Poetry in motion

I would liken this debate to "poetry in motion". What do I mean? As a
New Yorker I have had a lifelong love affair with the subway system,
its as natural to me as my own blood. Imagine then how I feel about
subway advertising, I hate it, what it stands for, how it invades my
experience of the NYC subway experience. It wasn't so so bad when we
had Dr. Zizmor ads next to lawyer ads that were quite funny, like those
apex commercials "we can't call you pick up the phone and call us".
anyway things got out of hand when one day I walked into the "Yoo-hoo"
car and it was all just yoo-hoo or the budweiser one, it was an
onslaught on my sense and made me hate subway advertising, as a system,
a concept, a paradigm. BUT, and this the but you have been waiting
for, in the midst of this desert of mediocrity and mental prostitution,
there is poetry in motion. You know when you are squished on the 7
train riding home and you can't see the sun and you feel like a rat in
the cage and you look up and its not a stupid commercial it's poetry, a
rather profound verse speaking to the heart. It livens you, saves you,
makes you happy. Even though poetry in motion in of itself is good,
valuable, you are glad you have it, it no way justifies the existence
of the corrupt structure within which it operates - advertising. if it
was up to me I would still banish all subway advertising even at the
loss of poetry of motion - it would do over-all more good. Similarly i
feel while drug companies do some good (20% according to some
estimates) it over-all if taken into account iatrogenic effects (4th
leading cause of deaths USA) and malpractice and a possible connection
all the way to ww2 and hitler germany, than we got serious trouble and
I don't care if grandma has less pain because the system in which it is
embedded is fucked. so stop being apologetic for it, wake up, and
while we may not have poetry in motion we will have open mental space
and horizons to build a new order. I would make a similar argument
with oprah and TV, so i agree with gatewood.....drug companies are part
of the problem not solution when it comes to health, dependency is no
measure of freedom and because one has to take something (like
advertising!) doesn't make it good or free from critique.

G

On Nov 30, 2006, at 7:21 PM, bwatson wrote:

> As someone who practices holistic and herbal health,
> I'm certainly no fan of drug companies. I also
> recognize the ways in which so many companies these
> days are able to simply plant press releases in the
> news and have them passed off as stories. Despite my
> misgivings about the pharmaceutical industry, I think
> it's important to distinguish an industry's greedy
> practices, with the import of its purpose. Drugs in
> and of themselves are not evil. The reality is that
> many people with HIV, Depression and a host of other
> diseases have benefitted from the breakthroughs in
> drug treatment made available in the past two decades.
> Those break throughs and the help to folks on the
> ground do not negate the damaging practices of drug
> companies or the degree to which people have begun to
> use drug therapy as a replacement for life therapy and
> long term holistic health. Still, I think it's a
> disservice to those researchers who have made real
> contributions to society by discovering new forms of
> medication to simply dismiss the industry out of
> pocket as a whole. Further, and this is a point I
> think you should really sit with a bit, there are
> people who have tangible evidence in their own every
> days lives of the degree to which a particular course
> of drug therapy has helped them. When you dismiss the
> industry in the out of hand manner that you generally
> tend to, you risk also dismissing the voices and
> experiences of those folks. Promoting a perspective or
> a message can be most effective when the manner of
> your delivery displays a bit more sensitivity for the
> possibility of people who not only do not share your
> point of view but who believe themselves to have had
> experiences that invalidate or contrast your view.
>
> Bahiyyih
> --- Sean Gatewood <seangatewood@msn.com> wrote:
>
>> Read this bullshit article very carefully and
>> recognize that the drug
>> companies are one of the greatest menaces to human
>> health and well-being
>> around:
>>
>> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15955833/
>>
>> Followed closely be the media and its "reporting" .
>> . .
>>
>>
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