Saving the best for last...

Sooo I was pretty much ecstatic when I saw the 3 options for our final and last blog entry – 2 Macleans articles…and the PEREZ HILTON BLOG SITE!!!!! Could there have been a clearer choice??? As I have mentioned in a previous blog entry (Tabs: No Men Allowed! - Maclean), I am a huge Perez Hilton fan, and proud of it. To be quite honest, I probably check it about 2 times a day whether I’m at school or not. So my opinion on the site is probably pretty obvious – it’s one of the most entertaining gossip websites and very up-to-date on all the details in Hollywood. Now, I will say that some of the comments and videos posted can be a little rude and vulgar (although I’ve seen much worse – check out www.dlisted.com ) and I would not normally encourage making fun of ‘innocent’ people, BUT somehow for Perez Hilton I make an exception. Either way it should be understood that this site should not be taken too seriously, that it is purely for entertainment purposes, and that it IS only one person's opinion. That being said, this site is definitely my guilty pleasure.

Was that REALLY necessary???

I have to admit, I chose the article “Video of Airport Taser Death Released”, in a way, by default – I generally try to avoid explicitly political topics and when I saw the word “Tories” in the middle of the title of the alternative article, I ran in the other direction. It should be noted that I don’t like violence much either, but when it came to choosing between politics or violence, well, we already know who won out…

After reading the article, I have to say, I was rather shocked and disturbed by the event. All I could think about was the man’s mother, patiently waiting on the other side of the airport for her son, and how absolutely screwed the police officers were (they not only killed the poor guy but it was all caught on tape too). Like waaaay to reinforce the police brutality stereotype guys! Why didn’t they just handcuff him after the first taser? Is being “agitated” and throwing computer equipment really worth the death penalty?

I also clicked on some of the ‘related links’ to the article so that I could find out a bit more about the story, since the original article seemed slightly unfinished. I actually got to watch the video footage of the incident! (Amazing how technology impacts things…) Now, I was probably a little biased as I watched this footage because I had already read the National Post article on the matter. But no matter which way I looked at it, I couldn’t justify letting an other human being scream and DIE at the hands of an other person. An other link that I checked out was an article entitled “Taser victim spent six hours in airport baggage area”. I couldn’t help thinking to myself, if I was stuck in the airport baggage claim for six straight hours, I might throw a few computers too! Now, I’m not justifying Mr. Dziekanski’s actions, but airplanes and airports can drive a person to absolute insanity (trust me, I know ). I almost lost my mind going to Italy this summer with 11 hours total flying time (one way) and God knows how many hours waiting in airports, surrounded by beige walls, office-type furniture, public washrooms, gross food, terrible coffee, and a million employees that have no idea what’s going on…

Let's be honest, tabloids are for chicks...

So finally…a blog topic that I am familiar and fluent with – tabloids. Yes, I have to admit, from Star Magazine and Entertainment Tonight to Perez Hilton.com – I am a celebrity gossip addict (and I should probably seek help). Therefore, I feel very equipped to discuss, and can safely say that I am aware of the "issue" that the article "The Tabs: no men allowed – Why do the gossip rags only feature women when there are so many stories of male stars behaving badly?" dives into.
I have several explanations for this seemingly troublesome question. Firstly, as a regular celebrity gossip follower and as a female, to be quite honest, stories about male celebrities are usually pretty boring – it doesn’t shock or really interest me when a ‘Justin Timberlake’ or a ‘P. Diddy’ go out and party. I am way more interested in how much weight Britney Spears or Lindsey Lohan have gained or lost and what they were wearing the night before. And I think that this is a common viewpoint with the majority of the gossip magazine readers – or else don’t you think that the magazine companies and TV show executives would change things? I guess this was kind of the point of the article, but seriously, who cares if Owen Wilson gets enough media attention for his suicide attempt? Isn’t it a good thing that the tabloids are (relatively) leaving him alone so he can recover without 100000 cameras in his face? In addition, how often do you hear someone say that women are getting too much attention and credit in the media or the work place or anywhere else? So you know what boys, let us have it! Good or bad, this is one small step for us girls – let us control what we read in the gossip mags and if it’s Paris Hilton we want, let us have scandalous pictures of Paris at a nightclub on a Tuesday!
On a side note, I would like to recommend www.perezhilton.com , www.dlisted.com and www.pinkisthenewblog.com to anyone that needs to feed their celebrity gossip addiction.

