Reflections on the Media, Intellectuals, etc
A man was shot in Kirkland House today(I live in Claverly, which is about 3 blocks away).
This was big news throughout the country for a while — even taking the #1 spot in google search trends. Having access to both Harvard mailing lists and news reports, it was immensely surprising how differently the event was characterized in the two spheres.
At Harvard, the student reaction was overwhelmingly one of concern for student safety, and for the impacts that such an event would bring to the community. The news media on the other hand, jumped on the fact that someone was shot at Harvard. Several of the sources I read(including the Huffington Post) mistakenly reported that the victim was a Harvard student. This sensationalistic confusion seems difficult to justify to me, as every official line I read from Harvard administrators, and from the Crimson, took pains to emphasize the fact that the status and id of the victim was unknown. The Huffington Post claim was especially egregious, since the Boston Globe article they linked to specifically said that the victim was not known to be a Harvard Student.
The exaggerated reporting was disturbing on another level because, overwhelming, the outside world honed in on the fact that this shooting happened at Harvard. Maybe I am really paranoid, but all the responses I read (on Reddit, on the huffington post) seemed to indicate that much of the public interest in the whole thing is due to a gleeful and slightly malicious interest in seeing if Harvard’s fallen from its pedestal of privilege. This is understandable, and not really new to me, but it’s still shocking to see how much underlying hatred random people have for the “pampered pussies” that I am apparently a part of.
A lot of political discourse in the past year, especially with regards to the 2008 election, have focused on the alienation of intellectuals from the average person’s life. But really, who’s to blame for that?
Summer!
To organize my activity this summer, I am blogging!
I hope to
a) Post math problems/papers/solutions
b) Muse in a significant way about the world outside of Harvard, studying, and the Fung Wah, which occupies almost all of my energy during the school year
c) Document my trip to China with pictures and shit.
A Harvard Education
A Harvard Education has meant for me an almost inhuman disinterest in everything. This is not to say there haven’t been bright moments where I’ve rejoiced in the conversation, the work, the whole mantra that adorns the side door of Boylston Gate — “enter here and grow in wisdom”.
It’s just that, sometimes, I feel like a zombie.
By midterms, I’ve usually lost interest in at least half of my classes. From monday to thursday, I work at least 40 hours. On friday, I give up, reflect upon my week, feel dissatisfied, complain, and sleep. I waste saturday. I waste sunday. On monday, the cycle begins again.
The only salvation in that from monday to thursday, I am usually too overwhelmed to feel dissatisfied.
There’s been plenty of other people who feel the same way. I guess all I really have to say is: to all the South Korean tourists — rub a load of this!
Dentyne’s new advertising campaign
If you’ve ridden the redline on the MBTA in the past month, you’ll have seen Dentyne’s new advertising campaign. The new campaign, with the slogan “make face time” is splattered in every frame of advertising space. Look eye level at all and you’ll see picture after picture of happy couples(possibly aryan), friends(multiracial friends!), “making face time”.
It’s the scariest thing I’ve seen all year.
All the ads focus use the rhetoric of technology to describe age old social interactions. Super-imposed on a picture of two couples is the phrase “The first instant message”. Above two interracial friends hugging, is the familiar facebook message — “Friend Request Accepted”. The idea, as Dentyne states above two kissing lovers(heterosexual) is to reconnect with the world: “power down. log off. unplug. have mercy on your thumbs. browse the world wide something else. send some not so instant messages. undo. hit cancel. be together. make face time”
The campaign imagines a culture, and presumes a society, where people are permanently networked to mediums destructive of meaningful social interactions (hugs, kisses, love). The campaign proposes as a solution, to suddenly “unplug” and buy lots of gum. Instead of alienation via substitutive human interactions(such as ims, voicemails), Dentyne proposes commodity fetishism. “Buy gum! For it will make you loved”
How can people be bamboozled by this shit?
(Dentyne tastes bad too!)
Math Notes
From Math 122. I couldn’t read my hand writing, and I wanted to try to learn commutative diagrams. So I typed it up.
There’s not very much commutative diagrams.
