Is Michael Jackson Dying?

According to recent star news, Michael Jackson is in fact dying. The following news portions and star blogs describe the condition of the "King of Pop":

Pop music icon Michael Jackson is near death, suffering from a potentially fatal genetic disease that has affected his lungs and stripped him of vitality, Jackson-biographer Ian Halperin has claimed in a recent interview.

Speaking with the UK's Sun, Halperin has been quoted saying, 'He needs a lung transplant, but may be too weak to go through with it. He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping. It's the bleeding that's the most problematic part. It could kill him.'

• The Court Of The Dancin' King

Specifically, Halperin claims that Jackson, now 50 years old, has developed a rare alpha-1 anti-trypsin protein deficiency, leaving his lungs unable to protect themselves. He also claimed Jackson, who was photographed in a wheelchair earlier this year, had been battling the disease for several years. 'He can barely speak. The vision in his left eye is 95 percent gone. For years, Michael has been working with his doctors to make sure (the disease) doesn't progress.'

Jackson's usually outspoken and stridently defensive publicist and family members have not moved to deny the claim, which in turn has only fueled speculation.*

*http://www.rediff.com/movies/2008/dec/22is-michael-jackson-dying.htm

Is Michael Jackson Dying From Deficiency Disease?*

Posted by Fara Kearnes on December 16, 2008 5:00 PM | Permalink

InTouch Weekly is reporting that Michael Jackson IS gravely ill - and not just faking it to get out of appearing in court. He's alleged to be ill with Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency and a load of other stuff.

Ian Halperin, an investigative journalist tells the magazine: "He's had it for years but it’s gotten worse. He needs a lung transplant but may be too weak to go through with it.He also has emphysema and chronic gastrointestinal bleeding, which his doctors have had a lot of trouble stopping. It’s the bleeding that is the most problematic part. It could kill him."

Halperin added, "For years, Michael has been working with his own doctors to make sure his condition doesn’t progress. He has been on many medications that have stabilized him."

The journalist claims the King of Pop can "barely speak" and "the vision in his left eye is 95 percent gone.”

A close friend of Jackson told Halperin that the singer is scared he won’t live longer than six months.

“Michael wants to have the lung transplant but because of other illnesses he’s fighting he’s too weak to undergo such a major procedure,” the friend said. “He’s taking one painkiller after another. I’ve known him over 20 years and have never seen him in such a frail state. It’s very sad.”

If Jackson is ill, and nearly broke, and wanting to leave something for his kids - that would explain his plans to sell much of his stuff at a massive estate sale scheduled for April 21 to April 25 in Beverly Hills. Included in the auction will be more than 2,000 of his personal items, including the white glove he wore in the 1983 video for “Billie Jean” and the wrought-iron gates from his Neverland Ranch.

*http://www.starblogs.net/archives/2008/12/is_michael_jackson_dying_from.html

Panic At the Disco...

Panic at the Disco is my new favorite band. Some of their songs are controversial, with song titles such as "Lying is the Most Fun a Girl can have without taking her clothes off" and  "The only difference between Martyrdom and Suicide press coverage".  I love their style; its so much fun blast Panic, dance around and sing at the top of my lungs in my room!! :-) 

Mona Lisa Smile & Gender roles in today's media

Mona Lisa Smile (2003) is a motion picture that depicts a woman named Katherine Ann Watson who travels from sunny, liberal Southern California to the cold, and traditionally conservative campus known as Wellesley College in order to teach art history. It is at this institution where women are taught some academics (art, languages, history, etc.), but the underlining purpose of Wellesley is to teach the girls who attend how to be a good wife- to thrive domestically.

     Ms. Katherine Watson (played by Julia Roberts) was criticized by many at Wellesley for being too liberal. Rather than sticking to the syllabus that was originally given to her in order to teach the art history course, she talked about and showed the class more contemporary pieces. One of the main characters, Betty Warren, publicly humiliated Ms. Watson in an article in the school newspaper, stating that Ms. Watson had “declared war on the sacrament on marriage, she had subversive and political thinking that taught Wellesley girls to reject the roles they were born to fulfill”.

Watson challenged this article by questioning the recent ads (from the era- the 1950s) in class the day that the article was released to the students. One advertisement in particular that was displayed to the class that day was one about girdles. The woman in the picture was wearing one and looked ecstatic, as if it was the best article of clothing she owns. Under this captioning is a quote that reads “A girdle to set you free”. Ms. Watson expressed to the class that day that she can’t understand how a woman who graduates from Wellesley can simply decide to stay at home cooking and cleaning all day. Katherine was deeply offended by this article. She had no intention of ruining the “roles women were born to fill” mindset of some of the students at Wellesley by instilling wisdom and excellence into her students.

