Media Issues:
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Quality and social effects of movies, books, TV, etc. on the moral values of children and adults, issues of censorship; consolidation of ownership with the news industry.
8/2/08 Racial tension, working class angst, immigrant smuggling and the fear of terrorism: It's all there in the new movie, "The Frozen River.". The film depicts interaction between whites and Mohawk Indians in New York state near the Canadian border. Economic hardship generates an alliance of necessity between whites and Indians who cooperate in operations to smuggle aliens across the border, one of the few sources of cash in the community. http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/movies/01froz.html?8dpc
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Analysis & views: 6/23/08 War comics: Not just your Captain America punches Hitler in the face anymore. UK Independent columnist assays a new generation of comics with war themes and finds that many if not most of them refer obliquely or directly to the Iraqi occupation and usually in critical terms. Several take as their heroes war reporters and SHOOTING WAR creates a "fantasy" of an almost total identification of U.S. media and military. 1/9/08 "It was awesome to see the gods laughing, singing and flying planes": . An 8-year-old in India gives the ultimate child's accolade after viewing "The Return of Hanuman." This film is part of a growing crop of cartoon TV and movie offerings for children that is turning many of them from Looney Tunes to interest in the "super-heroes" of Indian mythology. 1/7/08 Chalmers Johnson calls Charlie Wilson's War "imperialist propaganda" and "dangerously misleading nonsense." http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA08Df01.html 10/6/07 A policy of "see no sex, hear no sex" seems to animate the aggressive action of China's government censorship office, as it attempts to ban everything from "suggestive" underwear commercials to a sexally explicit film by Ang Lee. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/IJ06Ad01.html 8/7/07 Is something rotten in Denmark? Survey shows more Danes consult horoscopes or astrology sites than religious ones on the internet. http://www.cphpost.dk/get/102982.html 8/1/07 Harry Potter knock-off books are flourishing in Chinese book market. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/world/asia/01china.html?th&emc=th 6/3/07 Dutch TV's "reality" show with kidney transplant as prize revealed to be a hoax News outlets around the world (including The Sun State Activist) reported as fact the plans of the Dutch producers to air a show in which contestants were patients in need of kidney transplants and a dying woman would provide the needed transplant to the winner. At press conference, show's producers reveal that the all participants were aware that the show would not be aired and that the publicity was intended to "focus attention" on the country-wide problem of shortage of kidneys for transplant. http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070601/organ_show_070601/20070601?hub=Health 5/31/07 Despite protests, Dutch TV reality show plans to go forward with airing a contest between three people needing kidney transplants to obtain one from a dying woman who has donated the kidney. Producers say it focuses public attention on the shortage of kidney donors. Critics say it's just obscene. http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2007/05/tasteless_organ_donor_show_to.php 1/18/07 India movie star, locked with several Britons in a London apartment as their interactions are televised by a British reality TV show, complains of "racism" in her treatment by the other contestants. http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070118/afp/070118083554asiapacificnews.html 9/27/06 After protests from Muslim community, Berlin opera company cancels performances of a Mozart opera with a scene depicting the severed head of Muhammed. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/27/world/europe/27germany.html?th&emc=th 4/7/06 Chinese government censors songs at Rolling Stones concert: http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SHOWBIZ/Music/04/08/stones.china.ap/
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Analysis & views: 8/2/08 Racial tension, working class angst, immigrant smuggling and the fear of terrorism: It's all there in the new movie, "The Frozen River.". The film depicts interaction between whites and Mohawk Indians in New York state near the Canadian border. Economic hardship generates an alliance of necessity between whites and Indians who cooperate in operations to smuggle aliens across the border, one of the few sources of cash in the community. http://movies.nytimes.com/2008/08/01/movies/01froz.html?8dpc 6/16/08 A new progressive book club is launched. You know the drill: three books for a buck and the obligation to buy 4 others over the course of two years. This one would serve as a counterpoint to a longstanding Conservative Book Club. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/books/16club.html?th&emc=th 3/23/08 "Get outta my Facebook!"