Ten eerste: Achterbanksessies. Hier droppen hiphop artiesten die zullen optreden op events georganiseerd door het Hof van Jaeden een harde exclusive. De eerste is niet de minste: Fresku (en Kareemineel). Op 4 december treedt hij, DJ Nelson en J.A.E. zelf op bij Rof! van Jaeden in de EKKO.

Die gekke Pool, Mr. Polska, fixte een harde clip voor de track Kapoole Mashien (download). De zuipschuiten van Opslaan Als hebben het Oostblok goed weten vast te leggen. Een goedkope auto, 3 filmdagen, 4 flessen wodka en een Poolse prostituee.

Ook Dio maakte gebruik van de diensten van Opslaan Als, wat resulteerde in de clip van het nummer Cool. De videoclip is geschoten in de vorm van een korte film. Het eerste deel verscheen deze week, het tweede deel is een clip voor de remix, die kan je alvast kan beluisteren op de Top Notch Extravaganza Vol. 4 Mixtape (download!). Weet je hoe het afloopt? Ik heb wel een ideetje.

Trouwens, Postman kan er nog steeds wel wat van. Check z’n nieuwe clip: The Way.

20 Nov 2009 A Detroit father has been accused of murdering his son after the 15-year-old boy confessed to sexually abusing his 3-year-old half-sister.

Jamar Pinkney, 37, has been accused of forcing his son, who shares his name, to kneel naked in a vacant lot before shooting the boy with a single bullet in his head on Monday.

Lazette Cherry, the boy’s mother, told the Detroit Free Press that Mr Pinkney had rushed to her home in Highland Park, Michigan, after she told him that their son had confessed to having “inappropriate contact” with his young sister at his father’s home in east Detroit.

She said when her former partner arrived at her house on Monday, he was wielding a gun.

“I called and told his father this isn’t something you sweep under the rug,” Miss Cherry told the newspaper.

Mr Pinkney then allegedly marched his son outside, forced him to strip and kneel down. Miss Cherry told how her son begged, “No, Daddy! No!” before his father shot him.

Mr Pinkney, a postman, later turned himself in to authorities.

He has been charged with first degree murder and faces life in prison if convicted.

His lawyer, Corbett O’Meara, called the incident a “devastating tragedy”.

“My client is in shock and in mourning, but is hopeful that his family will be able to come out of this in as whole a state as possible,” said Mr O’Meara.

10 Nov 2009 Caroline Cartwright, 48, claims that she is unable to stop the loud shouting and screaming she makes during lovemaking with her husband Steve.

After neighbours, the local postman and a woman taking her child to school complained about the noise, the Cartwrights were given a noise abatement notice.

However, when Mrs Cartwright was convicted of breaching the notice, magistrates made her subject of an anti-social behaviour order as well.

She appealed against her conviction for breaching the noise abatement notice and the making of the Asbo, which bans the couple from ‘’shouting, screaming or vocalisation at such a level as to be a statutory nuisance”.

Jobless Mrs Cartwright used Article 8 of the Human Rights Act to argue she had a right to ”respect for her private and family life”.

She also claimed that she could not help making the loud noise during sex with her husband.

The hearing at Newcastle Crown Court heard that the Cartwrights’ nightly sex sessions at their home in Hall Road, Concord, Washington, Tyne and Wear, were making their neighbours lives’ hell.

Their lovemaking was described as ”murder” and ”unnatural” and drowned out their neighbours’ televisions.

Neighbours said the Cartwrights’ sex sessions would usually start around midnight and last for two or three hours, every night of the week, the court heard.

Specialist equipment installed in a neighbour’s flat by Sunderland City Council recorded noise levels of between 30 to 40 decibels, with the highest being 47 decibels.

Giving evidence, Mrs Cartwright said she was unable to control the noise she made during sex.

”I did not understand why people asked me to be quiet because to me it is normal. I didn’t understand where they were coming from,” she said.

”I have tried to minimise the situation by having sex in the morning – not at night – so the noise was not waking anybody.

”I may be sympathetic to it but it is not something I am doing on purpose.”

On Tuesday, a judge at Newcastle Crown Court upheld the original conviction and ordered that the Asbo should stay.

Recorder Jeremy Freedman, sitting with two magistrates, rejected Mrs Cartwright’s claim that she could not help making the loud noise during sex and that her human rights were breached.

”We are in no doubt whatsoever about the level of noise that can be heard in neighbouring properties, in the street and in the back lane,” he said.

”It certainly was intrusive and constituted a statutory nuisance. It was clearly of a very disturbing nature and it was also compounded by the duration – this was not a one-off, it went on for hours at a time.

”It is further compounded by the frequency of the episode, virtually every night.”

Mr Freedman went on: ”We are satisfied for whatever reason, to enjoy the sexual experience or attention seeking, we are satisfied it was not involuntary.

”Even if we were persuaded that this was involuntary we would not find that the making of the abatement notice or the breach of that in some way infringed the appellant’s rights under the Human Rights Act.”

He added: ”We do not find there is any infringement of her human rights in any shape or form.”

The judge ordered that the punishment imposed by Sunderland magistrates for breaching the noise abatement notice – a fine of £200, costs of £300, a £15 surcharge and the Asbo – should remain.

He also ordered that Mrs Cartwright, who is now living in a bail hostel in Sunderland, should pay £200 costs towards the appeal hearing.

After the conclusion of the appeal, a plea and case management hearing was held where Mrs Cartwright denied three charges of breaching the sex Asbo.