     Mona Lisa Smile also illustrated the lives of the girls whom Ms. Katherine Watson taught. These beautiful ladies lived together in the dormitories and participated in various college social events as well. One of these students, Joan is an extremely bright and talented girl who expressed interest in going to law school after graduating from Wellesley. She informs Ms. Watson of her desire and she helps Joan acquire an application and provided any other vital information for the admissions process.

     The audience learns later on in the film that Joan chooses being a housewife over early admission to Yale University’s Law School. When she informed Katherine that she and her fiancé had eloped, Katherine insisted that she could do both- be married and go to law school. Joan stood her ground and explained that getting married is something that she really wanted. She went on to tell Ms. Watson that she had instilled in her that she could achieve anything she wanted and that getting married and having a family is something that she truly wanted. 

GREAT JOB Com 6770 (Media Crit.) Class!! :-)

I'm watching the theorist dvd that was recorded earlier this past semester in our class. I've learned so much from all your research (and my own of course).  All hard work has paid off! :-)

Ally McBeal and Feminist studies...

I just wanted to share an interesting excerpt from my final paper for Com 6770 (Media Critisicm) in regards to Ally McBeal and some issues with feminist studies.*

Ally McBeal premiered in September of 1997. This pilot episode’s ratings “beat ABC’s Monday Night Football in terms of 18-49 year-old viewers, a novel event in the history of televised Monday Night Football” (Svetkey 1998). The show depicts the life of a single, independent woman who works in a successful law firm in Boston. “Ally McBeal represents one of the last major commercial productions to address feminism itself as the subject of its narratives as its evident in its numerous episodes on litigation and the human rights issues central to the feminist agenda, as well as its direct confrontation with sexual politics in the office” (Owen et. al 2007). The show’s creator David E. Kelly described Ally McBeal’s character in the following way:

“A positive representation of a strong, professional woman who, was not the hard, strident feminist out of the ‘60s and ‘70s…She’s all for women’s rights, but she doesn’t want to lead the charge at her own emotional expense” (Owen quoting from Bellafonte 1998).

      In addition to the Ally McBeal’s great audience’s reactions and the positive things that the creator had to say about this successful show, the series also benefited to the society in some of the content that it covered (i.e. sexual harassment laws and the issues of legal and social equity). This fact is shown through the plot line of the show’s pilot when we see that Ally quits a prominent law firm in which she got hired fresh out of Harvard Law School (Owen et. al 2007). The events that lead up to her walking out of this law firm are described as the following: “ …the firm fired her rather than Jack Billings, the senior ‘rainmaker’ partner in the firm who repeatedly grabbed Ally’s rear and who, when confronted with being fired himself, threatened to counter sue the firm under the Federal Disabilities Act, claiming he had an obsessive compulsive disorder that impelled him to squeeze butts” (Owen et. al 2007). After walking away from this situation and leaving the firm, she bumps into one of her collages from Harvard Law School named Richard Fish who invited her to join a firm that he and John Cage had started (Owen et. al 2007).  It is here at Cage and Fish, where Richard exposed Billings of his misleading and perverted defense claims. “Although the pilot episode affirmed the legal right of working women to be free from sexual harassment by powerful superiors in the workplace, it also affirmed that male power holders continue to regard occupationally competent, successful women as transgressive and attempt to discipline them through sexually infantilizing and intimidating behavior” (Owen et al. 2007). 

     Ally McBeal also came with much criticism from the more conservative spectrum. One example of this criticism came with Second Wave journalists and viewers who were frustrated at the “realization that hey were not being treated as equal partners in the civil rights movement, the peace movement, or in their everyday lives” (Owen et. al 2007). According to these feminists, Ally’s short skirts worn in the series “made her the antithesis of a feminist and a poor role model. They read Ally’s adoption of the signifiers of sexual feminine fashion as participating in the very sexism Second Wave feminism had struggled against and as legitimizing the hegemonic masculine view that all women are primarily and fundamentally objects of sexual desire” (Owen et. al 2007) .

