Shakespeare’s King Lear gives a good (accurate and artistic) accounting of what happens when a powerful leader descends into madness. Lear is impressed by the flattery he receives from two of his daughters, and leaves his kingdom to them, ignoring the third daughter, who is more circumspect and honest in what she says. The play is a tragedy because it does not end well for any of the main characters. Although the play is “fiction” in that Lear was not a “real” king, the characters are based on common historical events. History shows how common it has been for those . . . → Read More: King Lear in Charge
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 Comments are closed  Blog  Agincourt, battle, Battle of Hastings, civil wars, commoners, corporations, crew, Earl Landgrebe, ethnicity, golden parachute, gossip, history, King Lear, living in interesting times, madness, Magna Carta, media, news, newspapers, Nixon, Paul Simon, race, radio, reporting, royalty, self-interest, Shakespeare, Slip Slidin' Away, town crier, troops, Trump, TV, Watergate, we the people If you watch any commercial television, you have surely noticed how much of the advertising is for prescription drugs If you think that the advertising for prescription medication has increased over the past few years, you’re correct. Such advertising is legal in only four countries, with the U.S. being one of the four. Marketing of pharmaceutical products has been “big business” for a long time, of course. Companies making such products trained an army of sales representatives to take samples around to physicians and others responsible for writing the prescriptions. They also initiated a major lobbying effort to persuade . . . → Read More: Ask Your Doctor…. Comments are closed Blog big business, blood and soil, cats, choice points, Civil Rights, commercials, Confederate States, congress, consumers, corporate equivalent, disability, dogs, fast forward, fear-based politics, fossil fuels, Germany, global climate change, Hitler, knowing our present, mark territory, minorities, minority, newspapers, newsweeklies, pharmaceuticals, Pogo, prescription medications, science, scientific method, scientists, self-interest, short-term gains, slavery, something new, television, the less you fear, the more you learn, the States, tribe, vote, Walt Kelly In previous blog entries, I have written about the way different communication channels influence the message received. We have known for a long time that the medium is the message. (See also Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium Is the Massage). One of the principal concepts behind the message inherent in the titles of books (including McLuhan’s) is that communication channels are themselves “messages.” The original discussion about this concept focused on the differences being communicated by print media and television. the movie, Medium Cool, was based on McLuhan’s concept that video was a “cool” medium, one that forced viewers to think . . . → Read More: Video or Text-Based Web Pages? Comments are closed Blog audio, Charles Dickens, communication channels, communication device, cool, dictation, email, film, Fireside Chats, Franklin Roosevelt, French revolution, Internet, live stream, Marshall McLuhan, Media Star, medium, message, movies, news, news pages, news weeklies, newspapers, Nineteenth century, paper-based mail, post literacy, postliteracy, postliterate, preliteracy, preliterate, reading, Tale of Two Cities, text, text-based communication, TV channels, video, watching, websites By now, you undoubtedly know about the devastating earthquake in Nepal. You may not have heard, however, about the earthquake in SW Michigan. Earthquakes come in all sizes, from the huge and deadly to the minor shake-ups. Michigan’s earthquake was a minor shake-up. When I was growing up in California, we had numerous minor quakes. Even though they always came as a surprise, we learned to recognize them for what they were. After I had grown up and left, California experienced at least two serious quakes with extensive damage and some deaths, one in northern California and one in southern . . . → Read More: Earthquakes Comments are closed Blog airplanes, Aldous Huxley, Alexander the Great, Amish, assimilation, automobiles, bats, bees, belief systems, Big Enders, birds, Brave New World, butterflies, California, carbon paper, Catholics, Chiffon margarine, climate change, Denisovans, drought, earth, earthquake, electronic communication, elimination, evolution, floods, forest and trees, genetic modification, Genghis Khan, geology, GMOs, God, GPS, Gulliver's Travels, herbicides, horses, Islam, Jonathan Swift, Julius Caesar, letters, Life, Little Enders, long distance, Mother Nature, mules, natural disasters, Nature, Neanderthals, Nepal, news, news weeklies, newspapers, northern California, pesticides, phone calls, plate tectonics, Protestants, radio, rear-view cameras, red in tooth and claw, seatbelts, Shia, southern California, Sunni, survival, SW Michigan, Tennyson, tornadoes, trains, tribes, TV, typewriters, volcanic activity, volcanoes, wagons, Western U.S. A long time ago (1985) a New York University professor, Neil Postman, published Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business. One of the principal ideas is that television is “entertainment,” even when the subject is serious. The “news” becomes just another “show.” From time to time I have wondered what Professor Postman would have thought about social media. His principal complaint about television was that it turns “news” into “entertainment.” Rational discourse was replaced by video and sound “bites,” with the focus of attention increasingly fleeting and fragmented. I remember the history of television . . . → Read More: Social Media and Our Collective Well-being Comments are closed Blog A.M., ABC, actors, addiction, addictive behavior, Amusing Ourselves to Death, ARPANET, BITNET, broadcast media, Cable, CBS, Civil Rights, college, consumers, contacts, Dancing with the Stars, DWTS, entertainment, F.M., Facebook, generations, go outside and play, Google+, gossip, high school, history, horse, horseback, information, Internet, Istagram, letters to the editor, LinkedIn, NBC, Neil Postman, New York University, news, newspapers, newsweeklies, online gaming, PinIt, play, publications, radio, reading, riding horses, Selfies, Snapchat, social media, soldiers, sound bites, texting, texting while driving, TV, Twitter, Vietnam, Vietnam War, voting by text message, walking, war, Web sites, World Wide Web, www An alternate title for this blog entry might be “Adjusting to Social Media.” Many of us who are older “dogs” at this point haven’t really caught up with the changes in forms of communication that have occurred in recent years. Some of us are making the effort. Others aren’t. If you’re a student of communication, you’re probably familiar with Morris Massey, who has used the lens of generational differences to help individuals understand the communication process. Where we were when, especially in pre- and early adolescence, influences the principal frames through which we view the external environment. When I was . . . → Read More: Old Dogs and New Tricks Comments are closed Blog bookstores, Borders, computer, copyright, education, email, Encyclopedia Britannica, envelope, Facebook, frames, Google+, graduate student, Internet, lawmen, learning, Lewis and Clark, LinkedIn, mail, Morris Massey, Native Americans, newspapers, newsweeklies, old dogs, outlaws, phone calls, radio, range wars, sexting, social media, territory, texting, tubes, TV, Twitter, typewriter, What You Are Is Where You Were When, Wild West |
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