THE ENDDDDD OMGGGG

Meh Top 10 yo

1. I had no clue that toxic sludge existed. I know that sounds so bad but it does prove the point that we need to get the message out!!! A lot of people think we have a sewage system and don’t think about where it all goes. We need to get the message out!

2. I had no clue that almost all of my news is PR. It’s a terrible thing to think that when I want to know what is going on around me and I turn on my local news I’m just another victim of American society being fed things I should never believe. I am going to break myself from this loop, if I want to know what is going on around me I’m going to go out and find it and I don’t need to the big man on the tube to tell me lies.

3. it’s not illegal for the people on the news to lie!!! This is crazy. At first it makes me really sad to think about it; we have all these stupid laws but we can’t make a simple law saying it’s illegal to lie to people who trust you. You trust your doctor not to lie to you and you trust your news anchor to lie to you - and apparently one of those people is lying to you every day.

4. The television and the internet are killing our brains and our vocabulary skills. I wish I was half as smart as my grandparents - they had such a wonderful vocabulary and they know so many random skills and facts that I couldn’t even imagine because the internet has sucked in my brain and chewed it away to slosh. We spend so much time looking at screens and not enough time looking at trees.

5. I learned that my children are in for hell when they get here. I had no clue how involved advertising companies are at getting the children of America to buy products. Products are always everywhere as it is and I don’t want to see my kids to be consumed by them at such a young age. It seems ridiculous to me that there are people out there trying to capture my children’s attention. It makes me think that having children will be harder to do in the upcoming generations; maybe I’ll just live off the grid.

6. I had no idea that corporations were people legally. This seems so asinine to me. How on earth can this be? It keeps bringing back the question of how bad can it get before it gets better? I suppose that I have learned a lot in this class that has outraged me and therefore have begun to think of the world differently. I feel like this class made me realize that I barely know anything about the country that I live in. Facts like this make me think about the fact that I need to do a lot more investigating to find out how the media and the world in general works around me. I need to get more informed so that I can inform others!

7. There is a grave potential that we could all end up like the people in the feed if we don’t do something. I think this class made me think about where the world is going more seriously than I ever have before. I never thought about the fact that we are getting so caught up in technology that we might all just end up turning into computers. I feel like these thoughts are very serious and again need more investigating so that I can spread the word.

8. I never realized how many people are out there culture jamming! It’s a wonderful thing that brings a little bit of hope to this ever growing problem. I had actually never heard of culture jamming before this class so I not only want to participate but I want my friends to hear about this too so that we can create a whole American culture of culture jammers!

9. I didn’t realize that the pharmaceutical companies were out to get you! I had no idea that there were company reps out there telling people to go out and cough on people to boost sales. As someone who wants to work in health care, this is appalling! I want to work to make the world a healthier and safer place and I don’t want to think that the drugs I need to give to people are sponsored by people who just want to make the world sicker in order to make more money.

10. I can’t believe that the US is the only place where you don’t really honestly see the casualties of war. We are supposed to be a country built on educated people but we don’t even know the hatred that we are causing across the globe! I wish that we could see it all so that maybe we would have a chance at stopping the madness of war. It’s ridiculous that hate just breads more hate and that we are not only behind it all but are keeping it from the rest of Americans who just might want to know about it.

Three questions I’m still thinking about

1. How to I fight the American way without getting really depressed about not seeing any progress and coming across people who just believe everything they are told and don’t care what I have to say?

2. Would I be cheating all the people in this country who don’t know what is going on by moving to another country and just running away from this mess?

3. And on a lighter note…why hasn’t someone blown up Monsanto yet?

PSA complete

PSA BLOG

Our blog experience was fun considering we just dove right into it (we were really into our idea). We didn’t really have a script (no talking), but our story board was kinda fun to make I guess. We wrote down what would be in each scene and what we would write on each sign and then went searching for the pictures to put into the PSA. Our group worked really together and filming went smoothly. We put up the sheet across the closets in our room and set up lights and filmed the whole thing in one day (it was pretty awesome). I felt that our film was really powerful so I do feel that we educated our audience to what we wanted to get across. I mean, if we could film for longer than a minute there could have been more educational content but I think it got the point across. I do, however, think that the intent was very clear and that the audience will be really engaged. Maybe we could have used more props but I do really like the film that way that it is; it is simple and gets the point across without being too busy. I suppose there are some minor things like props and education we could have changed but I was so happy with the way that it came out that I don’t think I would change anything even if I could. I really think our film gets the environmental activism across that it should! Yay!

