Which of these reflects your environment?

There are times when I feel as if I’m occupying a closing scene in Spielberg’s “AI: Artificial Intelligence.” You know, the scene where the elongated, ethereal robots of the future study the artificial child David. They want to learn all they can from him, because “he’s the last one who knew humans.” (via Clinging to the rear view mirror - Roger Ebert’s Journal)

And we all believed it…

(via Marshall McLuhan’s message was imbued with conservatism | Lance Strate | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk)

Although an icon of the counterculture movement, the man who coined ‘the medium is the message’ was no pill-popping hipster

How most people react to McLuhan

DesignMeets on McLuhan’s Birthday (by McLuhan100)

News imagery while tragic can also offer fantasy. Is that the villain walking away, on the phone, reporting a successful attack?

You can rant online and savage others without anyone saying, There are kids present. Or, Show some respect. There may also be a point of diminishing returns in virtual activity. The response is virtual too, even if virulent; and you might have to keep upping the level of rage, sanctimony, etc., just to maintain your degree of satisfaction. It’s what I picture Jonnie Marbles seeking relief from in his real, though symbolic, act. Whew. One wishes McLuhan were still around to uncomplicate some of this. (via Salutin: Virtual and real worlds collide with splat of a pie - thestar.com)

For a while after McLuhan’s death in 1980 it seemed that his reputation was indeed destined for oblivion, despite the defence of McLuhan in that Toronto Star editorial. He would never again trouble the peace of Communications Departments in universities across the land. When I began research on my biography of McLuhan in the mid-1980s, I often had to remind people who he was. (Usually I mentioned McLuhan’s appearance in Woody Allen’s 1976 movie, Annie Hall.) At the same time I noticed a curious phenomenon. I kept coming across articles that ripped off McLuhan’s insights with no acknowledgement of source. It reminded me of Friedrich Engels’ remark about political economists in his day who were as busy plagiarizing Marx’s work as they were persistent in trying to kill it by silence. (via The fall and rise of Marshall McLuhan - thestar.com)