Nursery Rhyme

Morgan Finley
Megan Gonzalez
Leilani Stein
Morgan Pena

Our rhyme was “Old King Cole.” For our power point we did a more contemporary interpretation and created an allegorical take on this classic rhyme. We used President Obama as the figure for Old King Cole and then the other political candidates for the 2008 Presidential election as the fiddlers. We took an even more humorous take on the project by making the ‘pipe’ and ‘bowl’ and making it a drug reference. Our comic is meant to be a poke at the classic quote from Clinton and his explanation that he may have tried marijuana but never inhaled and Obama’s quip that "When I was a kid I inhaled frequently. That was the point."

Google Rebuilds the Tower of Babel With Real-Time Language Translation

Google announced its plans to develop and launch a translation service that converts one spoken language into another, almost instantaneously, during telephone conversations. Below is the link to the above-referenced article published in today's New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/external/readwriteweb/2010/02/08/08readwriteweb-google-rebuilds-the-tower-of-babel-with-rea-64313.html

And here is another article on the same topic from PC World:

Google's Next Venture: Universal Translator:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/188777/googles_next_venture_universal_translator.html

Nursery Rhyme Comics

Mary Wienke

Kathy Bowman

Katie Savage

Victoria Murray

Our slide show was for the nursery rhyme Humpty Dumpty. We decided to take an allegorical approach to the nursery rhyme and parallel the story with the story of an American soldier in Iraq because everyone in our group has a military connection. Our first slide consists of a sniper firing from atop a building connecting with the line "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall." Our second slide is wordless and shows an explosion. The next slide shows an overlay of President Obama with the troops and a man being carried on a gurney to a helicopter drawing symbolism with the lines "Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, All the king's horses and all the king's men..." and the last slide is a multi picture slide showing the procession of a funeral service and the grave-site of a military man drawing parrallel to the line "Couldn't put Humpty together again!"

With this slide show we wanted to bring a more powerful meaning to the nursery rhyme, so instead of using humor we went for the element of drama and suspense. However, since this is a popular nursery rhyme we were sure that people would know it already so we decided to evoke a deeper emotional response from the viewer rather than relying on what was in front of us.

Convergence Culture, by Henry Jenkins, brought up some old memories like: Celebrity Death Match! I use to love watching every week to see who was going to be in the next celebrity match up. Where else could you see Charlie Manson and Marilyn Manson face off to the death, in claymation fashion of course. For your viewing pleasure (and to bring back a few memories) I present you with Celebrity Death Match: Kid Rock vs. Eminem.

Buy Now, Pay Later (Maybe With Your Allowance)



This article discusses the monetary dimension of FooPets, a social networking/virtual pet caregiving program like Farmville, etc. Foopets has set up a Kwedit system that allows children under 18 (who do not have a credit or debit card) to pay in cash at 7-Eleven for the products or services that they promise to pay while online...

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/business/07digi.html?src=sch&pagewanted=all

Pelican Lounge on Island being sued for playing copyrighted material

The ASCAP has sued the Pelican Lounge for not purchasing a license to play copyrighted material. As always with the Caller Times, check out the comments after the article. Some of these readers are getting naasthty!


http://www.caller.com/news/2010/feb/04/bar-owner-sued-for-playing-copyrighted-music/?partner=popular

Hush-a-bye, baby...

Josh
Mehmet
Joh
Rob

In our comic we took each line of the rhyme and tried to associate any type of picture with the description. We also included a bit of humor of associating certain words with certain images or persons that did match the word but not exactly the meaning of the word. For example the line that stated, "the cradle will rock..." we displayed a picture of a former wrestler who was known as "The Rock." Another example would be a picture of a person falling off the back of a boat associating it with the line, "the cradle will fall..."

The origin of this nursery rhyme can be traced back to the 17th century. It was said to be the first poem to be written in America and its written about the way Native American women used to have cradles made out of bark hung to a branch on a tree and have the wind rock the baby.