Journalism response.

The "cowboys with cameras" who report conflict journalism, fulfill an important, while simultaneously irrelevant, role in our modern society. Journalism's job is to inform the people and for the people to be informed, they must pay attention. The fact that came up again and again and again in "Dying To Tell A Story" was that it seems that the public does not pay that close attention to these journalists. They seem to be widely ignored by the masses. Despite this they do the honorable thing and risk their lives every day. These journalists spend their lives being shot at and blown up, all to take a picture of a cadaver or a sick man, or a girl with no limbs. They do this in the hope that it will scare us into the belief that this particular war is worse than the other wars going on at the same, and something should be done about it. Sadly there are hundreds of war-zones and thousands of these reporters buzzing like noble carrion flies who bring their rotting meat back to a full queen that tries as hard as she can to ignore the meat. It seems futile. It seems useless.

College Response

The world of education in which we live today is an economic one. And just like the Confucian systems of the China of old, is not there expressly, or even inherently, for education. It is for the continuation of a system. We sent through a factory line of school pre-k prepares you for kinder garden. Kinder garden prepares you for grade school. Grade school prepares you for high school and high school prepares you for college. And college prepares you for...? College prepares us for a world that no longer exists. We are loaded, stuffed, packed, ignited and shot from a cannon into a safety net that is no longer there. Our world is no longer one of factory lines, it is a more fluid and unpredictable place. Nowhere in our education system is "teaching" actually emphasized. All that is emphasized is "preparation," preparation for the next step in our "education," not our actual development, not our learning. I am in high school now, with only two more years to go. I have been through all they could prepare me for. So yes, I am prepared for college. I have made it through, but I will make my own decisions and my own path. Fuck the cannon, Fuck the net. Let the world chew me up and spit me out. Let the world kick my ass in a bar fight I only got into because I was too cocky and stupid. Let me limp back to college battered and bruised. That way I came back, not because they told me something, but because what they told me was the truth. And I learned that, on my own. I'll leave my tribe and spend years alone, and I'll fight the mammoths naked... Win or lose.

Questions.

What is the meaning of life?

If you were to create a new socio-economic-politico system for the 21st century as a alternative to both capitalism and communism, what would it be?

Do you consider yourself attractive?

Yes, I know. You think you're an ugly snitch...no...no that dress does not make you look fat. god.

have you ever wondered why you don't have a boy/girlfriend?

It's because of that. yeah.

How big would you consider your ego?

Yes I know you're a humble monk, yet still awesome. So awesome. Oh, so awesome

Why do you pay such close attention to syntax?

whats syntax?

No I don't know, google it. It's the 21'st century, grow a pair.

Would you consider yourself comfortable with how comfortable you are with your comfort-ability with yourself?

If a saucy tart threw a sword at you, would you consider yourself king of England?

Square or round table? perhaps octagon? perhaps rhombus?

Geometry, so the 365 b.c.e?

Which babes? Medieval babes? Athens babes? 70's babes? 70's babes.

would you consider the word babe degrading to women?

That's why you don't get laid. (both male and female respondents)

EGYPT. Response 2

According to Karl Marx our society is in a constant state of revolution. The poor and oppressed revolt against their oppressors and then THEY become the oppressors of another group. For centuries this exact thing has happened over and over and over. Waves or rolling turmoil have grasped at our world's political and social buildups since the beginning of society itself. More recently The American, The French, and The Russian Revolution have altered the face of our society. A bloody plastic surgeon to the ruling elite. Although, before now we have had to watch revolution in playbacks, always judging a move after it's been made. We have never been able to get behind the surgeon's curtain and watch the deadly operation...until now. The events in Egypt are unfolding before us, and in live time. The Internet has linked us irreparably with every other person in the world. And so, as Egypt erupts in turmoil we, who are oceans apart, are right beside them. We are watching with them, and we are part of their revolution. Who knows what will happen.

Dodgeball and The Apocalypse: Response 1.

My father was bullied in high school. Your father was bullied in high school. The gym was a place of torture for those who were not members of the future roiders of America. They all were lined up and pummeled with dodge balls while sadistic Veteran teachers laughed. It will make you tougher, they all said. And they were right. The Internet has created a haven for the overprotective mothers of America. They have moved on making their 14 year-old son's lunch. Instead folding their pristine cargo pants, and shining their white tennis shoes, the mothers now spend time posting on their own personal blogs, or commenting on the most recent New Yorker article. It is these mothers, afraid of their own children's mortality to such an extent that they attempted to encase them in glass, and fill their blood with formaldehyde. The all to successful Internet campaigns have made bullying a federal offense and dodge ball has been thrown from our gyms. Our modern culture, through our modern medias have refused to bruise our children. And so we've never healed. I have never been to the street corner that my father always tells me to go to, to hang out with the imaginary adolescents he tells me are there. The ones he spent hours with, and have grown storied. And it is because the Internet spread every single story of ever child who ever fell and hurt his head without a helmet. And got kidnapped by some faceless pedophile patrolling every neighborhood's playgrounds. The national average of kidnappings has not been raised since the 1930's but the amount of children confined to a house has. We have no connection to the real world, and no knowledge that if we trace the edge of a knife it will cut us. An apocalypse is coming, and John Connor never wore a helmet when he biked up and down the street he wasn't allowed to cross. John Connor played dodge ball.