A trial date was set in December and she was released on bail.

It's our new policy!

Imagine the surprise when a woman from Iowa came home to discover a drunk postal carrier (aka postman) rolling around on her kitchen floor chowing down on a bowl of  leftover noodles he had found in her fridge. Now that is service! No word on how long those noodles had been in the fridge!

Psst Hope she returned to sender!

What a long time it’s been since I did any blogging! The wonder of Postcrossing has inspired me to start yet another and I thought I could have one knocked out in seconds, although it’s taken more like half an hour to find a free email address. I’m still kind of a newbie but don’t h8 on me! I have received six cards I love very much, though I think I’ve sent about twelve – but some have never got there. I love everything about it: the stamps, the stuff people write…plus it gives the postman something to read on his round. At some point I hope to scan in all my cards but being a lazy sort, don’t hold out much hope.
Allons y!

I am loving the new Postman Pat advert for Spec-savers. If you haven’t seen it yet .. here it is….

There is also a fascinating making of too …..

I grew up on Postman Pat. It was one of my first introductions to animation as a child and what probably got me hooked on doing it myself. So was delighted to see this advert and am very envious of the people who got to work on it.

Everyone has their ‘day’ in Mexico. Not just Mums and Dads. Teachers have their day too, although I’m lucky to get anything more than a slice of cake! Not that I’m complaining. I do like a bit of chocolate cake. November 12th is the special day for postmen and postwomen. I know this because of the bit of paper that got pushed under my door today.

Actually, it’s not simply a piece of paper. It’s an envelope. From Veronica, who is apparently our postwoman. She’s hoping for a little propina. In England we call that a ‘tip’. Egyptians say ‘baksheesh’. Scots say ‘not bloody likely ya wee rascal!’ I say, sure. Why not. All the postcards that I’ve been sending around the world made it to their final destination. And no mail we’ve been expecting has gone missing this year. I think. To top it all off, the Mexican postal service rebranded itself this year with a new pink, white and green livery which has brightened up their offices and motorcycles no end. I can part with 20 pesos, for dear Veronica.

Und was hat das überhaupt mit Neuen Medien zu tun?

So wie uns heute die Referatsgruppe zum “Verschwinden der Kindheit” deutlich gemacht hat, vieles! Als Basis der Gruppe fungierte Neil Postmans gleichnamiges Buch, welches 1982 veröffentlich wurde und täglich aktueller wird.

Postman weist darauf hin, dass die Konstruktion der Kindheit als besonderer Schutzraum eines jungen Menschen eine sehr junge Entwicklung ist. Erst der Buchdruck und die damit entstehende abgetrennte Informationswelt der Erwachsenen (besser ausgedrückt: die Informationswelt derjenigen, die die Kompetenz des Lesen entwickelt haben oder eben einen Vorleser haben) ermöglicht eine Unterscheidung. Das geschriebene Wort, welches nicht ohne weiteres dekodiert werden kann, transportiert zum Beispiel Geheimnisse der Erwachsenenwelt. Also Sachen, die häufig nicht in der Lebenswelt von Kindern ausgeprägt existent sind, wie Sexualität, Verbrechen, Gewalt, Drogenkonsum, Missbrauch….
Die Beschaffenheit des Medium Buchs also, hat zur eine klare Hierachisierung der Rollenverhältnisse zur Folge. Dort das noch ungebildete Kind, da der bereits wissende und anleitende Erwachsene.
Den Bruch sieht Postman nun beim Aufkommen des Mediums Fernsehen mitsamt seiner rasenden Ausbreitung. Und was ist der Unterschied?!

Die Einstieghürde, die Voraussetzungen und Kompetenzen, die der Nutzer mitbringen muss, um am Informationsflusses des Mediums teilhaben zu Können. Lesen lernt man, Fernseh schauen auch?

Weniger, die Fixierung aus das Bild wandelt die Kanäle und somit die Inhalte die auf die Massen einströmen massiv. Arg verknappt, im Medium TV werden bildlich auch die Geheimnisse der Erwachsenenwelt ausposaunt (diese Sendung mühte sich sogar alle auf einmal unter einen Hut zu bringen:

und das auch ohne wirkliche Zugangsbeschränkung. (Bild gemopst bei http://proper-ganda.de/ )
Gut, auch 6-jährige Wissen also nun über das Übel und das geheime Schöne in der Welt bescheid. Ein Frage für die Entwicklungspsychologen und Neurologen wäre in wie weit die menschliche Wahrnehmung und Seele fähig ist, dies alles zu verarbeiten, hat der Mensch von seinem inneren Bauplan her eine Schutzphase Kindheit nötig?
Oder täuscht der Eindruck nicht, dass solche pädagogisch hochbedeutende Institutionen wie der Kindheit schlicht der Entwicklung von Medientypen geschuldet sind?

Um den Kreis rund zu machen und auf die Einstiegsfrage einzugehen:
Treibt es das Internet nun mit dem Offenlegen von Geheimnissen auf die Spitze? Definitiv, auch wenn man im TV Gewalt und Sex kaum ausweichen kann, sind die Möglichkeiten des Netzes noch umfangreicher. Unabhängig von Raum und Zeit stehen quasi Inhalte jeder Art jedem zur Verfügung.

