A couple of weeks ago, I saw an article about a gallery show of six artists confronting climate change in the Boston Globe called Greed, Guilt & Grappling: Six Artists Respond to Climate Change. The description of the pieces led me to believe that it wasn't what I was looking for - black footprints across the ceiling to represent our carbon footprints, an igloo of ice outside left to melt matched with an igloo of blackened wood inside the gallery, videos of people yawning as yawning supposedly cools the brain - fairly conceptual stuff.
Here's the "global yawning" video (2:56):
Doesn't this imply that climate change is a bore?
Nonetheless, I was going downtown to another show last week, so I went early to visit the gallery and a few other sites in that South End, Boston neighborhood.
This is a review of Hutchinson, Mellor, and Olsen's The Politics of Money, a critique of the money system that contains lots of good material, especially insofar as the authors' discussion of the money system can be used to debunk the Republican dross about the sacredness of capitalism, but also insofar as the authors suggest a number of alternatives to the money system we currently have.
On Halloween, there was something scary happening in Washington, DC. The FCC was holding its final public hearing on localism and media consolidation, and they scheduled it only a week in advance, in the middle of the week, on a holiday. Clearly, they hoped nobody would show up.
If you're in the Boston area, Democratic FCC commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein will be at Emerson College on Tuesday, October 23, from 2-4 pm, in the Bill Bordy Auditorium, 216 Tremont St. on the Emerson campus. It's free and open to the public. Make your voice heard!
And, here's the link to contact your congressperson through FreePress and StopBigMedia Call on Congress to Hold Hearings on Media Ownership!
There is already way too much media consolidation, only a few large corporations own most of our media. Much of this came about from the loosening of restrictions in the Telecommunications Act of 1996. This consolidation severly limits and suppresses coverage, diversity of views and opinions, minority & women's ownership, and drives up costs. If you've seen Bill Moyer's documentaries about the run-up to the Iraq War, I don't have to tell you how serious this issue really is!
Last Thursday, a group of members of the Save Boston's Progressive Talk coalition drove to Portland, Maine to testify at an FCC hearing. Little did we know that, like the desperate family in the movie Little Miss Sunshine, we'd end up having to push our car to get there. Nor did we realize the degree to which the hearing itself would resemble the pageant depicted in the film. But, in the best Hollywood tradition, we learned a lot from our little road trip.
