Category: Media

Academia, Bizarre, Free Speech, Media, Society, Uncategorized

The Ole Miss Incident: The University is Tested Once Again

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (Otteray Scribe), Guest Blogger

Ole MissThe Laramie Project is a play by Moisés Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project about the torture-murder of Matthew Shepard, a gay University of Wyoming student in 1998. Mutilated and almost dead, he was found tied to a barbed wire fence just outside Laramie, Wyoming. That fence was the inspiration for the play’s logo. Matthew Shepard died of his injuries shortly after being taken to a local hospital. The murder was called a hate crime, but in 1998 there were few hate crime laws, and there was none in Wyoming.

Shortly after Matthew Shepard was killed, Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project went to Laramie and interviewed dozens of local people about the murder. The play draws on over 400 hours of interviews with residents of Laramie, as well as company members’ own journal entries and published news reports. The Laramie Project is divided into three acts. Eight actors portray more than sixty characters in a series of short scenes.

The play has been performed all over the US and internationally as well. Venues have included high schools, colleges, and community theaters across the US. As of this writing, The Laramie Project has also been performed at professional playhouses in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia, and New Zealand. Not surprisingly, Fred Phelps and his merry band of haters have frequently picketed The Laramie Project.

Continue reading “The Ole Miss Incident: The University is Tested Once Again” →

Environment, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Politics, Religion, Science, Society

The Decline of Journalism

Submitted by: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

Chuck_ToddA lynchpin of the idea of America has been the meme “freedom of the press”. It is specifically mentioned in the First Amendment and many have declared it essential as a bulwark against tyranny. The Constitution, however, was written at the time when it took little expense to produce a newspaper or a one sheet broadside informing the people about one’s point of view. It was a time that had no media except for the print media and so “the press” as it existed then played a central role in informing the citizenry about the important issues of the time. From 1704 on the regular newspapers and magazines in the colonies had begun to charge for advertising, but the price of a paper still was the most significant revenue stream. While press freedom always was impacted by the major advertisers a paper had, the impact was quite minimal for more than 150 years, most importantly because each newspaper reflected its publisher’s point of view and that was the raison d’etre for the publishers. Then too, one could publish independent leaflets (broadsides) that could also sway the public discourse. Print media, which mainly included newspapers and magazines held sway as the conduit through which most Americans learned of the doings of the world and from which they formed their opinions politically. This “monopoly” last until the late 1930’s when the CBS and NBC radio networks started developing correspondents to go overseas and cover the world descending into war.

Depending on which side you were on the tradition of American journalism was a long and proud one. It played a significant role in the American Revolution and continued to do so for long afterward. The “free press” almost always took sides in that certain publications were known for their views and from what point on the political spectrum they saw the world. Investigative reporting was a proud American tradition, protected in the main by our Constitution and exposing the dark underside of America’s dream. The reader either is aware of, or can easily find instances where such reporting made a difference in the “people’s view” of a given issue and so I won’t detail the history except broadly. Sometimes, such as in William Randolph Hearst’s manufacture of the “The Spanish American War”, this press freedom was used in service of private interests. At other times with journalists like Lincoln Steffens; Ida B. Wells; Ambrose Bierce; Upton Sinclair; and Jacob Riis; to name a few, the public was informed of corruption both public and private in a long tradition dating back to the founding of this country. Whether one agreed, or disagreed with the information source, one could depend on the fact that given the already obvious point of view of the journalist/reporter, what they were reading was indeed a nuanced version of the facts that at least properly developed one side of the issue. The advent of first Radio and then Television supplanting the print media as the source of information for most Americans led to a trend in so-called “objective journalism” that has resulted in reporters/journalists/newsreaders presenting “both” sides of a dispute, without insight or context. Its’ my contention, as I’ll explain, that this has become very dangerous to the idea of an informed electorate and has resulted in sensationalistic bombast on a given issue, rather than intelligent debate allowing the public to make informed judgments as to where they stand. Continue reading “The Decline of Journalism” →

Academia, Free Speech, International, Media

U.S. Reportedly Bars Entry To Leading Critic Of NSA Surveillance Programs

220px-Ilija_trojanow_by_thomas_dorn_232_KBWhile there has been little media attention in the United States, European press is reporting how German-Bulgarian writer and activist Ilija Trojanow was barred from entering the United States this week. A critic of NSA spying programs and professor at The European Graduate School, Trojanow was invited to speak at a literary conference and is well-known for his criticism of the surveillance state. He said that he was given no explanation for being barred from entry.