Ein weiterer Aspekt, der nicht nur vom Medium Internet bewegt wird, ist das Rollenverhältnis Kind – Erwachsener. Wo ganz früher das Kind aus Mangel an entschlüsselbaren Informationsquellen auf das Leiten von Erwachsenen angewiesen war, treten heute quasi Selbstlernmedien in Konkurrenz mit den Erwachsenen. Und um im Bild zu bleiben, mit einer grandiosen Selbstlernkompetenz erwecken viele Jugendliche den Anschein, als wüssten Sie mehr über die Welt als Erwachsene. Oder zumindest über das, was Sie interessiert.

Die Medienfülle macht den Erwachsenen überflüssig? Sicher nicht, nur die Aufgaben und Rollen wandeln sich fundamental. Auch wenn man als Einzelkämpfer seinem Kind einen Lehrplan der Welt erstellt und sich bestmöglichst an den Aneignungsprozessen, auch und gerade derjenigen, die über Medien stattfinden beteiligt, muss klar sein, dass man nicht das einzige Portal zu den Inhalten der Erwachsenenwelt ist. Handy und Internet mit Mails, IMs und sozialen Netzwerken ermöglichen eine Vernetzung von Kindern/ Heranwachsender untereinander, wie sie für viele Ältere schwer vorstellbar ist.

Es ist schwer, ein klares Ende des Konstrukts Kindheit auszurufen, die Indizien sprechen für einen Prozess, dessen weitere Auswirkungen spekulativ sind. Klar sollte jedoch sein, dass dieser Prozess nicht reversibel ist, allerdings von uns ein Stück weit beeinflusst wird. Über all dem schwebt die Erkenntnis, das die Entwicklung der Medientechnologie durch Ihre eigene Logik und Möglichkeiten massiv Triebfeder für gesellschaftliche Entwicklungen aller Art und deshalb genauster Betrachtung würdig ist.

Aus diesem angeschnittenen Thema lassen sich vielfältig Diskussionen entfachen, welches von der Referatsgruppe auch souverän gemacht wurde.
Interessant war es, 3 doch sehr unterschiedliche Stile im Zusammenspiel des gesprochenen Wortes und PowerPoint als Leitmedium zu beobachten.

Bevor es nächste Woche mit dem nächsten spannenden Referat zum Thema “serious gaming” weitergeht, wird es erstmal eine Feedbackrunde geben.

Fragen?, Kommentare?, Beschimpfungen?

They were slumped despondently on the sofa as if they were in mourning.

Postman's Park, King Edward Street, City of London, EC1

Their grim faces were unable to summon a conversation as they sat silently in the dark and they seemed lifeless as she squinted at them.

Postman's Park, King Edward Street, City of London, EC1

What a tragedy, she thought.

By Michael MacLeod

A MAN has been cleared of attacking his neighbour with a chainsaw after the victim confessed it was an accident.

Acquitted: James Weir walks free from court

James Weir, 42, was said to have started up a chainsaw and sliced open ex-postman Alan Flockhart’s arm.

But assault charges against him were dropped during the first day of a trial today (Mon) when Flockhart, 37, admitted he lied to police to try and protect his neighbour from being arrested.

Instead, detectives saw through Flockhart’s lies and charged him with wasting police time.

Mr Weir always denied the three charges of assault, brandishing a chainsaw and lying to police.

Flockhart told Edinburgh Sheriff Court of how the pair had drank “a whole bottle of Sambuca each” before going back to his Edinburgh flat on August 30 last year.

He said: “We went back to mine and were very drunk.

“I was leaning on a cupboard in the kitchen when the chainsaw started up and he came towards me.

“I tried to pull my arm out the way. It caught my tracksuit top and I got a big cut on my arm.”

“Pack of lies”

Mr Flockhart showed jury members what he said was a scar on his right arm, running from his elbow to his wrist.

But he later confessed in court that the attack was actually an accident, and that he “panicked” and made up “a pack of lies” to try and keep his neighbour out of trouble.

Instead, both were charged seven weeks later – Mr Weir with assault and Flockhart with wasting police time.

Alan Flockhart: "I told a pack of lies"

Flockhart said: “I told police a pack of lies because I was fearful of the situation.

“Mr Weir was my friend and I didn’t want anybody to get into trouble over this.

“I wasn’t thinking straight and I panicked. I had had a whole bottle of sambuca that day.

“I told police some white men had attacked me outside my front door.”

But cops were immediately suspicious that there was no blood at the door; it was only found inside his flat, in the city’s Dumbryden Gardens.

Flockhart added: “Mr Weir was upset at what happened.

“We discussed that we weren’t going to tell the straight story, that it wasn’t an accident.

“We agreed to say I was attacked at my front door by some men.”

Court heard a recording of a police interview in which he gave cops a story about three men hacking at his arm with a chainsaw.

Compensation

He even told them: “Honest, I’m not making it up.”

Mr Weir’s defence agent Paul Dunn quizzed Flockhart over why he had lied that a gang had attacked him.

Mr Dunn suggested that Flockhart cut himself with the chainsaw to seek compensation cash.

But Flockhart said: “I have seen adverts on the television about compensation but never in a million years did I cut myself with a chainsaw.

“I accept that it was an accident.

“It’s not a very nice thing getting a chainsaw through your arm.

“But I wanted to divert the attention and protect my friend, James Weir. I don’t know what could have followed.”

On hearing Flockhart’s admissions, fiscal depute Melanie Ward told Sheriff James Scott: “I am not seeking any further evidence.”

The Sheriff told Mr Weir: “You are acquitted and free to go.”

See more of our pictures at our Flickr site and videos at our dedicated channel,  Deadline TV.

