Saturday, April 02, 2005

Media Crisis

Anyone who knows me at all, knows I rail against creeping corporate culture that infects our society with mass consumer values destroying individuality as well as the planet. When people tell me it is about choice, I tell them the choice is between one giant corporation’s wish to encourage you to buy this product (or idea) or another.

Corporate news with their feeding frenzies, as shown once again in these past few weeks with Terri Shiavo and the Pope’s approaching death. I hated the movie atmosphere of CNN’s titles in March 2003 with Operation Iraqi Freedom. They too limit our choices, by only presenting a select portion of the news.

As a writer I know the choice of words affects the results e.g. Freedom fighter vs. insurgent is just one example.

Argelès has a tiny local movie theatre www.cinemaginaire.org manned by locals with a wide selection of films, including shorts, Hollywood, and a French, festival winners, etc. They do their own festival, have sponsored story telling, dinner and film evenings, including recreating the meal of Babette’s Feast, a blues night with a band and documentaries on blues. www.cinemaginaire.org

Argelès http://www.argeles-sur-mer.com/ is a village, recently swelled by retirees from all over Europe year round and tourists during the summer. But it is still a village.

That is why when last night I stumbled upon Peter Watkins as part of a two-film and workshop www.mnsi.net/~pwatkins/Intro_medCr.htm at the local theatre I was taken back. The theatre is showing two of Watkins films. The workshop is the media crises we have in the world, a battle Watkins has shouldered.

I expect this type of battle being fought by the websites I read daily, www.truthout.com, www.commondreams.org, www.bushwatch.com, www.tompaine.com

www.buzzflash.com, www.motherjones.com, www.markfiore.com, (weekly – Thursday has been renamed as Mark Fiore day) I didn’t expect it within two blocks of my nest.

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