Continue reading “U.S. Reportedly Bars Entry To Leading Critic Of NSA Surveillance Programs” →

International, Justice, Media, Military, Politics, Religion, Uncategorized

Was It Really So Hard To Pick Up The Phone And Call Rouhani?

220px-Alt_Telefon

Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw)- Guest Blogger

You may be wondering who is this person named Rouhani and why would it be hard to call him/her on the phone?  Would you think differently if you knew that Rouhani is Hassan Rouhani and he is the current President of Iran?  As reported this past week, after President Obama and President Rouhani had both spoken at the United Nations in New York City, it was rumored that the two might actually meet in person.

While that meeting did not take place, it was reported that President Obama actually called President Rouhani on the telephone.  As you can imagine, it was considered a big deal in the media that the Presidents of the United States and Iran had actually spoken on the telephone.  On one level, I can understand the importance of the first direct contact between the heads of these two countries since 1979.  Additionally, in light of the level of sabre rattling over Syria recently and Iran constantly, I guess it is a big deal..sort of. Continue reading “Was It Really So Hard To Pick Up The Phone And Call Rouhani?” →

Free Speech, International, Media, Politics, Religion, Science, Society

“You don’t need a weatherman, To know which way the wind blows”

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

449px-Bob_Dylan_-_Azkena_Rock_Festival_2010_1When 1965 dawned I was about to be twenty one years old and in my Junior Year in college. My parents were dead years past and I lived in a furnished room off campus, supporting myself by working 35 hours per week in a liquor store. The Viet Nam War was heating up and the civil rights of Black people, then called “negroes”, was the big issue of the day thanks to the inspired leadership of Martin Luther King. My parents had been Leftists in both words and deeds, which of course influenced my political leanings, because I loved and admired them greatly. JFK had been the great hope for a country recovering from the conformity of the 50’s, but he was murdered. Yet working and going to school full time, dating and hanging out with friends, gave me little time for political activity. The year before I had attended the organizing meeting for Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) on my college campus, but while I found the ideas stimulating, the organizer from national SDS seemed to be quite full of himself and an ass to boot. My economics professor had discussed Viet Nam disparagingly and predicted a costly war being pursued because of mineral rights off the coast of that country. His foreboding about the War proved to be correct. People peacefully demonstrating for an end to “Jim Crow” were being beaten and being murdered. The seamy underpinnings of our “exceptional” society were being exposed and the hypocrisy of it all was running rampant

Musically, the Beatles had pushed Folk Music somewhat to the side, yet there was still great popularity for it among the “intelligentsia”, or those who thought themselves “intellectuals”. The “enfant terrible” of folk music was of course young Bob Dylan, who scandalized the “folkies” when he moved to electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival in Forest Hills Stadium. He released a song that year becoming his first single record to hit the “Top Forty” charts. I think this song ranks among his most prescient works and that I’ve used part of it to title this piece. The song was listed by Rolling Stone Magazine as the 332nd “Greatest Song of All Time”, but in my life it has had much greater influence. I was a young adult orphan, without the guidance and love of my parents, living in a world of ever-increasing complexity. Many of my generation, myself included, turned to popular music for guidance. The Bob Dylan song “Subterranean Homesick Blues” not only offered guidance for navigating this ever stranger land that America was becoming, but also predicted many of the “changes” to this country that we discuss here on this blog and to my mind achieves greatness because of Dylan’s foresight. Let me explain. Continue reading ““You don’t need a weatherman, To know which way the wind blows”” →

Animals, Bizarre, Media

Perils of the Press VII: Monkeying Around With The Media

We have yet another addition to our series on the perils of the press. We often train young lawyers to maintain their composure in tough situations, but this young reporter shows particularly impressive focus in this report with a frisky baboon. A real frisky baboon. In our series, animal mishaps feature prominently in interviews gone wrong. (here and here and here and here).

