In late-breaking South Park news, not only has Tom Cruise threatened to sue if they rescreen the scientology episode, but Isacc Hayes (also a scientologist) has quit – citing issues with the increasing religious intolerance in the show. That’s a bit rich when the original short on which the show was based had a smackdown between Jesus and Satan. South… Read more →
Here’s a nice opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald which laments the lack of imagination in children, and the culture of wrapping them in cotton wool. Imagine the ramifications of tracking devices and helicopter parents on Huck Finn. He and Jim would never have built their raft and sailed the Mississippi. And Alice might never have followed the white… Read more →
Michael Duffy, known for anti-union articles and the like has written a polemic in the Herald calling for a ban on bicycles. The opening paragraph reads It’s time to get bikes off our roads. As a mainstream form of transport, the bicycle has proved itself the equivalent of communism: a lovely idea that failed dismally in practice. Bikes are dangerous… Read more →
John Clarke and Bryan Dawe did their spot on the 730 Report last night and it was a real keeper. KERRY O’BRIEN: Time now for John Clarke and Bryan Dawe with their take on Telstra. (BRYAN DAWE AS INTERVIEWER, JOHN CLARKE AS CONTESTANT) INTERVIEWER: OK, your special subject is Australian Government policy. Your time starts now. Official Government policy is… Read more →
Media Matters reports that some jerk called John Stossel defends price gouging by saying that it saves lives! Consider this scenario: You are thirsty — worried that your baby is going to become dehydrated. You find a store that’s open, and the storeowner thinks it’s immoral to take advantage of your distress, so he won’t charge you a dime more… Read more →
And of course, they don’t like to apologise when the mistake is make public. There was eventually a one-line statement regretting the mistake, and the person who announced the lie said that “mistakes happen”. No on-air retraction has been published. Basically, a suspected terrorist moved house from Orange County three years ago. The new owners (middle-class family with three children)… Read more →
Americans, religion, politics and stupidity. Somehow that list seems to have redundant elements. However…. The latest missive from the pulpit of TV Evangelism is that Pat Robertson has stated that the US should assassinate the Venezualan president Hugo Chavez. Here’s another link You know, I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we’re trying to assassinate… Read more →
Alan Kohler in todays SMH writes about media diversity on-line: It turns out that despite all the exciting possibilities, the internet is not much of an engine for media diversity. The same players who dominate print and television are battling for online classified advertising domination and will, as a group, succeed. What’s more, three of them are partners in subscription… Read more →
From the transcript of GW’s press conference from 31 April 2005 – asked about the Amnesty International report on the handling of detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of — and the allegations — by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in… Read more →
Kuro5hin has been a bit dull recently, but I found this article interesting. It confirms my suspicions about Orson Scott Card’s politics, and why I got bored of reading his work. Not having read any Hitler biographies, I can’t comment on the parallels between Ender and Hitler, but, the final straw for me was Card’s essay blasting the press for… Read more →
Today at lunch one of my work collegues and I were discussing the Shapelle Corby case in terms of the media coverage ( the pub had the TV tuned to channel 9 for the final day of the trial). We tried to avoid the coverage as much as possible, but had to be exposed to some of it while at… Read more →
A nice little opinion piece from Radar at the Sydney Morning Herald on the news that student at Sutherland Shire Christian School have handed in pirated CDs because of biblical pronouncements not to steal. My favourite piece is the following: The notion of Intellectual Property relies on the belief in this ‘marketplace of ideas’, but there is no such thing… Read more →
Extracted from an article from The Guardian about farmyard animals and intelligence: Another creature similarly viewed by modern society as little more than a benign food source – the cow – is also shown to be an astute animal capable of solving riddles with an intellect more traditionally associated with an ape. Studies at Oxford University found that Betty, a… Read more →
My shipment from think geek arrived today. The pride of place is this. I was a bit worried that it wasn’t compatible with local systems, but it works on my TV, at least. Watch out world – here I come to help stop junk TV 🙂 A good site for TV activism is White Spot.
I passed a billboard on the way to work, advertising A Current Affair, asking the question “Terrorism – are we paranoid enough?â€. Well, yes, actually. Paranoia is a pathological condition for which irrational fear is a symptom. I think that there’s always enough of that around without looking for more.
A nice piece by Sheila Sample about the lack or integrity from Fox News and CNN et al. It’s depressing to read quotes lke this from CBS’ Dan Rather. Bush is my president. Whatever he tells me to do, I’ll just salute, line up behind him and say ‘Yes Sir! That’s a man who is not interested in the truth,… Read more →
As covered on Media Watch … A documentary maker (Judy Rymer) wanting access to news archive coverage of political figures (mainly Liberal) from the ABC was told that she couldn’t get it without getting clearance from the “stakeholders” (ie. the politicians). Her website describes the film as follows: Punished not Protected is an educational documentary series in four parts (on… Read more →
