Tuesday 23 April 2013

POST 13: OUTSOURCING/OFFSHORING: Two Cartoons


This document is a cartoon drawn by R.J Matson
In this cartoon we can see Mitt Romneythe president of the USA from 2003 to 2007 and the candidate of the elections in 2012. He is with his grandchildren at the Cayman Islands.
This cartoon is a parody of Romney`s gouvernement in wicht he uses outsourcing and offshoring as a technique to earn money easier and faster.
This strategies works by outsourcing the American's factories from the USA to  Cayman islands banks or other tax heavens. We can see how he is proud of all the money that he earned with an illegal way. We can also see the ex-pesident of the USA show the new generations to be corrupts.
We can see the irony with the Believin` in America that shows the most important country is a hole of corruption.

This document is a cartoon by "geek and poke".It makes fun of the definition off the offshoring through the incomprehension off  two men. Their factory has been delocalized to another country to earn more money. So they think that they are generous offering "thousands of jobs" with the offshoring. I addition they think will not pay the employees ass if only the fact of working was a salary. The two characters have an unexpressive as if they coudn`t understand that working without pay is unacceptable. This cartoon makes a criticism of the business world that is really selfish, also it`s a world ruled by few and those control all the others as they want. They don't respect other because they think that they are superior of other mans but they dont think how will be living in those deplorable conditions. So with "delocalisation", the big companies earn more and more money but the workers are going down and down, living in hard conditions and with a really bad job. 




Wednesday 17 April 2013

POST 12: EXCHANGES IN REAL/PHYSICAL SPACES

Spaces & Exchanges
in Real Spaces
Find definitions for the following sub-notions (mostly on www.en.wikipedia.org)
1.INTERNATIONAL MIGRATION
DEFINITION
International migration occurs when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum length of time. Migration occurs for many reasons. Many people leave their home countries in order to look for economic opportunities in another country. Others migrate to be with family members who have migrated or because of political conditions in their countries. Education is another reason for international migration, as students pursue their studies abroad.
 
2.MIXED/HYBRID LANGUAGES
DEFINITION
  -A mixed language is a language that arises through the fusion of two source languages, normally in situations of thorough bilingualism, so that it is not possible to classify the resulting language as belonging to either of the language families that were its sources. Although the concept is frequently encountered in historical linguistics from the early twentieth century, attested cases of language mixture, as opposed to code-switching, substrata, or lexical borrowing, are quite rare.
 
3. HUMAN INTERACTION/INTERDEPENDENCE
DEFINITION
   Interdependence is a relationship in which each member is mutually dependent on the others. This concept differs from a dependence relationship, where some members are dependent and some are not. In an interdependent relationship, participants may be emotionally, economically, ecologically or morally reliant on and responsible to each other. An interdependent relationship can arise between two or more cooperative autonomous participants.

4.TECHNOLOGY TRANSFERS
DEFINITION
 Technology Transfer also called Transfer of Technology and Technology Commercialisation, is the process of transferring skills, knowledge, technologies, methods of manufacturing, samples of manufacturing and facilities among governments or universities and other institutions to ensure that scientific and technological developments are accessible to a wider range of users who can then further develop and exploit the technology into new products, processes, applications, materials or services.
 
5. OUTSOURCING/OFFSHORING
DEFINITIONS
  - Outsourcing is the contracting out of an internal business process to a third party organization. The practice of contracting a business process out to a third party rather than staffing it internally is common in the modern economy. Outsourcing sometimes involves transferring employees and assets from one firm to another but not always.
 
- Offshoring describes the relocation by a company of a business process from one country to another—typically an operational process, such as manufacturing, or supporting processes, such as accounting. Even state governments employ offshoring. More recently, offshoring has been associated primarily with the sourcing of technical and administrative services supporting domestic and global operations from outside the home country, by means of internal or external delivery models.
6. BRAIN DRAIN
DEFINITION
  - Brain drain is the large-scale emigration of a large group of individuals with technical skills or knowledge. The reasons usually include two aspects which respectively come from countries and individuals. In terms of countries, the reasons may be social environment.In terms of individual reasons, there are family influence and personal preference. Although the term originally referred to technology workers leaving a nation. Is usually regarded as an economic cost, since emigrants usually take with them the fraction of value of their training sponsored by the government or other organizations.
 
7. INTERNATIONAL/GLOBALIZED TRADE
DEFINITION
  - International trade is the exchange of capital, goods, and services across international borders or territories.While international trade has been present throughout much of history, its economic, social, and political importance has been on the rise in recent centuries.
 