! The personal internet and office etiquette:. An Orlando Sentinel article details the increasing tendency for people to invite or accept invitations to be "friends" on the personal websites of people at places where they work, including invitations that cross the line between bosses and employees. These trends challenge traditional official etiquette that decrees a degree of separation between one's personal and one's work lives. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/technology/orl-social2308mar23,0,6623742.story 2/4/08 Super stupidity said to prevail in last night's Super Bowl TV ads:. A Miami Herald columnist reviews some of them, featuring GoDaddy.com's "brillant" submission of a porno-tinged ad that it knew Fox network would reject, and then making a commercial about the network's exclusion. Excess and ambiguity seemingly become the "art form" of the Super-Bowl commercial. http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/405325.html 1/5/08 Ellen Goodman sees the movie "Juno" and lets loose her inner "fuddy duddy.": . She sees the movie in a theatre full of "tween" girls and worries about the message of these and others of the recent spate of teen-age pregnancy "comedies." As Molly on Fibber McGee and Molly (or any other fuddy duddy) might say, "taint funny, McGee." Not funny, that is, that there is a rising rate of teenage pregnancy in the country and a massive confusion from both pro-life and pro-choice advocates about what are "correct" decisions when it comes to sex, contraception and abortion. Pro-choice people don't want to condemn single mothers who have disdained both contraception and abortion, and pro-life ones applaud the courage of a woman who gives birth rather than "murdering" the fetus even though the woman has violated the "abstinence-only" prong of the pro-life agenda. With this cultural confusion, abetted by Hollywood comedies, fuddy duddy Goodman wonders how parents can have "serious" discussions with their pregnant teen-age daughters 12/22/07 "Charlie Wilson's War" described as a piece of anti-Afgan propaganda: The movie, starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, seriously mispresents the career of the Texas congressman's involvement in CIA support to anti-Soviet forces in Afghanistan. It obscures the fact that the lion's share of such support went to Afghan forces that, with their Pakistani allies, were anti-American and arguably the main force behind the attacks of 9/11. http://www.alternet.org/story/71286/?page=1 12/9/07 Duelling books, movies and talk shows take up the issue of Abu-Jamil's cop-killing conviction in Philadelphia: ,As a film-making "project" does major features on irregularities of police treatment of evidence in the case, a book featuring the "anguish" of the policeman's widow is released, and the news magazines and radio talk shows expand the amount of public attention to the case. http://www.counterpunch.org/washington12082007.html 11/23/07 "Fill the malls with wealthy people." With this refrain to the tune of "Deck the Halls, as this "black Friday" marks the advent of the holiday shopping season, AlterNet reviews the new documentary, "What Would Jesus Buy?" which skewers the commercialization of Christmas. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/68485/ 11/21/07 Is an articulate and progressive sports writer an oxymoron? Not quite, as demonstrated by writer Robert Lipsyte who, in a TomgramDispatch, grabs corporatized big time college football by the (ahem) and won't let it go until he's inflicted a career-threatening groin injury. http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174865/robert_lipsyte_the_quagmire_of_college_football 11/16/07 A website devoted to exposing Fox News' exploitation of pornography in its "news" broadcasts find itself banned from link to such internet sites as Digg and YouTube because of the "adult content" on their site. http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/68082/ 9/16/07 New Orleans people get demonized while its cops are depicted as heroes inj FOX TV's new series "K-Ville" : This show is in the long and dishonorable tradition of movies and TV programs that seek to justify the vigilante actions of "good cops" dealing with "bad guys," in this case the criminal element that is said to have prevailed in the aftermath of Katrina. Missing from the show is any honest analysis of post-Katrina problems of the people who, when they needed rehabilitation, got enhanced security efforts instead. http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/09/k-ville-fox-glamorizes-a-force-of-repression-in-new-orleans/ 7/28/07 Barry Bonds gets a bad rap from Sports Illustrated. Charles Modiano shows how, 15 years before any allegations of steroid abuse were charged to Bonds, about to eclipse Hank Aaron's all time home run record, SI ignored Bonds when it could and printed negative portraits of him when it couldn't ignore him. The "rap" on Bonds in those years was that he was a "jerk" or bad personality, in particular he failed to show due "obeisance" to the lords of the sports world, the working journalists. How would it be, Modiano asks, if difficult personalities like Mozart had been similarly the focus of ignoring or derogating by musical conductors---as opposed to recognizing him for his musical talent? http://www.cosellout.com/?p=20 5/6/07 Listened to shock radio since the Don Imus fuss? The New York Times has, and its reporters find that shock jocks are contemptuous of "sensitivity" efforts like the book, "Words Hurt and Harm," and continue with little obvious diminishment their practices of racial and sexual slurs and angry rhetoric. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/06/business/media/06talk.html?th&emc=th 5/4/07 More Imus fallout as black-owned St. Louis broadcasting station bans music with sexist, racist and violent content. http://www.kansascity.com/132/story/75093.html 2/24/07 BBC reporter comments on the obsession with celebrity scandals on American TV at the time of a national crisis. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6391891.stm 9/26/06 Life imitating art: President Bush's public statements about the necessity of "extraordinary" interrogation methods to protect Americans from imminent danger resonates with the "ticking-time-bomb" scripts of episodes of Fox TV's hit show 24 with "nick of time" confessions of impending plots made under the pressure of aggressive interrogation. http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0925-26.htm 5/27/06 Wired News editor asks the question: with illegal aggression abroad and civil rights destruction at home (as in the ferment of 1968) "where's everybody" to protest these conditions? Answer: at home wired to their iPods or TVs and focussed on the next winner of "American Idol." http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0526-20.htm 5/20/06 Da Vinci Code is out and the world is still standing (or sitting or lying comatose, whatever it was already doing); showing around the world "sparks outrage and ennui." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901303.html?referrer=email 5/13/06 Religious establishment prepares pre-emptive strike against "The Da Vince Code," a movie to be released next week http://news.inq7.net/top/index.php?index=1&story_id=75217. 5/1/06 Bloggers go into overtime to debate the merits of the film United Flight 93, and its apparent promotion primarily in right-wing media outlets: http://alternet.org/blogs/peek/35613/ 4/7/06 Sesame Street offers new line of "Baby" SS videos targeted to children as young as 6 months; pediatricians say babies shouldn't watch any television: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060404/ap_en_tv/baby_video_flap_9 4/2/06 TV sitcoms head for the burbs; now less sex in the city but something similar in the cul-de-sac. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/arts/television/02carr.html?th&emc=th 3/23/06 WB censors its own TV drama in fear of F.C.C. fines, offers uncut version for showing on its website: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/arts/23bedf.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin 3/16/06 FCC slaps "indecency" fines on television broadcasters: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/15/AR2006031501633.html?referrer=email 3/7/06 Rebuffed by New York Theatre Workshop for its play My Name is Rachel Corrie, London producer looks for another New York venue: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/07/theater/newsandfeatures/07corr.html?th&emc=th 3/7/06 How did Crash win the Oscar? Very expensive lobbying of Screen Guild voters for one thing: http://film.guardian.co.uk/oscars2006/story/0,,1725160,00.html 3/6/06 New York Theatre Workshop's cancellation of My Name is Rachel Corrie shows the insidious effects of censorship driven by fear of offending Jewish Americans: far worse than the "cartoon protests": http://counterpunch.org/davis03062006.html http://counterpunch.org/redgrave03062006.html 3/6/06 Hip hop artist believes that Oscar winner Crash upholds negative stereotypes of blacks and glamorizes racially abusive white cops: http://counterpunch.org/mezmer03062006.html 3/6/06 Writers Guild parodies practice of "branding" commercial messages in TV entertainment shows: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/06/business/media/06wga.html?th&emc=th 2/21/06 NBC's coverage of Winter Olympics is called a "2 week commercial for U.S. power": http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0212-20.htm 2/15/06 Video "game from hell" sensationalizes genocide in Darfur: http://www.villagevoice.com/screens/0607,dibbell,72158,28.html 2/6/06 Thought Super-Bowl commercials were tasteless? ABC refuses to air People for Ethical Treatment of Animals advert against milk http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0206-07.htm 2/6/06 Pentagon attacks an offending cartoonist: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0205-26.htm 2/6/06 Super Bowl Americana: TV ads feature cartoonish violence: http://news.aol.com/entertainment/tv/articles?id=n20060206075709990003&cid=461 2/6/06 Cancelled TV show West Wing embraced globalization and exposed its false liberalism: http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0205-20.htm
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Analysis & views: 11/6/07 Kevin Spacey and Laura Dern are among the actors who converge on Tallahassee for the movie Recount, depicting the 2000 recount in Florida. Natives, as usual, note the "liberties" that Hollywood film-makers take with the actual facts, including a shot in which Dern, playing Katherine Harris, rides a horse in a parade with a sign for her congressional campaign that didn't happen until 2002. http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/297137.html 7/12/07 Florida libraries, like those around the country, are being required to keep new Harry Potter book under tight seal ahead of its official release next week.
