I did a quick google search to see if the domain was taking (it is) and who was using this brilliant phrase that I thought I came up with :p  I found a post on the rt:21 blog titled You Are What You Read that intrigued me.

It starts off with the question: “what are the ethical implications of using live animals in art?”

The post focuses on an artist in Nicaragua who supposedly tied a dog up and left it to starve… the “art” was watching the dog starve. Why?

According to hundreds of blogs and news articles circulating on the Internet, the artist intended for the dog to starve to death during the course of the exhibition. Vargas intended to raise awareness of the public’s hypocrisy by comparing what happened to this dog to a burglar named Natividad Canda Mayrena, who was mauled to death by two rottweilers in Costa Rica while the police and onlookers watched.

Interesting… and of course, beyond contraversial.

Apparently the dog didn’t starve… they fed it regularly.  This is where it gets really interesting.  The stories online, in news, etc. were all very critical and decried the outrage… without knowing or reporting the dog was not starving.

It seems the art was less about a dog and more about YOU and ME.

Exposición No 1 (the name of that work of art) is one component of a larger work of art called Eres lo que lees, which employs misinformation and manipulates mass media via the Internet.

I remember reading something from Chris Knudsen (I think) about Twitter, in the very early days… his concern was that something could get picked up and BELIEVED in a mob mentality manner, without any facts, basis, etc.  I tried to find it on his blog but I couldn’t… anyway, the point is, misinformation has the ability to manipulate what we think…. read on:

One of the aims of this project was to demonstrate the hypocrisy in real world and art world ethics. Take a dog off the streets and put it into a gallery and it becomes an ethical phenomenon, while stray dogs and most real human suffering are ignored or given minimal attention.

There are plenty of headlines TODAY that are getting front page news while real, bigger issues are getting minimal attention…  Read on:

This illustrates how easily we can be manipulated into believing what news outlets want us to. The title, “You Are What You Read,” illustrates this point very well. If one artist can manipulate over four million people around the world, imagine the ability that governments, corporations, and religious entities have to do the same.

That last sentence has stuck with me over the last week.  PR and marketing and information and misinformation… how powerful!  And many times, we’re just tools…. right?

You can read the original post that inspired this one right here.

here are the things to watch for:

1. I don’t know the “from” person, and “local schools” doesn’t make sense to me (but it might to a lot of students :s)
2. I went to laca.org and it wasn’t a real website… didn’t go anywhere.
3. online.com?  Too generic…
4. subject line has a period
5. I don’t have a mailbox with 23GB.  I Don’t have an account with them.
6. NEVER, EVER “click here” to validate a mailbox… or anything that you haven’t specifically requested.
7. Other poor grammar towards the end of the email

When you mouse over the “click here” link you see it will go to this URL:

A few red flags here, also:

1. the URL doesn’t match the sender (laca.org)…
2. the subdomain starts with scripts. … NOT GOOD.
3. 4goodhosting.com?  Seriously?
4. form1.html?  Very novice.

This has yellow and red flags all over it – but they’ve done a very good job. PLEASE don’t click on anything that looks like this.  Simply delete it (or, if you are on Gmail, report phishing, or report as spam).

Step 1

Open a notepad file and save it as an html file.  In Notepad you’ll want this code:

Step 2

Now, go to Windows Explorer and double click on the file – it should open in your browser, with a YouTube video embedded.

When you click on play, it will play to the end, then loop again and keep looping all day long.

I have about 7 videos on that page so I can put on different songs when one gets to be too much.

Step 3

To add a new video, just copy and paste the code above (from <p> to </p>) and change what is in bold to be the video code from the YouTube page (in yellow below).

You are telling the chunk of code above which video to show.

That’s it… I’m guessing I’ll update this post as people tell me what’s wrong with it, but it should work.

Not ALL videos work like this… some have protections placed on the YouTube side, and you’ll get a message saying you can’t loop it or show it… but many songs will loop.  Just play around with it.