Yes, it is true. I have been denying my inner Boot Goddess for far too long! So, a few days ago I went searching online for a new pair of walking boots. It’s not that I need any, I just like them and have quite a few pairs so that I can choose which I wear, when I wear them.

I decided to have a look on eBay and found a fabulous pair, which I bought. My inner Boot Goddess is now feeling happy and at peace with the world, which is just how we like her *grin*

I intend to spend most of the day writing. I have to catch up on my word count as I fell short by 1,000 words last night, but I just had ‘one of those days’ whereas my creativity was on a major go-slow. If I try to write when I am in that mood, it’s all just crap, which is no good at all. I’m pretty sure that those NaNoWrimo writers who have pushed out 7,000 words by day two are not serious writers and are not actually writing a book they intend for publication. Not possible to write that fast and have it make any sense or be of any type of quality. I don’t see the point in scribbling out 50,000 words of crap in a week, and then that is it. No point at all.

My cat is asleep at my side, bored already with the amount of my time this is taking up. I did fit in a quick brushing session a short while ago and that has settled his demanding personality for a short while. As long as he is asleep at my side, I have peace lol

It’s raining outside, another miserable day. We have had so much rain this past few days, several parts of Scotland have suffered severe floods. I feel sorry for those that have had to evacuate their homes due to natures cruelty at times. Mother Nature is a powerful beast and rarely can man fight a war with her and win.

I’m hoping the postman brings more of the parcels I am waiting for. Some are so far overdue it’s becoming worrying. Are they lost? are they stolen? where the hell are my parcels?

We shall see if he turns up with any later I guess.

Off to check out my FaceBook to see whats happening. Not a lot I imagine lol

Dear Readers,

Who found this blog by searching for “HOW TO SEDUCE A POSTMAN?”

That is wonderful. I am sorry I can’t help you. But you seem interesting and I hope you stick around to read about other things.

Hope you (and all the rest of you) are having a lovely Sunday. I am sitting in the sun doing homework. Not seducing postmen. But good luck…

Love,

MM

Hello folks yes i got my clothes today woot woot and the quality of them was pristine (i even got a complimentart packet of jlist tissues which is great considering the swine is lurking everywhere these days). The postman however was a bit aloof and seemed out of place. I saw him walking through my yard so i opened the door and greeted him. he looked confused and he held a parcel (my clothes) which were addressed to me and he asked me;

“is this wellington road?” , didnt ask me for the number just the street because obviously there are only one house per street nowadays… any way i replied “yes it is” and the postman still looked confused. Normally postmen would have a bag with letters and look busy but he did not. It was about 4.20 and he must have been searching for ages for my house.

I felt the poor young (20’s) postman who had gotten lost or whatever deserved to get home (if he knew the way back),  so i said “thats me” which now that i think back on must have sounded retarded as he didnt ask my name then he gave me the parcel and left without saying a word. He was quite a strange fellow.

Dear Anniversary,

Yes, folks. Yes. It is Dear Mr. Postman’s and my anniversary. This is a special, special day.

I began Dear Mr. Postman exactly one year ago (hence the anniversary). We’ve come a lot way since then…

I started with a letter to Bill Clinton. I had to break the news to him gently that I was leaving him for his wife Hillary. Since then I’ve written letters to large groups of people, to inanimate objects (Dear Vegan Doughnuts is a personal favorite), to objects I wish were inanimate, to animals (varmint) and books and bands and songs and political offices and fruits…

We’ve covered some important issues here, people. And some really, really, really, reaaaaaaally unimportant ones. We’ve ranted and raved and applauded and bemoaned.

A run-down of the most-clicked-on-letters of all time, so far, as of today, so not so much all time:

1. Dear Half-Shaved (Female) Heads (who knew so many people were interested?)

2. Dear New Friend

3. Dear Body

4. Dear Facebook Status Updates

5. Dear Taylor Swift

6. Dear Friends Who Stop Calling Friends Back

7. Dear Religion, Bill Maher, and My Mother

8. Dear Pantsuits and Politics, Dear Living Alone, Dear Woody Allen Movies

9. Dear Leftovers

10. Dear People Who Think Sex and Love Are Unrelated, Dear People Who Hate People Who Read Trashy Magazines

Whew. Y’all better click on some of those, because I hate hyperlinking.

But what we would really like (me and the Dear Mr. Postman) (yes, the blog has feelings, duh) is….COMMENTS! FEEDBACK! Aka interaction. You know, you get to a year, and you’ve been together through thick and thin, and then one night you’re sitting in front of the TV together, not saying anything, and one of you is like, “Pass the chips” and the other one passes the chips and then all of sudden you realize that is the only thing that has been said for the last seven hours?!? Pass the chips?

Chips are awesome, don’t get me wrong.

So if you love a letter, let me know. If you laughed out loud, please please let me know. If you love vegan doughnuts, you ought to try a real one and live a little. Lying to yourself isn’t going to help anybody.

Anyway, I hope you have enjoyed the past year as much as I have. I hope there are more to come. Thank you for reading.

And thank you, Dear Mr. Postman, for being such a wonderful listener.

Love,

MM

by Andrew Donaldson and Suhayl Afzal

Edinburgh postmen are today divided in their support of the nationwide strike as it reaches its midway point.

The strike is causing major disruption across the city, with fears of further strike action next week.

Almost 80,000 delivery and collection workers have walked out after yesterday’s action by mail-centre staff.

More strikes at Royal Mail are scheduled for next week, starting on Thursday.

