like to ask what that middle aged loser (PC) looked like prior to meeting annoying, want to be different D-List actor (MAC). Was he less suicidal looking? Was he in better shape…you get my point.  All in all, I personally believe we shouldn’t necessarily ask questions about what we watch, see or read but more over ask how the hell did it get on television, on that billboard and in that book.

Somebody has to be pulling the strings on what is allocated and to what medium; personally we should put media literacy aside to a point and begin to establish what I like to call “Who the fuck chose Justin Long to represent a Mac Literacy.”

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Work Cited

(1)    Media Literacy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_literacy

(2)     Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs/Chuck Klosterman/2004

http://www.amazon.com/Sex-Drugs-Cocoa-Puffs-Manifesto/dp/0743236017

I truly enjoy ads (particular auto ads) that inspire an individual to strive to do more, to see more and more importantly do more! Now you might be asking how an automotive ad would make you believe that you should be doing these things. Well it’s simple really, this particular video was created during the recent difficult times General Motors has gone through, and I personally feel that it has great inspiring techniques’ that don’t only apply to a large corporation such as GM, but to the individual.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-oEudd6AYM&feature=related

As Marshall McLuhan said in his 1969 interview with Playboy Magazine:

 “The electric media are the telegraph, radio, films, telephone, computer and television, all of which have not only extended a single sense or function as the old mechanical media did — i.e., the wheel as an extension of the foot, clothing as an extension of the skin, the phonetic alphabet as an extension of the eye — but have enhanced and externalized our entire central nervous systems, thus transforming all aspects of our social and psychic existence.”(1)

I feel that the social aspects portrayed in this video such as the moon landing, hockey, football, boxing etc. solidifies McLuhan’s idea that media representation is the extension of the human senses in that we don’t necessarily have to use the medium of writing to showcase feelings or ideas. To clarify, if you look at Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud, Chapter 5, he presents numerous pictures that show feelings without truly explaining what the feeling is. More the feeling is represented by an action or symbol such as a large lightning bolt type drawing that could possibly represent the “sense” of being loud. And he asks “Can one sense speak for five?” (2)

Well same goes for this advertisement; can the visual sense that is represented such as the hockey player with his head down represent failure? Or can the moon landing represent success? It is at this point that we can relate to the ad thus making it acceptable almost believable. For me personally it represents overcoming failure and the determination to overcome obstacles that might beset you. 

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Work Cited

(1)   The Playboy Interview/Marshall McLuhan/1969

http://www.digitallantern.net/mcluhan/mcluhanplayboy.htm

(2)   Understanding Comics/ Scott Mcloud/1993

http://browseinside.harpercollins.ca/index.aspx?isbn13=9780060976255

The Five W’s of Mass Media

Who-Intended to engage large amounts people, whether it be countries, cities, states, provinces

What- Mass Media can include various mediums or vehicles if you will that include but are not limited to, magazines, newspapers, pamphlets, videos, blogs, podcasts, websites etc.

When-This can be argued, but it is safe to say the ground was laid when the invention of the very first newspaper was developed in the early 1600’s. From there on in Mass Media continued to grow in size due to technological advancements.

Where-The question should be “where isn’t it? In today’s modern society, mass media has become widely ingrained to the essential fabric on how the “masses” receive messages. From the commercials you watch on television to the ads you see driving, mass media is everywhere.

Why-It happened because the human need for information continued to flourish as technology became an essential part of daily life. It became more widespread as industry used it as a tool to push products through advertising, government used it to convey key messages, etc.

A lot of negativity has surrounded and continues to surround not only the term “mass media” but the masses that make up the media. I believe people tend to have the view that, large media outlets or particular media vehicles are abused to spread for the lack of a better word “propaganda” to the key publics.

Personally I have found that a lot of celebrities or public figures use mass media to “dictate” what is right and wrong. And that we should be thankful for their opinion and follow suit because of the fictitious promise of a better world if we do. I say BULL SHIT! Why in any time or place would I take advice or accept views from a celebrity or other person touting being “green” for the better of the earth and that I should trade my SUV in for a Hybrid car.

Well you might be asking “Why wouldn’t you?”, “It is better for the earth”, and my response to that would be yes it is. I will trade in my SUV for a Hybrid when that same celebrity sells one of their seven homes that are more than likely equipped with multiple air conditioning systems, or when they stop taking a private jet across the world and wasting 20,000 litres of jet fuel just because they can. The point of my rant here is to show the amount of smoke and mirrors used through media to have people believe whatever message is being displayed. As Marshall McLuhan put it in his 1969 Playboy interview “The medium is the message”. (1)

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Work Cited

(1) Marshall McLuhan/Playboy Interview/1969

http://www.digitallantern.net/mcluhan/mcluhanplayboy.htm