8. MASS/SUSTAINABLE/ECO TOURISM
DEFINITIONS
  - Mass tourism could only have developed with the improvements in technology, allowing the transport of large numbers of people in a short space of time to places of leisure interest, so that greater numbers of people could begin to enjoy the benefits of leisure time. 
 
  - Sustainable tourism is tourism attempting to make as low an impact on the environment and local culture as possible, while helping to generate future employment for local people. The aim of sustainable tourism is to ensure that development brings a positive experience for local people, tourism companies and the tourists themselves. 
  - Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving visiting fragile, pristine, and relatively undisturbed natural areas, intended as a low-impact and often small scale alternative to standard commercial (mass) tourism. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide funds for ecological conservation, to directly benefit the economic development and political empowerment of local communities, or to foster respect for different cultures and for human rights.
 
9. HUMAN SMUGGLING/TRAFFICKING
DEFINITIONS
  - People smuggling is the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries laws, either clandestinely or through deception, such as the use of fraudulent documents
  - Human trafficking is the trade in human beings, most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor or for the extraction of organs or tissues, including surrogacy and ova removal. Trafficking is a lucrative industry, representing an estimated $32 billion per year in international trade, compared to the estimated annual $650 billion for all illegal international trade circa 2010.
 
10. ARMS TRADE/TRAFFICKING
DEFINITIONS
  - The arms industry is a global business which manufactures weapons and military technology and equipment. It consists of commercial industry involved in research, development, production, and service of military material, equipment and facilities. Arms producing companies, also referred to as defense contractors or military industry, produce arms mainly for the armed forces of states. Departments of government also operate in the arms industry, buying and selling weapons, munitions and other military items.
  - Arms trafficking, also known as gunrunning, is the illegal trafficking or smuggling of contraband weapons or ammunition. What constitutes legal trade in firearms varies widely, depending on local and national laws.
 
11. ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE
DEFINITION
  - The illegal drug trade is a global black market, dedicated to cultivation, manufacturing, distribution, and sale of drugs, which are subject to drug prohibition laws. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs by drug prohibition laws.
 
12. RURAL-URBAN/URBAN-RURAL MIGRATION
DEFINITIONS
  - Rural-Urban is the physical growth of urban areas as a result of rural migration and even suburban concentration into cities, particularly the very large ones. It is closely linked to modernisation, industrialisation, and the sociological process of rationalisation.
  - Urban-rural health differences are observed in many countries, even when socioeconomic and demographic characteristics are controlled for. People living in urban areas are often found to be less healthy. When socioeconomic and demographic variables are controlled for, movers appear to be less healthy, with the exception of the younger age groups.
 
 
13.  UPWARD SOCIAL/GEOGRAPHIC MOBILITY
DEFINITIONS
  - Upward social mobility is a change in a person's social status resulting in that person rising to a higher position in their status system.
  - Geographic mobility is the measure of how populations move over time. Geographic mobility, population mobility, or more simply mobility is also a statistic that measures migration within a population. These moves can be as large scale as international migrations or as small as regional commuting arrangements. Geographic mobility has a large impact on many sociological factors in a community and is a current topic of academic research. It varies between different regions depending on both formal policies and established social norms, and has different effects and responses in different societies.
 
14. RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS/AID AGENCIES
DEFINITION
    - An aid agency is an organisation dedicated to distributing aid. Many professional aid organisations exist, both within government (e.g. AusAID, USAID, DFID, EuropeAid, ECHO), between governments as multilateral donors (e.g. UNDP) and as private voluntary organizations (or non-governmental organisations, (e.g. ActionAid, Oxfam, World Vision). The International Committee of the Red Cross is unique in being mandated by international treaty to uphold the Geneva Conventions.
15. STUDENT EXCHANGE PROGRAMS
DEFINITION
  - A student exchange program is a program where students from a secondary school or university study abroad at one of their institution's partner institutions. Student exchange programs may involve international travel, but does not necessarily require the student to study outside of their home country.he term "exchange" means that a partner institution accepts a student, but does not necessarily mean that the students have to find a counterpart from the other institution with whom to exchange.
16. GLOBAL CITIES/GLOBAL CULTURAL EVENTS
DEFINITIONS
    - A global city is a city generally considered to be an important node in the global economic system. The concept comes from geography and urban studies and rests on the idea that globalization can be understood as largely created, facilitated, and enacted in strategic geographic locales according to a hierarchy of importance to the operation of the global system of finance and trade.
 
