Corrupting our Youth

"Massive protests against the kits came from religious publications and general newspapers, since they all thought that it promoted sex and sadism among children. All the negative publicity led to an immediate stop of production for these kits in May 1971, by the company which now had new owners: Nabisco Inc. The kits remaining on the toy store shelves led to new protests in November, this time outside Nabisco's headquarters in New York. These protests held by groups as: Parents for Responsibility in the Toy Industry, and National Organization for Women, resulted in a recall of the Monster Scenes kits from store shelves in the U.S."

via fark.

The Feminization of American Culture

This article argues that there are environmental estrogen-like compounds that are affecting western, industrialized culture both physically and sociologically. Quite a holistic view, IMHO. Via boingboing.

A quote:

"Our modern society generates a number of chemicals that never existed before about fifty years ago. Many of these chemicals, it turns out, mimic the action of female sex hormones called estrogens. Plastics--including a plasticizer called phthalate, used in making flexible plastic for bottles of Coke, Pepsi, Sprite, Evian water, and so forth--are known to have estrogenic effects.23 Many commonly used pesticides have estrogenlike actions on human cells.24 Estrogenic chemicals ooze out of the synthetic lacquer that lines the inside of soup cans.25 These chemicals and others find their way into sewage and enter the rivers and lakes."

Yahoo! News - Nevada to Vote on Liberalizing Marijuana Laws
"The proposal would allow adults to possess as much as three ounces of marijuana without risking arrest."

I'm moving.

TCUP - The Collective Unconsciousness Project

This site is an interactive dream log of people all over the world. Dreams are entered into the system, and then associated with other dreams via keyword. You can explore the system by following the keywords you find interesting, and make your way through the unconcious thoughts of strangers. via boingboing.

AlterNet -- Insider Deals Catch Up with Bush
"Perhaps all that is necessary is for Bush -- as he likes to do with foreign leaders -- to look into the soul of each Fortune 500 CEO and tell us whether he or she has a good heart. What might he see when he gazes into the eyes of Martha Stewart?"

THE PRIVATIZATION OF OUR CULTURE

A VERY interesting article from Shift.com via Fark. It gives what I feel is a pretty fair overview of the problems inherant in the idea of "intellectual property", including some excellent examples of the ways in which this sort of property can work to the detriment of the human race in general. A quote:

"In her neo-prog classic NO LOGO, Naomi Klein wrote that “when we try to communicate with each other by using the language of brands and logos, we run the very real risk of getting sued.” True enough. But the ugly truth, the one we really need to talk about, is that everyone who lives in the West does that all day every day. We can’t communicate any other way."

AlterNet -- Cannibal Culture

An interesting article about the meta-nature of contemporary culture, and some ideas for becoming more fluent in the lingua franca of media, art, and in fact all public discourse....

A quote:

"We are, all of us, culturally ignorant to some degree and in some respect, whether the literacy refers to the kind endorsed by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., or to the pop culture kind. Not only are there works we do not know, we often do not know that the works that we do know often borrow, were inspired by, pay homage to, reference, appropriate or downright steal from works that we may or may not know."

Wild Koan Spotting

Ok, so here's a sport that I've discovered by accident. It's a cross between bibliomancy and haiku. Here's what you do. Go to Google and type in any two words that happen to occur to you. It helps if you use two words that are different and in some way contradictory. Then add the word zen to your query. Then hit the search button, and see if you can spot the wild koans. Take this example for instance. Another example that I found - "Home presents. The Official Zen-Buddhist Nuclear Clock Calibrator and Global
Positioning System Synchronometer. Satellite uplink established. ... "

Put any new ones that you find in the comments!

Link to Some Interesting Shorts

"Pleix.net is a virtual community of digital artists. Some of us are 3D artists, some others are musicians or graphic designers..." This site has some interesting short films, including one for Plaid's track "Itsu".