frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.

(Joshua Masayoshi Huff)


Originally, the JJ Collective was started to react to the latest news of the day--to try and approach the issues from a somewhat fresh perspective.

And, of course, that aim is still the same. Lately, though, it seems like the news isn't really out there--to me, anyway--and this is really unfortunate. I mean, obviously, things are going on out there, but the American media has just devolved into covering absolute tripe that just really does not matter

The average news day on CNN? A teacher sleeps with her pupil, a police officer something something, an 8-limbed girl...

and celebrity news.

I mean, these were also on the front page of CNN today:
Britney may or may not have run a red light
Justin Timberlake is hosting a PGA tour event

I know that this has been a criticism of the media for a long time--but we're hearing more about Britney than absolutely everyone on the planet...and I just really don't care. Who cares? It's just not even news. Is it important because she's a celebrity? SHE RAN A RED LIGHT! For heaven's sake--who gives a damn?

Like bsto's facebook status says--"bsto is a pimple on Paris Hilton's inner left ear"--this is bigger news than anything else. Are we going to start caring when Paris eats or when Britney bathes, too? It irritates me that the CNN anchors complain about the airtime that they give to these celebutants, but they're the ones covering it. It would be like me saying we have too many music posts at the Collective--I could easily fix that.

Really, though--the quality of American "news" is just appalling. I don't know what else to say beyond that, but it just really bugged me when I was searching out topics that I wanted to write on and found that the headlines at the top of CNN's page were the aforementioned ones.

---
A group of online forum members at MyFootBall club all paid 35 GBP ($70!) to buy out Ebbsfleet United, who are trying to gain entrance into England's League Two (the equivalent of Single A Minor League Baseball). The 20,000 fans now have say over what players to buy and what coaches to hire.

My biggest question is how they are going to come up with the money for transfers--do all of the 20,000 owners (they all have equal ownership) have to pay more money? Are they going to use ticket money? And, of course, not all of the fans are going to agree on players--so will it be a "majority rules" system, or will fans not have to pay for new players if they do not want them?

This is a really cool model...i want to do something like this one day...hopefully I'll get enough guys to buy Arsenal

:(


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In Pakistan news, President Musharraf said that elections would not be held later than January 9 (my birthday), while Benazir Bhutto (two time ex-prime minister of Pakistan) is calling for Musharraf to quit.

Pat's point, that we'd rather know who has the weapons than who doesn't, is a good one. And, fine, appeasement is not as dirty of a word as we all think it is. However, President Bush just cannot afford to be a hypocrite on the matter--he needs to support Bhutto's push to oust Musharraf.

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And, today's video is Massive Attack's "Teardrop"



I'm not a huge Massive Attack fan, but the size of the band struck me--I think trip-hop groups tend to get written off as being small, unprofessional and lazy--but you can really tell Massive Attack really have it together, and Liz Fraser (the woman singing) was the former front-woman of the Cocteau Twins--one of shoegazing's most prominent bands.

Sigur Ros "Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa"


Sigur Ros are an Icelandic band--their name means "victory rose" in Icelandic. I'm sure you've heard of the band, so I'll avoid talking too much about them. The singer, Jonsi, views his voice as more as an instrument than as the focal point of the music, and though the band sang in Icelandic on their early releases, Jonsi cooed in "Hopelandic" later on (Hopelandic was said to be the band's own made-up language...they have since disavowed this, and Jonsi said that this was all a bunch of bs--that he was just cooing out sounds).

Regardless, I have always found this to be one of the band's most moving and riveting songs. The title means "a good day for airstrikes" in Icelandic--and though I don't know much else about the words, I'm not bothered. Sigur Ros' music really forces the listener to define their own meanings for the songs, which is something we're not allowed to do very often.