17.GLOBAL WARMING
DEFINITION
  - Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C, with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980.Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and scientists are more than 90% certain that it is primarily caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases produced by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.




Friday 8 March 2013

Thursday 7 March 2013

MILITARY POWER



The film shows us the lives of some American soldiers in Iraq. We can see their control routine, how they live in their camps and in the check points. The film is shot by one of the soldiers( the Latino), with a little portable camera. We see daily life.
  At one moment the squadron participates in a raid. They went into a local house with the supposotion that inside they will find terrorist information. They take the father of the family prisoner and some papers too, as if it was imformation.
 Then one day, whensome of them were drunk. They decided, without mutual agreement, to enter again into that house to "have some fun". What they really wanted was to rape the woman. We can see the rape scene, and also we know that, after raping the woman, they kill all the family and burn the bodies.
  Here we can see perfectly the issue that deals with the notion of power. These soldiers made a clear abuse of their power. And the most important thing is that no one do something to punish their abuse.Only one of the soldiers made a video on internet to confess what they did, and to help the others  of his squad to become awareness of the fault that they made.
 This abuse of military power, is usual in war. But it's a really big abuse. First they entered in a ramdom house to find terrorist information, as it was sure that they will find something there. And, they raped a woman and killed a family just for "fun". They did something without the military permission and out side the law and moral or ethic rules. Finally they burn the bodies. This is a big insult toward de Arabic world but also in all types of society.
They are criminals not soldiers, and be a soldier don't allow you to do what you want, you can't abuse your power as we see in the film.










Twenty years ago, Brian De Palma made one of the finest films about the American experience of the Vietnam War. Now, with conflict still continuing in Iraq, he has made in Redacted the most controversial picture about that conflict. It has attracted more abusive internet messages, many charging him with treason, than it has sold tickets in American cinemas.

During the Vietnam War, there were a number of convictions for crimes committed by soldiers against civilians. The most famous cases were the incident in November 1966 when a five-man patrol led by a sergeant abducted, raped and murdered a young Vietnamese woman, an event memorably related by Daniel Lang in a 1969 New Yorker article called 'Casualties of War', and the My Lai massacre of March 1968.
At the time, Hollywood averted its gaze from such things. My Lai was obliquely referred to in two political westerns of the time, Ralph Nelson's Soldier Blue and Arthur Penn's Little Big Man, both featuring the slaughter of unprotected women and children by the US cavalry. But Casualties of War had to wait nearly 20 years to reach the screen, directed by De Palma from a script by David Rabe, a Vietnam veteran and author of an important trilogy of plays on the war.
Coming a decade after Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter and other films in the first wave of Vietnam pictures, Casualties of War, following closely the facts established by Daniel Lang, is classically constructed in three acts. In the first, we see through the eyes of the newly arrived Private Eriksson the inadequacy of leadership, the ignorance, demoralisation, drug-taking and xenophobia of the GIs. In the second act, there's the atrocity witnessed by Eriksson out on patrol. The third act sees Eriksson faced with terrible choices of desertion, keeping his silence or informing on his comrades. It's De Palma's best, most balanced and considered picture.
Redacted is a fictionalised version of a genuine event in Iraq, the gang rape of a 14-year-old girl in Mahmudiyah, south of Baghdad, and her murder, along with her parents and sister, which have resulted in court martials and heavy sentences. Scripted by De Palma, there is a similar three-act structure - introducing the characters, the revenge motive drawn on for the killing of a revered sergeant, the rape and murders, and the aftermath in which the witness, a middle-class soldier, McCoy, is consumed by guilt.
The setting is now Samarra, which allows De Palma to have one of the soldiers reading Appointment in Samarra, John O'Hara's classic Thirties novel, the story of a middle-class American meeting his tragic destiny in small-town Pennsylvania, which takes its title from an ancient Arabian Nights tale of an encounter with fate in Baghdad quoted in Maugham's play Sheppey
A direct connection between the two films occurs when a homicidal bully forces McCoy, the weak liberal conscience of Redacted, to repeat the sentence: 'What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas.' The rather stronger Eriksson in Casualties of War is told: 'What happens in the field stays in the field.'
In 1989, De Palma thought he was helping his fellow countrymen understand the brutalising effect war can have on those entering into it with the most sincerely patriotic motives. Seeing how little effect he and others had had, and how few moral and historic lessons Vietnam had taught his fellow Americans, he has set out in Redacted to abandon conventional narrative methods. He tells his story in a way that emphasises the inadequacy of the messengers and the way they have been cowed and suborned by government. Somewhat earnestly, he uses 'redaction', a term mostly employed in academic and publishing circles meaning to revise, edit, abridge or otherwise prepare for publication, to mean the way the world is variously mediated and censored for the edification and education of the general public, and how some people attempt to subvert this process.
Thus, Redacted has nine or 10 different narrative elements, each with its own aim, agenda and texture. The first is a video diary, kept by Hispanic soldier Private Salazar, who aims to use it to gain admission to the University of Southern California Film School. The second is a solemn documentary on the US role in Iraq credited to two fictitious French intellectuals.
Then there are two newsreels, one in Arabic, the other in English; CCTV footage; official army tapes made by a psychiatrist and military lawyers; propaganda films (one of a brutal hostage execution) shot to be used on insurgent websites; messages between soldiers and their families on computers; and agitational and confessional material on blogs.
Somewhere here - or in between - lies the truth. I was reminded of the documentary crime novels written by Dennis Wheatley in the Thirties that took the form of dossiers containing letters, police memorandums, scene-of-the-crime photographs and bits of evidence.
Redacted is a brave and provocative film. But it is a lesser thing than Casualties of War and less effective than Nick Broomfield's The Battle for Haditha, also shot on location in Jordan, which recreates a similar incident from different points of view. Broomfield's picture is technically messier and gains authenticity by using non-professionals who actually fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. The little-known actors in Redacted cannot draw on combat experience for scenes involving improvisation and De Palma's liking for technical polish makes his film look cold and altogether too smooth.
               (Philip French, The observer, sunday 16 March 2008)

