Our media empire
11 March 2006
4:19 PM
Thanks to blogs and Flickr, the Holy Cross Associates in Chile have pretty much created a media company with diversified holdings that rivals other industry players like Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. OK, maybe that’s overstating the truth a little. After all, we’re not the “only vertically integrated media company on a global scale, involved in the production and distribution of films, television, satellite and cable broadcasting and programming and publishing.”* Maybe next year.
In all seriousness, the amount of content we’ve been producing is somewhat dizzying when you consider that we haven’t quit our day jobs. Although I introduced everyone to Flickr and push some people along the way to adopting a blog, I myself don’t have enough time to review what everyone does anymore. There’s too many pictures and too much writing. That summarizes some people’s objection to the Internet and the information age in general: there’s just too much. Perhaps, but the fact remains that there is more good stuff in absolute terms than there was before, even if it’s dwarfed relatively. But that’s why we have Google.
Still skeptical? I thought you might be, so I took a little time to cull through the latest from my fellow associates and share a few gems here. I have to admit, once I started looking through everyone’s pictures and writing, I was surprised at all the stuff I found. Sit back and enjoy the ride.
Llama fetuses. Adventurer that she is, Emily took at weekend trip to La Paz while we were in Bolivia. She joined forces with a German volunteer that she knew from working at the orphanage. In La Paz, Emily risked getting hexed when she took a picture of the llama fetuses that are sold at the local witches’ market. See the llamas and read about their purpose in Emily’s account.
Chile’s first female president. Roy, Caitlin, Emily, and I have been making the electoral rounds. We were in the U.S. for our elections in 2004. We were in Bolivia for election day on December 18, 2005, when Evo Morales was elected as the first indigenous president in the modern history of Latin America. Then we came to Chile where we were on hand for the run-off election of Michelle Bachelet, Chile’s first female president. When it was clear that Bachelet was going to win, thousands gathered in the city center to celebrate. Both Caitlin and Roy wrote about the election in their blogs.
Volcanoes. Chile is home to some spectacular scenery. When we traveled to Osorno in the south, we saw a gorgeous snow-capped volcano. I didn’t take a picture because I thought we would get closer to it, at which point I could take a better picture. That didn’t happen. Fortunately Meg didn’t miss out on the opportunity and I can show people her snapshot of this typical Chilean volcano.
Jack gets a bath. When I wrote about Memo and Jack, the two associate dogs, I tried to be fair to the truth: “Jack is widely acknowledged as the better looking of the two.” Tom took a photo of Caitlin giving Jack a bath that goes a long way towards supporting the claim.
Ninja dancing.
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The Santiago house associates are friends with a Brazilian family that, ironically enough, lives in Chile. The kids in the family are involved with Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art that combines dancing, kicks, punches, acrobatics, and music (see capoeira.com). During a practice session, Roy snapped these cool shots of the family practicing.
Make your body sweat. The Chilean summer is hot and there’s not much work to do. Even if there were, you probably wouldn’t want to do it. Tom wrote some thoughts on the heat in Chile that’s a pretty funny read. Here’s an excerpt:
The Chile Associate schedule takes a dip in the summer to practically zero on the Responsibility Scale. So, with nearly nothing on my agenda for the day, I go to the couch and sweat. And I drink cold water. I imagine some sort of hose going directly from mouth to my arm pits, as they seem to be leaking the water that I ingest only moments later, and with in an equal vigor.
Discover more yourself. I picked out some of the media that caught my eye, but there’s plenty more good stuff out there. If this didn’t whet your appetite, surf your way to some of our partner sites affiliated with our multi-national media empire.
Flickr photos
Blogs
Description of News Corp. from http://www.newscorp.com/index2.html.
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