Entertainment Justice

VentureCharities.biz update ... Trust Me on this one

2010-05-18T12:10:00.000-07:00

I've finally gotten a chance to update my website. I found a nibbler for the Nickel-a-Meal Campaign and figure it is time to clean house before all the fans and relatives come over for a visit.

In my update I quote extensively from Jeff Abbott's recent novel Trust Me. He bills it as a book "on the cutting edge of terror," in part because of how the bad guys use the Internet.

Personally, I have some problems with the way the collective engagement and connectivity elements of this tool are always portrayed as something just the antagonists get to us. Very seldom do real life heroes or heroines use this perfect tool of collaboration for socially just purposes and to organize a truly inspired super-power response to evil in all its form. Luke and Aubrey spend more time killing people and getting in fights or running from the law than they doing harnessing the power of participation!

My feeling anyway ... what you got to say about it all?

GETTING NOTICED

2010-04-22T10:52:00.000-07:00

I love ideas that begin to grow on their own. Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a long time and people lose interest or the ability to keep a project moving forward without instantaneous progress.

Entertainment Justice is slow going but going none the less. Increasingly I’m starting to get emails from people who are finding the idea via various searches for socially beneficial opportunities. But because we haven’t moved into putting a product or a script or a movement into place, we’re stuck with encouraging people without much of a road map!

But take heed that progress is underway. Tell your friends about the possibilities and then watch for ways I hope to put in place to germinate more growth. I recently criticized the Obama Administration for the failure of making intellectual discussions available on their LetsMove.gov website about obesity and freely admit it isn’t happening here … at least not yet.

Interactive discussions and back and forth’s are coming, however, so sit tight and keep the contacts coming. I do want to know that the army of advocates is still alive and kickin’ when the doors open for change.

A Green Gold Followship: Food As Empowering Entertainment and Connectivity

2010-02-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

And by that I mean more than just by watching us all eat at fast food restaurants and get fatter as a result. Food is a critical cultural phenomenon and has been used in many ways to change the core nature of societies of the past. And if we are going to get a handle on some of our collective abuses, this may well be a good place to get started.

My reason for this comment has to do with questions some friends have asked about why I’m working at the moment on a book called Green Gold, which is what I believe to be the first publication on pairing honey and cheese.

As many people know, both honey and cheese have been nature’s earliest of “processed” foods. The bees make the one and humans the other, but both rely on core actions and reactions directly related to interactivity between elements of the physics of life.

Funny, though, putting the two of them together has been relatively ignored—perhaps because they are so common no one sees much innovation in their potential.

But I disagree. And I believe that their longevity is a heck of a testament to their potential if that sustainability can be linked, electronically and culturally, to a far more empowering future.

Green Gold is about revitalizing our acceptance of core food stuff by using socially responsible followships of opportunity.

Soon I’ll write more about this, but if you get the idea … let me know what you think.

Clinic Wars: Circumventing Death in Health Care

2009-12-18T12:28:00.000-08:00

Imagine A Movie Scenario: An unusual virus strain causes a potentially deadly disease with flu-like symptoms. The public is forced to turn to hospitals for help, where many find themselves turned away because they don’t have adequate insurance. Only later could they return, after the insured got their shots. And then the horror unfolds as it is revealed that a nefarious agent of profit and domination set this up so they could inject the poor and vulnerable to kill off those putting financial strains on the new teams of health networks set up by the government to undertake reform.
Now Imagine A Second Scenario: The same devious idea. Only this time the public has the chance from the beginning to turn to welcoming local community clinics which, again because of reform, now populate every community and stay connected and linked through progressive collaborations of care and advocacy. Only in this case the evil doers’ plot is uncovered early and stopped because of social networking collaborations, instant connectivity between angry activists and the political influence of elected officials, up to and including the president of the United States because they had all bought into the idea of partnerships for justice for all.

Neither scenario is true. One is too creapy to consider. The other without a foundation!

But the sad fact is that there is probably some feasibility that the first could occur but almost none that scenario two could happen.

And the reason is because we have no role models, no media or pragmatic representations of what heroes and heroines might look like and what they might be capable of in the popular and powerful media sectors that virtually all of us count upon to reinforce normative and behavioral actions.

Instead, as a people who are addicted to and love our entertainment mediums, have only military, police and even government-as-dictator normative models who effectively take over and take away freedoms in the name of safety and security.

Entertainment Justice is one step in seeking to open literary, cyber and connectivity portals of a different nature.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas about how we can together put advocates into media action! Creators of all domains welcome.

My efforts are geared toward putting together the publishing, screen writing, gaming, social networking and related network of advocates to make your ideas happen.

Just the Beginning: What is EJ?

2009-12-16T13:15:00.000-08:00

OUR RIGHTS OF PARTICIPATION!

I've been working for a while on attempting to start a public cyber movement of some sort to allow the public as a whole to do what needs to be done: redefine and give technological relevance to the concept of the United States' Rights of Privacy.

Many people know that we do not have quantified rights of privacy. What rights we have are legal and business rulings and operating presumptions about the need for certain core protections of liberty, freedom and privacy--most originating from arguments about the importance of protecting creative rights of commerce.

In light of technological advancements, it seems necessary that we collaboratively and openly redefine and refine these rights with an eye toward participatory engagement. How can we, how should we, what issues, problems, concerns and expectations should grow from continue to maintain assumptions of privacy when we so easily and unknowingly give away those rights with "user agreement" and similar clicks to be involved?

A campaign to develop Rights of Participation would allow for moving in this direction.

HERE WE SEEK TO BUILD FROM WITHIN!

Entertainment Justice ideas assume a good deal of participatory protections and seek to incorporate social, political, economic and humanitarian justice principles into a variety of entertainment methods and mechanisms.

Most people don't realize that from our literary beginnings, people have always sought to incorporate normative rules and expectations within good, bad and in-between literature. Short-stories and novels, written forms of cultural learning, first reflected this, of course, and soon began to give over some of its credible authority in this regard to other mediums. Including, most recently, the fantastically popular and profitable domains of online and virtual gaming.

The first computer games, developed by Atari, were designed specifically to incorporate Japanese moral standards and lessons within the Mario Bros. sessions. Only later would that valuable intention evolved to packaged and cloud-based CGI games--games that increasingly literally transforms the player into an animated Avatar who interacts with and plays out strategies with other creatures of every shape and form.

Unfortunately, the overwhelming majority of these massively multiplayer products continue the trend of ensuring that the heroes and heroines of these stories have weapons and tactics limited almost exclusively to war-making and police tactics.

Almost no real or real-life representations of role models who use social justice tools and techniques to right wrongs exists--and, in my opinion, no applicable progress will be made toward a better culture until we have developed a way to make sure the superpowers we celebrate reflect the principles of justice we claim allegiance to!

RIGHT NOW THERE IS NOT STRUCTURE

Instead, what I am seeking in general guidance on how to set such standards ... suggestions for determining how to encourage the media makers to both seriously and realisticly explore this avenue and do so in a way that does not exploit but actually reveres America's cultural expectations.

TELL ME YOUR IDEAS

My desire is to gather together these ideas and then present a workable posting where the concepts can be spelled out, wordsmithed, discussed, argued about and ultimately worked into a viable strategic document and plan of action.

YOUR SUGGESTIONS?