Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Big Tweet





Ways of Thought & Talk that Generate the
Problems can not be The Ways of T&T
that
Absolve them.

A big “tweet” is all—my textual hararass-
mental leadership in these turbulent times:
faint clues & indirections from Back In
The U.S.S.R. nearly 20 years ago when
our current Taurus and Camry were coming
off the assembly line, #1 George Bush was
boss, the Wall intact & Cold War, too:
Saddam invading Kuwait, and us
complaining about rising gas prices.

“What's on your mind?”

Face Book now asks: inviting a twitter
& anyone can improve terms & images
for the sake of argument, local & global
feedback crossing curriculum a la sustain-
able converse-action & the possibility of
new phenomenon and immaculate, in-
conceivable values emerging beyond
courses without borders.

“Toward frontiers yet unknown”
and Ray Anderson remonstrations
for reconfiguring hire education ,
transforming frames of minding,
greener carpeting and more than
widely publicized eco-dormitory
habits and ways of thinking &
ways of talking, too: media making
a global village as well as local
learning towards Leeds Certifiable
Liberal Art..

Twitter
Face Book
My Space
You Tube
Google & Bing
Wikipedia
smart phones
cell phone
s
iphones
Video phones
Blackberries
Palms
Texting

Sexting
PC
Apple
...etc etc etc

Terms determining a see-change
revolutionizing revolution if not
yet transformational learning,
seducing my circle of students
under 8 am flourescence with
cellular phones ringing in their
pockets: Turn it off, damnit:
pay
attention. Take this down
what I'm saying: it'll be on

the exam.

Access to information. At hand.
Ownership.Can you put IT in play?
is what what I'm asking..

Summer Consideration: my
strateegery & tactical tactics
for indoor leadership, cerebral
and environmental environ-
mentalism: media mediating
transformation whatever peep
& tweet re transformed learning:
trans-forming me like some frog
in a pan feeling the heat rising
but no threshold to tell me I'm
boiling yet. Can I hear me now?

&&&&&

“Since Iraq invaded Kuwait the other day, half the news
commentary expresses our indignation over gas gouging.
Gas has gone up nickel a gallon already. Old gas. Gas
bought months ago at cheaper prices, unaffected by Hussein
goals and ambitions. U.S. troops are dispatched to Saudi
Arabia and responsible citizens across the country are
irked at increases. We are battling on two fronts: over there,
bad guys invading Kuwait and knocking out 300 or so years
of family governance; right here; bad guys jacking up prices
on a whim, wanting to make money at every opportunity.

Bad guys everywhere. Except for the newscasters and
commentators. They seem cool, collected, and calm, no
matter how atrocious the news. They switch from foreign
affairs to domestic concerns to weather and sports gracefully.
We wish some would run for President. Even if their
nonchalance is surface and professional, it’s a clue:
how to be.

Watchers, the reporters: describing as best they can
without explicit judgment. News Boys bicycling the
neighborhood, tossing the paper on the porches..
Got nothing to do with them. No responsibility
for it or for fixing.. Messengers.

Watch the delivery systems, the ways news comes to us.
Ways we send it along to others. To specific others or to
others at large. Broadcasting. With the commentator, we
know we’re getting commentary. With the reporter, the
peter Jennings, we forget and call it NEWS. Unmediated
media.

The calmness of delivery:

Today, armed forces massed heavily…
Troops from Fort Bragg boarded carriers…
The stock market apparently in response…
The president, questioned by persistent reporters
displayed irritation with…
Leaders representing the nation’s educators
lunched on the White House Lawn.
And in the National League, after weeks of…
Farmers concerned with…
The inability of these artists to reflect public taste.
We will be back shortly…

Media is the message. Disregard the specifics and watch
the ways they are mediated: the music of delivery, rhythms,
intonation, emphasis, the way it’s framed and orchestrated,
the advertising that “brings” it. A beautiful Mind, minding.
Generally invisible. Transparent.

No matter how chaotic-seeming the events, how threatening
and disturbing: the delivery is ordered. Angelic. That’s what’s
worth watching. Worth imitating. Attempting or essaying.

If I let the bottom-line enthrall me, the world seems always
falling apart, full of “oh-my’s” and “why-don’t they’s”
and “I’m not believing this” as my colleague Dong Ping
insists: “unbelievable”—implicit in the news that is cast,
but not in the casting.

The messenger and the messenger-ing: Any day, any year:
frightening details, detached delivery. News tossed on the
porch or talked into the living room. Nonchalance, whether
its delivered in Swannanoa or in Leningrad: the same lack
of heat.”

(Back in the U.S.S.R, Summer of 90)

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