…Exploring the role of the prankster as artist, activist and social observer and the significance of the prank in society.
A Holiday to Remember in Bagdad, courtesy of Abidin Travels.
For your trip to Bagdad, follow the links for flights, car rental, hotels, tours, food, and more.
The Web site, part of Abel Abidin’s installation for the 2007 Venice Biennale is a multimedia virtual tour showing what life is like for Iraqis at this moment.
Helpful hints found on the Web site:
Nonverbal communication
Useful items
Posted by harshavardhan on Thought Beans Blog, November 2, 2007:
The Fake CEO blogs, have become a big buzz in the blogosphere. Amongst the fake blogs, the Fake Steve blog is most popular.
It is written by Daniel Lyons, a senior Editor at Forbes Magazine. It took almost 14 months to find out the author of this Fakesteve Blog. Daniel writes the Technology articles for Forbes.
There are other fake CEO blogs:
Thanks David Strom. Photo image: TheAge.com.au.
Related link:
From monochrom:
Hans Dichand, born in 1921, founded the Austrian “Kronenzeitung” (“Crown newspaper”) in 1959 and still acts as its editor in chief to this day. With over 40% market share, this right-wing populist paper has a unique position of power, and Dichand used this to influence Austrian politics to a great extent. This media-political practice earned him the nickname of “Kanzlermacher” (“He who makes the chancellor”).
Shortly after Mr. Dichand started blogging in November 2007, another weblog under his name appeared, where an unknown writer spoofs the newsmaker by using his rather unique tabloid writing style to express views and ideas contrary to those of the original, and to poke fun at the mighty newsmaker.
This fake blog has gathered quite a bit of media attention over the last weeks, especially since the original Dichand saw it necessary to write about “The Forger,” as the fake blogger has been called on numerous occasions.
Filmmaker Robert Greenwald (Iraq for Sale, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, Outfoxed and Uncovered) is interviewed about the first of his four new Internet movies, “The War on Greed” on CNBC’s Closing Bell:
Here’s the actual “The War on Greed” Internet movie. He premiered this movie, starring Henry Kravis, a private equity executive with a lavish lifestyle, for protesters in New York City, outside of Henry Kravis’ house:
Continue reading “Filmmaker Protests Excessive Greed and Unfair Taxation”
First, a simple explainer as to the issues causing the Writers Strike, from the Writers Guild of America (WGA) via Ellen Sandler:
The Writers Strike: Why We Fight
Thanks Erin. Now, a look at the world of television without writers:
Writers Strike Means Reality Boom Times
by Lynn Elber
AP Television Writer
November 27, 2007
Los Angeles (AP) — For five years, John Langley tried and failed to sell a cinema verite-style TV series tracking police officers on patrol. Then came the 1988 Hollywood writers strike.
“That’s when Fox bought `Cops,’ because a series with no narrator, no host, no script, no re-enactments sounded very good to them at the time,” recalled Langley, who just marked the show’s 700th episode.
The nearly five-month ’88 Writers Guild of America walkout that started in March didn’t unleash a flood of reality, because filming on sitcoms and dramas had largely wrapped and because alternative shows had yet to become a trend.
But the current WGA strike fell smack during production as well as the Age of Reality, putting the brakes on scripted shows and giving networks a quick fix for schedule holes. It remains to be seen how viewers – or the reality genre itself – will withstand the onslaught.
Networks have readied a slate of nearly 40 shows that are stacked up like jetliners over Christmas Eve runways awaiting the go-ahead to land. Continue reading “Writers Strike Spawns More Exploitation TV”