iThings

I’m not going to lie, I was slightly disappointed with the article that followed such a dramatic title – "NBC executive slams Apple for "killing music industry"". I was expecting something a little more juicy and exciting, and well, even just more informative. I’m really not even sure how to comment on this, or what my opinion is quite frankly. What I’ll say is this – I agree with the author in that "Until iTunes came along, the major record labels were adrift in the digital wilderness, watching CD sales plummet and an entire generation become addicted to illegal downloading […]". I, personally, have not bought an actual CD in probably 5 years and Limewire has pretty well become my only link to the outside world of music. I will also admit to the fact that, after a couple of years of resisting social conformity, I too, like that vast majority of red-blooded North American citizens, have bought an iPod…and accessories to match.
I think that there has been an ‘Apple-Mac-iPod-iPhone-iTunes-iWhatever’ revolution and to be quite honest, the iCurrent is just too strong to swim up against. So my message to you, NBC, is to just go with the flow and pick yourself a nice sweet and ripe Apple…

Bile and Prime Ministers??

"What to do with the ex-PMs and all that pent-up bile?" – despite my severe and embarrassing lack of knowledge in the politics department, I did in fact find this title rather intriguing. I think it was primarily because of the odd and rather funny attachment of ex-Prime Ministers to pent-up bile – not generally a common association. Bile, in case one was unaware, is "a bitter, yellow or green alkaline fluid secreted by hepatocytes from the liver of most vertebrates. In many species, it is stored in the gallbladder between meals and upon eating is discharged into the duodenum where it excretes waste and aids the process of digestion of lipids" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bile). Fortunately, the article itself was just as witty and descriptive as the title that had proceeded it. Because, sadly, the names of the Prime Ministers were pretty much the only things that I really recognized throughout the article, it really helped that the language, diction and syntax provided a bit of humour. I found the elaborate descriptions, metaphors and personifications particularly comical – for example, "Jean Chrétien swills the bile around on his palate like vintage wine", and "Of the 19 prime ministers in the Fifth French Republic, only two managed to climb the extra rung on the greasy pole to become president". In addition, I found it interesting and quite humorous how the author makes it seem as though ex-PMs are like a serious bug or rodent problem, starting off the article with "In the modern world, as we all live longer, here's a new problem. What do we do with ex-prime ministers?". Overall, although I may not have followed all the political technicalities, I did actually enjoy this article – amazing what a few well-phrased metaphors and a little bit of humour can do.

It probably will happen...

https://shanalogic.com/item_images/1266_lyn_robot_fulla.jpg

I think that the title of this article pretty well says it all – Sex and marriage with robots? It could happen. But beyond the fact that, well, ‘anything is possible’, I do think that this is a likely possibility. With all the technology and research now available + the increase in promiscuity and sexual liberation + the exploration of different kinds of sexual partners and relationships = the perfect conditions for this type of revolutionary process to happen. I agree with Levy that human-like robots can help ""people who find it hard to form relationships, because they are extremely shy, or have psychological problems, or are just plain ugly or have unpleasant personalities"", and may serve as "an outlet for criminal sexual urges", such as pedophiles. In addition, these robots may "reduce human prostitution and the problems that come with it". BUT it should be emphasized that the consequences and actual outcomes of such a strong introduction are still unknown – and as with almost anything, there will be downsides. I, personally, would rather be married to a real person rather than a robot – I think that resorting to the ‘love’ of a robot would greatly lower my self confidence in creating and maintaining a ‘real’ relationship. Furthermore, as we have discussed in class (Turing), I do not think that every emotion, feeling and touch can be programmed. I think that it has to be natural to feel ‘real’. Although feeling ‘real’ may not be important to everyone, and everyone may not have experienced something ‘real’ to compare a robot’s love and touch to – so when, and if this robotic-love-making revolution takes place…I won’t be the one to judge.

"Voters roundly reject MMP" - my opinion?

"Voters roundly reject MMP" – even the title of the article contains foreign information to me. To be honest I really don’t know much about politics and quite frankly I have never found interest in them (although I probably should). So as I was thinking about how I could give an opinion on something that I hardly know anything about, I realized that that in itself is something interesting – that I would say the majority of the youth today do not know much about the political world that surrounds them and influences their lives everyday.
"Larry Gordon, campaign manager for the citizens' group Vote for MMP, said it appeared many voters simply didn't get the information they needed to decide. He said Elections Ontario, which said it sent out millions of leaflets and spent $6.8-million, still could have done more to spread the word." Although I might be taking this quote slightly out of context, it does point out that perhaps there hasn’t been enough done to inform voters and potential voters. I, personally, have (and I’m slightly embarrassed saying so) been legally able to vote for the last 2 years and have not done so once. I think that schools (especially high schools) should inform their students of what is happening in their city’s politics, not just what happened in World War I. I feel that if I was perhaps encouraged by my parents and taught by my teachers earlier on, I would probably be more involved today. Of course, I do have to take some of the blame…