Tuesday 15 January 2013

SYSTEM OF A DOWN- BOOM!!


                                            BOOM!!      SYSTEM OF A DOWN


Ive been walking through your streets,
Where all your money's earning,
Where all your building's crying,
And clueless neckties working,
Revolving fake lawn houses,
Housing all your fears,
Desensitized by TV,
Overbearing advertising,
God of consumerism,
And all your crooked pictures,
Looking good, mirrorism,
Filtering information,
For the public eye,
Designed for profiteering,
Your neighbor, what a guy. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,
Every time you drop the bomb,
You kill the god your child has born.
BOOM, BOOM,BOOM, BOOM Modern globalization,
Coupled with condemnations,
Unnecessary death,
Matador corporations,
Puppeting your frustrations,
With the blinded flag,
Manufacturing consent
Is the name of the game,
The bottom line is money,
Nobody gives a fuck f***.
4000 hungry children die per hour,
from starvation,
while billions spent on bombs,
create death showers. BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,
Every time you drop the bomb,
You kill the god your child has born.
BOOM, BOOM,BOOM, BOOM
BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM
Why,why,why,why must we kill,kill,kill,kill,
our own,own,own,own kind??
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM,
Every time you drop the bomb,
You kill the god your child has born.
BOOM, BOOM,BOOM, BOOM
BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM
Every time you drop the bomb.

Sunday 2 December 2012

PETER GABRIEL - Don't Give Up (1986)

COVER ARTWORK
VIDEO
you can see the correction here and here
 

PETER GABRIEL'S LYRICS


"Don't Give Up"

In this proud land we grew up strong
We were wanted all along
I was taught to fight, taught to win
I never thought I could fail

No fight left or so it seems
I am a man whose dreams have all deserted
I've changed my face, I've changed my name
But no one wants you when you lose

Don't give up
'cos you have friends
Don't give up
You're not beaten yet
Don't give up
I know you can make it good

Though I saw it all around
Never thought I could be affected
Thought that we'd be the last to go
It is so strange the way things turn

Drove the night toward my home
The place that I was born, on the lakeside
As daylight broke, I saw the earth
The trees had burned down to the ground

Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up
We don't need much of anything
Don't give up
'cause somewhere there's a place
Where we belong

Rest your head
You worry too much
It's going to be alright
When times get rough
You can fall back on us
Don't give up
Please don't give up

Got to walk out of here
I can't take anymore
Gonna stand on that bridge
Keep my eyes down below
Whatever may come
And whatever may go
That river's flowing
That river's flowing

Moved on to another town
Tried hard to settle down
For every job, so many men
So many men no-one needs

Don't give up
'cause you have friends
Don't give up
You're not the only one
Don't give up
No reason to be ashamed
Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up now
We're proud of who you are
Don't give up
You know it's never been easy
Don't give up
'cause I believe there's a place
There's a place where we belong

