your poll of the day
May. 12th, 2003 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapsedmodernistDonald Duck and Cover
Walt Disney Co. won a rare prize on the eve of the Iraq war when federal officials ordered the long-term closing of the airspace above its theme parks in Florida and California ostensibly to protect against terrorist attacks.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland were granted security zones that put them on par with a select few potential targets, including President Bush's ranch, nuclear submarine bases and military stockpiles of sarin gas.
Without public debate or even a request from the new Homeland Security Department, Congress bent its rules to help Disney secure the no-fly zones.
The decision has angered pilots who accuse Disney of manipulating terrorism fears for a commercial aim: to close public airspace over its parks as a way to ban competitors' aerial advertising planes and sightseeing helicopters.
"Disney tried to make that restricted airspace for years but couldn't until now because the airspace belongs to the people, not to a corporation," said Joe Kittinger, a longtime Orlando aerial advertiser. "They've achieved it now under the guise of national security, and there is absolutely no reason for it."
YOUR REACTION:
A) I am glad that Disney is protected, even though nuclear power plants are not
B) Just wait until Michael Moore's new film, Farenheit 911 comes out
C) Of course they are protecting Donald Duck. Donald Duck is the agent of socialization that confirms the victory of technological reason over truth. "Donal Duck in the cartoons and the unfortunate in real life get their thrashing so that the audience can learn to take their own punishment." Just ask Theodore Adorno.
D) Mickey Mouse must be protected! He is our mascot of subversion, a symbol of laughter/horror amalgam of progress and capitalism. "His life is full of miracles that not only surpass the wonders of technology, but make fun of them." Just ask Walter Benjamin.
E) France sucks. Let'em get EuroDisney if they want.
F) I am sorry, I am too distracted by the terror attack simulations and too busy wondering when it was exactly that my life turned into a chapter from Don DeLillo's White Noise
Walt Disney Co. won a rare prize on the eve of the Iraq war when federal officials ordered the long-term closing of the airspace above its theme parks in Florida and California ostensibly to protect against terrorist attacks.
Walt Disney World and Disneyland were granted security zones that put them on par with a select few potential targets, including President Bush's ranch, nuclear submarine bases and military stockpiles of sarin gas.
Without public debate or even a request from the new Homeland Security Department, Congress bent its rules to help Disney secure the no-fly zones.
The decision has angered pilots who accuse Disney of manipulating terrorism fears for a commercial aim: to close public airspace over its parks as a way to ban competitors' aerial advertising planes and sightseeing helicopters.
"Disney tried to make that restricted airspace for years but couldn't until now because the airspace belongs to the people, not to a corporation," said Joe Kittinger, a longtime Orlando aerial advertiser. "They've achieved it now under the guise of national security, and there is absolutely no reason for it."
YOUR REACTION:
A) I am glad that Disney is protected, even though nuclear power plants are not
B) Just wait until Michael Moore's new film, Farenheit 911 comes out
C) Of course they are protecting Donald Duck. Donald Duck is the agent of socialization that confirms the victory of technological reason over truth. "Donal Duck in the cartoons and the unfortunate in real life get their thrashing so that the audience can learn to take their own punishment." Just ask Theodore Adorno.
D) Mickey Mouse must be protected! He is our mascot of subversion, a symbol of laughter/horror amalgam of progress and capitalism. "His life is full of miracles that not only surpass the wonders of technology, but make fun of them." Just ask Walter Benjamin.
E) France sucks. Let'em get EuroDisney if they want.
F) I am sorry, I am too distracted by the terror attack simulations and too busy wondering when it was exactly that my life turned into a chapter from Don DeLillo's White Noise
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 05:33 pm (UTC)Is Epcot protected too? I bet they're glad they chose Morrocco as the unofficial bearer of the Middle East/Arab culture (if I recall correctly from 15 years ago)...
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 06:49 pm (UTC)Disney-ized "Arabia" that is user-friendly actually has lots of cachet in our culture above and beyond being a locus for the Hollywood imaginary of villains...just look at all the $ Aladdin made...so it makes sense, since Morcocco=Mahgrib. isn't Epcot in, or around Celebration, Florida? that town wigs me out.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-13 04:54 am (UTC)even scarrier is the fact that more than one of my marx wielding professors from grad school have designed buildings there. i understand that there is not a direct correlation between theory and practice, but you'd think that theory might in some small way inform the decisions that get made in practice. but i suppose not.
do not get me started on new urbanism...
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 07:16 pm (UTC)I think that Disneyland has become like the Crystal Palace: it's so much a part of the cultural psyche that if they get rid of it somehow the world will mourn for it 100 years later.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 07:44 pm (UTC)Disneyland is like an insane pomo Taj Mahal--except instead of being built by a Rajah to immortalize his wife for his favorite wife, it was built by Disneygeist to immortalize its love for its favorite masses.
Re:
Date: 2003-05-12 08:30 pm (UTC)any relation to the other Doctorow?
Date: 2003-05-13 12:22 am (UTC)Re: any relation to the other Doctorow?
Date: 2003-05-13 01:08 am (UTC)Cory runs boingboing, a website you may have heard of.