Speaking to Edinburgh Napier News, local postman Douglas Hume said: ” While I don’t agree with it myself, there’s a lot of support for the strike.

“The workload for delivery staff in much greater than it was fifteen years ago.

“Working conditions are not great.”

However, Tom Rakowski, another Edinburgh postman said: “In my department the majority of people didn’t want to strike as they feel the same as I do.

“The strike means those of us not taking part in it have a lot more work to do and we feel burdened.”

According to a Royal Mail spokesperson, the UK-wide strikes have delayed about 30 million letters, which is 40% of an average day’s post.

While opinions on the validity of the strike may differ between departments, there are mutual fears on both sides.

On the issue of pay, Mr Hume added: “At the moment it’s not affecting me financially but if the strike continues or escalates then it could do.”

Meanwhile, Mr Rakowski said: “I have to stay off on the strike days or face picket lines and abuse.

“So even though I don’t agree with the strike, it’s causing me to lose out on work and pay.”

Both men also have fears for the future of the company and with it, their jobs.

Mr Rakowski expressed his concern at the possibility that the Royal Mail could eventually be sold off, with the probability that his own job would be one of the first to go.

Mr Hume said:”I’m very concerned about the future of Royal Mail, especially if it was to become privatised.

“I feel this would allow competitors to take slices of the more profitable parts of the business.

“In ten years time, I don’t think Royal Mail will exist in the way it does at the moment.”

There’s a lot of fuss about postal strikes at the moment – mainly being made by right-wing newspapers and right-wing politicians (as well as  unelected officials – I’m looking at you, Mandelson!)

If these folks who are saying that the Royal Mail is in trouble and that it needs privatising – and quick! – then you can be fairly certain that some of their friends could make a profit from Royal Mail being privatised – and quick!

But did we hear anything of the backstory behind the “troubles” Royal Mail is having?

No.  No, we didn’t.

Which is why I highly recommend looking at this site written by a postman about delivering post.

By law the Royal Mail has to let private companies bid for parts of the delivery business, and of course the private companies only bid for the profitable parts of the business, leaving the poor Royal Mail with all the other parts – the parts that don’t make a profit.

Hence the Royal Mail not doing quite as well as it used to while the private sector delivery companies can proudly point at their balance sheets and show us how incredibly efficient and streamlined and profitable they are.

And because these brave free marketeers are doing so much better than the lumbering old public sector there’s then a circular argument for the privatisation of the Royal Mail.

As if that weren’t bad enough, the private companies have actually come out and said that they couldn’t possibly replace the Royal Mail, that they couldn’t possibly compete on that scale!  Hell, if you read the article you’ll see that Royal Mail ends up doing the difficult parts of their job for them!  So much for the wonders of free enterprise – the Royal Mail is being deliberately set up to fail!

So the next time Peter Mandelson or Rupert Murdoch are on the news suggesting that the dynamic and thrusting private sector needs to replace the tired old public sector try and remember that the private mail delivery companies are effectively parasites upon the Royal Mail.

A classic shoe for the classic man. Danner Shoes presents classic derby style shoes in the postman tradition. The shoes come in either brown or black.

More pics after the jump….

Real Time: 3.20 pm. Location: Bed.

This is officially my last Wednesday as a 21-year-old. This time next week I’ll be 22. Older, almost certainly no wiser, but maybe a little bit more fabulous.

Today I decided to do what I should have done on the disaster that was yesterday, and stay in bed all day. Unfortunately, the postman put a slip through my door saying they’d sent a packet for me back to the delivery office. Unsure about whether or not the impending strikes would hamper my ability to collect said item on another day, I decided to give up on my idea of spending all day in bed, and go and get it just in case it was something exciting and birthday related. Of course, it was only my contact lenses, but never mind. I returned home, did the washing up and have now crept back to my boudoir to mope, watch dvds, read, and generally mourn the loss of my happiness.

I had a strange, but very vivid dream last night. I was hanging out of my window and he was standing on my garden wall, and we were reaching out to each other. Funny thing is, this wasn’t actually a dream. There, at 2 o’clock in the morning, was the love who has shattered my heart, standing on my garden wall and asking for me to let him in. It is very hard to hate someone you love so much when you’re hanging out of your window like Rapunzel, or Juliet, and he’s right there.

We talked. Nothing in our situation has changed, though. So when I relayed the incident to Heather this morning and she asked, “So what’s happening now?”, my answer had to be that nothing happens now. He’s still ridiculously messed up and I’m still trying to get over him.

Life really can take you by surprise sometimes. Now I’d better go, I have a day of moping to get back to.

So the strike by Royal Mail workers is going to start at 4am on Thursday. Here we go again.

I have a lot of sympathy for the postmen and women who trudge the streets every morning. They work hard and they do a good job in challenging times. Their management seem to shift the goalposts regularly and engage in constant efficiency drives. I don’t know of many British people who would say that the post service has got better in the past decade, and it’s really the management that are to blame for that.

But times are changing. Almost all the mail being delivered is from one business to another, or from a business to a consumer. That’s really changing fast now, in fact so fast that there is no longer a correlation between the economic cycle and the amount of mail being sent – that always used to be an indicator of economic recovery.

And the government hasn’t gone for complete support of the postal workers or a complete privatisation either. So it would seem like the management and the government might actually like to see the postal workers out on strike, because it gives them both the right to take emergency action, whatever that may be…

All I know is that I went to the Post Office today and tried mailing three First Class packages. The clerk at the counter advised me that it could take at least two weeks for my packages to arrive ‘because of the strikes, we are all backlogged’. I asked her how a next-day delivery service can change to be a two-week service and all she could offer was ‘it’s the strikes’.