 
CREATIVE WRITING


Shooting Script  for Peter Gabriel's 'Don't Give Up' Video                   31/01/2013

 
OVER BLACK:
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
The first notes of the song sound.
FADE IN:
1. EXT. FACTORY IN  THE OUTSKIRTS OF A BIG CITY (DETROIT) - MORNING
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 1
 
PAN SHOT of a busy street, followed by TILT UP toward the top of high-rise towers (skyscrapers) and TILT DOWN to ZOOM FORWARD on factory workers noisily walking out of their work in an automobile plant.
They seem tired but full of pride and energy despite their night shift.
Then, CLOSE UP on the face of one man in the crowd. He looks young and enthusiastic.
ZOOM BACKWARD to show  the man walking on, now framed in a FULL SHOT.
Then, TRACKING SHOT, following the man who is walking away at a brisk pace, waving goodbye to his workmates with a broad smile on his face These people obviously stick together.
He is now seen in a LONG SHOT.
 
DISSOLVE TO BLACK & WHITE
 
2. INT. APARTMENT - MORNING
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 2
 
FULL SHOT of a man who is sitting at home, sipping a cup of coffee. He is the same man as the one viewed earlier but he looks older and depressed.
CLOSE UP on the man's gloomy face.
PAN TO THE RIGHT: A song is playing on an old radio transistor.
CUT TO COLOR
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Chorus
3. EXT. STREET - SUNNY DAY
The man is seen in a FULL SHOT talking to friends. The conversation is lively and the group (both men and women) walk into a bar.
DISSOLVE TO BLACK & WHITE
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 3
 
4. EXT. EMPTY STREET - RAINY DAY
LONG SHOT of a group of men lining up in front of what looks like a job center. ZOOM FORWARD to focus on the face of the same man standing in line. He looks ashamed and despondent.
 
CUT TO:
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 4
5. EXT. ROAD - NIGHT
The man is driving at night. He is about to reach his destination,  a house on the lakeside barely visible in the distance.
 
 
 
CUT TO:
6: INT. CAR - EARLY MORNING
The man is looking at something outside. He looks stunned. EXTREME CLOSE UP on the man's eyes.
Then REVERSE SHOT: he was staring at the scorched earth which seems to have replaced a little wood which stood near the house and where he used to play as a kid. The house looks shabby, rundown, maybe even abandoned. There is nothing left of his roots.
 
CUT TO COLOR
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Chorus
 
7. INT. APARTMENT - AFTERNOON
MEDIUM SHOT of the man and his wife at home. The woman is talking. She seems to be comforting her husband, stroking his hair.
CLOSE SHOT of the man who rests his head against her, as if he needed a shoulder to cry on.
Then, PAN SHOT TO THE RIGHT as two kids run into the drawing room to kiss and  hug their parents (SLOW MOTION).
LOW-ANGLE SHOT of the man who suddenly picks up a newspaper and sighs deeply.
He stands up and says 'OK'.
He then turns his back on his family and walks out of the room.
DISSOLVE TO BLACK & WHITE
 
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 5
8..EXT. STREET -  EVENING
FULL SHOT of the man as he walks down the street, then strolls along a river.
CLOSE UP on the man's face, followed by ZOOM OUT to show the man now standing on a bridge, looking down at the river.  
P.O.V. SHOT: the man is staring intently at the black foam-flecked water below, as if he was about to jump and commit suicide.
HIGH-ANGLE SHOT + TRACKING IN of the man walking across the bridge  while the river keeps flowing.
 
 
CUT TO:
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Verse 6
 
9 .INT. SMALL TOWN - DAYS LATER
MEDIUM-CLOSE SHOT of the man standing at a counter, begging to be hired but the employer shakes his head.
PAN SHOT of the man as he walks out of the place.
 
 
CUT TO:
10. EXT. STREET - MOMENTS LATER
LONG SHOT of the man trying his luck in yet another job agency we see him walking into but he soon walks out, his head bent.
 
CUT TO COLOR
MUSIC SOUNDTRACK
Chorus
11. INT. APARTMENT - MORNING
FULL SHOT of a group of people, among whom the man's wife and kids.
They seem to be celebrating someone's birthday. The atmosphere is joyful and the man seems to be having fun.
EXTREME CLOSE UP on his eyes in which there is a glimmer of hope at last.
He now seems seem more cheerful than ever before and kisses his wife before hugging his two kids.
                                                                                                                                                                         
 
FADE OUT