One of the points I make in the book is that, in some respects, even though digital technology has changed the whole ontology of motion pictures, by taking it out of photography, at least theoretically, it also has allowed motion pictures to be more themselves. I love old movies, and my preferred way to look at things is projected on a big screen. But I feel like a realist in terms of what's going on and I'm interested in how the technology develops in tandem with what artists decide to do.
The French revolution lasted over ten years because a series of historical processes and contradictions simply took that long to resolve themselves into a new order that was capable of enduring beyond the short term. It is hard to discern any sustainable equilibrium in Egyptian politics at the moment. Not, at least, with any real degree of confidence.
Meanwhile, in Al Jazeera, Belén Fernández cites Irregular Army to detail the extremist danger at the heart of the US Army, how "leaders of the white supremacist movement view enlistment as a means of preparation for a domestic race war...[with] access to a laboratory of Iraqis:"The military ripped up the thin regulations it had on far-right radicals as it struggled to stock its fighting force with sufficient numbers of soldiers for the war on terrorism.
The armed forces should have known better after terrorist attacks like the Oklahoma City bombing, which was carried out by its extremist veterans. The significant number of white supremacist veterans now back in the United States, battle hardened and with weapons training gained in Iraq and Afghanistan, should scare every American.
Gabriele Pedullà’s In Broad Daylight: Movies and Spectators After the Cinema has recently received glowing reviews in Publisher's Weekly and Spectrum Culture.
Publisher's Weekly writes of Pedullà’s charting of the transition from a communal cinema experience to a lone individual's dark room and monitor glare:
As with so much else, technological innovations have had unintended consequences in this realm, as making films readily available on the small screen affects, inter alia, the experience of viewing them (movies shown on TVs literally run at a higher frames-per-second rate than they do on the big screen). What was once a communal experience in a darkened theater that shut out the outside world is now often a solitary one undertaken while multitasking at home....Insights abound, and the author’s facility with so many different disciplines--from ancient Greek philosophy to 20th century semiotics--will ensure that casual filmgoers and academics alike find something salient to ponder in Pedullà’s treatise.
At Spectrum Culture, Jesse Cataldo appends this with recognition of Pedullà’s accessible application of theory:
While some passages get into knotty post-structural theory, referencing Baudrillard and Lacan, nothing feels beyond the comprehension of the layman. Pedulla is good at building a lucid path toward complex notions, and his best ideas feel earned because he sets them up so well. Some of these have to do with the hypnotic power of television, building off Serge Daney’s seminal ‘80s TV criticism to great effect. Pedulla posits that movie theaters swallow viewers up, holding them prisoner, an effect that eventually results in a kind of Stockholm Syndrome empathy with the characters onscreen.
Visit Publisher's Weekly and Spectrum Culture to read the reviews in full.
Softies such as Ross Perlin, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy”, complain that unpaid internships are exploitative. They also fret that only well-heeled youngsters can afford to work for nothing. If an internship is the first rung on the career ladder, the less affluent will never climb it.Verso intern here, with generous post-Intern Nation wages. Of course, it's fitting for a news magazine to gloss over intern exploitation—O, to think of my comrades' gaunt, unpaid eyes as they factcheck or proofread against their self-interest—but when wholly discarding that little thing we know as class privilege, I don't know where to begin. Rent, food, and transport costs have pleasantly flown, notwithstanding the absence of personal income. Because hey, as The Economist reports, it seems you should do anything—even say, take out an intern loan, attendant with intern debt—to gain that valuable "experience:"
Others disagree [with Perlin]. “Anything that gives people an opportunity to gain experience is a good thing,” shrugs Jim Tapper of Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann, a headhunter.Conclusions: Rent is high. Intern wages are low to nil. Now, what matter if some have more money than others? Everyone should intern because gaining experience is a good thing, as said with a shrug.