Friday, 19 June 2015

survival lesson-plans, games and activities

Friday, 5 June 2015

fight club and anti-consumerism

This blog has already looked at the different aspects in the cult movie Fight Club:
Jay Doubleyou: fight club: how many film genres in one film?

One of the themes is 'anti-consumerism':
Interpretations of Fight Club - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fight Club: Consumers #TGA2ARH - YouTube

You can't market an anti-consumerist film:
CNN - Marketing 'Fight Club': 'the ultimate absurd joke' - October 29, 1999

Or can you...

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton were not happy with the trailer:

Marketing executives at 20th Century Fox faced difficulties in marketing Fight Club and at one point considered marketing it as an art film. They considered that the film was primarily geared toward male audiences because of its violence and believed that not even Pitt would attract female filmgoers. Research testing showed that the film appealed to teenagers. Fincher refused to let the posters and trailers focus on Pitt and encouraged the studio to hire the advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy to devise a marketing plan. The firm proposed a bar of pink soap with the title "Fight Club" embossed on it as the film's main marketing image; the proposal was considered "a bad joke" by Fox executives. Fincher also released two early trailers in the form of fake public service announcements presented by Pitt and Norton; the studio did not think the trailers marketed the film appropriately. Instead, the studio financed a $20 million large-scale campaign to provide a press junket, posters, billboards, and trailers for TV that highlighted the film's fight scenes. The studio advertised Fight Club on cable during World Wrestling Federation broadcasts, which Fincher protested, believing that the placement created the wrong context for the film.^[46] Linson believed that the "ill-conceived one-dimensional" marketing by marketing executive Robert Harper largely contributed to Fight Club's lukewarm box office performance in the United States.^[51]

Fight Club - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Have a look at these 'public service announcements' and other publicity material which the actors and director preferred:
Deliver Me - YouTube

Fifteen years on, people are still talking about the film:

OCT 9, 2014 @ 3:00 AM

Why Fight Club Matters More Than Ever

"The first rule of Fight Club is you do not talk about Fight Club," barks Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) to his minions — men raised by women. Breaking the rule, we're still talking about Fight Club, 15 years after its release this month — both the movie and the radical ideology grafted to the fictional club. In 2014, Fight Club speaks to us more so than in 1999, and that famous catchphrase continues to echo through the annals of pop culture and our political sphere.

Fight Club's very much a movie about men who "are not a beautiful or unique snowflake" (millennialsmust cringe watching the movie) and who enjoy destroying something beautiful just because they feel like it. David Fincher's masterpiece touches on themes like transitioning from a consumer culture ("Planet Starbucks," "Microsoft Galaxy") to an anti-consumerism culture where your stuff doesn't own you anymore. The underlying themes of rebellion sparked something inside of a generation that wasn't willing to kowtow to the pernicious powers that be.

THE FIGURATIVE DEMOLITION OF THE BUILDINGS MIRRORS BOTH THE LITERAL DESTRUCTION OF THE TWIN TOWERS AND THE FIGURATIVE DECIMATION OF OUR FINANCIAL SYSTEM.

In its wake, Fight Club indirectly spawned a lot of Project Mayhem-like behavior. A few weeks afterFight Club was released in theaters — it tanked at the box office but it now ranks number 10 on IMDb's "Top 250" best-movie list — the infamous Battle in Seattle riots, in protest of the WTO Ministerial Conference, broke out. Even back then, protestors fought against globalization, something Fight Club delved deep into with their shenanigans of vandalizing corporate headquarters, the satirical in-flight airplane manuals depicting people catching afire, and Durden and his cronies detonating several buildings housing credit card companies: "Out these windows, we will view the collapse of financial history. One step closer to economic equilibrium. It'll be like pay-per-view," Durden jokes about extirpating the financial institutions.

