Goodbye ENG 1131

This week has been very frantic, with finals coming up, and a huge radio project that has to get done. Our project is very ambitious, even more than we thought. The mixing of sounds, talking, and music, takes time and effort, in excess of what we had expected. Overall though we are very happy with what we are putting together. We are not just putting together a piece that talks about grain of the voice, the movies we have watched in class, or the pieces we have read, but is an example of all the theory’s we have learned in class. We are forming a text, that extends to all the different parts of our culture, a text that interconnects more items, and ideas then we can possible even imagine. The main goal of our project now is to make a piece that a person needs to listen to more than once to comprehend, a piece that takes multiple times to get all the reference. Every second of our pieces is intense and multilayered creating a sound and a feel that is unique.
Since this is the final blog I think I will make some final comments on the class. When I signed up for the class during preview I had no idea what the class was about, I was just looking to round out my schedule. I had always been interested in films, and the media, and this sounded like a fun class to be a part of. I won’t lie this class was sometimes a lot of work, and almost drove me crazy a couple times. And while I doubt I will miss this class when next semester rolls around, I think that in the future I will look back on this class, and be glad that I took it. There are a lot of interesting concepts that I have taken away from the class, and if anything the class taught me how think. This was a class that I was defiantly out of my element in, a class that was based on creativity and making a personal stamen with your work. I have never thought of myself as creative or and I like being told what to do for my project, but in the end it was nice to be creative and play around with concepts. It’s been an interesting semester Kate, good luck with your new baby, and all your future classes
-Michael

Coulter's Last Blog!!!

Let me first start out with the word, "WOW." It is extremely hard to believe that this fall semester has already come to its ending point. It has gone by so fast, even faster than my first fall semester at The University of Florida last year. 

Even though it has gone by so fast, I have managed to pick up enormous amounts of knowledge and skills that will further my achievements and goals in life. The one class that has taught me all of these skills and knowledge is none other than ENG 1131. This class has had so much work entailed to it, but in the long run I know it will definitely pay off. To say the least, this class has taught me a fantastic work ethic. If this is Kates first time teaching this class, then I have no idea how she could have made it any better. I honestly cannot think of one thing that she could do to perfect her class structure. She has done a fantastic job teaching us this year and I add that this class ,even though difficult at times, was hands down my favorite class to be in for the semester and even out of my whole three (four counting summer B) semesters I have been here.

Also I have never in a class before had group members, or band members, for a whole semester. I thought that this was an awesome idea because I could always ask at least three other people about something before I had to go to the teacher about it. It also just feels good to know that you have a band behind you to help you and guide you through what I found out to be a "hard hitting" class. I enjoyed my band members very much and hope to keep in contact with them throughout the years. I'm going to miss ENG 1131!!

Coulter

Yes Men

The” Yes Men” from as Far as I Can tell are nothing but a bunch of corporate terrorist, who sole goal in life is to make hard working peoples’ lives difficult. They think by going around posing as some so called Evil Corporation they can somehow change the world. This is simply nonsense; all they are doing is making some poor middle management executive fill out more paper work then he needs to, and costing some fact checking guy at some media corporation his job. Good Job “Yes Men” all you ever accomplish is making people’s lives a little more difficult. Another thing, no one finds your jokes funny either, making oil out of people is sick, not funny. Only anarchist liberals like yourself get your jollies by presenting such ludicrous and horrible ideas. Exxon Mobile is one of the most environmentally responsible and consumer friendly corporations in the world. Every day the provided safe and effective energy that we consume, and without that energy we would be no better off then cavemen. The same goes for Dow Chemical, Dow provides products that make the way we live possible, what do we gain by making them go broke over some poor Indians that would most like just take jobs from Americans anyway. Besides Dow has no responsibility for an accident that was performed by another company, if those people are truly suffering, then the Indian government could help them, that’s what governments are for. The deception and lies that the “Yes Men” spread throughout our corporate culture is a virus on society, which does nothing but cause harm for no discernable reason. What is to be gain by spreading lies about some of America’s strongest companies? I think the “Yes Men” need to step back for a moment and realize that these corporations are run by normal hard working people and that the share holders are also normal hard working people, and that there is no such thing as an evil corporation. These corporations do more good then evil, while yes they may do some things that are underhanded or sometimes even cruel, it is for the greater good. It is for the good of the employees and for the good of the share holders, the employees and share holders that make up America. There was a phrase back in the sixty I believe and it went, what is good for General Motors is good for American, truer worlds have never been spoken. As for the picture I choose the anarchy symbol, because that’s all the “Yes Men” are, is a bunch of anarchist.

