2 posts tagged “democratic”

ok I isolated myself for 4 hours in my house today before I go out tonight so that I could get WORK done - I have DONE NOTHING!  NOTHING!  I thought well since I don't have a TV it will be EASY to get work done with no distractions.  I WAS WRONG.  I have CNN streaming on one computer and MSNBC on another - with the nytimes blog up and checking out twitters and blog updates - 20 tabs open do diff sites.   I CAN't WORK  I Can't WORK - so I might as well not work for the rest of the hour and make pictures of animals voting and add cheesy designs to my photos. 

So in the suburbs - people go to garages to vote! who knew?  I thought it was just churches and schools and libraries.  I was hoping it was in their house so I could take pictures of their furniture.  As I walked up with adriene, I was treated VERY rudely by the women running my local voting center.  She said you NEED to put that camera away, please delete that photo - NOW - I want to see you delete the photo!  It's not in my persoanality to fake it - I really wanted to say you could've told me in a much more calm manner -but of all days to keep my mouth shut  - this was a day.  I wanted my VOTE to count.  So I "pretended" to delete my photo of their garage.  I understood her point - it is illegal and people do use cameras - like the minutemen - to intimidate people from voting. so technically yah I was doing something illegal.  But my intention was to say WOW I'm being an active citizen!  she could've just told me much more calmly. 

Then I was told by another old lady- "please cover your shirt up" I was wearing my "migrantes 4 obama" shirt  - she treated me as if I was wearing a tube top with my double D boobs hanging out.  .  oh well - I understand - just would've been nice to not be treated as a criminal.  We only freaking VOTE 1 every 4 years - it's not like I HAVE THE RULES memorized!!!!  Old cranky ladies.  But they didnt' deter my at all!  As you can see in my previous posts, I take a video of me marking my vote for obama!  You can the rest of my photos here!

it was only today - Day #4 of the San Diego fires - did my friends on the East Coast start calling me to make sure I was not on fire and that my house was not burning down.   This map demonstrates how truly catastrophic this 1 fire  (of  8 other large fires) is- not because it shows how big this 1 fire is is, but because it shows how it compares to the city of Manhattan.  Oh my NYC-Centric friends - the world doesn't make sense unless it is put into the context of your world? (I am not being 100% sarcastic, I am one of those NYC-centric people)

The stupid media has only been focusing on LA's celebrities up until today - and then they realized - wow the Malibu fire is sooo miniscule compared to the fact that the ENTIRE COUNTY OF SAN DIEGO IS BURNING DOWN!

Even my friend Roger in Sweden knew about San Diego's fires before my friends on the East Coast. That's horrible!  He said the video he watched of the SD fires on  Day #2, Monday - reported that the SD fires were worse than the LA fires.  This is SWEDEN!!!!!!  Can you believe that?

What's worse - I and many other bloggers in SD have been posting about what we are going through - so it's not like we've been silent.  This clearly shows a need for more sophisticated and different levels of information reporting - if I and many others have been flickring and voxing about this for days and the large media conglomerates failed to pick up on the seriousness of this - it is clear something is wrong with how certain news is highlighted while some are ignored - and this also shows that we need a different outlet that focuses on first-hand accounts from bloggers and etc.   
This happens all the time around the world - bloggers were posting about the recent Myamar/Burma killings of civilians - but it took a while for "official" news outlets to pick on it.  This happens all the time in Africa and China.   Just because people are writing about it online does not mean their information will get picked up. We need a new kind of media outlet that will be good at doing just that - specializing in first-hand online accounts.  There is nothing democratic about the internet. hmm this sounds like just the kind of service Kenyatta has been talking about creating!

You can read my other thoughts about the distortion of wildfires here, emphasis of LA over SD here, and what a Sociologist would do during a fire here.

this was photo overlay was created by tim