PR CRapOla

MY ADVERTISEMENT

This image is specifically to show that Starbucks is environmental and supports things like using a reusable cup instead of paper cups (tumbler). It is interesting though because Starbucks is not really doing anything environmental it is not really contributing any money. By taking money off of people's orders is not even giving money to the cause of the environment because they over charge so much anyway that I doubt they would really be losing any profit. Also, they support that you use a tumbler instead of a paper cup, and I'm pretty sure a tumbler is a reusable mug that is sold by Starbucks. Therefore, people will probably give Starbucks more profit during this Earth Day instead of Starbucks giving anything to the environment. I think this ad is crap. People get a fake sense of environmentalism by buying coffee from a giant conglomerate; this seems so twisted. Starbucks is showing themselves with a tree and something that says Earth Day, and people who don't even read the ad will be fooled into thinking that Starbucks has some sort of environmental agenda - when they don't. Really don't.

ONLINE SITE!!!

I chose PRWatch.org as my site for the week. First of all, I’ll just be honest in telling you that I did not go through any other websites, I just picked one and ran with it. When I stumbled on this website, the first thing I noticed with the logos for twitter and facebook and blogger so that you could join them instantly. I did and did not like this fact. I thought it was too like “oh, we’re just like every other website, so you should just follow us blindly just like every other fad on twitter and facebook.” However, I thought it might be a good thing in order to raise awareness about PR that people have no clue about. I know that before this class I had no clue about what PR really was and it would have been cool if one of my friends had something on their facebook that I could have joined or read about. Honestly though, I thought having the logos in such a big area and having it be the first thing on the page was really obnoxious. I feel like environmental websites get a bad rap sometimes for being liberal and out there which means that should try a little harder to make their sites to be as professional as possible.

In terms of content, one thing I did not like was the first story I noticed was entitled “McCain De-Mavericks” the story was about how McCain does not want to be called the Maverick anymore because he does feel that this name represents him. How is this PR valuable? Who cares what McCain wants to be called? I’m not just saying this because I don’t care for McCain either; I would have the same feelings if it were Obama. I was just thinking that a site like PR watch could bring a lot of valuable PR information to the public, why are they focusing on such dumb things on the slogans of McCain.

The website was effective and organized enough to get me to read many of the articles though - which I think is good. I learned that, apparently, Energy Star appliances are bogus. Apparently a company invented fake products such as a gasoline powered alarm clock and said that it used 20% less energy than its competitors and submitted it to Energy Star for approval and received it for all four of the fake products they created. Holy Crap! I thought Energy Star was a good thing, I suppose you learn something new every day. Based on stories like this I thought that the website was good for getting certain stories out that could have public value.

I did notice that most of the stories that are run are strongly democratic and not so much republican. I am not a republican but one would think that it wouldn’t be so left sided and represent the ideas of both sides. I think you would get more people to listen if you looked as unbiased as possible, I think the site had some biases. I could clearly see the left wings flying off the site.

Another thing I think would not contribute to many people wanting the information from this website would be the fact that you can’t see who some of the stories are submitted by; therefore you couldn’t tell if this was really reliable or not unless you did a lot more research. I’m struggling right now because I want to be able to get news in a place that does not require an obscene amount of effort and I feel like this site is not conducive to that desire. There are a lot of anonymous entries which makes me and I’m sure many other people skeptical of the site’s information. I wish there was a PR website that brought well researched reliable information to my hands.

Overall, I think websites like this can work if they don’t have too many ads on them, they don’t promote you following them on twitter, they have credible/well sourced articles and don’t overly display any political agendas.

Outside - Inside - Democracy

Toxic Sludge

What does democracy mean to me? Democracy would be a place without PR as we have come to use it in this country. If we were to have true democracy in this country, we would have less of this PR crap and more of this education stuff (education as it was defined in this chapter). A single view wouldn’t be imposed on us all the time so there wouldn’t be any “mass culture,” instead there would be many people with very varying opinions that were well informed. There would be a richer culture if we were to have a real democracy, but it would be richer in discussion, education and opinion vs. richer in the pockets of PR representatives. I feel like after reading everything on toxic sludge I have realized that a lot of our “well informed” people that make up our “democracy” are just people that have been varying amounts of PR and are basing their opinions on this. I personally have been trying to figure out how I’m going to be well informed without subjecting myself to all the PR out there, I know I’ll find a way though. I feel like we have to combat this capitalist country one person at a time, for example I’ve started telling my friends and family about the PR on the news so that they are more aware and I’ve got some good responses. I think the key as a little person is to take charge of your personal life and the people you come in contact with, bring education to as many people as you meet and hope that they do the same. Also, you could write to your local news companies and ask them to stop doing PR and start writing their own stuff (who knows what will happen). It’s the little things that count. I have hope for myself and the people I know and I’m sure everything will change, I just know I won’t be around for it and that is okay. I think a bunch of NIMBY’s should run the country and everything would be just fine, but until that day I’ll just try to convert everyone I know to one.

