Anika’s Blog

maybe because its spring time and everything looks green and clean but i have been getting more and more aware about the environment and the world at large. (see my last blog about story of stuff) my boyfriend and i had lunch on sunday with our friend who is from costa rica. he nannied at the house i know nanny for and he decided to remain in this country for a while anyways.  He told us all about this concept called economic hitman. they are covert, secret individuals hired by our government  to take advantage of third world countries in order to make our country richer. it was insane! he said that costa rica is one of the most stable and well off countries south of the US. until recently, it had refused free trade with the US. all the countries that agreed are now collapsed (nicaragua etc) the us said that if they didnt agree to free trade, fine, but they would no longer be able to trade with the us, their main market.  so they agreed and now the govt can no longer provide services for its ppl. for instance, water is free, electricity runs about one house to be 4 bucks a month, cells phones 6 bucks a month, etc. with the new deal, the govt now has to give ALL companies who provide these cheap services money. which is fine but that now includes american buisnesses, such as walmart. (again “story of stuff”) it was that or NO money to everything. so now verizon is going to move in there, walmart, everyone and destroy costa ricas infrastructure. the country also has bountiful natural resources which the US will take and leave costa rica with practically nothing it all sounds crazy but it is absolutely true. do research.  i delicioused the url to the book: confessions of an economic hitman. im bummed im getting so interested in all of this now that i am so close to graduation. i wish i had taken more poli sci and international relations courses. in addition to some sociology classes on race in which i learned how the US has destroyed numerous third world countries under a guise of help, this conversation opened my eyes more big time.  i just wanted to share so that maybe it could have the same effect on more people.

I invite all of you to go to this site and watch this. its only 20 minutes, extremely informative and fascinating. its about the environment and before you decide to ignore this, it is not fanatical or absurd like a lot of tree hugger/environmentalist stuff can be.

I am interested to see how the method of presentation in “the story of stuff” has on people other than my self. I found it VERY simple, but VERY effective. it is a sharp contrast to the bombardment of media/text/images/sound we usually receive nowadays from computers/Web, television, etc.  However, I am sure the people who made the video have done much research on the best way to win people over through compelling advertising (even though this site is advertising a cause not a thing) and maybe they are pulling the wool over my eyes through their unique and simple way of presentation but i was won over just the same.  in such a complicated, busy world, this presentation was the breathe of fresh air that the host calls for.

so i was randomly thinking over the weekend while hangin out with some friends at starbucks.  we started analyzing everyone as what winnie the pooh character ppl were and i got Rabbit! apparently I am type A and bossy my friends say THEN we started critiquing it from a gender studies perspective, commenting on the fact that the only female in the classic cartoon/books is roo and that in the new show on Disney now, they booted chrisopher robin and replaced him with a girl instead.

ANYWAYS, i was wondering if new media studies, soon to be media studies minus the “new” will be analyzed and studied like all other genres of art have been: queer studies, feminist studies, post-colonial, race, etc etc etc.  does new media today favor any one group, bar any group, etc?