I hope you'll clean out my cage

Teaching 19 -25 year olds I sometimes find it helpful to remember that most of them were born in around 1987. Some of my references to popular culture fly over their heads either because the weren't born yet or the subject might as well be a cave painting in France. Punk rock had started 10 years before and died soon after. So it was interesting to read a speech by John Naughton to the English Society of Editors about declining newspaper readership - or more specifically why the average age of a newspaper reader in the UK is 54 (and rising).

"…These are the future, my friends. They're here and living among us. They're not very interested in us, and I'm not sure I blame them. The best we can hope for is that one day they may keep us as pets."

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Young people don't like us. Who can blame them?

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Go figure

Took my daughter shopping tonight. We had dinner out. Got back home late. She laid her new clothes out in neat rows so she could choose what to wear for tomorrow. She's 5. I see her just every second weekend. How can such incredible errors of judgement (marrying my daughter's mother) result in such a wonderful little human being? Go figure

Mac Air Music

I love the idea of the Mac Air but, call me old fashioned, …no disk drive? How will I watch Ratatouille, Toy Story, The Incredibles, Finding Nemo, Cars and A Bug's Life on DVD? The music on the MacAir launch commercial is terrific. I tracked the artiste Yael Naim's video for you. What is the name for this genre (Regina Spectre et al)? Apparently Steve Jobs chose the track personally for the TVC. Order from Amazon: Splash out:

Sexist Advertising and stereotypes

Advertising lives in the short-form world. Because mass media is so expensive the 30 second commercial is conventional and because there is so much clutter simplified signals are essential to 'cut through'. One form of communication short-hand used as a default is the stereotype - "A stereotype can be a conventional and oversimplified conception, opinion, or image, based on the assumption that there are attributes that members of the "other group" have in common. Stereotypes are sometimes formed by a previous illusory correlation, a false association between two variables that are loosely correlated if correlated at all. Though generally viewed as negative perceptions, stereotypes may be either positive or negative in tone." In the 1950's and 60's when men dominated advertising stereotypical impressions of women as inferior or subservient were not only commonplace but usual. It was normal to show women as housekeepers, largely because most wer...

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