Yes Men Extra Blog

Pardon my French, but these two guys seem like assholes to me. I admit they are clever but I disagree with the blog below mine that they actually seem to accomplish things. True they brought to public attention an important catastrophe abroad caused by an American Corporation. However, I do not think they actually accomplished anything meaningful for their cause other than temporarily driving down the Dow's stock. If there was some sort of collaboration with the Bhopalis their effort might seem more sincere. Unfortunately the two men only facilitate "the other" paradigm by speaking on behalf of those affected in Bhopal without consultation. Bichlbaum and Bananno operate in the same structure of hierarchy they seemingly hope to deconstruct. Instead these two assume their place of taking on the Dow according to their own agenda while dismissing the effect they will have on the already broken spirit of these victims. Because they believe they are the "good guys" they can break the rules? I don't think so. What kind of message is that sending about ethics?  I am not defending Dow's stance (although their reasons of inaction bound by the stockholders is clearly sensible to anyone who understands capitalism) I do not think the "white lies"  of Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno should be tolerated. Where is the logic in more lies leading to the truth? I would like to know the legal repercussions of their actions. Allowing this kind of behavior in the name of social responsibility can only pave the road to Hell. 

Instead of spending their time playing games, they could be raising money and awareness through legitimate means for Bhopal.

I think it would be fun to impersonate to the point of suggesting we actually are the two men on our radio project. We could make all kinds of promises and financial commitments to the University of Florida, broadcast it to the public and then contact the men to demand they follow through. 

--Sam

Yes Men Extra Blog

I thought the method used by the Yes Men is very clever--rather than protests and rallies against  crimes committed by corporations, they actually play the parts of these corporations, saying what the corporations will not say for themselves.  It's just a great approach to the problems in our world.  The media obviously doesn't tell us very much--I'm amazed that our news broadcasters are even covering these terrorist attacks occurring in India....oh yeah, there were like three Americans there, thus making the tragedy "relevant" to us.  So it's very true that the media needs an "excuse" to talk about something, and to bring it to the attention of the public.

What the Yes Men do is a very worthwhile, inspiring cause.  Through harnessing the media, they can play with the images of corporations, and most importantly, they actually seem to accomplish things.  Most protests that occur rarely get this kind of coverage and go unnoticed, so a creative approach to the issues such as this is absolutely necessary to make a difference in our media-driven world.

As for our radio project, I think this provides an interesting approach for some of the things we would like to do for the radio project.  By playing the parts of the corporations, we can articulate their interests and incentives in a way much different from what they would want us to hear.  I look forward to getting more involved with this project, though it is difficult now, being so separated from my group.  I hope that with the time we are given, we will able to accomplish all the things we want to accomplish.

YES MEN___EXTRA BLOG

As our new band project creeps nearer and nearer, ideas continuously spark up and get discussed between band members. Ideas for a theme ended when we decided to create and connect our project by talking about the idea of truly being an individual and to break away from society. Even with our theme of the project figured out, there is still a lot of work to do dealing with how we are going to present and display our major theme in a radio broadcast. We already have many great ideas of how to display this information during the radio broadcast. Many of our ideas are actually similar to the ways of the "yes men." Their ways being, to create a satirical way to display information to the public that is normally overlooked. Reading about the yes men and what they have done is inspiring when it comes to doing this project. One idea that I would like to see be created is to make our website similar to theirs. Not only will we be connecting our project with readings from class, but, we will also be doing ourselves a favor by mimicking a great function and factor of the yes men's publicity and success. I believe we can use the yes men as our teacher for this specific project. The readings in course reserves were very helpful due to all of the ideas embedded in the text. I noticed a lot of things that we could create similarity to in our own project. Overall, the yes men readings and videos were a huge help in thinking up ideas of how to present our radio project. I believe that the yes men are a great point to start at and from their inspiration, see where our project takes us. Be prepared for an awesome turn-out.
-Coulter

The more I think about the radio project that we are working on, the more ideas come to mind--ideas that are so numerous that I'm not quite sure I'll have the time to actually do half of them.  Rather than tie myself down to a single, specific theme, I wanted a way to express many ideas and ways of thinking, and arrive at a conclusion based on all of these things.  And so I think the idea of exploring subculture, and the struggle to truly be an individual and to break away from society is an interesting one.  I think there are many ways to go with the project, and we will not be at a loss for ideas at any point.  

I can't deny that one of my biggest inspirations for my ideas on this project have come through the Richard Linklater movies I have been watching lately, particularly Slacker and Waking Life.  I think their play on structure is interesting, and how through the use of an eclectic number of ideas, one overall theme seems to emerge, like the many strokes of a brush creating an entire picture.  But of course, I don't want to produce a work exactly like this--we will definitely be bringing in other ideas and making this an original work.

One thing I am interested in utilizing is music, although I almost don't want to play any songs of any sort, unless this plays a direct part in this array  of voices speaking.  I would like to try to loop parts of songs to create certain moods and tensions if necessary.  But I'm not sure how easy this would be--to create a continuous flow of music.  I would have to cut and past certain parts of a song, and mend them to fit perfectly, that way there are no skips.  It's something that could happen to be very difficult, I will have to see how well it works.

So we'll definitely be putting a lot of work into this project.  I can't wait to see how it turns out, and how all of our ideas come together to create a unified work.