Archive for the ‘media’ Category

It was in the news all around today: one of the sellouts of this century, at least that it feels that way to me: the Huffington post is bought by AOL for 300 million dollars.

What was special about the Huffington post? It was that it filled up a true gap: it proved there actually is a leftist American movement.

I have been watching Slavoj Zizek on Al Jazeera interviewed about Egypt. In the interview he analyses the actual lack of a left wing as the exact cause of the ‘radicalisms’ going on around the globe. That interview can be seen here:

So, I feel the exact same way as Zizek: what an utterly depressing message is this, to – all of a sudden, our of the blue – sell the most important leftist news-source to an incredibly conservative and irrelevant dinosaur as AOL. Very, very depressing. Except for the person who made 300 million with the deal, who is laughing all the way to the bank. If she ever gets the money, that is. Because my guess is that the Huffington will deflate like a balloon and soon there will be little left of it. And then she might not be so happy with AOLs Arabian owners who paid for 25 million users and their posts.

But philosophically, what a perfect moment to snuff the left media out – one year before the enxt elections, with the Teanutters warming up to take America over.

That’s a scary development. And as in all horror-films, such scares depend on their instant appearance.

Another philosophical angle: it seems a repeating pattern: a broad base of users builds a content network (and I think everyone would agree the reason the Huffington is popular is because people love to read critical comments of other users), its sold out for lots of money and deflates immediately. Isn’t this rather a modern variant of piracy? Is Arrianna Huffington a modern day pirate, or did she completely sell out her own principles?

What struck me as REALLY WEIRD is the news that she ‘will be the head of this-or-that department’ after she just earned 300 milllion bucks.

Think about it. You just earned 300 million bucks by selling your weblog to a corporate giant.
Are you inclined to sign a job contract with the firm? Of course not.

Any clever person would sell, and start an alternative.

So my guess is: the job positioin was either part of the deal, that, or Arrianna Huffington really does believe that AOL will give the Huffington Post ‘The speed of light’.

At any rate, it all stinks like a limburgian cheese. Then again, there must be at least SOMETHING wrong with you if this strikes you as the image of a ‘leftist person’:

Yesterday there were two items appearing in the Dutch news almost simultaneously: the famous Dutch television host Paul de Leeuw ‘would not be put in court’ for putting the following tweet on twitter when the marriage of Swedish crown-princess Victoria took place:

‘Are you also secretly waiting for the moment a black Saab crashes itself into some sort of monument? Not that I wish for it to happen, but at least something would happen then!’

The OM, the ‘National Prosecutors Office’ (website) the next day said Paul the Leeuw would not be sued for making this tweet on Twitter. Would not be sued? Can you be sued for just saying something, an innocent joke? What the hell has the National Prosecutors Office to do with an innocent tweet? Don’t these people have anything better to do? Are we supposed to feel better now that we know they actually investigate tweets, to see if they can be legally sued? The guy made a joke, for christ sake.

Then, simultanously, this item appears in the dutch news. Dutch Broadcasting Network ‘TROS’ fires Cornald Maas for putting the following tweet online:

‘What nice export products we Dutch have, Sieneke, Joran van der Sloot and the PVV’

Cornald Maas was working for the TROS as a commentator and he also commentated the Eurovision songfestival for the Netherlands. So this guy is FIRED for making a joke on twitter? What is wrong with these people?

Isn’t it obvious that social media are becoming increasingly more dangerous and narrow minded. Yesterday I took a peek at a fake facebook account i created after not having looked there for about two months. Now every post you make there says ‘flag’ under it, so you could be nicely reported for anything you could possibly say.

I am actually glad they threw me out of facebook. It is becoming a very narrow minded instrument of moralistic social control and twitter doesnt seem any better judging by these news items. Think about it, I am a well known dutch author, and they simply deleted all my work ‘because someone complained’ and they wouldnt even tell me what the reason was for deleting my profile!

I dont want weird government agencies to gloat over my family pictures, thank you very much. I dont want ‘prosecutor agencies’ weighing every joke and remark I make on the scale of their legal apparatus. Having such agencies controlling everything you say in your own home is RIDICULOUS and UNACCEPTABLE. Yes, I articulate that, because people somehow seem to start to think this is all normal.

My book was one of the bestly reviewed books of 2008. I was nominated for the Buddingh price and won two other poetry awards. It means nothing to facebook: it simply deletes all my work, all my poems, all my thoughts, because some monkey had some moralistic issue with something I wrote. And they wouldnt even tell me what it was. There was no chance of appeal, nothing. Justice doesn’t exist in their world, just low-brow moralism.