Continue reading “Perils of the Press VII: Monkeying Around With The Media” →

Congress, Media, Military, Politics, Society

Documents Details Near Nuclear Explosion Over North Carolina Due To Air Force Accident

Slim-pickens_riding-the-bomb_enh-loresInvestigative journalist Eric Schlosser has uncovered near disaster of epic proportions after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request confirmed that a 4 megaton nuclear bomb almost exploded over North Carolina in 1961 — an explosion that would have been 260 times more powerful than Hiroshima and would have devastated the United States. What is amazing is that, once again, the government used classification laws to hide that fact that it almost destroyed the large part of the country and was saved by a simple low-voltage switch that fortunately was able to deactivate the armed bomb. The details were hidden for over fifty years by the government.

Continue reading “Documents Details Near Nuclear Explosion Over North Carolina Due To Air Force Accident” →

Academia, Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Free Speech, Media, Politics, Society

Kansas Professor Under Fire For Anti-NRA Tweet

BdnQu.St.81We have another example of a teacher being disciplined for an act of free speech in his private time. I have previously written about the increasing scrutiny given public school teachers in their use of social media sites. University of Kansas Associate Professor of Journalism David Guth has been placed on administrative leave after posting an anti-NRA tweet following the recent Navy Yard shootings that killed 12 people. Guth tweeted” “blood is on the hands of the #NRA. Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.”

Continue reading “Kansas Professor Under Fire For Anti-NRA Tweet” →

Bizarre, International, Media

Worst WiFi Ever: BBC Anchor Confuses Ream of Printer Paper With iPad

bbc-ipad-247x349BBC News anchor Simon McCoy cause quite a chuckle this week by apparently confusing a ream of printer paper for an iPad. Of course, while the weight was a bit much and the WiFi horrible, the ream appeared to have the same connectivity over some 4G networks as an actual iPad. This network is more 3M and 4G.

Continue reading “Worst WiFi Ever: BBC Anchor Confuses Ream of Printer Paper With iPad” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Environment, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Military, Politics, Society

In Defense of Being a Political Cynic

Submitted By: Mike Spindell, Guest Blogger

WilliamdriverflagI’m an easy mark for those who want to approach me emotionally. My own life, with the normal tragedies of living seven decades has let me be attuned to others pain and to view that pain with an empathy born of my own suffering. Working out my own problems via years of therapy in my twenties and thirties, allowed me to finally let myself cry at the early death of my parent’s years before. I had put a “bottleneck” on tears since a teenager, choking sad emotions by constricting my throat and being in intellectual denial of the mourning I felt at their loss. This is not to say that I had no emotional outlets in my years prior to therapy, but they were limited to events far outside the ken of my life. Thus I could identify with wronged characters in movies and could cry at the death of Marin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy. In my personal life though, I acted out the role ascribed to me in my High School Yearbook “Mike thinks that life is just a snap of his fingers”. Therapy changed that and allowed me to let myself be aware of and be guided by my emotions.

Emotionally, I am as patriotic an American as you might find. I love this country and I love the fact that I’m a citizen of it. My tears well up at the playing of our National Anthem. The Constitution is a sacred document to me and the aspirations of our “Founding Fathers” seem noble and just. In sports I often find myself moved to tears when athletes or teams overcome adversity and triumph. My family knows this emotional side of me since I cry at movies like “The Little Mermaid”.  In personal relationships I am also ruled by emotion. People who treat me with kindness are not only repaid in kind, but I find myself rooting for their happiness and sad at their sadness. It is therefore quite easy to become someone I consider to be a friend and difficult for me to note imperfections in the friendships I’ve made. However, that is on an emotional level and as all humans, I am far more than just my emotions.  Intellect and experience play important roles in shaping who we are. On a personal level I have experienced betrayal by “friends” and lovers. In my career I’ve experienced betrayal by those I thought of as friends and co-workers. However, I think those “let downs” are merely a normal part of the human experience. We humans learn and grow from our social interactions, allowing them to inform our interactions with each other.