One of these days I want to figure out how to loop a playlist :p

I just learned that a friend of mine who lives in Mexico was shot, multiple times, in Juarez.

Juarez.  That town in Mexico that has had thousands (?) of murders in recent years (under two years, I think) as the gangbangers and drug lords try and figure out who is in charge.

It certainly isn’t the Mexican government. I can’t imagine why, or how, people can live in Juarez… it is a war zone and has been for too long.  The Mexican government should have stepped in a long time ago and cleaned it up.  They needed to take a chapter out of Guilani’s book and lay down the law.

Instead they have hell on earth. Literally.  Well okay, maybe hell is worse, or will be worse for THEM, but for the innocent citizens of Juarez can you image a worse environment?

You can’t raise your kids there, you can’t simply go shopping, or go to a dance or anything.

My friend went to a dance… just hanging out, and a bunch of drug people (what to call these misguided killers?) went in and just opened fire on everyone.  My friend has had 4 or 5 surgeries in the last month and is just getting out of critical condition.

I don’t know why he is in Juarez (he has grown up there), or why he went to a public place in Juarez.  He probably won’t be doing that again. But I don’t want to think about his role in this tragedy.  This made me think about something I’ve thought about off and on for a while.

You know there is a “border problem” between the US and Mexico… everyone is all excited about it and getting it resolved.  From spending tons of money on Federal measures (la migra) to militia getting their own guns and doing their own patrols (minutemen) to creating a massive fence system to Arizona creating a state law authorizing police to ask for papers to prove residence… there are lots of bandaids in place to try and fix the root issue.

The real issue, I think, is illegal immigration, and all of the problems this causes.  It’s not the lack of a border (there’s a border between the US and Canada, and we don’t hear of the same issues with that, do we?).

Before I go on I have to say something about dumb Mexicans, because this usually comes up when talking about illegal immigration.

I AM MEXICAN.  To be more accurate, I’m Mexican American.  My dad was born in northern Mexico (the state of Coahuila) but was brought to the US LEGALLY and was raised in Texas.

For many years I had heard of the dumb Mexicans.  The lazy Mexicans.  Maybe some were hard working, but they sure like to drink and party!  Not trustworthy – quick to steal your hubcaps.  Don’t give them a can of spray paint because it won’t last long… these are just a bunch of ignorant people, right?

I struggled with my own ethnicity for a while.  At 19 I went to live in Mexico for 2 years as a missionary with my church and I learned about a totally different kind of Mexican.  Not the stereotypical Mexican, but … how to I put this, just a regular human being, like you and me.

There are cultural differences, and many of the differences come from the vast disparity between the freedoms enjoyed in the US… you know, the ones where you tell your kids they can be anything they want, AND THEY BELIEVE YOU?  In Mexico I didn’t see that kind of talk, or belief.  The culture differences, much of it influenced by various factors (a government corrupt at so many levels you couldn’t even compare it to corruption in the US, the Catholic church and it’s history in Mexico, the latino lifestyle, the history of being conquered by Spain, etc.).

But these are just regular people, like you and me.

I remember an eye opening experience I had in Mexico with a missionary companion who was from Mexico.  This was one of the most educated Mexicans I knew (pre-college).  A very sharp, eloquent kid – never missed a beat.  Extremely witty.  I always considered super-smart.  His mastery of Spanish was really impressive, I loved to hear him talk in Spanish.

One day this super-smart kid tried to speak English to me.  He had taken a few years of English in school and he could construct sentences just fine.  BUT his accent… oh his accent.  IMMEDIATELY my perspective changed from “brilliant kid” to “stereotypical (dumb?) Mexican.”  And this was someone I knew, and knew how brilliant he was!

It was a strong example to me that even though we don’t understand someone, or they have a thick accent (Hungarian, Spanish, deaf-speakers, etc.), they are NOT DUMB.

