I’m teaching an online course, Life Incorporated, through the MaybeLogic Academy beginning January 12, for six weeks.
“Students” will get a working draft of the book (to be published in June) as well as six weeks of discussion and interrogation of the issues within and beyond it. I’ll be doing some live video lectures, as well, and inviting participants to help devise ways of restoring bottom-up commerce and social exchange to a world that seems incapable of abandoning its faulty, top-down, disconnected way of extracting value from people.
But the bulk of the exploration will be history, economics and social theory: How did corporatism become the dominant cultural ideology and operating system, who did it benefit, how did we internalize it, and what keeps it running?
Here’s a description from the catalog. If you are interested in taking the course but just don’t have any money, let me know and I’ll see if I can subsidize your participation.
Something has gone terribly wrong.
Unquestionably but seemingly inexplicably, we have come to live in a world where the market has insinuated itself into every area of our lives. From erection to conception, school admission to finding a spouse, there are products and professionals to fill in where family and community have failed us. Commercials entreat us to think and care for ourselves, but to do so by choosing a corporation through which to
...A few more interesting things, as I attempt to clear all those open browser windows:
If I were smarter, I would have bought CanWest stock a couple of weeks back when it was 34 cents a share. It ended last year, and started this one, strong, closing today at 91 cents after briefly flirting with $1.
The stock has been on a steady climb over the past 10 days or so, but average trading volume has been relatively low.
As always, I have no idea what’s going on.
I have collected far too many links for a single post, so I may spread them out over the weekend.
Over the last several days, I’ve come across these headlines in the feedreader.
One More Newspaper Gives Up the Ghost: Spanish Language Hoy New York Goes Web-Only
Kansan going online-only starting Jan. 10
AsiaWeek kills print edition: A growing trend?
Three related bits of news do not a trend make. Or do they?
A note: One of my students who’s is on Twitter (@sarahsodyssey) was responsible for me finding Suzanna Yada’s Resolutions for journalism students, part I: Become invaluable, the essential post I mentioned earlier today.
That’s a Twitter first for me: my students are starting to beat me to the good stuff.
Now I know what a proud dad feels like.
A few things for your reading pleasure:
Twitter screenshot
I have no idea whether the Sun has had any response to this tweet yet, but it really is great to see the local daily using the ‘net to build its journalism.
Image isn’t great: needed to do a lot of sharpening to ensure that it’s readable.
Back to media blogging after a holiday rest, and I have some catching up to do. A reminder: I post some interesting links throughout the day on Twitter. They’ll show up on the sidebar of the home page or you can follow me.
A rare sight in Vancouver: shovelling knee-deep snow to get the vehicle out.
And still falls the snow.
Download audio file (silent_night2.mp3)
A little, light music, put together by overdubbing two guitar tracks and a violin track in Garage Band, using the built-in mic in my MacBook. Update: A new version, this time with Laura Blumenthal on santouri.
A note for music fans: The amateurish violin part, mistakes and all, was my fifth take. I finally realized, at this point in learning the instrument, that’s what I sound like.
I haven’t finished my photo edit from today’s shooting, but these are three I particularly like. The bottom one is my favourite so far. (Note: I haven’t done any manipulation to any of these yet: they are straight out of the camera.)
Downtown Vancouver against the North Shore mountains.
In the small park between Granville and Fir, north of Fourth Avenue.
Sunlight on snow, with the footings of the Granville Street Bridge in the background.
...No holiday slowdown in the mediasphere.
While I was out fighting through the slush today, someone left a particularly nasty, hateful comment on my recent post about the last gasp of the curmudgeons.
As soon as I saw it, I deleted it from the site. If you were subjected to the nastiness for the short time it was here, I apologize.
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