     When Ally McBeal was at its peak (during the end of the first season), the question of  ‘Is feminism dead?’ resounded in an issue of Time magazine that came out on June 29, 1998 (Owen, et. al 2007). “Journalistic critics’ and viewers’ responses to this query were quite divided. Some argue that the series and its title character were a powerful expression of contemporary Third Wave feminism. Others asserted that the series was an elegantly crafted backlash against feminism, a televisual reflection of the antifeminist tropes in the writings of Kate Roiphe, Camile Paglia, Naomi Wolf, and Pene Denefield” (Owen, et. al  2007).

*Citations provided from the following sources:

Bellafante, Gina (1998). ‘Feminism: It’s All About Me!’, Time, pg. 58

Owen, Susan A., Stein, Sarah R., & Vande Berg, Leah R. (2007). Bad Girls: Cultural

     And Media Representations of Transgressive Women, Peter Lang Publishing, Inc:

    New York.

Svetkey, Benjamin (1998). ‘Kelley’s Heroes’, Entertainment Weekly, pp.32-34, 37-38, 40

Oracion por Marilyn Monroe (Prayer for Marilyn Monroe)

Earlier in this semester, Dr. Anne Kennedy showed a documentary in my International Communications class. Part of this documentary included a segment called "Oracion por Marilyn Monroe", this is a poem written by Erneston Cardinal. This poem (a sort of biography of Marilyn) was originally written in Spanish, but has been translated in English... I wanted to share it with whomever is willing to read. I love the imagery Ernseton uses in this poem. Enjoy!

Prayer for Marilyn Monroe

Lord

Receive this girl known around the world by the
name Marilyn Monroe
although that was not her real name
(but You know her real name, that of the little orphan girl violated
at age 9
and the little store clerk who at 16 had wanted to kill herself)
and who now presents herself before You without any makeup
without her Press Agent
without photographers and without signing autographs
alone as an astronaut facing the night of space.

She dreamt as a girl of being naked in a church
(as reported by Time)
before a prostrated crowd, with heads to the ground
and she had to walk on tiptoes so as not to tread on the heads.
You know our dreams better than the psychiatrists.
Church, home, cave, are the security of the mother’s breast
But also something more than that…
The heads are those of her fans, it is clear
(the mass of heads in the darkness beneath the stream of light)
But the temple is not the studios of 20th Century-Fox.
The temple – of marble and gold – is the temple of her body
in which the Son of Man with a whip in hand
drives out the 20th Century-Fox flesh merchants
who made Your house of prayer a den of thieves.

Lord
In this world of sins and radioactivity
You will not blame a little store clerk only.
Like all shop girls she dreamt of being a film star.
And her dream was reality (but the reality of Technicolor).
She did nothing but act according to the script that we gave her
- That of our own lives – And it was an absurd script.
Forgive her, Lord, and forgive us
for our 20th Century
for this Colossal Super-Production on which all of us have worked.

She was hungry for love and we offered her tranquilizers.
For her sadness, as we are not saints,
Psychoanalysis was recommended to her.
Remember, Lord, her growing fear of the camera
and her hatred of makeup – insisting on fresh makeup for each scene –
and how the horror kept building in her
and her late arrivals at the studio became more frequent.

Like every shop girl
she dreamt of being a film star.
And her life was unreal like a dream that a psychiatrist interprets and archives.

Her romances were a kiss with closed eyes
yet when she opened her eyes
she discovered that she was under spotlights
and they turned off the spotlights!
and they take down the two walls of the setup (it was a movie set)
while the Director walks away with his notebook
because the scene was shot.
Or like a yacht trip, a kiss in Singapore, a dance in Rio
The reception at the mansion of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor
viewed in the miserable little living room of an apartment.

The movie ended without the final kiss.
The found her dead in her bed with the phone in her hand
And the detectives didn’t know who she was going to call.
She was
like someone who had dialed the number of the single friendly voice
and had only heard the voice of a recording that told her: WRONG NUMBER
Or like someone who had been wounded by gansters
reaching for the disconnected telephone.

Lord
whoever it might have been that she was going to call
and didn’t call (and perhaps it wasn’t anyone
or it was Someone whose number isn’t in the Los Angeles Directory)
You answer the phone!

Slumdog Millionaire; life goes full circle

One of my new favorite movies is Slumdog Millionaire. I LOVE Indian people and Indian culture! :-)

     In Slumdog Millionare, Jamal Malik is  being physically tortured and antagonizing interrogated  because of the fact that some officals in India believe that he was cheating on the all famous show called “Who Wants to be a Millionare”. Throughout his interrogations, we witness many flashbacks on his life – stretching back from his childhood.  The themes seen in this inspirational film include destiny, lives going full circle, and beating the odds.