LIFE IN THE WOODS

At first I really wanted to leave. Seriously. I parked myself on a rock by a stream in the woods and felt really lonely. I just wanted to talk to someone, at one point in the first five minutes I was on the verge of tears. However, something happened. I laid down on some leaves and dirt right in the sunshine and felt more comforted than I have in a long time. Screw you tempurpedic bed, the mountain floor was more forming to my body and more comforting to my soul than you’ll ever be. I felt like a small child as I inhaled the dirt smell and was reminded of playing in the woods as a five year old. At one point I had a craving to listen to Pink Floyd and go back and get my blanket and stay outside all day. I closed my eyes and soaked in all the smells and feelings of being cradled by leaves and it was the most peace I’ve felt in a long time. When it was time to go I was saddened, by the end of the half hour all I wanted to do was camp outside for the rest of the day and night. I grew really attached to my little area and didn’t want to return to life. All in all I was really happy to do it and I think I’m going to make it a part of my week until school ends; I need that kind of peacefulness in my life every so often.

LIFE IN THE TELEVISION

I have not watched television without doing something else at the same time in so long. I chose to watch half an hour of MTV for it something that I never watch. The entire time I was watching it I felt so absent of thought. I ended up watching a full 15 minutes of commercial during the half an hour and the commercials all felt like PR. There was even a commercial put on by the Dow Chemical Company that was advocating clean water!!! I felt so forced to watch the television as if I didn’t have control over what was going into my mind. I felt literally dumb because of the fact that I couldn’t think of anything. When I was in the woods I had all these thoughts coming into my head about various things that I was contemplating but when I was watching television it was if I had not thoughts, I was just consuming. I never want to feel like that again. It was a rather disturbing experience - in fact I’m cutting television out of my life for a little while as a result of it. After I was done with the half hour I literally had to lay in the dark with nothing on to try to gain some sense of brain (it was kind of like watching television put me into shock). I laid in the dark trying to hear no noise, and then ended up taking a 4 hour nap. I don’t think I’ll ever watch MTV again.

PSA

We’ve actually finished the entire PSA and it is now currently on a disk. The only thing we have to do is have someone else watch it to make sure it is good and put on a DVD player compatible disk. I would say our group works really well together, obviously. Our concept hasn’t changed at all. We were each actors and filmers and producers and directors in our video. By the end of our next class we will have this on a DVD and have someone watch it to make sure it looks good.

TOXIC SLUDGE IS NOTTTTTTT GOOD FOR YOU

Chapter 8

1. Toxic sludge companies know that public opinion is against them and their campaigns so they employee passive public relations so that the public doesn’t really hear about anything that is happening. This is terrible! These toxic waste companies know what they are doing is bad and they know that the public will think that it is bad so they use passive techniques to introduce sludge farming! Good Lord!

2. Only 1% of sludge is useful to plants and the other 99% should not go where people live and or eat. I can’t believe that something that is entirely made of harmful chemicals is putting spread out over the land where we live. “Land spreading of sewage sludge is not a true ‘disposal’ method” - I agree!

3. If we wanted to really research the bad effects of this sewage stuff, we would not have the proper money to do so. The EPA is giving money to people (millions of dollars) who want to people who want to research the benefits of sludge but not to anyone who wants to research the bad effects. This is not fair to the public. What can we do? The EPA is supposed to stand up for the public, not for the companies.

4. What the hell is with Institutional Constraints and Public Acceptance Barriers to Utilization of Municipal Wastewater and Sludge for Land Reclamation and Biomass Production warning that there are irrational components to the public’s attitude about sludge!!!! I’m irrational? Last time I checked having toxic sludge in clean water is irrational!

5. “sludge that was too contaminated to be placed in a strictly controlled sanitary landfill was promoted as a safe fertilizer and dumped on farmland without anyone having any responsibility.” What is this? Seriously? I cannot believe this!

My question is why is the Environmental protection agency on the same side as the toxic chemical companies? How can we take back our environment from them and put it in the hands of someone who actually cares about it?

