Huh. Amazon has reinstated a new and improved gold box. Now it shows you two items, and you can keep one or the other of the items available while you look at the next in line. Pretty neat.

Here's another one Kate -- the digital divide is widening and you want to help close it and think libraries are the answer.

She's still yucky because the white trash lurks beneath.

I've got white trash running through my veins. Where's my fame and glamour? Am I not woman enough to fill the bra of a cleavagey slutbomb?

Ha! Considering your take on "authenticity," I'd think you would love this book when you're not rolling your eyes at De Zengotita's self-indulgence.

Heh. No, I saw the book and was intrigued. Though I did get that basic thesis from reading the Ballard intro I referenced.

From Ballard I got: It's not the portrayal of violence in the media which has desensitized people and made them alienated from their own experience. It's that we are aswim in a world of constant narrative, where every television ad is a tiny story. That culture has superseded experience and we check our emotions against this narrative white noise instead trusting what we feel, or even having an interior emotional context in which to place those feelings.

the digital divide is widening and you want to help close it and think libraries are the answer.

Ooh, interesting. What exactly do you mean by "the digital divide"? Who is on which side of the divide?

Dude. I broke a law without knowing it! I spent two years breaking it! Er, assuming the statute of limitations has expired on what's essentially a blue book law in a state I don't live in.

Ooh, interesting. What exactly do you mean by "the digital divide"? Who is on which side of the divide?

I was just going to mention the digital divide. Those who have access to computer, the internet, and benefits of that information vs. those who, because of socio-economic factors (poverty, illiteracy, geography), do not have the same kind of access. There's the rich/poor, urban/rural, first/third world divides.

Though I did get that basic thesis from reading the Ballard intro I referenced.

Yeah, what amused me was the reflexivity of your reply. Which is exactly what Mediated is about.

From Ballard I got: It's not the portrayal of violence in the media which has desensitized people and made them alienated from their own experience. It's that we are aswim in a world of constant narrative, where every television ad is a tiny story. That culture has superseded experience and we check our emotions against this narrative white noise instead trusting what we feel, or even having an interior emotional context in which to place those feelings.

Sure. De Zengotita starts the book by discussing where he was when Kennedy was shot: in a method acting class. When the first person came by to tell the class that the President had been shot, the people thought it was an acting exercise and attempted to get in touch with their emotions about that. When they found out he'd died, they all had a visible outpouring of emotion, such that when they found out it was true, they were all embarrassed to be unable to separate the representation of their emotions from the reality. He claims that everyone is a method actor now, because the media feeds egos so effortlessly now that people cannot distinguish between how they feel and how they are supposed to feel. There's a lot more rolled into this concept, but that's the heart of it.

What exactly do you mean by "the digital divide"? Who is on which side of the divide?

I'm talking about the have and the have not issue. For instance, the Gov't Publishing Office is making more of its publications available only via the Internet. No computer, no access. Additionally, there are rumblings that while everything the GPO puts up on the Internet will be available for reading for free, to actually print or download may someday cost money.

What's real access to a computer? Do you have to own it? Do you need DSL or something very speedy to effectively have access to everything that's available? Is it enough to put one in a library for public access? What about the filters that places (even some libraries) apply?

signed, librarian, married to an educator

Sparky! I can't remember when I last posted with you. It's good to "see" you.

Emily, outlaw Emily! Exclamation points!