Jamal Malik was born in extreme poverty in Inda. The government (police) were constantly present and violent riots were an unfortunate common occurrence.  On one occasion, we witnessed one of Jamal’s flashbacks. This memory in particular involved some horrible Gestapo members causing havoc, death, and ultimate destruction on the streets. Jamal and his brother were playing with the local kids (as usual) as his mother and many other women were washing laundry in the common canal one day. We see a huge group of men come and rampage the city, killing many innocent people (including Jamal’s mother) along the way. Jamal and his brother  Salim make a run for it- determined to escape and spare their lives. Luckly, they make it out of this mess and find shelter.

Further on in their adventures, Jamal and Salim were sleeping under a quick made tent, made of a simple sheet/blanket in the middle of a literal dump. Two men came along and offered the boys some coke. Oblivious of the danger that these strangers were, Jamal and Salim followed them, ultimately allowing them to kidnap them (perhaps there was something in the Coke that made them docile and compliant?).  It wasn’t too long after this that the two meet their “third musketeer” (beautiful Latika). After facing many trials and tribulations, including one incident that involved the perverted men who took the Jamal, Salim and Latika (as well as many other orphaned children) “under their wing”, so to speak and made them sing a national anthem type song. These kids were tricked, thinking that if they had a nice voice, something good would happen to them- that they would gain something in return for singing. Unfortunately, the opposite occurred. One little boy was singing his heart out for these men, but sadly, his eyes were burned away and he wound up blind. Jamal and Salim were lucky enough to escape from this treachery, but Latika was left behind (since she could not make it onto the moving train the brothers managed to escape on).

With the song “Paper Planes” in the background, we see Jamal and Salim grow up while riding atop of speeding trains and stealing their way to survival (acting as tourists, using ropes to take food out of train windows, etc).  In accident that happened as they were trying to steal bread caused their travelling to be put on halt, and from there Jamal went searching for his lost friend and ultimate true love Latika.  The beautiful girl was found, learning how to belly dance so that she could sell her body to any man who wanted her. Jamal and Salim come to the scene, and we see the trend of slumming, bargaining, and violence all in the process of Salim’s escape from the whore house she was living in.  Destiny and life coming full circle are two key themes in this film because each character truly did find their destinies in a way. Jamal got his girl in the end and Salim (who dedicated his life to stealing and cheating his way through things) died in a literal pool of blood and money that he stole from other people. Jamal beat the odds that were against him in his life by winning the "Who wants to be a Millionaire" game and becoming a television celebrity.   

Natasha Richardson (1963-2009)

I recently found out that one my favorite actresses past away this month. Her name is Natasha Richardson and she was in many famous films (such as Nell, The Parent Trap, and Maid in Manhattan). She also did stage work, acting in plays like Tennesee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire.

Richardson came from a long line of actors and actresses; her mother being    the legendary Vanessa Redgrave and sister Joely Richardson (some might recognize her as Julia McNamara on Nip/Tuck).

 

     Natasha was on a skiing trip in Quebec, Canada on March 16^th taking a skiing lesson. In the process, Natasha fell and consequently suffered head injury. After her accident, she was able to hold conversations with the paramedics who came to the scene, so she was not admitted to the hospital right away. It wasn’t until 3 hours after she returned to her hotel room, since she was complaining of a headache, that she was taken to the closest hospital. Subsequently, Natasha was transferred to a different hospital in Montreal, Canada- at this point she was in critical condition. About seven hours later, Richardson was taken to a hospital in New York via airplane. It was there, at Lenox Hill Hospital, that Natasha Richardson passed away.

No one is entirely sure what exactly caused her death, specifically, why this head injuy turned fatal. Research shows that even a small head injury can lead to death, so one must not delay when an accident like such occurs.

At any rate, REST IN PEACE, Natasha! Your theatrical grace and elegance will be forever admired!

 

Fatal Attraction, Swim Fan, Cruel Intentions and the Femme Fatal…

     We’ve all seen it happen; Boy meets girl, their eyes meet, and eventually its love at first sight. But what if something goes awry? What happens when this feeling of “love” is not mutual and instead of ‘love at first sight’ it becomes a matter of LUST at first sight?  Infatuation is not all its cracked up to be.  It can become an agonizing and disgusting process.  Some people take this aspect of lust way too far; we see this example in popular movies.