We humans co-exist though in a larger context than mere personal interactions and that is a society known as “country”. Through the norms and mores of that society we find that our emotions are stimulated by the commonality of our existence as part of a whole. We rely on that society to protect us from predators and from those from other society’s that would do us harm. We unite emotionally in times of crisis and we feel warmth and comfort from being part of the whole. The most emotionally jarring event of the past five decades was the attack on 9/11 that galvanized this country almost as one entity. We commemorated the twelfth anniversary of this overwhelmingly sad event this past week. I need not describe the effect of this event on all of us, since I know that we all have sharp personal memories of that day and the days of anger, fear and confusion that followed. The reactions politically that followed 9/11 has personally scarred those who lived through it and have done great harm to our country. People from all sides of the political spectrum feel betrayed by the events that followed 9/11. Some feel betrayed because the majority of the country no longer supports the military interventions that ensued. Others feel betrayed because there is clear evidence that our government “lied” us into a costly war against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attack. We have become then a nation of cynics when it comes to our government and I will explore why this can be either good or bad for the future of our country. Continue reading “In Defense of Being a Political Cynic” →

Congress, Constitutional Law, Courts, Criminal law, Lawyering, Media, Politics

Public Interest Lawsuit Forces Disclosure Of Widespread Surveillance Violations By The NSA

President_Barack_ObamaNSA logoWhile it was not long ago that President Obama,  Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and other officials insisted that there was no illegal surveillance in the massive warrantless programs disclosed by Snowdon and others, new documents show that the National Security Agency not only violated the law for years but actively misled judges on the use of such illegal surveillance.  The programs covered millions of call records and was only acknowledged by the Administration after a lawsuit by civil libertarians — a lawsuit that it has tried to dismiss (like dozens of others tossed out at the demand of the Obama Administration).

Continue reading “Public Interest Lawsuit Forces Disclosure Of Widespread Surveillance Violations By The NSA” →

Constitutional Law, Free Speech, International, Justice, Media, Science, Society, Uncategorized

Encryption and the Spymasters: Is Privacy Dead?

Submitted by Charlton Stanley (aka Otteray Scribe) Guest Blogger

ImageImageFirst there was WikiLeaks, then there was Edward Snowden. The drip, drip, drip of information about secretive spy agencies continues. There have been bombshell revelations about the extent to which government agencies like the FBI, CIA, NSA and others are invading our most private communications. Of course, spies do what spies do, and that is to spy on whoever or whatever they can get away with. Few people understood the implications of PRISM when news of the program was leaked. Additionally, I suspect that despite revelations of its existence, the full extent of its capability and reach will never be known by the public.

The NSA reportedly paid tech companies millions of dollars to cover the cost of compliance with their “requests” for back-door access to the software package.

Another program to keep in mind is the FBI Stingray operation that sucks up wireless telephone communications. Last May, in the first litigation where the government admitted having Stingray, Arizona Federal District Judge David Campbell dismissed a motion to suppress.  Judge Campbell is a George W. Bush appointee. PDF of his ruling is here.  Last July, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in the Northern District of California, in an effort to learn more about Stingray, and if it is scooping up domestic phone calls.
Continue reading “Encryption and the Spymasters: Is Privacy Dead?” →

Bizarre, Constitutional Law, Criminal law, Justice, Media, Politics, Society

Good for Goose and Gander? Or Just Foul Play? – The Bush Doctrine Redux

by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger

Ex-goose. Presumed cooked.
Ex-goose. Missing.
Presumed cooked.

There is an old adage, “What’s good for the goose is [not] sauce for the gander” or as phrased today “What’s good for the goose is [not] good for the gander”. The implication being that what is good for one is good for all or not good for all if stated in the negated form.  A case out of Florida provides a perfect example to give this adage a workout.

The goose is former President George W. Bush. 

The member of the gander in this case is William T. Woodward of Titusville, Florida. Woodward is charged with shooting three of his neighbors, two of them fatally, over the 2012 Labor Day weekend. 

His defense? The sauce.

Woodward’s attorneys are asserting Florida’s “Stand Your Ground’ law and the Bush Doctrine.

Let’s examine this case in the light of the history and consequences of “Stand Your Ground”, the Bush Doctrine and how an equally controversial foreign policy stance might impact a domestic criminal proceeding.

Continue reading “Good for Goose and Gander? Or Just Foul Play? – The Bush Doctrine Redux” →
Bizarre, Congress, Media, Military, Politics

NYT: Rebel Forces Composed Of Increasing Criminal and Extremist Forces

Rebels-thumbWide-v3A New York Times story is challenging the image advanced by the White House that the rebels forces are largely moderates who are worthy of yet another military intervention by the United States. The story recounts the latest massacre of captured Syrian soldiers as a commander reads a menacing prayer over their clearly beaten bodies before executing them in violation of international law.

Continue reading “NYT: Rebel Forces Composed Of Increasing Criminal and Extremist Forces” →