Border App for iPhone

I just purchased an iPhone and I discovered a pretty cool application that has to do with borders. It's called Bordertimes and its a free application for the iPhone made by geogrant.com. This app lets you access U.S/ Canadian land border wait times from your iPhone. Offers both Northbound and Southbound views that lists all the land border's around you with a green, yellow, or red button which tells you approximatley how long the wait time at the each border is, as well as how many lanes are open. Pretty legitimate!












http://itunes.apple.com/ca/app/bordertimes/id374835487?mt=8

Caught this in my inbox:

INGO VETTER & DETROIT TREE OF HEAVEN WOODSHOP
Umeå

Motor Show

For the last ten years Ingo Vetter has visited Detroit regularly to take extended photo series. MOTOR SHOW brings together a number of these series, from the early "Detroit Industry - Jax Carwash", realized in 2000, to the brand new "Resource and Nostalgia".

Detroit is shaped by the automobile and its industry, and mobility seems to be the keyword for this city. The car has come to represent everything from progress and desire to climate change and urban collapse. It is omnipresent but has lost its progressive potential. Instead, mobility is symbolized by people overcoming obstacles.

In 2005 Ingo Vetter, Annette Weisser and Mitch Cope founded the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop, which works exclusively with wood processed from the Tree of Heaven, a resource unfailing in Detroit. Also known as ghetto palm, this plant (lat. Ailanthus altissima) populates abandoned lots and deserted factory sites all over Detroit. The Woodshop is set up as a loosely organized network of local specialists and develops art works and commissions for international art institutions. All frames, as well as other sculptural works in the exhibition, were specially produced by the Detroit Tree of Heaven Woodshop.

The exhibition is realized in collaboration with IASPIS and Umeå Academy of Fine Arts.

Bildmuseet

Umeå university

901 87 Umeå

+46 (0)90 - 786 52 27

info@bildmuseet.umu.se
http://www.bildmuseet.umu.se/

Exploit Detroit on TV

I recently caught wind of a new fictional murder investigation TV show that debuted September 21, 2010 on ABC called Detroit 1 8 7.

According to wikipedia, the pilot episode was shot in Atlanta, but all other episodes to date were shot in Detroit. Right off the bat, the opening segment of the pilot (which doesn't appear in any other episode) has a view of Windsor behind a zoom of the ren-cen, with a voiceover saying "Detroit Michigan: birthplace of Motown, and once the heart of the automobile industry. Now, it has one of the highest murder rates in the country."

I won't give away much of the plot, but spectacle and exploitation of the city and the 'type of people' that live there seem to be at the heart of this TV show.

I can't help but think about the recent media uproar over the filming of A&E's The First 48 in Detroit. The film crew had been following Detroit homicide police for several months when they witnessed and caught on tape the killing of a 7 year old girl.

This makes me think about the article we read in class, Vigilant Visualities. In this case, a TV crew made to exploit and produce a spectacle of the real tensions and crimes in Detroit is now called to produce video evidence of a crime committed by the police.

Hmmm....what do you think?

Some Book Cover Kitch For Y'all

Always white and heroic, (sometimes gay?), riding horses and shooting pistols, the Border Bandit is not Mexican or impoverished. Hmm....

Possible Research Topic for Someone?

While researching my topic for the Border Culture final project, I came across this great book which is available from the Leddy Library (HQ549 .T73 2008) that may serve as a starting point for anyone interested in researching issues involving women, family, immigration and social conditions around the U.S.-Mexico Border for their final project.

I thought I'd pass it along, as it doesn't fit with my research topic very well (Gendered spaces in Windsor)

Essays included in this book:

A demographic profile of children and families in the U.S.-Mexico border region / Yolanda C. Padilla and Ana Marie Argilagos

An overview of children and youth on the northern Mexican border / Catalina Palmer

The extended border: a case study of San Antonio as a transnational city / Harriett D. Romo

The complex picture of cities near the U.S.-Mexico border: the case of southern California / Belinda I. Reyes and Amanda G. Bailey

Maquiladora or cross-border commute: the employment of members of households in five Mexican border cities / Marie-Laure Coubes

Transborder interactions and transnational processes in the border community of Laredo, Texas / Raquel R. Marquez

Coming of age across borders: family, gender, and place in the lives of second-generation transnational Mexicanas / Patricia Sanchez

"I'm bien pocha": borderlands epistemologies and the teaching of english in Mexico / Mary A. Petron

The real and the symbolic: visualizing border spaces / Amelia Malagamba-Anstegui

Latina entrepreneurship in the borderlands: family well-being and poverty reduction policies / Barbara J. Robles

Public policy changes on the U.S.-Mexico border / Irasema Coronado.

Hope this helps!