      The other night, I was watching Cruel Intentions starring Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Ryan Phillippe, and Selma Blair. For those of you who have not yet seen this film, it was popular in the late 90s  (1999) and depicts a love/ lust triangle between the main characters Kathryn (played by Gellar), Sebastian (Ryan) and their “conquests” Annette (Witherspoon) and Selma. Gellar and Phillippe make a perverted bet at the beginning of the movie, stating that if Sebastian has sex with Annette ( who is the headmaster’s daughter) before the school year starts, then he gets to have intercourse with his step sister Kathryn. If he fails, Kathryn gains possession of Sebastian’s beautiful car. Ultimately, Sebastian falls in love with his “conquest” Annette, Kathryn being the bitch that she is ends up turning on him and he gets killed. Karma falls on Kathryn in the worst way by the entire school learning all of her horrible tactics at Sebastian’s funeral; including the fact that she is a HUGE crack snorting hypocrite.

      Another example of crazed femme fatal roles comes from the all famous film entitled Fatal Attraction. In this movie (Starring Glenn Close and Michael Douglass), Glenn’s character meets Michael’s at a corporate dinner event. Everything seemed good and fine in the beginning, but then things got a bit more serious- with the two meeting for “lunches” and going out for coffee. Next thing you know, Michael is meeting Glenn in her apartment for dinner and they end up sleeping together, causing him to be cheating on his wife. Michael knows what he’s doing is wrong, and tries confronting Glenn about their actions and tells her that they must STOP, but she has this horrible hold on him- Glenn’s character wants what she cannot have and is an insane and psychotic individual who will attempt any action it takes to try to be with Michael (including following him home, kidnapping his child, and claiming to be pregnant with his child). Sorry to be a killjoy, but I shall come to the conclusion that whomever is reading this entry has seen this movie- the ending of this thriller depicts Glenn eventually trying to kill everyone off (Michael and is his wife), but ironically, Glenn is the one who dies (gets stabbed/ drowns in the bathtub).

      The final film that I wish to describe is one of my personal favorites called Swimfan. This one is basically an updated 2000’s version of Fatal Attraction, with pretty much the same plot- only it is set in a high school setting. The main character is a taken member if the swim team of the high school the actors attend. He has a very happy and functional relationship with his girlfriend until a Southern Belle comes and takes everything away from him (his job, his chance at a swimming scholarship for college, the tight relationship he has with his mother, etc). After multiple turns of events, the Southern Belle goes postal and ultimately gets killed off- causing everyone else to live happily ever after (again similar to Fatal Attraction’s plot). 

CHRIS CROCKER!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2xZmyADubEhahahaaha

I love Chris, he's so flippin' HILARIOUS! For those of you who have not heard of him, he is the youtube star who created the "LEAVE BRITNEY ALONE" video about two years ago.

This video (where Chris is crying hysterically, requesting that people stop talking about Britney Spears; that they give her a break, claiming that she is only human, not entirely well emotionally, and that if anyone had a problem with her, they go through him first) was discovered online by millions of  people and criticized  by the press and various television stations

  There is much controversy that comes with Chris and his videos- he voices his opinions regarding gay rights/marriage, vents about his personal love affairs, and makes videos in the oddest places (fast food drive up windows, random connivence stores with friends, the parking lot of a porno super store/glory hole joint etc.) Some might find Chris a bit strange, due to the fact that he's a she (hair extensions, make-up, his extreme feminine characteristics, and so on), but I for one find his youtube videos to to extremely entertaining. 

Why does everything have to be about sex??

Sex in everything from exercise to Hannah Montana - Editorial

While sitting here contemplating whether or not I should do reading/research or go to bed (story of my life- hahaha), I couldn't help but wonder "why does everything have to be about sex"/ "why is the world we live in so obsessed with sex?" I came across an article entitled Sex in everything from exercise to Hannah Montana that I found to be interesting and worthy of sharing on this blog.

     In a nutshell, this editorial discusses various aspects of sex appeal that the world sends to us. These subjects include sports, exercise, advertisements, and the fact that there are certain characters on the Disney Channel who are overtly sexualized. The first subject covered: sports- apparently there are some people who requested that POLE DANCING be added to the genre of sports in the olympics. "Well, that's just silly; WHY would anyone in their right minds want this?!", one might be asking. The reasoning for this is because pole dancing is full of grace, fluidty, and strength- it reminds some people of gymnastics. Okay, seriously- when I think of gymnastics, the LAST thing on my mind is pole dancing! 

