From Boston Legal: after Alan and Denny haven't been speaking due to differing points of view regarding the war in Iraq.
Alan Shore: No matter my opinion about the war, I think there is something we can both agree on, and that is that this war is complicated. And I think complicated things, need to be talked about.
When people have strong opinions about the issues that really matter, they should be able to talk about those opinions openly. Complicated issues should be debated and discussed.
Obviously the government has had a bit to do with this shutdown of dialogue, with its use of phrases like "You're either with us or against us". Which basically says that anyone who says anything even remotely antiwar is (like a terrorist) against us. This leads to more emotionally stirring ways of saying much the same thing: you are "unpatriotic", "unAmerican / unAustralian" and "that's not the American / Australian way", and that you are "unthankful for the thousands of soldiers who died for their country, so that you could enjoy freedom". And it is very hard to talk about issues, when people are using these tactics.
I think this technique is used in other arguments as well. What common labels do you know of that are used to shutdown alternative ideological view points?
Hippie when talking about the environment.
Communist when talking about the problems with capitalism.
Filed under: Live Shows
I am going to see Evermore in Brisbane.
I subscribe to their email list thing, and therefore found out before they started advertising. I got into "A Reserve, Row B". I'm not sure just how good that is but you'd think it is pretty good, right?.
Anyway, they are playing their new album which I don't think has been released. Anyone know when it gets released. Anyway should be really good.
Filed under: Centophobia
Keep your coins, I want change
Originally uploaded by Broken Simulacra.
Filed under: Blogging
Did you know that companies are 'monitoring' blogs and messageboards to determine people’s opinions about brands and advertising campaigns?
Computers are used to ‘peruse’ millions of blogs and messageboards and measure the amount of ‘chatter’ or ‘buzz’ present in the ‘blogosphere’. Natural Language Processing is used to analyse the language used in posts, to estimate the demographic information of the author (including their age and gender, and maybe even their ethnicity) (Morrissey, 2005) and determine if the ‘chatter’ is negative or positive.
Umbria Communications and BuzzMetrics [now Nielson BuzzMetrics] are two companies that currently gather and analyse online chatter. Umbria’s Buzz Report, analyses content from 16 million blogs, message boards, opinion sites and other public forums (Umbria Inc., 2005). The BuzzMetrics’ Discussion Miner scours blogs, community websites, listservs and Usenet newsgroups and, according to the company website, is able to "track particular users over time" (BuzzMetrics, 2005), or more accurately track particluar user’s opinions over time.
Filed under: Brisbane
Sunset originally uploaded by Jen 64.
I was walking home last Friday afternoon and there were a number of people on the Goodwill Bridge taking photos of the sunset. One person even rang home to tell them how lovely it was and to ask them if they could see it. Maybe walking home isn't that bad after all.
Filed under: Truths
"Stupid idiots if you ask me. Charging the paying customers [for wireless interent access while in airports] who have just forked over who knows what in airport taxes to sit and use a 100 dollar a month internet connection split several hundred ways a day…. why not give it for free and get some goodwill from the customers." – Travellerspoint
Totally agree, wireless internet networks cost next to nothing to install and have small ongoing connection fees, so why not supply it for free. Plus if the network drops out or doesn't work on someone's laptop, customers won't complain because it was an added extra.
Filed under: Terrorism
This was a public lecture by: Joseph Pugliese, Helen Stacy, Richard Woolcott.
Issues that were discussed:
The speakers talked about the problems associated with describing potential terrorists as 'of middle eastern appearance' or as Muslim people. They described how this limits the public's ability to actually notice suspicious activity and therefore predict and stop terrorism because our definition of a potential terrorist is, well, wrong. It was also suggested that, unlike America and England, we live very close to countries which have predominantly Muslim populations and this is harmful to our international relations and future trade possibilities with these countries.
The speakers also discussed the importance of recognising that terrorists do not come from a specific country or religion, but that they have lived in particular circumstances where their opinions and concerns cannot be heard and they feel powerless to create change.
It was also pointed out that terrorists do value their lives and therefore must strongly believe in what they are dying for. This fact should really have made western countries try to uncover and understand these beliefs, rather than labelling all these people as extremists, and use it to create fear. Western countries have defined the terrorists' reasons for murder, as 'to threaten our way of life' (ie. our democracy and freedom) rather than listen to the real reasons, which probably would have been less about Americans living out their lives in America, and more about Americans influencing their lives.
And finally, it was pointed out (from a member of the audience), that we as democratic nations shouldn't resort to violence, torture and imprisonment to protect ourselves. As this may create a country of young people without respect for all human life, who place less value on freedom and don't appreciate the long road our countries have taken to be as lucky as we are.
The main idea I left with was that we should look at this not from our point of view (that is how to protect our borders etc.), but instead try to understand why terrorists do the things they do and how we can try to overcome this (ie. not try to change their ideas or perception of us, but actually change ourselves).