American protest groups haven't gone so far as to actually blow up anything major since then — we let the real terrorists do that — which makes Fight Club's revolution seem too extreme. The difference between anarchy and fascism is that the latter contains a militant commander, like Durden, who squashes everyone else's input. He oversees his obedient chattel follow through with obliterating everything in sight. Most of Fight Club comes off as a masculine, caustic satire, but the ideas in the movie metastasized into real-life 21st-century America. At the end of 1999, we were two years away from 9/11 and eight years from the immobilizing global financial crisis that would eventually birth Occupy Wall Street.

A DECADE AND A HALF LATER, WE'RE STILL PISSED, BUT WHAT ARE WE DOING ABOUT IT?

Chuck Palahniuk wrote Fight Club the novel in 1996. Did he see the dark nimbus clouds forming over the country? How was he able to foreshadow America's financial disasters? The movie concludes with the injured Narrator (Ed Norton) holding hands with his tourist girlfriend, Marla Singer, watching credit card buildings explode and crumble. Durden utters the words "ground zero," an epithet that would become synonymous with 9/11. The figurative demolition of the buildings mirrors both the literal destruction of the Twin Towers and the figurative decimation of our financial system. "If you erase the debt record, then we all go back to zero. You'll create total chaos," The Narrator explains to the police about Project Mayhem's manifesto.

Bedlam and civil unrest resulted from 9/11 and the financial crisis but so did positive protests like Occupy Wall Street, which shined a bright light on corporate influence, income inequality, and lack of accountability. Akin to the Fight Clubs in the film, OWS popped up all over the nation demonstrating its vast sphere of influence and appeal. Like the everymen characters in the film — they are waiters, police officers, "slaves with white collars," "the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world" — they want equality, but they also want revenge on the powers that placed them between the devil and the deep blue sea. "We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't," Durden says. "And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off." They're willing to go to excessive measures to have their voices heard, and that's what Fight Club and Occupy Wall Street evolved from — except OWS used mostly peaceful protests to get their points across.

A decade and a half later, we're still pissed, but what are we doing about it? We're still very much immersed in a corporate culture where our things do end up owning us, and we're not willing to live without our Starbucks skinny lattes, our IKEA furniture, and our smartphones. What began as a means to let off some steam and to feel alive, Fight Club quickly spiraled into a lost generation of men seeking something more than nihilism. "When the fight was over, nothing was solved, but nothing mattered. We all felt saved," The Narrator says. Durden discusses how his generation, Gen X, has no Great War but a spiritual war. "Our Great Depression is our lives." Fight Club may be about men coming together for shared experiences, but the themes about experiencing real pain and release are universal.

Violence isn't the answer, but what else is there? "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything," Durden advises. He may be right, but will we ever have the balls to chuck it all away and start over again? Tyler Durden exemplifies what happens when you take matters into your own hands and try to change the world, and in the process, the rationale sometimes become "You gotta break some eggs." Or in his case, destroy a Volkswagen Beetle.

Why 'Fight Club' Matters More Than Ever

There are plenty of other themes in Fight Club:
Unmarked Men: Feminism in Fight Club | Hungry Chef
Masculine Identity in the Service Class: An Analysis of Fight Club

See also:
Jay Doubleyou: have we got too much stuff?
Jay Doubleyou: the story of stuff
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smile or die: the power of positive thinking

'Cod psychology':
Popular psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Here are a couple more examples:
Jay Doubleyou: mindfulness: "too many people are avoiding using their brains"
Jay Doubleyou: fish philosophy and the motivational mafia

A particularly influential idea is that of 'positive thinking':
Positive thinking: Reduce stress by eliminating negative self-talk - Mayo Clinic
The Power of Positive Thinking and Attitude

The Power of Positive Thinking | The Certain Ones Magazine

But is this really that helpful?

The Power and Peril of Positive Thinking, Part 1

Here's an animated talk on the subject:

Acclaimed journalist, author and political activist Barbara Ehrenreich explores the darker side of positive thinking.

View Barbara Ehrenreich's full talk here.