That seems exactly the road we are on: a road that leads to a world where low-brow moralism of the most stupid sort rules and justice is simply a thing of the past. Too complicated, too nuanced, to much maintenance costs.

Facebook and Twitter increasinly are becoming control instruments. I actually started to develop a new social environment, called ‘Soulsat’, because I do like the technology, I just dont like the morons who happen to control it. I will try to get it online in the coming months.

The article (dutch) about Cornald Maas

The article about Paul de Leeuw

Interactive is interactive

I dreamt
that I could get a nice new car
or no a weird new car
or no a new unknown car
for free, or better said
500 bucks a month
and just a half year
said the salesman
in my dream.

And what happens
after that half year
with the new unknown car
I asked him. ‘After a half
year you pay normally’
he said and I asked
what happens if you can’t
‘you can sell it and
we simply call it even’
the salesman who had
just a narrative function
in my dream said.

In my dream
I saw advertisements of others
that sold the same new unknown car
for a quite normal price.

And I thought: yes. That’s a good action.
That’s a very good new unknown action.

In the future we will
live our daily life in a world
that is completely free
of advertisements.

Martijn Benders, 20-06-2010

To my english friends who somehow haven’t heard yet: I was banned from facebook. I dont have any idea why, one day i tried to log in and i was simply banned. I mailed facebook and they said ‘I violated the facebook rules’ and ‘they couldnt be specific about it’ and ‘it wasnt possible to appeal’. Oh really. Well, bye-the-bye then. I’m obviously not gonna waste my time with an institution that cares so less about my work they’d delete it without blinking their eyes. Moreover, I’d be very careful with organisations that think they can ban known writers ‘without giving reasons’ and ‘without chance of appeal’. It sounds like China or Iran, or even worse – I’m sre in those countries one still has some sort of possibility to appeal.

Anyway it was a good boost to get rid of that stupid addiction where you constantly wonder what others are doing and constantly have to spread information about yourself, thus weaving a network of consent that actually imprisons the soul. I have decided that I wont use social networks anymore unless I build one myself and control it – which is exactly what I am currently doing.

Today I wanted to watch the dutch soccer team play against denmark in the worldcup. I was zapping through turkish channels to see where it was on air, and to my surpise there was a game going on Holland-Danmark with already 3-0 for Holland on the scoreboard. I blinked my eyes and saw that it was actually some turkish channel letting a guy play his playstation game full screen and putting soccer commentators next to it, like it was the real thing. They probably couldnt get the broadcasting rights and thought this is a good way of getting some viewers anyway.

Elia was the star of the game, of course, and the wobbly ball some jerkoff thought would perform better. In Europa there’s 10 advisors and spindoctors for every journalist asking questions. There;s probably a whole crew of geniusses employed to design special balls for the world soccer championship. Knowing europe these will be people who know zilch about football but got that position because they have a wonderful resume filled with other wonderful positions they got in the same way: by having wonderful references. And in the end these are the guys that come with the wobbly ball, climate change, biodiesel and other unintelligable nonsense.

As an original dutch native I am often quite flabbergasted about how our media is treating the Van der Sloot phenomenon. Here we have a guy that obviously had a lot up his sleeve in the murder of Nathalie Holloway, as dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries has eloquently pointed out in many occasions. But instead of arresting the guy or at least putting him in quarantaine somehow the guy was simply allowed to roam around. Now he has killed at least one other girl, Stephany Flores. He was arrested in Chili, on the run, and God knows what other girls he has killed or molested last years.

What surprises me, though, is the sort of media attention he gets in his native country, the Netherlands. It’s kind of the ‘our serial killer’ show, any sort of news no matter how small makes the headlines. What shaving cream does van der Sloot use. Van der Sloot was hit on his head with a plastic bag when he left the police car. Van der Sloot doesnt want a dutch lawyer. Van der Sloot wants a dutch lawyer. He seems the obnoxious central star in some entertaining soap opera for the media.

Frankly, if people would have paid attention to the ideas of Peter R de Vries none of this would have happened. But you know, this is a country that has 10 advisors for every journalist. 10 spindoctors for everyone who wants to ask questions. There is no way you can conduct a serious investigation in such a climate of denial and media entertainment.

Now at this moment all sort of obnoxious lies are smeared over the Dutch media, allegedly vented by van der Sloot himself. Stephany Flores supposedly hit him first, because he saw secrets about his past on his laptop.
Say what? He had secrets about his past on his laptop and the police didnt bother to check these out?

As Peter R de Vries wrote on his weblog: the guy just wanted money, that’s all.