Chapter 9

1. PR executives are “mediating” our lives! I don’t want someone to tell me what is good for me with the interests of a company in the mind. I want my interests in mind! I don’t like that PR is mediating what I think.

2. “The best PR ends up looking like news.” This makes me think about to the video when we heard that it wasn’t against the law to produce news that wasn’t true. This is just like that, it is not illegal to lie and say that it is news - which essentially what PR people are doing for the companies that they work for.

3. “Environmental PR seeks to fix these ‘misperceptions’ by convincing the public that ecological crises don’t exist.” Well it’s not working. I’m very aware that environmental crises exist and are happening all over the place! We need to put an end to these, those environmental PR people should probably just step down and let the truth be known.

4. How on earth is McDonald’s one of the highest environmental rated companies!?! I feel like companies I use everyday must be part of this environmental conspiracy - if McDonalds can get an environmental reputation that is good I’m sure other companies can too - probably companies I even use! OH NO!

5. Even worse, companies will advertise the “very qualities they do not have” - does this mean when I buy products from a company that is supposedly caring and environmentally friendly, they are probably not!? Now what am I going to do.

My question is if all the companies I use are just pretending to be environmentally friendly, where am I going to buy from? And, If I start only buying locally to avoid the whole scam, who is to say that the soil is not be fertilized with toxic sludge being masked as fertilizer!

PSA BLOG POST

Torie Sanders and Sarah Schipelitti

Our concept is that not only are cosmetic companies ruining the self esteem of girls across America, they are also ruining the environment. This should stop, females need to take back the environment and their self esteem.

MTV and the end of the CORPORATION!

I feel like this is totally necessary, so get ready to take it in the butt MTV!

Dear MTV -

One, let’s just face the basics; you are a music television channel that hardly plays music at all. However, since you do some play music, let’s discuss it. I recently went through your music videos to find various displays of half naked girls and enough diamonds hanging off the rappers to probably feed all the homeless people in the world. Way to go MTV. I have been reading this book, culture jam, that actually discusses just what it is that you are doing - ruining self image. You are making young girls and boys buy what you’re selling, and you are selling sex on every corner. Your music is not music, it is sex.

I think that you could take some advice from this book, for example, you’re corporation is a prime example of the reason “cool” is changing from something unique to something mainstream. “Now you’re cool if you are not unique - if you have the look and feel that bears the unmistakable stamp of America. Hair by Paul Mitchell. Khakis by the Gap.” Maybe you should consider what you are doing. You’re convincing impressionable kids that cool is sex and alcohol and that the reality of their life should be the reality that you’re selling them - that drinking is cool, by expensive clothes is in and that having sex is what all the normal cool kids are doing.

You also can’t claim that you don’t know that this is what you are doing to the young minds of America. According to this book, again, it costs $4,100 dollars just to get a 30 second time slot on your channel, so I’m almost certain you have looked over and looked over again to every detail of every second of programming that airs on your channel - therefore, you know exactly what you are showing the minds of young children. There is no way, for that price, that you don’t know what you’re feeding America. Why are you doing this? Why are you continually showing images of half naked girls on spring break, reality shows that depict nothing but swearing and drinking and music videos with girls that have been so photo-shopped that no girl could like that if they tried? I understand that you have freedom of speech but don’t you also think you should have a sense of responsibility too? Don’t you think that it is the right thing to do?

Culture Jam ask a very poignant question, that I would like you to answer as well, “why do nine out of ten women feel dissatisfied with some aspect of their own bodies?” I know you’re just a television station and you don’t have all the answers, but I think you should look at yourselves when trying to answer this question. Look at every character on every show that you put out, look at every message you are sending - pretty soon you will have no young girls to watch your shows because they will all either be in mental hospitals or vomiting away in their bathrooms. The girls that are watching your shows have not even gone through puberty yet and you’re expecting them to just understand and handle very adult concepts. The bad news is, they can’t! I know behind MTV there are bunch of CEO’s, and I’m sure at least one of you has a daughter - how would you like it if I exploited your daughter, taught her about sex when she was ten, taught her that drugs/alcohol were a normal part of life at eleven, and by the time she got her first period she pretty much knew that she was meant to have sex with boys and go shopping all day and party all night.