RSA Animate - Smile or Die - RSA
RSA Animate - Smile or Die - YouTube

The most famous book on positive thinking came out in the 1930s:

How to Win Friends and Influence People

How to Win Friends and Influence People is one of the first best-selling self-help books ever published. Written by Dale Carnegie and first published in 1936, it has sold 15 million copies world-wide.^[1]

Leon Shimkin of the publishing firm Simon & Schuster took one of the 14-week courses given by Carnegie in 1934. Shimkin persuaded Carnegie to let a stenographer take notes from the course to be revised for publication.

In 1981, a new revised edition containing updated language and anecdotes was released.^[2] The revised edition reduced the number of sections from 6 to 4, eliminating sections on effective business letters and improving marital satisfaction

How to Win Friends and Influence People - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Tuesday, 2 June 2015

california's water wars

Fighting over water is going to be more of an issue:

Advanced level English

California's Water Wars

by Larry Wood
Water.......
lake oroville

This five-letter word is one that Californians see almost daily in headlines.
   How to dam it, how to sell it, how to use it, how to share it, how to keep it pure.... these are just a few of the major problems that face California's people and political leaders.
   Thousands of dollars are spent annually on studies, and on lawsuits, in California's "Water Wars", and the seemingly endless conflict between the overwhelming needs of Central and Southern California, and their drain on Northern California rivers.
   California has what has been called "the biggest waterworks in history". Dams in the Sierra Nevada mountains hold back water provided by great rivers fed by rain and snowmelt; they tame raging rivers, help prevent damaging floods, generate cheap, pollution-free hydro-electricity, and release a steady supply of water for California's citizens.
   California's great cities get their water via an immense network of dams, aqueducts, pipelines and wells that is one of the engineering wonders of the world. Part of the water supply for the Los Angeles area comes from a 445-mile long canal running south from the "Delta" area of Northern California. During its long journey, the water is pumped up a 3000 ft. elevation, then enters a tunnel through the mountains, before reaching the Los Angeles area. More water for this thirsty area is brought in along the Colorado River Aqueduct, over a distance of 185 miles; and the City of Los Angeles also takes water from a place called Owens Valley, 338 miles away!
Even the city of San Francisco, in cooler Northern California, has long-distance water, its supply being carried almost 150 miles from an artificial lake in Yosemite National Park.
   Yet mammoth as this interlocking system is, in years ahead it is going to be inadequate to handle the state's rapidly growing population. The prospect of major water problems in the near future has become particularly alarming.
   Yet mammoth as this interlocking system is, it is now proving to be inadequate to supply both the needs of the state's huge agricultural areas, and the state's rapidly growing population. The prospect of major water problems in the near future has become particularly alarming. Many California farmers have already had to abandon crops on account of water shortages during recent dry summers; and in many towns and cities, the sprinklers that traditionally keep the lawns green round suburban homes have been turned off.    .

    As if dry summers and growing needs were not enough problems already, Californians also have problems getting water from outside their state. For instance, the Colorado river.provides water to several states, and also to Indian reservations, and there has been a lot of argument about water rights. In 2003, the state of California agreed to take a smaller quota of water from the Colorado River - partly to allow the state of Nevada to have more, on account of the dramatic increase in needs of the city of Las Vegas.

    One of the most serious environmental problems was that of Mono Lake. In 1989, California's State Legislature voted $65 million to find alternatives to save Mono Lake from evaporating in the desert sun of Eastern California. Since then, the depletion of this unique environmentally-sensitive lake has been reversed, and though the water level today is still some 35 ft. below the natural level recorded back in 1941, it is now 10 feet higher than it was at its lowest point, in 1982.

    Since the year 2000, California has had a series of drought years with below normal rainfall. Emergency water conservation ordinances have made lawns turn brown, cars and sidewalks get dirty. Violators of the ordinances have had their water supply cut to a trickle. In Fresno, a city which does not even meter how much water its residents use, the wells have already run dry..
    Water conservation measures are part of the answer; but political analysts predict that it will require many years and some serious and unattractive lifestyle changes to resolve California's Water Wars. The tense competition for a scarce resource, among groups with conflicting interests, will demand give and take forever.

