Monday, February 11, 2008

Two eye-catching items from the always-interesting Reality Sandwich:

Broadcasting the Third Kind

For the past 60 years, UFOs have invaded our culture through the speculation of conspiracy theorists and the fantasies of Hollywood cinema. Yet under the rationalist constructs of a post-Enlightenment world, an avowed belief in alien life is generally regarded with snide contempt. Such things are the stuff of idle entertainment, goes the dominant view, and do not warrant serious discussion.

This view, however, is suddenly changing.


Zombie Apocalypse

The zombie trend is a celebration of fear -- a way to paradoxically act out the suffocating effect that the blanket of information noise has in our Westernized, late capitalist existence. When you're dead there aren't any more expectations -- there aren't any more goals, just endless in-between time spent hanging out and eating. While online one just "sits there," doing nothing. There's definitely a punk rock aspect to zombies -- an anarchistic refusal to work or follow rules.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

The article "Broadcasting the Third Kind" (odd title) is basically well done, with the exception of the mention of the Mexican FLIR sightings, which actually were oil well gas flares (see the report at narcap.org), and Stephen Greer's "Disclosure Project," an effort that has been incompetently managed by Greer, and undermined by his own actions and writings.

As for the "Zombie Apocalypse" bit, all I can say is BRRAAAINNNS!
[see: http://tinyurl.com/2jdjrp
for further clarification]

Anonymous said...

The UFO article was well done, too bad Joiner got rail-roaded. She's not the first and she won't certainly be the last.

And please pass the BRRAAAINNS mr. intense!

Mac said...

Mr. Intense--

I also noticed the writer's "Disclosure" detour. This seems to be a fairly common pitfall for journalists covering the UFO beat.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it just amazes me sometimes how shallow and slipshod much journalism has become over time, particularly when it comes to the subject of ufos. Whatever happened to adequate fact-checking?

Mac said...

It's frankly pretty amazing that anyone could fall for Greer's antics, but I've seen otherwise intelligent journalists fall for them before. I suppose it's to Greer's credit.