Even the workers are completely clueless when it comes to trying to earn some public sympathy for their cause.

I wonder if anyone who reads my blog has any idea who Neil Postman was?

He was what I, and wikipedia, will call a cultural critic.  His most well-known book is Amusing Ourselves to Death, the thesis of which is that the ignorance and destruction of the future will not come in the way Orwell prophesied in Nineteen Eighty-Four, but the way Huxley prophesied in Brave New World.  That is to say, the downfall of intelligence is not in the form of oppression or governmental control, but in the form of a change in media to one that is enjoyed and desired, but consequently requires no thought.  In other words, our entertainment is making us stupid.

Also in Amusing Ourselves to Death Postman describes what he calls the age of show business.  He says that in this age, entertainment has become the greatest virtue of all, and the things that go with it must be accepted, whether good or bad, merely because they are necessary.  (e.g. Choosing the attractive news anchor over the articulate one.)  He explains how the terse nature of visual media, particularly television news, has the effect of removing the importance from every issue.  He even discusses how TV-izaition has resulted within other media forms.  The result is magazines with virtually no articles and newspapers with extremely short stories.  Postman claims this has destroyed news. Keep in mind that he wrote this book in 1985, long before the internet

He also cowrote a book with Steve Powers called How to Watch TV News.  I will give you the takeaways from the book more or less, straight from chapter one.  1.)TV is an unsleeping money machine. 2.) Management, not journalists, make news decisions based on business considerations. 3.) Decisions of what is newsworthy are based on what keeps viewers watching so that they will see commercials.

Tomorrow.  Why Jon Stewart is the modern Neil Postman

The best thing, to me, about new media literacy in the classroom, is all the pictures and graphs and tables (oh, my!) that students can incorporate into what used to be a boring gig. Teaching used to be so black and white. Now it has color. Thank you, Microsoft Word.

But, according to postman and Selber, new media literacy is not about simply “dressing up” the old way of doing things with fancy color schemes and fonts; it is about incorporating technology in the classroom that will provide students with the ability to function well in a new and changing technologically driven world. It is about teaching children to learn withthe use of technology, not just because of it.

Selber warns that the modern educational atmosphere is struggling to find use for the technology it is so eager to incorporate. Schools are buying computer labs, but not hiring, or promoting teachers with the know how to make sensible use of them. As a result, children are learning how to change case, or add flare to their reports; but they are not learning how and why technology is impacting the world around them, or what the implications of these impacts on the future of America, and the world at large, will be.

As Postman says, we’d be better off “…making certain children have enough to eat, and warm clothes to wear” (Selber, 5).

He’s right, because if American education cannot foresee the technology driven future well enough to prepare its students for the modern world, it should begin preparing them for the welfare office now; or at least teach them hunting skills, so they can eat deer when the American economy falls and we are all reduced to gathering berries for sustenance.

Postman is absolutely correct when he says that technology education is a branch of the humanities (Selber, 1). Students have to consider not only the applications of technology to their lives, but the implications as well.

It is not enough to show students how to use computers and technology, we must aid them in discovering why they need to use them. If modern education cannot implement the debate about the future consequences and contributions of technology, it is leaving students with the hammer, but giving them no nails to strike; let alone the wood in which to strike them into.

Amusing Ourselves To Death Study Questions:

Chapter One:

What does Postman say about the transformation of public discourse?

Postman says his argument “fixes its attention on the forms of human conversation”; what is his argument?

How are our forms of media like metaphors?

Chapter Two:

What is epistemology?

What does Postman say about the concept of truth?

What is “the general character of print intelligence”?

What does Postman think of the epistemology created by television?

Chapter Three:

How widespread was reading in Typographic America? Were lecture halls prevalent?

Was the printed word abundant and did print enjoy a monopoly in terms of public discourse?

Chapter Four:

What do certain aspects of the Lincoln-Douglas debates tell us about the audiences who attended them?

What does Postman mean when he writes that “the resonance of typography was ever-present” during the debates?

How is reading an essentially rational activity?

What is nature of public discourse in a print based culture?

How was advertising “an essentially serious and rational enterprise” until the 1890’s? What changed in the 1890’s?

What was the Age of Exposition? How does Postman define “exposition”?

Chapter Five:

What does Postman mean by “context-free information”?

The telegraph turned information into what?

What does Postman mean by “telegraphy made relevance irrelevant”?

Is Postman’s view of “inert” news useful?

What are the characteristics of telegraphic discourse?

How does language depend on context? Does an image depend on context?

What and when was the “graphic revolution”?

What is “pseudo-context”?

How does television perfect “the epistemological biases of the telegraph and the photograph”?

How is television a “meta-medium”? How is it “myth”?

Television, according to Postman, has transformed our culture into what sort of an arena?

Chapter Six:

What is the nature of television in terms of entertainment?

What does Postman say about how television “stages the world”?

Chapter Seven:

What is the nature of the “Now…this” world view?

How does Postman define “credibility”?

What is Postman’s definition of “disinformation”?

What did Walter Lippmann write in 1920 about liberty, community and lies?

How did Huxley grasp the relationship between institutional control and mass indifference?

What is the “’ricochet’ effect” of “television-oriented print media”?

Chapter Eight:

What’s wrong with televised religion?