WORDS :
Dwellers: residents - lawsuits: legal battles - overwhelming: enormous - dam: barrage - tame: conquer - mammoth:enormous - prospect: image - blow: bad news -  lawn: grass - trickle: a very small flow - meter: to count - drought -  period with no rain or very little rain  trickle: very small flow - well: hole in the ground from which water is taken - give and take:compromise.

Updated 2009 from an article in Spectrum magazine, by Larry Wood. Since Larry Wood first wrote this article in 1989, the problem has got worse... Copyright 1989 - 2009
Larry Wood is a prizewinning freelance environmental journalist, based in California.

WORKSHEET

    Going further: have students list potential consequences of changing rainfall patterns, both direct and indirect. Have them also draw up a contingency plan for your area, should your own water supply be threatened.

Creative writing: As homework, get students to produce mock-ups of authentic documents (in English) for distribution to the public. Ask for maximum realism in this task: you will find some students take great pains to produce a good result, because they will really enjoy the task.

   Memory & logic: Fill in the blanks in this extract from the text, using the qualifiers (adjectives, etc.) listed:
    alarming / artificial / cheap / cooler / engineering / great / growing / immense / inadequate / interlocking / long-distance / mammoth / major / near / particularly / pollution-free / rapidly / thirsty / water (2) / 445-mile long / 3000 ft. / of 185 miles / 338 miles away.

California's ______________ cities get their water via an ______________ network of dams, aqueducts, pipelines and wells that is one of the ______________ wonders of the world. Part of the ______________ supply for the Los Angeles area comes from a ______________ long canal running south from the "Delta" area of Northern California. During its ______________ journey, the water is pumped up a ______________ elevation, then enters a tunnel through the mountains, before reaching the Los Angeles area. More water for this ______________ area is brought in along the Colorado River Aqueduct, over a distance ______________ ; and the City of Los Angeles also takes water from a place called Owens Valley, ______________ !
Even the city of San Francisco, in ______________ Northern California, has ______________ water, its supply being carried almost 150 miles from an ______________ lake in Yosemite National Park.
Yet ______________ as this ______________ system is, in years ahead it is going to be ______________ to handle the state's ______________ ______________ population. The prospect of ______________ ______________ problems in the ______________ future has become ______________ ______________ .

California's water wars : Advanced level English

See also:
Futures Forum: Who owns the water?
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Thursday, 28 May 2015

mindfulness: "too many people are avoiding using their brains"

One way to motivate your employees is with a little fish or even some cheese:
Jay Doubleyou: fish philosophy and the motivational mafia

You could just get them to chill out with some 'mindfulness':
Wellbeing is the key to keeping employees motivated | Guardian Careers | The Guardian

The health service is promoting it:
Mindfulness for mental wellbeing - Stress, anxiety and depression - NHS Choices

But not everyone thinks it's the best thing...

This is from this week's Telegraph:

People are wasting valuable thinking time on mediation and mindfulness and should stop trying to clear their heads, an Oxford University academic has claimed.

Theodore Zeldin said too many people were avoiding using their brains and instead escaping into a state of blank mental oblivion.

Mindfulness has been widely championed for inspiring creative thought,lowering depression and improving physical health and is even recommended by the NHS.

Mindfulness is stopping the world from thinking - Telegraph

This is from the Spectator:

Mindfulness is something worse than just a smug middle-class trend » The Spectator

And this piece isn't exactly positive either:

Haney-mindful-Ehrenreich

Mind Your Own Business - The Baffler
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Friday, 22 May 2015

aero - denmark's sustainable island community

They call this place;
Aeroe - The Fairytale Museum Island in Denmark
Ærø - Aero Denmark, Aeroe Island Denmark, Aeroe Guide

It is charming:

Aeroeskoebing, Denmark - a 17th century island cobblestone village. Just 22 miles long with U-shaped barns. | Bon Voyage | Pinterest

Google Image Result for http://www.coast-alive.eu/sites/default/files/article/images/aero_island_southdenmarkb.jpg

But it's also a place looking to the future:

Aero Island, Denmark /Blend of Medieval churches and space-age power - SFGate

Denmark leads the charge in renewable energy | European Elections 2014 | DW.DE | 02.05.2014

An interesting question:

Friday, July 31, 2009

Aero Island in Denmark: Behind the Times or Way Ahead?