Back to the root problem with the US/Mexico border.  I have two proposals I’ve thought about.

One solution comes from a Utah state senator, Carl Wimmer.  I was talking to him a few years ago when he was campaigning and he gave me the most logical answer to resolving the illegal immigration issue.  He suggested that the US tally the amount of dollars illegal immigration costs the US (for example, in emergency room visits, or welfare paid out, etc.) and charge that back to Mexico.

Mexico wouldn’t pay it, right?  Probably not… but, if we give aid to Mexico on an annual basis, why doesn’t the US gov’t just take that amount OUT of the annual aid?  Assume we give the Mexican gov’t $10B in federal aid.  Instead of that amount we take out $3B and let them know they are only getting 70% because we took out hard costs that exist because they are not sealing their borders well enough.

There are two sides to a border, right?  Right now an open border does not hurt them like it “hurts” the US, but if it hurt them to the tune of $3B/year, they might think differently.

The other solution, which I recently thought of, is quite simple.  Why can’t Mexico be a place that people want to live?  If Mexico would simply clean up it’s act do you think people would be flooding the border to come to the US?

NO.

Mexico is a beautiful country, rich with natural resources and very smart people.  They are hard working and love life.  They have been robbed by their government and people in power, and forced to live in, under or around poverty (I saw it all while there for almost 2 years).  In many ways they have become a nation of hopeless people.  The dreams are for other countries, like the US.  That is why it’s so appealing to cross the border and live life as a criminal… because this is where dreams can have a chance of coming true.  Not in Mexico.

Mexico needs to change that. I don’t know how – is it the responsibility of the Mexican government?  Is it the responsibility of the entrepreneurs and business owners?  Is it the responsibility of the every day citizen?

I think it’s all of the above.  This should be the new Mexican Revolution. Just as the US had to have a revolution, even a civil war, to get the awesome foundation, perspective, freedom documents, etc. that we have here, Mexico and its people must fight for freedom, hope, chance and choice.

Until they do that, from the top to the bottom, it will be a country that could have been. Instead of ruling by the people it will be ruled by a government mired in corruption and afraid of the drug lords.

Just like Juarez.

I hope and pray that Mexicans can take Mexico back.

“I wrote a blog…”

No, you didn’t, you newbie!  You wrote a BLOG POST.

You don’t write an envelope, do you?  NO.  You write a letter.

“Hold on, I’m writing an envelope to grandma!”

Get it?

Blog vs. blog post.

If you blog, learn the difference.

(now, someone find me a ladder so I can get off the soapbox :p)

He asked me something that had to do with the Jobs section of JibberJobber.  In my mind I starting thinking of my response:

“I don’t do much with jobs.”

(I use JJ more as a business CRM, since I’m not in a job search).

While I was typing that I started to think:

“I have to eat my own dog food. In fact, any business owner, designer, product manager, salesperson or product advocate has to eat their own dog food… if they don’t eat their own dog food then….!”

I went on a mental rant… and instead of typing what I wanted, I combined both ideas and produced this sentence:

“I don’t do much with dogs”

To which my developer had to ask “I’m sorry, what do you mean by that?  What do dogs have to do with anything?”

LOL – sometimes, I swear I need a new brain…

Let it not be the last time it’s mentioned officially

As a disclaimer, I learned why they mention stuff… this is a survey they are doing, and when any one tool gets 25 or more votes, they mention that tool…. so we got a mention not because we are cool, or because they know who we are, but because we had 25 people register and vote – very nice and very cool… !

Hm.  Not even close!  When I have some time (yeah right) I’ll go check those out to see what they mean :p

You can get it here: A House United: Changing Children’s Hearts and Behaviors by Teaching Self-Government.

I’ll leave it at that – here are the six parts:

You can learn more about Nicholeen Peck at her Teaching Self Government blog – also, there are lots of “afterthoughts” there.