     On to advertisement; let's just face it- SEX SELLS. This editorial talks about how gorgeous women are used to sell things like beer, cars, and furniture; but an interesting fact that it brings up is that of Mr. Clean: according to this source, "...he may be bald and a cartoon, but he is muscular and he helps clean the floor". 

     The final point I'd like to bring up about this editorial in particular is that regarding some popular characters on the Disney channel and how they are overtly sexualized. Hannah Montana is a big one- many young girls idolize over her, watch her television show, and sing along to the cute little song she sings. At the same time however, the media is truly over sexualizing her. Granted she is getting older and some might think she needs to be a little bit more "mature" for the media, but seriously- what example is this setting for the younger girls who love Hannah and are too young to be exposing themselves to all that. 

Humm... okay, perhaps I am just a ranting, raving, conservative- lol; but I just figured I'd share what's been on my mind in regard to the media. Ciao for now! ;-)

If the world's a stage....

     Whatever one's walk of life may be, we are all spectators in one way or another. One might be walking down the street and be the witness of a car accident,  robbery, or some other unfortunate event. People have tendencies to stare at others all the time- especially at the bus stop, on buses, or any public place in general. For the sake of media, however, we are truly spectators in many ways. Film is a very important spectator's sport. Individuals go to the movies everyday. One person could see the same film that myself or a friend viewed, but have a different interpretation  (theories) of it. 

    

      A particular theory that I have recently learned about in Media Criticism class is a psychoanalytic one that has to do with film and cinema narratives. This theory revolves around the idea that there is much visual pleasure involved with the film media and the reasonings behind this claim. One main reason that is given to support the claim or idea that visual pleasure abound is that of the image of the castrated woman/ her absence of a penis. According to the studies of Freud and more recent studies from Lacan, there is a type of fetishism involved with the human psyche and this fetishism strongly suggests that society constructs the male structure and that it is a result of what's "missing" from the female anatomy (that they are "incomplete" by not having male genitalia).

      

    In all honesty, I was a little freaked out when I first heard about this theory, but after reading about it in Laura Mulvey's  article entitled Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema, and taking a look at various examples from well known films (such as Hitchcock's Vertigo, and Rear Window), my perspectives have been broadened a bit. For example, if one were to look at the movie Rear Window, one would see the trend of a the main character (Jeffries) being a spectator, a "peeping Tom", if you will. He had an interesting relationship with his girlfriend Lisa in the sense where when he was looking out of his apartment window and into her's, there is an aspect of eroticism, yet when the barrier is broken (when she enters his apartment), he sees what has really been going on in her living quarters; a dangerous man had been threatening her. He then saves his girlfriend from a harmful intruder. I found this to be interesting. 

ZOMBIES in area...RUN!

While surfing the internet last week, I came across a shocking article on MSNBC.com entitled,  Pranks with electronic road signs stir worry. 

According to MSNBC.com:

Collinsville- Illinos- Pranksters in at least three states are messing with electronic road signs meant to warn motorists of possible traffic problems by putting on notice about Nazi zombies and raptors. And Highway safety officials aren't amused. 

The latest breach came Tuesday during the morning rush hour near Collinsville, Ill., where hackers changed a sign along southbound Interstate 255 to read, "DAILY LANE CLOSURES DUE TO ZOMBIES."

A day earlier in Indiana's Hamilton County, the electronic message on a board in Carmel's construction zone warned drivers of "RAPTORS AHEAD- CAUTION."  (courtesy of http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29017293/)

     This article goes on to inform is that not only did this disturbing prank occur in Illinois, but also in Texas and that those who tamper with the traffic announcement boards are subject to a hefty fine ($250 and in some states up to $5,000). These hoaxes that were broadcasted on the electronic boards are not a laughing matter... an individual who is suffering from a mental disorder could have gone into hysteria, thinking that there are literally zombies/ aliens in the area. This incident reminds me of the War of the Worlds, when Wells broadcasted a program on the radio that informed the public that there is some sort of invasion of aliens in the area. This occurrence caused a great uproar; many listeners actually believed him and were in a huge state of PANIC. This shows that not only does the media have a very strong hold on us, but that one must be careful what they jest and poke fun at. What might be a joke to one person might be a horrific, life or death issue to another.