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Analysis and views: Polk Co.: 4/13/08 Dr. Phil makes abortive attempt to get one of the teenager's in the Polk County video taped beating on his show: A staffer of the show, following the program's "policy" in helping guests and potential guests on his TV showing featuring badly-behaving people with certain "expenses" in coming on the show. In this case, the staffer went beyond "policy" and helped bail one of the accused girls out of jail. Apparently when this action became publicized, the show announced that the action was against "policy" and her show appearance was cancelled. (Not known whether the cancelee had to go back to jail.) http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/southwest/orl-bk-drphillakeland,0,5050304.story Bartow: 4/10/08 Bartow FL woman is victimized by threatening callers in connection with a Polk County incident in which a YouTube video was made of teenage girls beating up another one, as her phone number was unaccountably published on the website. http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/apr/10/na-youtube-adds-to-melee-in-videotaped-beating-cas/ Ft. Lauderdale: 4/6/08 World of Warcraft video game fan goes to court in Ft. Lauderdale to enjoin the game's owners from exchanging "virtual gold" won in the game's contests for real money. http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-flbwarcraft0406sbapr06,0,6090572.story North Miami-Dade: 12/20/07 A North Miami Dade real estate agent, angered at a rival who closed a deal that he wanted for himself, posts fake ads on a website promising that the woman who was his rival would send those who responded to the ad "home with a smile." She is inundated with callers. Local detectives aren't smiling, as they ferret out the scheme and arrest the perpetrator. http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/351164.html Miami: 8/9/07 Riddle: What are four women in black leather bustiers and tight T-Shirts who bang on your door at 1 PM? If you live in Miami, they are likely to be some of the "Bounty Girls" from a bail bonding firm whose exploits are featured on a new reality TV show. (Links to video clips from the show). http://www.miamiherald.com/top_stories/story/197253.html Gainesville: 6/5/07 Love...A many splendored thing? Maybe a little less so, according to a University of Florida sociology student's study of pop songs from the 1960s and today; themes of undying commitment are largely replaced by those displaying transitory sexual involvements. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/columnists/orl-owens0207jun02,0,5474158.column?coll=orl-news-col Ocala: 5/22/06 Ocala opening of Da Vinci Code illustrates a "divided crowd" with strong views for or against the movie. http://www.ocala.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060520/NEWS/60520001/1001/NEWS01 Tampa: 5/16/06 Tempest in the fundamentalist teapot? Most Tampa area Christians and their leaders see little challenge to their faith from The Da Vinci Code, opening Friday as a movie. http://www.tampatrib.com/MGBA59NP9NE.html Gainesville: 2/27/06 Small cities in Gainesville area battling adult entertainment businesses; lawyer says these will create "lawsuits waiting to happen." http://www.gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060227/LOCAL/202270353/1078 Orlando: 2/15/06 Part l: Stalemate: http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=10441 Part 2: Battle ready: http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=10397 Part 3: Dear Buddy: http://www.orlandoweekly.com/features/story.asp?id=10420
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