My brother sent me this mocking picture making the rounds on the Internet. I thought it was àpropos in the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. The coverage in Washington of the hurricane-that-wasn’t has been absolutely bizarre. It is good to see that this city does not just panic with an inch of snow. We panic with any weather above a flurry or a misting. Folks in parts of North Carolina and other coastal areas have had legitimate concerns (including New York, Vermont and other areas) and Irene’s flooding and power outages were expected to take quite a toll in those hardest hit areas. However, the D.C. coverage was comically ridiculous. I watched one story of how Irene had began “its trail of misery and destruction” toward Washington. General Sherman’s March To the Sea had less dire reviews. I am only talking about Northern Virginia and Washington where the coverage continued in sharp contrast with the actual forecasted weather for our area.
Continue reading “Things That Tick Me Off: Irene’s Hurricane Coverage in Washington”
Category: Media
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
In the years, I’ve spent commenting here at Professor Turley’s blog, I have presented myself as an honest person, sensible and with humane beliefs. Many regulars think of me as sort of a blog “elder statesman” and one who has a rational view of the world. There are of course others, fewer in number I assert, who think me a fool and a knave, which shows you can’t please everyone. Professor Turley himself has expressed fondness related to my tendency to be honest and open about myself personally.
Yet through all of these years here, I have harbored a secret belief that I’ve avoided mentioning for fear that the esteem in which I’m held, will disappear in an avalanche of ridicule and disappointment. I have to admit that to a retired old guy on the wrong side of sixty years, my place here has provided comfort to my self-esteem and certainly the feeling that I can still find things in life to accomplish. To those who haven’t realized the obvious yet from my writings, I have my vanities and indeed my insecurities, so being a guest blogger has stroked those needy aspects of my ego. Since I’ve received much gratification from this, I have been loath to be completely honest about one of my more deeply held beliefs. I came across an article that impels me to break my silence and reveal this belief here and now. While in the eyes of some reading this blog, it might lower their opinion of me and expose me to ridicule, I must finally admit to you my dirty little secret.
It is often said that “academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small.”[FN1] Some may view the recent dust up between University of Colorado Paul Campos (left) and University of Chicago law professor Brian Leiter as such an example. However, there are some important issues raised in the controversy over the writings of “ScamProf.” Campos recently admitted that he is the anonymous law professor who created such a stir with a criticism of law teaching and law schools. Critics say that Campos only came forward after various bloggers had deduced his identity. However, Leiter and others went further and challenged Campos personally and professionally.
Continue reading “Lawyers and Law Professors Erupt in Bitter Debate After Identification of “ScamProf””
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
Many years now at this site there have been side debates raging about false identities, used by people who are being paid to disrupt our discussions by making comments aimed at sidetracking issues. OpEdNews, a site run by Rob Kall, which I subscribe to sends me daily updates of articles of interest. Yesterday I received this intriguing article from Thom Hartmann’s podcast. It is an interview with Lee Fong from ThinkProgress on just this subject. Check out this link and see what you think.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Caught-Fake-conservative-by-Thom-Hartmann-110820-341.html
Continue reading “Who’s Really Who on the Blogs?”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
While we the privileged, who have time for such things, argue about law, politics, and society from our individual perspectives, we can easily forget that the results of these arguments affect real people in their lives. In the present American discourse, curt slogans and political bombast rule the airwaves and the Internet. The consequences of arguments won and lost are often subsumed by the anger of the debate itself. I personally feel a great empathy for those people ground down by the decisions and actions of those with financial power who have influence on executive and legislative power. The result of this empathy is anger at what I see is the blindness of our corporate and political leaders towards the lives of average people and the deafness of those same leaders to the cries for help all around them. Continue reading “Jobless in Georgia”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Sara Lee Corp., maker of Ball Park franks, and Kraft Foods Inc., maker of Oscar Mayer wieners, are in a Chicago federal court. Sara Lee sued Kraft Foods over the latter’s claim that their hot dogs won a national taste test and are “100% pure beef.” Kraft Foods countersued over Sara Lee’s claim of an “all beef” hot dog and misrepresenting of a culinary award as “America’s best” hot dog.
Continue reading “Are There Any Wieners When Two Top Dogs Take Beef To Court?”
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
The creepy, plastic, perpetually grinning Burger King mascot is no more according to spokesperson, Miguel Piedra. “We are food-centric, and we want to appeal to a broader audience,” he added. First appearing in print ads in 1955, the King will be dethroned this month but may appear in another form, accoridng to the spokesman.
A restaurant concentrating on food quality? What a concept.
Submitted by Mark Esposito, Guest Blogger
With the end of summer comes the beginning of the fall ritual that is college football. You know, where men of strength and character mold the minds and bodies of our youth into men of strength and character. There are plenty of good examples and one particularly curious one. Oklahoma State FB coach Mike Gundy is a world-wide phenom for his 2007 YouTube meltdown in which he attempted to deflect criticism from a OSU football player with his famous, “I’m a Man. I’m 40!” tirade against the local newspaper reporter, Jenni Carlson, for printing, well, the truth. You can re-live that moment here.
Continue reading “Boys of Fall: Coach Orders Carpenter Off Job For Wearing Wrong Tee Shirt”
We have seen the gradual dependence of the United States on China, which holds a huge amount of our debt. The result has been foreign policies designed to appease the Chinese government, including near silence on human rights abuses by that country. Now, academia has its own scandal of kowtowing to the Chinese, which have become equally dominant in research and education. Schools like Georgetown and Massachusetts Institute of Technology have said virtually nothing after their faculty were barred from entering China or flying on Chinese airlines due to objections to their writings. They are called the “Xinjiang 13” and their virtual abandonment by leading universities shows how academic freedom values have been sacrificed to maintain our dependence on Chinese funding.