Chapter Nine:

Are television commercials about the character of products or the character of consumers of products?

What are the “lessons” of television commercials?

How is a book “all history”?

Why are epistemological “continuity and context” important in a healthy democracy?

Chapter Ten:

According to Postman, what does “Sesame Street” teach children to love?

What are the three commandments of educational television?

Chapter Eleven:

“Who is prepared to take arms against a sea of amusements?”

Is technology neutral?

Is the problem what we watch or that we watch?

“What the is the kind of information that best facilitates thinking?”

What does Postman say about computers?

How do we achieve “media consciousness”? Where is the best place to address the need for such awareness?

Postman
What culture is he talking about? Is he talking about academic culture or cultures in general? Languages are alive and growing as we speak. The definition of a living language is that it is evolving constantly; unless you are French; despite the best efforts of those cultures who try to control Language the culture surrounding the effort always kick the crap out of regulation. In Postman’s “First Idea” “Idea Number One is that culture always pays a price for technology”. Is it possible to become an academic Computer communicator forever? With technology flying so fast and firm, are we going to be able to alter the way students express themselves? Are we hanging on to written formal English the way of the past? Do we have a responsibility as academics to move forward with the changing times or should we look to the past,”The good old days,” that were never really as good as the ones long for it. Mass Media is responsible for partially constructing my view of reality. To what extent is this positive or negative? A major concern of the presence of Media in the lives of students is that there is not an equal playing field in the world of education. Many believe that to implement knowledge, we must present knew information in a form with which students are more familiar. The work has to bare some relevance to their daily lives. Students want to be involved and interested in what is being presented. Facilitation is the way to integrate teaching about technology. Teaching about technology is the way to go because teaching with technology is still leaving the students out in the cold.
Postman
What culture is he talking about? Is he talking about academic culture or cultures in general? Languages are alive and growing as we speak. The definition of a living language is that it is evolving constantly; unless you are French; despite the best efforts of those cultures who try to control Language the culture surrounding the effort always kick the crap out of regulation. In Postman’s “First Idea” “Idea Number One is that culture always pays a price for technology”. Is it possible to become an academic Computer communicator forever? With technology flying so fast and firm, are we going to be able to alter the way students express themselves? Are we hanging on to written formal English the way of the past? Do we have a responsibility as academics to move forward with the changing times or should we look to the past,”The good old days,” that were never really as good as the ones long for it. Mass Media is responsible for partially constructing my view of reality. To what extent is this positive or negative? A major concern of the presence of Media in the lives of students is that there is not an equal playing field in the world of education. Many believe that to implement knowledge, we must present knew information in a form with which students are more familiar. The work has to bare some relevance to their daily lives. Students want to be involved and interested in what is being presented. Facilitation is the way to integrate teaching about technology. Teaching about technology is the way to go because teaching with technology is still leaving the students out in the cold.
Postman
What culture is he talking about? Is he talking about academic culture or cultures in general? Languages are alive and growing as we speak. The definition of a living language is that it is evolving constantly; unless you are French; despite the best efforts of those cultures who try to control Language the culture surrounding the effort always kick the crap out of regulation. In Postman’s “First Idea” “Idea Number One is that culture always pays a price for technology”. Is it possible to become an academic Computer communicator forever? With technology flying so fast and firm, are we going to be able to alter the way students express themselves? Are we hanging on to written formal English the way of the past? Do we have a responsibility as academics to move forward with the changing times or should we look to the past,”The good old days,” that were never really as good as the ones long for it. Mass Media is responsible for partially constructing my view of reality. To what extent is this positive or negative? A major concern of the presence of Media in the lives of students is that there is not an equal playing field in the world of education. Many believe that to implement knowledge, we must present knew information in a form with which students are more familiar. The work has to bare some relevance to their daily lives. Students want to be involved and interested in what is being presented. Facilitation is the way to integrate teaching about technology. Teaching about technology is the way to go because teaching with technology is still leaving the students out in the cold.

Royal Pain in the Arse, more like.

Yesterday, our post came at 2pm.

I ran to the door, because two days ago I had noticed they had delivered mail for another house altogether, and I wanted to ask the postman what he was doing. (Politely. I am always polite, however angry.)

But first, I inspected the letters that had just dropped.

One for me, one for 61 Tunis Road (lucky me!) and one for 61 Stanlanke Road.

“What, AGAIN?!”, thought I.

I immediately dropped the mail, opened the front door expecting to see the postman a couple of steps away. I was ready to lose a little bit of patience, actually.

Even if it was the fault of the sorting office who had put things in the wrong piles, and even if it was the end of my shift, I would still not do something like that. I would look at the post, and think “I should take this to where it should go, one road down”. I would then sacrifice 10 extra minutes of my life to explain to my manager that this has happened too many times now, and it’s not acceptable.

Alas, the postie was half way down the road in a red van by the time I looked out on the street. How on Earth he must have returned to his van from my doorstep, started up, and driven half-way down the road in the space of about 8 seconds, I have no idea!

This is a special skill. An art, you might say. One that requires practice.

The plot thickens.

I walked around to 61 Tunis Road to politely offer them some important mail (return address was PO Box Northampton, does the reader know what this means? Yes, the letter had a credit-card shaped, er, card inside of it, no joke), and was greeted by a lady whose young boy asked if I was Matthew.

Good GOD. This sharp-eyed young boy had remembered seeing my address and name on some mail for me, delivered to them! And it was my online VAT registration details, including membership card. Great, so nothing too important then!