I suppose all I’m really trying to say here is that I want you to do something about all of this. It’s kind of like alcoholics anonymous, I want you to admit you have a problem first and then work to fix it. What you are doing is wrong; this is okay for you to admit. You should then try a new strategy. Let’s not focus on any illegal substances, anything that you can’t do before 18 or 21, anything you can’t do with someone 6 years older than you etc. etc. Why don’t you focus on playing the music, the real music without all the sex and whatnot. Why don’t you focus on art - isn’t that what you’re supposed to be about in the first place; a creative channel that plays music and talks about art. Go for it! I say let MTV be the station that breaks all of this nonsense and starts something new, you already have a captive audience and I don’t think that they are going anywhere…just give them something new - I promise they’ll think it is cool because it is coming from you. You could start something really great here - how about talking to real artists, promoting world change, and no more reality television - let people make their own reality. Deal or no deal?

CORPORATION!

One of the biggest surprises that I found after watching the corporation, is that many of the corporations that I’ve always thought were good companies such as Odwala and Sears, have paid millions of dollars for fraud and ignoring health standard!! I was astounded at how many companies I bought things from my whole life, were actually shady liars!!!

An agitation was to find out that many owners of various corporations don’t even realize that they are hurting the environment and when they do know they feel like they can’t go anything about it. It was weird to hear CEO’s say that fixing their environmental footstep is harder than one might think. Why should it be so hard? It shouldn’t!

One significant item of new learning would be that I had no idea that corporations were legally people!!! WOAH!!! Even further was learning that corporations are psychopaths. Crazy! I had never thought of corporations as more than the bare minimum as a place that sells things until now. It was definitely an eye opener - I will continue to think about the businesses in my life differently from now on.

One question I had after the second half was why is falsifying the news not against the law? It’s not even the corporations that are lying to us anymore, it’s the news too?!?!?! I don’t understand how this can happen, how on earth can the news I’m being presented be a lie? I never even once thought it would be legal for the national news to lie to me or to cover up the through about a story and only tell the parts that they want too. What is this world coming too? This definitely taught me that I should research the articles I read a little more.

I find the end of the film helpful - I really want to change the world we live in, and I know step by step over a lot of time I can! Woo hoo!

I will use the information I have experienced in this film to educate other about what is happening in our world that many people do not know about. I want people to join me in culture jamming and stopping all these crazy things that are happening to us!

Culture Jam part 2

Book Observations

1. Our Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare topped of in terms of progress in 1975! Holy shit! How is this happening? I suppose it is most likely from people who think that it is “easy to substitute other factors for natural resources.” We are depleting our resources and the economy is only benefiting from things that are hurting us. How is this okay? That is one of the scariest statistics I’ve heard in a long time.

2. This quote through me for a loop…”many times a day, each of us comes to a fork in the path. We can do one of two things: act the way we normally, reflexively act, or do something a little risky and wild.” In fact I just had a conversation with my boyfriend the other day about this. We were talking about what we do to relax, and how we could just sit and watch television or we could go outside and try to explore and exercise our brains. More people need to be having this conversation and thinking about what they should do with their lives, for real!!

3. Cool is not consumer America!!!! Is it? I want cool to be someone who makes a difference and not someone who drives a BMW. Our landlord drives an Escalade, common!!! There is no reason why people can’t be cool by riding bikes and helping the world and drinking more tea! America is an outrage.

4. I love that some culture jammers are making a difference. Seeing the victory in the tobacco industry and then seeing how jammers are moving on to new global issues is so exciting! I’m so happy to hear how the jammers are getting more organized and are growing in numbers. Rock on culture jammers!

5. I seriously want to create a gripe site… but then when I think about it, will it do any good? Will it do good to create publicity for a company we don’t like, isn’t any publicity good publicity? After thinking about this it makes me nervous because I want to start some culture jamming of my own but I don’t want to inadvertently help the company that I want to hurt. What can we do that is full proof?

Movie Observations:

Every single component of this film stood out to me, however most of all, I kept thinking about all the companies I have no idea about. I had no idea that some of the companies I thought were good companies are just as shady and evil as Monsanto and Nike. I feel like most of America does not know about these issues because these companies are in control of everything, including what the public knows and wants to know. People don’t want to hear about the companies that they ‘love,’ they just want to keep shopping and shopping because the companies that they should be hearing about have created these horrid opinions in their minds. I feel like there are larger institutional forces at hand here. It is not that we are dumb, we just suffer from corporation mind control, SCARY! I don’t think we are distracted either because somehow America is able to watch somewhere around 4 hours of television per day; we could spare some time to learn something new. I think we are just swept up in this devotion to the psychopathic corporation. This movie is terrifying to me. Where should I shop? Where do I get the things I need without giving into this horrible corporation run society.