Aero is a small, idyllic island off the coast of Svenborg. To many people it is a quaint, historic relic, clinging to its past architectural and economic heritage. But, for us, their impressive ability to preserve and restore historical buildings, sites and landscapes, and their unique form of using renewable energy for most of the island’s needs is really quite progressive and certainly sustainable. Aero’s economy is mostly agricultural and tourism based; the island has three small towns (as a result of dividing up the original island land holding amongst three brothers); and it boasts one of the highest levels of renewable energy in the world, all based on local resources and design ingenuity. Our host for our day on Aero was Jess Heinemann, the community’s engineer involved in renewable energy as well as historic preservation. In fact, there seems to be little that Jess is not involved with. He lives in a restored historic house in Aeroskobing, the first town you encounter as you depart the ferry.

Aeroskobing remains as it has for hundreds of years with narrow cobblestone streets, historic houses and shops, and intimate plazas and public spaces. Their regulations for preserving history are strict and exacting, leaving little room for change and growth. Even windows and doors must conform to historic requirements. While this may seem limiting, it is designed to fulfill the community’s vision and serves to give the island its charm and tourist appeal. Preserving and reusing older buildings is a sustainable activity for various reasons: (1) retains the embodied energy of a built structure; (2) does not require new energy for construction; and (3) maintains physical scale and character at a time when auto use did not exist. They make provisions to upgrade buildings for energy efficiency, insulation and improved lighting and heating. Still, for many, the restrictions are too onerous and creativity in design reduced.

Sustainable Design: Aero Island in Denmark: Behind the Times or Way Ahead?

Denmark seems to be offering a positive future:
Solutions from Copenhagen & the Island of Aero in Denmark - Tom Brandstetter - YouTube
Isle of plenty - Denmark leading the way in reducing CO2 emissions | News | Sustainable Procurement | Action Sustainability
Brave little Denmark leads war against coal | Al Jazeera America
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fish philosophy and the motivational mafia

How to motivate your workers is a key aspect of HR - or 'human resources' - or the 'personnel department'...
Top 5 Ways to Motivate Your Employees (It's Easier Than You Think) | Margaret Jacoby
Employee Inspiration And Motivation Kit

A big idea around at the moment is 'fish! philosophy:
FISH! Philosophy :: Home

Fish! Philosophy - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

fish philosophy - YouTube

Not everyone agrees:

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2006

More On (Moron?) Fish! Philosophy

I finally bit the bullet and ordered a $3 used copy of the Fish! Philosophy book from Amazon. I'm about as infuriated as I expected to be.

The reason for burnout in most workplaces is that management has deliberately and systematically downsized staffing levels, trying to get more and more work out of fewer and fewer people. The management of the average corporation manufactures burned out employees like Carter manufactures liver pills. Through Fish! Philosophy, management attempts to deal with burnout entirely through cheerleading and slogans--Stakhanovism--without having to increase staffing levels or pay, or otherwise alter its own contribution to the problem. Fish! Philosophy, at its core, is an attempt to get something for nothing.

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism: More On (Moron?) Fish! Philosophy

This Fish! thing could be as bad as the Cheese thing:

And surprise, surprise, surprise: there's an entire Motivational Mafia out there focused on getting people to love Big Brother and think of their jobs as the center of their life. I don't think it's gonna happen, though. People will always wake up, like Winston Smith, with that instinctive groan at the prospect of dragging themselves into that shithole again.

And speaking of Ken Blanchard.... He also wrote the Preface to Who Moved My Cheese?. And one of the Fish! Philosophy coauthors of is a vice president in the Blanchard organization. So apparently there's an interlocking directorate in the Motivational Mafia.

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism: More On (Moron?) Fish! Philosophy

But some people don't seem to get the point:
Need some Motivation? Join the family: MotivationMafia.com

See also:
Who Moved My Cheese? - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Who moved my cheese? Full Movie - YouTube
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