Do these people see “letter from HMRC REVENUE AND CUSTOMS” and think “sod it, I’ll deliver it elsewhere”?

Is it because I made a complaint about them shoving a “while you were out” notice through the letterbox two months ago without having even knocked on the door only to open the door immediately to ask what was going on and to find the postman didn’t even have the parcel he was claiming to try to deliver that day? Was it revenge for the formal complaint I had made about this terrible behaviour?

I visited my next location, where I was greeted by the grateful face of a lady whose HMRC REVENUE AND CUSTOMS letter (yes, another really important letter), or that of her husband, had been missing.

How desperate!

This country is a joke!

I am giving up and moving to Spain.

In Spain, people sit around in sunny piazzas, drinking espresso and talking about important things.

People look after others’ babies without the fear of being arrested or told off by officious social services workers.

Do people misbehave like this in Spain, where it’s hot?

Do people not take pride in their jobs here at all?

Do people have no souls? Not an ounce of goodness? Any sense of right?

Am I the only one who has a sense of basic human decency and duty? No, thankfully I am not. But it’s so hard finding others who also do!

Our road names are different! Our postcodes completely different! They are DIFFERENT ADDRESSES! Your job is to deliver an envelope to an address, not a random letterbox nearby because you are at the end of your shift, you lazy jobsworth-y heap of disrespectful human uselessness!

It’s one thing when we can’t trust others on the street to behave considerately towards others, but it’s another thing altogether when people do so AND take a pay packet for the privilege at the end of the month!

Member of the chattering classes that I am, I feel it’s my duty to apportion blame at this point.

Middle management. Not postmen. Middle management. For it is they who refuse to accept there is a huge problem with their workers. An enormous problem with quality of service. As long as they install customer care lines where they pay people to smile over the phone at you in order to form a convenient black hole for serious service complaints (every call ends with “thank you for your call, I will chat with the area manager and have this resolved as soon as possible“, which invariably masks a complete lack of understanding of the severity and spread of the endemic problems of worker attitude and area manager accountability), as long as they refuse to admit there are management structure problems and wipe out entire sections of the business to remedy the problem, this problem will continue to further plague the Royal Mail and cause its eventual demise.

Talk about an industry giving itself a black eye when it’s already got major health problems.

I only write because mail workers voted in favour of a strike today.

Good one. Imagine if everyone had a little bit of a strike. Postal workers, train workers, politicians, policemen and women, teachers, firemen. Anarchy, it would be anarchy. That’s why striking, in a society like we have today, is practically immoral; if you don’t like your job, or the sector you decided to go in to, why the hell are you staying in it? Sure, try to reform it, if you do care about your job or sector. But striking doesn’t have that effect, it has the effect of stirring up anger from the public and solving nothing between ‘robust’ negotiators for the industry and insolent negotiators for the unions.

God, it’s not like we are sending people down the mines any more, is it?

Striking: in our current societal status, it’s what lazy people who think they deserve more do. Here’s my message to you: everyone in the world thinks they deserve more. Apart from those who really don’t have anything, and they appreciate life in every way they can. Yes, workers think they deserve better treatment and pay, even politicians think they deserve better pay, even after The Scandal. I don’t want this to sound trite, but I have come to appreciate those around me who appreciate what they have got, I am one of these people myself.

Anyway, enough of the happy clappy, on with the vitriol.

Or perhaps it’s lawyers’ faults?

Lawyers have turned our society into a compensation society, like the USA. They didn’t mean to, their motives for campaigning for individuals to have greater power to challenge organisations were pure. After all, they were about power to the people. But actually it has backfired, and it means we are not able to simply get rid of rubbish workers, for fear of tribunals and court cases of unfair dismissal. The public sector, which doesn’t have the money to get serious heavyweight legal assistance in such cases, is the one that loses. Or rather, we, consumers of public services, are the ones who lose. The Lawyers didn’t think about that, they didn’t think about the long lasting effects of handing legal power to the individual.

Sounds good on paper, but actually leads to inefficient, ineffective organisations, ones that have to care more about workers’ rights than the job they are trying to get done. That surely cannot be right.

Sack it, I blame the Labour government. (NB I say this tongue-in-cheek.) Might as well. Spoon feed society, pay them for sitting around on their arses all day, and the wretched disease of indifference about life, the universe, and everything, will filter up into the working classes, god help us because it has probably permeated the middle and upper classes too, and soon enough 99.9% of the general public will be unable to make decisions for themselves and abuse their surroundings and take others for granted. This is the thin end of the wedge. The thick end is crime and intolerance.

Socialism. It may seem like a great idea to give handouts to those who need them the most, but it does nothing for society – all levels of society – in the medium to long term.

It simply means more people spit in the street, and dump their rubbish illegally, and behave in antisocial ways. And drop mess, and eat smelly food on the tube, and carry knives around. And drink and start fights, and can’t look each other in the eye.

That’s why I simply cannot bring myself to vote Labour, however much I don’t want the Tories to come to power.

Rant over.

I wish I were not in the impossible position of having to vote for a party I don’t really believe in, nor do I think will ever have enough power.

Can’t someone fill the political gap?

No, not you, UKIP, you single-minded waste of a manifesto.

A party I could take pride in, one that represents a political ideal I can connect with. One that is in favour of Europe, peace, technology, progress, social justice, reasonable taxes, fiscal conservatism. I wouldn’t mind paying higher tax if we could find one.

Am I a Tory? Please tell me no. I am not a Tory.