Criminal charges have been formally dropped against New York news cameraman Phil Datz who was arrested at a crime scene last month. The video of the clearly abusive arrest was placed on YouTube (below) and shows an officer threatening and then arresting Datz. This is part of a continuing trend of officers arresting citizens and reporters for filming them in public — acts found to be unconstitutional but remain clearly tolerated (if not encouraged) in some jurisdictions.
Continue reading “Datz A Wrap: Suffolk Drops Charges Against Cameraman After Abusive Arrest”
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
The 2010 elections which gave the Republican Party the majority in the House of Representatives was seen as the elevation of a “Grassroots Movement”, composed of the spontaneously combusted wrath of ordinary citizens fed up with a bloated government. It was indeed a seminal moment for those people who disdained taxation, government handouts in entitlements, and the seeming waste of our tax dollars. The initial angry explosion was a reaction to the proposal and passage of the Health Care Bill. Rallies were organized, town hall meetings disrupted and a “hit list” of both Republican and Democratic members of Congress circulated.
The initial mainstream media reaction to this nascent movement was one of disdain, particularly because it was seen as an “out of the Beltway movement”, thus not to be taken seriously. However, this changed in a large part led by FOX News and copied by its “wannabe” CNN. Led by these Cable outlets, thirsting for sensation to fill their 24/7 news maws, all media began to follow suit, not wanting to be left behind. I find it interesting though that as late as April 22, 2010, Politico, hardly a left wing outlet, noted that unwarranted attention and media frenzy had begun, elevating the status of this purported movement: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0410/36185.html It is ironic that this article, while laying out the irrational amount of attention given to the Tea Party, at its end discounts the effect the movement would have on the election. Its authors certainly were not prescient.
Lost in the tumult of media exaggeration and sensationalism was the fact that this was not at all a grass roots movement of average Americans, but a crafty example of political manipulation laid out in tandem with the compliance of Rupert Murdoch’s news network’s assault upon all things they deem liberal. The prime mover in this is Richard “Dick” Armey, a former Texas Republican Congressman, House Majority Leader, and major senior lobbyist at a worldwide lobbying firm. Armey created the mythology of a grass roots movement, guided its progress, arranged, and then paid for its “spontaneous” events.
Continue reading “Tea Party and the Myth of a Grassroots Movement”
-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
Newt Gingrich has what appears to be an insurmountable lead over his Republican rivals in the number of followers on Twitter. Gingrich has an amazing 1,325,903 followers whereas Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann haven’t even cracked 100,000. Gingrich complained that the elite media are ignoring his Twitter army.
There’s just one problem, most of his prodigious following is fake.
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
The July 24th catastrophic crash of a high speed train in Wenzhou, eastern China, made world wide headlines. The dead and injured totals as of today, July 30th, stand at 40 dead and 192 injured although earlier reports indicated as many as 210 injured including 2 foreigners. The cause of the accident is still under investigation, but the preliminary facts indicate that train D301 in service from Beijing South Station to Fuzhou (in Fujian province) and train D3115 in service from Hangzhou to Fuzhou, were derailed when D301 struck the stationary D3115 at around 8:30pm local time. Although both trains are limited to traveling at a maximum of 250km/h (~155 mph), it is uncertain how fast D301 was moving at the time of the accident.
This is more than just a human tragedy for China, but possibly an economic tragedy as well. With China looking to compete globally to sell high speed rail systems that are going to become increasingly important to countries around the world as fuel prices rise, their systems have been plagued by unstable performance and this crash caused the stock of state owned CSR Corporation to plummet 14 points on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Although CSR is technically the world’s largest manufacturer of high speed rail equipment, it faces stiff competition from German and Japanese manufacturers who have more mature and refined products. While none of this is unfamiliar to anyone who has followed businesses in the wake of a disaster in the West, what is unusual is what happened next.
Lawyers were told not to take plaintiff’s cases related to the rail accident.
Submitted by Gene Howington, Guest Blogger
While everyone was distracted with the hullabaloo surround the artificial “debt ceiling crisis”, Congress did manage to get some work done. Unfortunately that work was in furtherance of eroding your right to privacy. Thursday, July 28, the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee submitted a bill (H.R. 1981) under the politically motivated and misleading name Protecting Children From Internet Pornographers Act of 2011, which was quietly lobbied for by conservative Republicans and the Department of Justice, voted in committee to advance regulations requiring Internet service providers to retain your account information. This information preserved would include not just your IP address, but customers’ names, addresses, phone numbers, credit card numbers and bank account numbers as well. The Judiciary Committee approved this bill in a 19-0 vote, rejecting a last minute amendment that would have required the retention of IP addresses only by 7-16.
Submitted by: Mike Spindell, guest blogger
There is a trend today on television that is disturbing and I think harmful to our Country, yet we are powerless to halt its’ progress. This occurred to me as I watched an edition of ABC’s Primetime-Nightline entitled “Battle With the Devil”, which was advertised as a show that “investigates the belief in satanic will or possession by a demon”. I’d DVR’ed it because from the description, it was supposed to present various people who purport to have had demonic possession and or experiences of Satan. It also promised to include exorcists, psychologists and various other experts. The beliefs and actions of people always interest me. The more bizarre the belief system the more interesting I find the person. I’m fascinated by human extremes and as a therapist I’m always trying to puzzle out what makes someone tick. When the show ended though, I found myself angry at it and feeling somehow abused emotionally. That feeling began my train of thought that led to this post.
Continue reading “Fundamentalist Religion and TV Documentaries, A Problem?”