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A few glaring items came to mind as I finished reading Roszak's "The Cult of Information:"

What constitutes an American tradition? It probably depends on who you ask. When I think of traditions of this country, I think of baseball, apple pie, and freedom (not necessarily in that order ... ). Holiday traditions in the U.S. are a little easier to define, only because they are recognized by a large number of people who live here. Religious traditions can be seen in the same vain, although few religions were actually created in this country.

We are to the midpoint in Theodore Roszak's "The Cult of Information," and up until now, I have experienced mixed emotions based on what I have read. On one page, I found myself thinking, "Yes!

Question: Considering the work of Ellul complete the following:

Write about/describe an example of a technique in today's society. Tell its story and the need for the creation/adoption of this technique and the new techniques that resulted from it? Could we have controlled for this technique? Is there or was there an alternative?

While I admit to being a little hesitant at reading such a grandiose PDF as presented from The technological society by Jacques Ellul, I found a bounty of words and phrases (some that I agreed with, some that I didn't) of which I made note. I'll try to make comments about as many as possible, although an entire Internet might not be enough room to give my thoughts about this text.

It's apparent how much of a stronghold social networking has on U.S. society when a story about Facebook changing its terms of service appears as the main story on baltimoresun.com. That would be equivalent to seeing a story about a credit card company changing the fine print in its terms and conditions, or your favorite cereal changing the order of ingredients on its new packaging.

1. Based upon you interpretation of the Yeaman article and your experiences, how would you define “critical theory?” What key terms do you feel are needed to create this definition? Write a brief definition and include a list of 5 terms (not including critical & theory).

There are a couple of different ways to look at the recent reports that the

Google recently announced a new product available for a number of cell phone devices called Google Latitude. The program allows you to see other people, assuming they have opted into the system, on a Google-generated map.

If I were tasked with the chore of educating an alien race about earth's culture, it's pretty obvious how I would start. I would create an online slide show of the 2009 Super Bowl commercials. After all, what better way is there to show a foreign species how humankind has evolved into tech-hungry, commercialized beings?